Today we are taking part in the blog tour for India Dark and have an interview with Kirsty Murray…

Tell us a little bit about yourself
A publisher friend of mine who specializes in children’s and YA writing says that anyone who writes for young people is suffering from arrested development. He believes that authors are usually the emotional age of their protagonists. That’s good news for me as I started out writing about eleven year olds but the last few years my protagonists have averaged around 14 years of age. I may be growing up at last!

I’ve been writing fiction for children and teenagers for around thirteen years and in that time have had nine novels published plus an assortment of smaller books – both fiction and non-fiction – for younger readers. I’m lucky enough to be able to write full time, though I also spend a couple of months of the years visiting school to teach creative writing and speaking at writers festivals and literary events.

Tell us about India Dark
India Dark is based on a true story. It’s a fictionalized account of the collapse of a famous troupe of child performers – Pollard’s Lilliputian Opera Company. I spent years researching the lives of child theatre performers of the late 19th and early 20th Century before I began work on the novel. I decided to tell the story as fiction as I believe it’s a much more powerful way of telling the truth about people’s lives.

What was your inspiration for India Dark?
I’ve always been drawn to stories about gutsy kids who stand up to authority or take charge of their own destiny. I think many people under-estimate the strength and resourcefulness of children and teenagers. When I first came across the story of Pollard’s Lilliputian Opera Company I realized there was enough material for half a dozen novels about the troupe but it was the final closing chapter that was the most compelling. The novel details the last months of the troupe.

The kids who worked in the theatre industry in the late 19th and early 20th Century were amazing. They were smart, funny and incredibly versatile. There were dozens of ‘lilliputian’ troupes around the world but they were particularly popular in far-flung posts of the British Empire. How could I go past a story that featured fabulous locations, gutsy teenage characters and an international scandal?

Who were your favourite authors when you were younger?
The first author that I fell completely in love with was Mark Twain. As soon as I read the last page of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer I turned back to the first and started reading it all over again. But there were a lot of authors that I loved from all over the world. I went through a big Lucy Fitch Perkins stage when I was very young and was intrigued by all the novels she wrote about twins. I loved Rosemary Sutcliffe’s historical fiction, Astrid Lindgren and H.J. Kaeser’s spunky characters as well as most of the novels of C.S. Lewis and Frances Hodgson Burnett. There wasn’t a lot of YA fiction around during my teens so I quickly graduated to reading classics like Jane Austen’s novels but when I did bump into a work of genuine YA such as Hesba Brinsmead’s Pastures of the Blue Crane I was really excited.

What are you working on now?

I’m writing an historical fiction set in South Australia in 1919. It’s very loosely based on my grandmother’s adolescence. She was one of four teenage sisters who lost their only brother in WWI. The family thought he was coming home – they’d even received a telegram to say he was looking forward to seeing them – but he was shot by a German sniper who wasn’t aware that the war was over. The novel is about how the sisters come to terms with losing their brother and the repercussions of the war on the lives of young women in the post-war period.

What do you like to outside of writing?
Everything I do connects to my writing in one way or another, not because I’m particularly conscientious but just because everything I love everything that connects to books. My favourite leisure activity is reading. I love hanging out in bookshops and libraries. I’m a member of a couple of different book clubs too. My husband and kids are big readers as well so there’s a lot of conversation within our family about books.

Most years I spend several months travelling but for the last year I’ve been continuously on the road while my husband toured his puppet show in remote areas of Australia. Meeting new people, catching up with old friends, and discovering new places all add to my understanding of stories and how each of us connects to a different kind of narrative.

Thank you Kirsty!

We have a copy of India Dark to giveway. Just retweet this post or leave a comment to enter. Giveaway ends on Friday 20th January. Open to UK residents only.