Lucy Treloar was born in Malaysia and educated in England, Sweden and Melbourne. Her novel Salt Creek (2015) won the Dobbie Literary Award among others, and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the UK’s Walter Scott Prize. Wolfe Island (2019), her second novel, won the Barbara Jefferis Award and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s and NSW literary awards. She is a previous winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Pacific region). Lucy’s essays and short fiction have appeared in publications including The Saturday Paper, Meanjin, The Age, Overland, Best Australian Stories and Foundational Fictions in South Australian History. A graduate of the University of Melbourne and RMIT, Lucy lives in inner Melbourne with her family.
We’ve spoken to Lucy before on The First Time Podcast for Apollo Bay Word Fest’s Warm Winter Words in 2020.
Her third novel is Days of Innocence and Wonder, published by Pan Macmillan, October 2023.
Kate and Lucy discuss:
- short story writing as a gateway to publication
- ‘chaotic’ research and writing processes
- writing covid lockdowns as part of Days of Innocence and Wonder
- research and advice for writing First Nations characters as a non-Indigenous writer
- ‘changing lanes’ from historical to speculative to contemporary lit genres
- being a good industry citizen and helping new writers
- navigating book promotion and social media
- writing practice
Advice:
- Alongside nurturing your creative self, it’s worthwhile being (a tiny little bit) strategic and hard-headed.
- Send things out (spaghetti at a wall!)
- Build a writing community
Debut novel recommendation:
- Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
The First Time podcast 
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