In this article, we interview Jo Skinner. Jo makes regular appearances on the Not Quite Write Prize longlist and has just announced the release of her novel, The Truth About My Daughter with Hawkeye Publishing.
Hi Jo, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your experience with writing?
The highlight of my writing career was when my story won a competition in primary school and was selected to be placed in a time capsule. In high school, I became very ill and was admitted to hospital for several months. This prompted me to study medicine but the urge to write persisted like an itch and finally, in 2018, I signed up to do an online course with The Writers’ Studio in Sydney. I started to submit stories to writing competitions and my first shortlisting was with Furious Fiction (thanks Dean for starting up that great comp). Since then, I have placed in numerous other competitions and my non-fiction pieces are regularly published in medical journals and magazines.
You’re a G.P. How do you find that role feeds into your fiction?
One of the best parts of being a GP is that I am paid to listen to people tell me their stories. I am still astounded how much you can learn about a person in a fifteen-minute consultation.
Writing on the other hand has made me a more empathic GP as you learn to see the world form others’ POV. I try to practise narrative medicine by letting the patient tell me their story without interrupting. For example, if a woman complains that she feels bloated, I don’t just focus on the bloating and arrange a barrage of tests, I listen to her explain that she is worried because her friend died of ovarian cancer and that her first symptom was bloating. I am then able to address her fears in a meaningful way.
You’ve recently released your first novel, The Truth About My Daughter. What inspired you to write this book?
This novel had been in my imagination for a long time, but I had to write a couple of other novels before I had the courage to tackle this one. While the novel is fictional, I now recognise that sections of it are loosely based on growing up in a dysfunctional household. There was no violence or sexual abuse, but we spent our lives walking on eggshells careful not to upset my father and when we did, my mother went to extraordinary lengths to appease him. There is a language to describe this behaviour now – coercive control or emotional abuse. I wanted to write a story that captures the pervasive sense of unease growing up in such a family and how that has long term impacts, affecting each person in very different ways.
Your book fits into the category of “Women’s Fiction”, which is an oft-debated category of fiction. Where do you sit in that debate?
My greatest concern with terms like this is that it is limiting. It creates expectations and assumptions. Women see this and have pre-conceived ideas about what is between the covers and men see this and think, that’s chick lit. But I also understand that humans need categories and genre helps publishers and bookshops to silo books and place them on shelves. To make sense of our world, we classify not just books, but everything, so I suspect the term ‘women’s fiction,’ just like other genres, is here to stay.
You’re also a long distance runner (love the website “Running & Writing” by the way – we never got our pen licences so “running writing” is forbidden fruit to us…) How would you compare running a marathon to writing a novel?
I am old enough to have learned running writing at primary school and hubby coined this term as it cleverly pulls together my two great passions.
I am so glad you asked this question, as running a marathon is exactly like writing a novel. I write about this very topic in my October newsletter. Both are gruelling, long and there will inevitably be pain. When you decide to write a novel, treat it like an extreme sport. You may get to the start line but not finish despite putting the effort in. Study technique from the masters, put aside non-negotiable time to train/write and enlist support from like minded people who will nudge you along when you veer off course. And keep going when your body/mind are screaming at you to stop. One step, one word at a time will nudge you towards that elusive finish line.
You write both long and very short fiction. How do each of these formats fill your bucket as a writer?
Shorter fiction pieces are like sprints or fartleks for runners. A pure adrenaline rush that hones your skills as a writer. With tight word counts, time limits and prompts, you activate your imagination in fresh ways and get to create a completely new story which is enormously satisfying.
Writing a novel is fulfilling in a completely different way. You live with your characters for months or years and get to know them intimately. You carry plots, plans, and ideas around in your imagination. You get to be reckless, playful, or murderous and learn a lot about yourself along the way. I cried when my editor insisted that I kill off one of the characters in my novel as it was so hard to let him go after living with him for so long.
Can you share any words of wisdom with our Not Quite Write Prize hopefuls?
Don’t focus on writing a masterpiece or winning, just have fun wordsmithing. Be brave and let your imagination take you to places you have not explored before.
Never kill your darlings. Keep them in a folder labelled bits. You never know when you can harvest a gem of an idea or a clever line for another tale.
Don’t wait till you have time, space, energy, or inspiration. In the words of Nike, Just do it!
About Jo
Jo is a Brisbane based GP who writes contemporary women’s fiction as well as freelance non-fiction articles about women’s issues and mental health. She also has a distance running habit. When she is not working or writing, you will find her accruing kilometres while plotting her next story.
She lives with her husband, three children an elderly Pomeranian Papillon cross Pippa and a sprightly rescue cat Jiji. Her debut novel The Truth about My Daughter, is available at Hawkeye Publishing.
You can connect with Jo at:
Her website