I recently had the pleasure of answering some questions all about my novel Where the Line Breaks for Good Reading Magazine, the magazine for book lovers. We spoke about writing the novel in London, who or what the Unknown Digger is, the similarities and differences between my life and the life of Matt Denton (one of the main characters), and how amazing it was to be shortlisted for the Fogarty LIterary Award in 2019.
Here’s a quick taste of a question about The Unknown Digger:
For readers who may not know ‘The Unknown Digger’, who/what were they, and why are they so significant to Australian history?
The Unknown Digger is an anonymous Australian war poet, one of the original Anzacs, whose collection of poetry was discovered in the early 1990s and quickly came to be recognised as uniquely Australian. Essentially, The Unknown Digger is our own Wilfred Owen or Rupert Brooke, a soldier poet whose words have captured the public imagination; his poems are taught in schools and used in advertising and loved by all, and he’s given Australia a literary hero to stand alongside the traditionally English soldier poets. Ever since the discovery of the poems, academics all over the world have been trying to uncover the identity of The Unknown Digger. One of the main characters in my book, Matt, is writing his academic thesis, trying to prove that The Unknown Digger was a soldier who died during the war and received the Victoria Cross after his death.
It was great to chat about the research process, and really delve into the creation of the dual storylines in the book. Read the full interview here.
To read the Good Reading review of Where the Line Breaks, head to their website, or buy a copy of the April edition of the magazine.
Michael Burrows 