Dianne F. Gray
Rohan: Hello Dianne, I’d like to thank you first of all for agreeing to this interview. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about yourself and your writing in this way ever since I found your blog.
Dianne: Thank you so much, Rohan. I’m absolutely loving your blog at the moment and every time I come over here I learn something new!
Rohan: So you are an Australian author. Without getting too specific can you tell us what part of the country you are living? Have you always lived there or have you moved around?
Dianne: I’m currently living in tropical north Queensland. It really is paradise! Everything is big and green (even the grasshoppers!) and it’s warm for most of the year. I only moved back here in November last year, prior to this I lived in Canberra for 12 years. Before that I lived here and before that I lived in Canberra (where I was born). Confused yet? Me too…
Godzilla Grasshopper!
I would probably have stayed living in Canberra, but last Easter Sunday my father and mother-in-law came to visit and my father-in-law suffered a stroke. This set off a chain of events that made me realize it was time to move back to the farm in Queensland to take care of them both. The old house I used to live in was really run down and due to another series of strange events I was offered a house which I moved to the farm and am now renovating.
Rohan: Don’t worry my story is very confusing as well, lots of back and forth! North Queensland is beautiful, definitely on my “places would love to live” list. Being a young country, Australians tend to have stories to tell regarding their cultural background. My father for example, traveled there by ship from Ireland with his parents and 10 siblings in the 1970’s. My mom was born in Sydney but her father was a Pole who escaped a Nazi labor camp in WWII and made it to Australia and worked on the Snowy Mountains Dam. Do you know much about where your family originated from? Any interesting stories there?
Dianne: I’ve been to the Snowy Mountains and this is where I wrote some of the story, The Everything Theory. I just love that place and some of the story is set there.
My ancestors are English/Scottish/Welsh (I guess that’s where my reddish hair and freckles come from!) My great great great great grandmother (on my father’s side) was Mary Matcham Pitt who emigrated to Australia from England in 1801. My mother’s side of the family were McGregor’s and I haven’t really researched them yet. But I know they also came to Australia in the early 1800’s. I have a beautiful picture on my wall of a young boy posing for a photo taken around 1928, it’s my great-uncle Robert Ingram who died in Changi POW camp.
Changi POW camp.
It’s one of my favorite pictures and I studied it intently when I wrote Let Sleeping Gods Lie. I also have a picture of his grandparents (my great great great grandparents) I found lying under my great aunt’s house. (I’m realizing there are a lot of ‘greats’ in here!) Her name was Ivy Ingram and around her neck in the picture she wears a locket. As chance has it, I inherited that locket in 1993 and it takes pride of place in my (modest) jewelry collection.
Rohan: Wow, that’s really early in Australia’s history! Not long after colonization at all. I’ll bet those generations saw some things! Love all this family history stuff 
How old where you when you discovered your enthusiasm for writing and where did you find your inspiration to start?
Dianne: I loved writing when I was very young, but after a school teacher told me I had no hope I didn’t write for many years. It wasn’t until I read about a particularly sickening murder in 1993 that my muse jumped out and forced me back into it. I once wrote a post about this (Writing is Cathartic).
Rohan: 1993, the same year you got your locket huh, interesting! That’s horrible what the teacher said. When I was reading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad in high school (for my own pleasure) my English teacher at the time said something to the effect of “that book sucks”. I haven’t placed much stock in what teachers have told me since then. Well I’m glad you picked up the pen again, don’t ever stop writing!
So I just recently finished The Everything Theory and published my 5 star review 
As you know I really loved it and I have a few questions. First of all when did you actually write the book? I’ve looked around but can’t seem to find a list of your works with the year they were originally published. You started out writing short stories right? Was this your first novel? Or were there more before it?
Dianne: I wrote The Everything Theory in 2007. It was originally called ‘Flesh Gods’, but my son told me this sounded too much like a porn movie, so I changed the title. I sometimes wish I’d left it as it was because I think The Everything Theory makes people think it could be hard to read (when it’s actually a very easy read). The Everything Theory is my fourth novel. The first two are sitting in a bottom drawer calling out for me to finish them. One is about the invisible strings that bind people and my reasoning on why there are some people can easily hurt and kill others. The second is about a best-selling writer who is kidnapped by a serial killer and forced to write his life story (the only problem is she can’t actually write – she’s a plagiarist). My third novel is Let Sleeping Gods Lie, which is published.
Rohan: Haha, “Flesh Gods” I can definitely see the porn movie issue, but only once you mentioned it. I kind of like that title too, though I think The Everything Theory is cool as well, it does sound intellectual, though it is definitely a smooth and easy read. Oh wow the one about the kidnapped plagiarist sounds fantastic! What a great premise.
The Everything Theory is filled to bursting with amazing archaeological and anthropological information which I found really fun, as well as informative. Was all this simply general knowledge from having an interest in these topics? Or did you specifically research this for the book? And if so, how did you conduct your research?
Dianne: I’ve always been interested in our society and how we’re kind of arrogant in our thinking that ancient people didn’t know as much as we do today. I love science and am intrigued my people like Nikola Tesla. It must be my muse who pushes me in this direction because I’m often having odd ideas (like believing the power of sound can heal the body and also change the chemical make-up of solids and space-time – I don’t often talk about things like this because people think I’m nuts) 
Newgrange in Ireland. Just one of the unexplained ancient structures mentioned in The Everything Theory
I put so much information in The Everything Theory that I had to cut half out because it was beginning to sound like a thesis when I first wrote it. But the good thing about this is that I’ve got a lot of fodder sitting in my drawer waiting for Luke and the gang to make a reappearance.
Rohan: I love Nikola Tesla, and Wilhelm Reich as well. He’s an amazing inventor, scientist and psychologist who, like Tesla, was destroyed and discredited while his research was kept and hidden. I’m a big Tesla fan, if only his free, wireless energy inventions were allowed to be used, what a different world we’d live in. Don’t you find it strange that the guy who invented the light bulb, alternating current, X-rays, radio, remote control, electric motors, robotics, lasers and wireless communications and limitless free energy isn’t taught about in schools? Okay I’ll control my giddy Tesla fandom now! If you haven’t read The Third Policeman, by Flann O’Brien you really should, I think you’d like that. And yes I definitely think sound can alter space-time and chemical makeups on a physical and metaphysical level.
From what I can tell you’ve written everything from sci fi to mystery, and from crime to the supernatural and family drama. Is there any genre or style that you really want to tackle someday, but haven’t yet?
Dianne: I absolutely love writing cross-genre. I’ve always been interested in philosophy and this is why I wrote The Eleventh Question. I’m not sure where my writing will take me next, but whatever it is I’ll enjoy it!
Rohan: The Eleventh Question, I’ll have to read that one when I get through my current reading list! Do any of your books or stories relate to any others? Have you ever considered creating a series?
Dianne: I’ve still got Luke and the gang waiting to tell the story of the Seventh Book of the Nine Unknown Men. I’m excited about this and it’s something I’ll get stuck into when I’m settled in my new house. *Spoiler Alert* Cayo (The Eleventh Question) is also calling me to tell everyone how he is going in the future and I’m amazed at the life he’s leading and how the people are living with animals as the dominant species (another one to get suck into soon). *End of Spoilers*
Rohan: That’s great that Luke’s adventures will continue, can’t wait!
Moving away from the writing for a moment I know you are in the process of renovating a beautiful old building and getting it to a livable standard. What has been the biggest challenge, and when will you spend your first night in the RUC?
The RUC with it’s brand new roof, but not yet up on it’s stilts.
Rohan: Oh don’t I know it, I lived in sub-tropical north New South Wales for a long time, everything takes an age haha. I look forward to seeing it in a livable state.
During my teen years I helped my dad do up a great old house, it was so rewarding and that period still contains some of my best memories. How did you spend your teen years? Did your experiences during that time shape the way you write your Young Adult fiction?
Another of Dianne’s novels.
Dianne: My teen years were spent on the beach and, like most teens, I felt awkward and wanted to be liked. My best friend ran off with my first boyfriend and they ended up getting married. I think this taught me that nothing in life is stable and I found it hard to trust people for some time. Needless to say, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me because I’d be in a completely different ‘place’ in life now had he stayed with me!
Rohan: Whoa, that’s harsh! But yeah, it’s important to learn early on that things can change quickly and to enjoy the moment!
So I believe the last book you released was The Eleventh Question, which was released during the second half of 2012? Are you working on a new book right now? And if so can you share anything? Give us a little tease?
Dianne: I’m working on three novels at the moment. “In the Company of Beasts” (which is a continuation of The Eleventh Question), “The UltraTerrestrials” (which deals with all kinds of mythological creatures, fairies, dragons, aliens, inter-dimensional creatures and so on!) and the last one is the second novel I started many years ago, about a serial killer who kidnaps a writer so she can write his life story.
Rohan: Definitely can’t wait for the serial killer one, hope that one won’t take too long to come out.
Finally I want to ask a very selfish questions haha, but I’m sure it will help any new or aspiring writers as well. I am about to release my first novel, which I co-wrote with my brother Alex. I’ve never released fiction before so is there any advice you can give to a first timer?
Dianne: My advice is to write because you love writing and telling stories. There are no rules to writing a good story and nothing should be forced. If you write a story and publish it and haven’t sold 3,000 copies in the first week this makes you ‘normal’, not a failure. Not everyone is going to like what you write (in fact, some people may hate it), but as long as you’ve enjoyed writing it and are confident in yourself it’s important to keep going and doing what you love. This is why I say ‘I write for myself’, I love letting those creative juices out. I read something the other day from an author who said ‘never write for yourself, write for your reader!’ – but that’s not me and this is why I say there are no rules to writing, because there should be no limits on the creative process.
Cheers Dianne!
Rohan: I absolutely agree! If you write for yourself then you are always getting a sense of satisfaction and reward, regardless of whether anyone else likes it or not! However if you pander exclusively to an audience then you risk it not being liked at all, even by yourself. Where’s the integrity in that? Thanks for the excellent advice and thanks again for stopping by The 7 Things, it was lovely to have you. I thoroughly enjoy your writing and your blogging and will definitely be back for more of both in the future! Take care, all the best Dianne.
Thanks for reading! Be sure to check out Dianne’s links below:
