Before writing Burnt Snow and starting the Book of the Witch trilogy, Van Badham had a successful international career as an award-winning playwright, critic and screenwriter. Her plays have been performed across Australia, the UK, the USA, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia and Iceland. Her achievements include being the first Australian selected for New York’s Summer Play Festival, a two-year residency at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), winning the Harold Hobson Award for Drama Criticism in the UK and receiving a Premier’s Award in Queensland for her much-lauded play Black Hands / Dead Section. She has been called “a major talent” by The Guardian, “the brilliant Australian playwright” by The Independent and “one of the leading voices of her generation” by TimeOut London. In addition to writing books, plays, screenplays and criticism, she trained in writing for television on the BBC serial Holby City, writes and performs for music theatre and cabaret, and has had an extensive career in radio; her radioplays have been broadcast by the BBC and she currently co-hosts the monthly Speaks Volumes Classic Book Club on ABC666 Canberra.
Van lives in London, where she is the Literary Manager of the city’s renowned Finborough Theatre. What spare time she has she spends hooning around Central London on her BMX.
Please refer to the Press Room page for detailed biographical information, links to other works available online, reviews and quotes.
PERSONAL DETAILS
Born—November 30 (Sagittarius)
Where—Sydney, Australia
Family—Only child but in a crazy extended family that covers most ethnicities and all major religious groups.
Partnered—Nope, and couldn’t be happier.
Kids—Not yet.
Pets— A peace lily. I love animals and wouldn’t inflict myself on them in a domestic setting. I’m terrified of dogs – terrified. I’m the only person I know who shrieks in the presence of a Chihuahua. But, hey, at least it’s rational – my friend Linda is scared of buttons.
Jobs—graphic designer, event manager, festival director, data entry clerk (worst summer of my life), university lecturer, poetry publisher, community arts mentor, barmaid, supervisor of a newspaper delivery team, pole-juggler, music journalist, gallery attendant, psychological test subject, playwright, educational comic-book author, student newspaper editor, front-of-house manager, professional impersonator of HRH Queen Elizabeth II, President of the National Union of Students, tutor in Visual Art Theory, private English tutor, cabaret emcee, theatre literary manager. Oh, and novelist.
Where I’ve Lived—Born in Sydney, lived in Canberra, Sydney again, uni in Wollongong, then over to the UK and Sheffield as an exchange student, then London, a decade of summers in Edinburgh, back to Sydney and Wollongong, an eventful month in Joondalup, WA, then a magical month in a Manhattan hotel… Sydney again, another weird month in Hobart… and finally, FINALLY, back to London.
Countries travelled to: Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, South Korea, North Korea/DMZ, Thailand, Singapore, the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Vatican City, Greece, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Russia, Sweden, Denmark and the magical nation of Finland.
Books I loved as a kid that made me want to be a writer too—The Emily series by L.M. Montgomery… and then I crawled from Arthurian legends and Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and never looked back.
Are any of your books inspired by things that happened in your life?—That would be telling and could get me in trouble.
What other profession would you most like to try?—Designing theatre posters with unlimited budgets and no restrictions. Such is the dream.
Five Trivial Details About Me—
1. The day Obama got elected, I won a Sarah Palin impersonation competition.
2. I am an extra in my short film, Octopus. More difficult than it sounds – it’s stop-motion animation with live actors. Painful!
3. I don’t drink alcohol – it makes me incredibly sick. So when you see me dancing like a freak, please remember: I’m actually sober.
4. My most precious possessions are: my grandmother’s diamond ring, my souped-up, customized MacBook Pro, a first-run original vinyl Sex Pistols’ “Never Mind the Bollocks” album, my ever-expanding library and an antique bed that only the brave survive.
5. Stay tuned for my juicy fifth detail.
ON WRITING
Did you always want to be a writer?
Yep. Always knew. I wanted to be an actor and a visual artist, too – and I’m lucky that I’ve got to do these things as well without causing too much damage to buildings or letting them distract me from writing. From the moment I found out there was actually a university degree offered somewhere in creative writing, I was like “Yep. It can be done.” WARNING: writers do not earn a lot of money for most of their writing lives.
How much of your writing is based on your own experience?
All of it. I remember everything because it’s all useful. The great consolation of being a writer is that every great moment you get to relive, and every bad one you get to use creatively.
What was your favorite book as a child?
As a kid kid I loved Judy Blume books, and Betsy Byars – The 18th Emergency is still one of my favourite books, even now. As an 11-year-old, I had my first true love of a book – I was so inspired by Emily in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon books. Emily was so brave and smart and she wanted to be a writer, too. Even though she was a turn-of-the-century heroine, she was an achiever who proved that true love doesn’t distract you from your career. These books had a profound effect on me for the time of my life when I read them, and they gave me a lot of confidence to pursue my own dreams. Then I was suddenly a teenager – and a snarky one who bought clothes at markets, listened to the Velvet Underground in my room and wore too much eyeliner – and I got myself into counterculture classics – Sylvia Plath’s poetry and novel The Bell Jar, and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and Nabokov’s Lolita and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. I read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood when I was 15 and it was responsible for shaping a lot of my be-a-kick-ass-feminist-babe-in-all-things opinions. At the same time, I prodigiously devoured books about myths and legends, and folk stories and fairy tales. Discovering Angela Carter’s short stories was like stumbling into a magical cave stuffed with treasure. She was a kick-ass-feminist-babe, too.
What are some of your hobbies?
Travel. If I stay in one city for more than six weeks I go crazy.
Movies. Teaching screenwriting was the best excuse to inflict my love of French New Wave cinema, Westerns and B-grade science fiction movies on a susceptible generation, like, ever.
Newspapers. I read at least eight a day. I have to have to have to know what’s going on in the world. I’m addicted to MSNBC, too, and if I’m not paying attention to something it’s probably because I’m checking newsfeeds on twitter or HuffPo.
Theatre. It’s less of a hobby, more of an addiction. I started writing for the theatre, got a taste for literary management and development and cannot, will lot, let myself get away from it.
What is your working environment like?
A total, unnavigable mess. I try to believe that as long as I’ve got everything on my laptop I’m organized, but…
Since starting your career as an author, what are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
If you can’t do it by the deadline, just tell them you can’t do it by the deadline!
What is your favorite word?
Forgiven.
What is your least favorite word?
Slut.
FAVOURITE STUFF
TV series:
Buffy and Angel. Not, like, to an obsessive Team Spike/Team Angel degree, though. They were just really good shows. I have a soft spot for Father Ted and I never met an episode of Black Books I didn’t like.
Movie:
The Empire Strikes Back. Emotionally complex people facing morally difficult decisions… in space. With added giant space worms. Awesome. I also like David Lynch’s Dune… for exactly the same reasons.
Book:
Dead first between Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. Oooh! They’re both so good. Go here for my recent selections for the ABC666 Canberra “Speaks Volumes Classics Book Club”.
Music:
I listen to a lot of classical music and jazz and have recently developed a deep love of klezmer clarinet, for some odd reason. I would describe myself as a rock and roll punk-folk child, who dabbles in soul music; I love everything apart from certain whiny-nineties indie bands who remind me of unpleasant exboyfriends. I love Bob Dylan.
City:
Vienna to visit, London to live, New York of which to dream… but my heart belongs to Wollongong.
Favorite place to write in:
My home office, it’s got everything I need.
Sentence or motto:
“Speak truth to power” – Noam Chomsky.