Award-winning Frankston author Irma Gold takes her readers into exotic worlds that they may never experience for themselves – the shantytowns of South Africa’s Soweto – in her latest novel, Shift and the steamy jungles of Thailand in her first novel, The Breaking. The intimacy and vibrancy of her prose puts the reader firmly in each setting.
Once there, Irma slowly woos readers into falling in love with her characters before breaking their hearts. Irma doesn’t shy away from big issues like racism in Shift and animal exploitation in The Breaking. Her stories envelop the reader so that they care about these issues the way she does. It’s literary stardust.
Far from the troubles in her novels, Irma had an idyllic childhood growing up in the little English village of Amersham. With her parents and five brothers, home was filled with fun, adventures and stories aplenty. When she was nine, everything changed. “In England I was in a little childhood bubble. Then I moved to Australia and it burst. We arrived in Melbourne during a heatwave. It was over 40 degrees every day. I remember thinking…what is this place? It’s hell,” she says.
It wasn’t long before Australia grew on Irma and her family. She and her brothers quickly assimilated, swallowing their posh accents. “I’m glad we moved here. I went back to England when I was 19. I remember seeing kids playing cricket on tiny streets in gloomy weather and thinking that was so sad. I love the light, the sun and the bigness of Australia,” she says.
I was always writing stories. It was just part of me.
Stories have always been a cornerstone of Irma’s life. “I was always writing stories. It was just part of me. After revisiting England and travelling around Europe and Africa in my early 20s, I realised I had to get back to Australia and study creative writing,” she says. She went to the University of Canberra for a Bachelor of Communications in Creative Writing. Irma started writing articles as an intern at Muse Magazine while at university. Over time she became the editor. From there she moved into book publishing where she has remained ever since.
Now, Irma is a full-time freelance editor. She writes books in the margins of her day job. “My ideal is to have two hours to write in a café a couple of times a week after school drop off. I aim to write 1000 words,” she says. Being an editor has helped her writing because she is unpacking structure, characterisation and pacing in novels on a daily basis. “I think the tight pacing of my first novel, The Breaking, came from my experience as an editor,” she says.
Fiction, particularly literary fiction, has always been her main passion. Over the course of more than 20 years, she’s had many short stories published in all the best literary journals across Australia. Her debut short collection, Two Steps Forward, was published by Affirm Press in 2011. Irma has also published five children’s picture books.
“I’ve always been an adult author first and foremost. Children’s books were almost a detour because I had children and was always reading picture books to them,” she says. That said, when she finishes her next novel, which is set in Frankston, she has another two children’s books in the pipeline.
Irma is also founder and co-host of a successful podcast, Secrets from the Green Room with Karen Viggers. They are now midway through Season Six. “The podcast began because there are a lot of interesting conversations amongst writers that happen off stage. Over drinks at the pub it all comes out. I love talking to other authors about their process and the whole publishing industry. The idea was that the podcast could help writers at the beginning of their careers to understand the industry; to get some of those behind closed doors conversations out into the open,” she says.
On top of working around family, writing, editing and podcasting, Irma is currently on a book tour to promote her novel Shift set in Kliptown, the most disadvantaged area of Soweto. Growing up, Irma was always fascinated with South Africa where her father was born and lived through apartheid. Reading Donald Woods’ Biko when she was 14 got Irma all fired up and she started researching the Freedom Fighters of Soweto.
Injustice is a theme that runs through all of Irma’s work. After she began reading about the Freedom Fighters, she wanted to visit Soweto, where the apartheid resistance began. She didn’t get there until her 40s, travelling with her brother. By serendipity, they met a man who showed them around Kliptown. Irma was struck by how it hadn’t really changed since apartheid. She wanted to bring this to light in Shift. She certainly does. It’s a riveting read.
irmagold.com