Meet the Author: Rebecca Jackson

REBECCA’S TOP WRITING TIP: There will be many times in the writing process when you doubt yourself, your gifts, your message. You may even want to give up. In these times, know that this is just a moment in time and give yourself some extra love and compassion because it will pass.

Rebecca Jackson is an entrepreneur, writer, inspirational speaker, grounded spiritual mentor and soul coach with an insatiable desire to help people connect to their true self and live an extraordinary life. Passionate about bridging the business and spiritual worlds, she says it is an exciting time where we are all being asked to think and act in bigger and bolder ways and stretch our vision beyond borders and across generations.

For more information about Rebecca and her work to support conscious businesses and create a positive impact in the world, visit https://rebeccajackson.info/

AUTHOR INSIGHT

Why do you write? Writing fills up my cup. I find it a nourishing process where I feel completely free and empowered to explore the light and the dark of my thoughts and processes. I write because my soul feels good when I do it. Ultimately, my writing enables me to be the change that I want to see in the world. My purpose is to help others to feel safe connecting with their heart’s desires, because I know that if we all did this we would literally create Heaven here on Earth.

What would you be doing if you weren’t a writer? Writing is such a big part of my day that it’s hard for me to imagine not doing this. Even if I wasn’t a published author, I would still write as a way for me to connect with others. Blogs, articles, social media posts, emails, whatever it takes to be of service and share the message that together we’ve got this!

What was your toughest obstacle to becoming published? Myself. ‘Perfectly Imperfect’ is a mantra that I now use daily to support me to keep doing the things that challenge my sense of self, and my limiting beliefs of not being good enough. I’ve lost count of how many times I questioned myself. “Who’s going to want to read your book?” “Who do you think you are? You’re not an writer!” Having compassion and being kind to myself was, and is still one of my biggest personal challenges.

What’s the best aspect of your writing life? I jump out of bed excited to see what the day will bring. The freedom that comes from writing, and sharing your gifts in a way that feels like magic to you, is truly incredible. I feel deeply grateful that writing has connected me with so many beautiful, inspiring souls.

—the worst? Not knowing what you don’t know! Getting your book out into the public is a complex process. Every day I learn something new and wish I had known it 12 months ago.

What would you do differently if you were starting out now as a writer?
I’d relax a lot more and not put myself under the pressure of trying to meet my own deadlines. This process has been a wonderful lesson in surrender.

What do you wish you’d been told before you set out to become an author?
I wish I had all the technical know how, things like the number of pages required for different formats.

What’s the best advice you were ever given? Be you! In a world of seven billion people there’s only one of you. So as long as I show up as me, then I am winning.

BOOK BYTE

Do you wonder … Why am I here? Why aren’t I happy? How can I connect with my true self? You’re Not Alone. Millions of people around the world are asking these questions–courageous spirits who are looking for answers that will support them to step into the life they want. Their best life. The life for which they were born, one full of purpose, passion, and love. A life where happiness is the norm, not the destination. This book offers a collection of powerful insights, personal stories, practical tools, and guidance that will support you on your journey of self-discovery. It will help you remember that you were born perfect and whole, and that your purpose is to share your unique gifts in the greatest way possible. This isn’t your average new age guide to spiritual awakening. Whether a seasoned explorer on a spiritual path or the concepts are new, powerful supports will ignite you to forge ahead when tired, confused, or fed up. You will learn engaging and meaningful ways to raise your vibration, and in doing so you’ll see that there’s no need to wait to be the real you–the fullest, brightest, most creative expression of you.

The book is available directly from https://rebeccajackson.info/yourenotalonebook/ and other retailers including Angus & Robertson.

 

 

 

 

 

Meet the Author: Matt Towner

Matt’s top tip for aspiring authors: Never give up and if I can help you to get started I am happy to at www.travellerstaleswriters.com

 

Matt Towner graduated from university in Brisbane, Australia in
1989 with a BA in Journalism. Afterwards, he set out to explore
the world where he was inspired to write about travelling tales
through the people he met along the way. Since then he’s
published a number of stories including The Pocket Book Guide to
Byron Bay, The Gemstone Book of Runes, Crystal Carvings,
Opal Magic, Rasto Roo, Bris Vegas and Positive Investments.

AUTHOR INSIGHT

Why do you write? I was born to write and I have wanted to do so since I first started school and continued to write throughout boarding school then university and ever since.

What would you be doing if you weren’t a writer? Travel has always been my other passion and I have incorporated writing and travel with taking Australian Opals then Australian Wine then Australian Real Estate all over the world and I will always be travelling.

What was your toughest obstacle to becoming published? Myself … but once I got out of my own way I was published within weeks and now the sky is not even the limit.

How involved have you been in the development of your books? Do you have input into the cover/illustrations? New Holland Publishers have been great to me and Alan and I have worked together on everything from my writing and editing to my contributors and covers.

What’s the best aspect of your writing life? The creative process and being able to live my life-long dream which is just beginning.

The worst? Fear … which is what held me back in the beginning and I think holds nearly everyone back in some way, shape or form at some stage in some way but must be overcome.

What would you do differently if you were starting out now as a writer? Be much more selective as to who I work with so again I am so lucky to have found or been found by New Holland Publishers.

What do you wish you’d been told before you set out to become an author? A lot of people who make out that they have a lot of experience and can help you to be published in fact know no more than you do so back yourself every day in every way.

What’s the best advice you were ever given? Writing is the loneliest profession … it is up to you and you alone to write that book.

BOOK BYTE

Abroad, Broke & Busted
Travellers’ Tales from Around The World
Edited and compiled by Matt Towner

Byron Bay—and Australia as a whole—is home to many people from so many different countries, cultures, colours and creeds—with locals, surfers, and wanderers both young and old at every turn.
Abroad, Broke & Busted is a compilation of 14 amazing travellers’ tales assembled and edited by author Matt Towner. They all provide unique and personal insights into life’s gains and losses whilst abroad—some are happy or sad, others soft or hard. While some adventurers end up in jail in a third world country, others find themselves nearly dead in a deep dark jungle—yet all somehow defy the odds. All with a sense of adventure and a sense of humour—as readers learn—things will not always go their way in each
exciting journey told. Anyone who loves to travel, loves an adventure, loves a laugh or dreams of all three will love this book.

The book is available here.

Meet the Author: Michael Fitzgerald

Michael’s top tip for aspiring authors: Embrace difficulty and keep curious and alive to the process. Don’t think too much about what’s hovering over the horizon, but stay focused on what’s there on the page. Keep moving those words around and trust they will show you the way.

Michael Fitzgerald lives on a lush gully in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. He first journeyed to Samoa in 2005 as arts editor for the South Pacific edition of Time, and has since worked as a magazine editor for Art & Australia, Photofile and now Art Monthly Australasia. His writing has appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review and Harper’s Bazaar. The Pacific Room is his first novel.

 

AUTHOR INSIGHT

Why do you write? There’s nothing I love more than moving words around on a page, watching them take shape, building up images and scenes transmitted with a certain emotion, transforming them into stories. It’s a creative urge in me that has recently flowered into The Pacific Room, my debut novel. And the urge only grows as I get older.

What would you be doing if you weren’t a writer? When I’m not moving words around on a page as a writer, I’m doing the same as an editor. My early life as a journalist in Melbourne and Sydney (most recently as the arts editor for the South Pacific edition of Time magazine) led to art magazine editing – currently for Art Monthly Australasia, which involves different ways of thinking and looking at the world but which feeds back to creativity. And, of course, words.

What was your toughest obstacle to becoming published? The perception of being a former journalist brought an expectation from agents and publishers that non-fiction or memoir was a more natural evolution for me as a writer – I’ve heard that said many times – and that my fiction didn’t travel in the usual narrative arc. But I’ve stubbornly resisted and persisted with fiction writing. It’s the biggest challenge and satisfaction for me (when I get it right), and I’m still learning.

What’s the best aspect of your writing life? Research and writing requires marathon-like lengths of solitude and (in my case) travel – a solipsistic discipline not unlike swimming, which I also love and can’t do without. With the cacophony of demands from our working and private lives, that lulling ocean of time that writing requires – flowing over months and years – seems a precious luxury which is utterly intoxicating and desirable.

—the worst? Not having that time to luxuriate in. The Pacific Room took nine years from a glint in the eye to final realisation. This was in between editing Art & Australia, Photofile and now Art Monthly Australasia, and as one’s other life speeds up, it’s increasingly hard to slow down into that deep meditative space that writing a novel requires.

What would you do differently if you were starting out now as a writer? It’s hard to say. Because all the stumbles I’ve experienced along the way to publication have – I hope – made me a better writer. Life experience helps, finding patience and dealing with disappointment. Absorbing the world and learning from it takes time – for me anyway – and I’m only just making my literary debut aged 52.

What do you wish you’d been told before you set out to become an author? That’s a tricky one, because the allowance or freedom to make mistakes is essential for any writer’s passage. For me the desire to become an author was unshakeable, but my own pathway needed to unfold in precisely the way that it did, and – now that I think of it – not unlike that of Teuila in The Pacific Room: ‘She has always been led by the forest, through a path never clear, found by touch, fumbling, rather than sight.’

What’s the best advice you were ever given? In the literary world, opinions and advice can fly thick and fast – sometimes confusingly so. And, for a young writer, rejection can be brutal. When I was researching The Pacific Room in Samoa in the late 2000s, I must have seemed quite anxious as someone told me to relax my mind and let the stories in. Looking back, that was the best advice I could have received.

 

BOOK BYTE

The Pacific Room

Michael Fitzgerald

This remarkable debut novel tells of the last days of Tusitala, ‘the teller of tales’, as Robert Louis Stevenson became known in Samoa where he chose to die. In 1892 Girolamo Nerli travels from Sydney by steamer to Apia, with the intention of capturing something of Jekyll and Hyde in his portrait of the famous author. Nerli’s presence sets in train a disturbing sequence of events. More than a century later, art historian Lewis Wakefield comes to Samoa to research the painting of Tusitala’s portrait by the long-forgotten Italian artist. On hiatus from his bipolar medication, Lewis is freed to confront the powerful reality of all the desires and demons that R. L. Stevenson couldn’t control. Lewis’s personal journey is shadowed by the story of the lovable Teuila, a so-called fa‘afafine (‘in the manner of a woman’), and the spirit of Stevenson’s servant boy, Sosimo. Set in an evocative tropical landscape haunted by the lives and spirits which drift across it, The Pacific Room is both a love letter to Samoa and a lush and tender exploration of artistic creation, of secret passions and merging dualities.

The Pacific Room is available from Transit Lounge and other retailers.