• Blog
  • The Power Age
  • All books
  • Events
  • Media
  • Contact
  • About

Kelly Doust

Kelly Doust

Category Archives: Art, theatre & culture

Culture Street article

29 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by kellydoust in Art, theatre & culture, Books & films, Fashion, Inspirations, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Culture Street, Fiction, Henrietta Moraes, Precious Things, Vintage

spanish-diamond-coronetDo you follow Culture Street? It’s a great site featuring reviews of the latest films and books, recipes, giveaways and interviews. I’m thrilled to be featured as their April Author of the Month, and wrote a short article recently about a few of the inspirations behind Precious Things which I thought I’d share with you here:

Desire, marriage and writing fiction

Clothes – particularly vintage and antique ones – are my weakness. I’ve always been intrigued by their history and am constantly fascinated by what we wear and why. That’s why I decided to write a novel about an antique French collar. Precious Things tells the story of the women who wore this special piece; those who created it, loved it and lost it over the course of more than a hundred years, and the crucial events it witnessed in their lives. There’s also a modern-day heroine who, like me, finds herself intrigued by the beaded collar’s mysterious past.

Let me explain: an antique travel trunk covered in peeling labels looking worn and scuffed around the edges isn’t just a rusty, damaged item that’s seen better days. To me it brings to mind tumultuous sea journeys, the smell of salt and gulls cawing, as well as the image of a fetching skirt suit worn to stroll a cruise ship’s upper decks. Or a stiff snakeskin purse with a long-ago tram ticket tucked inside its inner pocket – where was the woman who owned it going that day? Did she meet her lover for lunch, visit a gallery, or find herself fidgeting nervously in a job interview? This is what I mean; I love how old things give us a tantalising glimpse into other people’s lives – lives we can only dream of.

As I started to think about it more carefully, I realised I wanted to write a sweeping, romantic story that took in many generations of women and covered the significant eras of the twentieth century. I started envisaging how the collar – which is later transformed into a headpiece or a ‘coronet’, as I like to think of it – might have come into the various women’s lives.

A Francis Bacon portrait of Henrietta Moraes

A Francis Bacon portrait of Henrietta Moraes

My favourite part was researching the historical sections. I chose some of my favourite times and places, and my imagination was sparked by long-held passions and what I was seeing or reading at the time. For example, Bella – my 1950s goddess and artist’s muse – came from my love of Fellini’s 1960 film, La Dolce Vita, and the film’s star, Anita Ekberg who was famously pictured gambolling in the Trevi Fountain. Bella’s character was fleshed out for me when I saw an exhibition of Francis Bacon’s artworks. I wanted to feature an artist of some sort in the book, but when I read about Bacon’s muse, Henrietta Moraes, it got me thinking about what kind of world Bella might operate in. Henrietta worked as an artist’s model and became the inspiration for many artists of the Soho scene in the 1950s and 1960s. She was also known for her marriages, love affairs and hedonistic lifestyle, which saw her ending up in Holloway Prison after a failed burglary attempt.

There are other instances in the book where I wove in real-life events and embellished them to enrich the narrative. They say you should write what you love and that’s exactly what I did. I’ve visited each of the cities described – Istanbul, New York, Rome and Shanghai – and used to live in London, so there was also a huge element of nostalgia at play as I slipped into those different places in history and imagined the drama of what my characters were experiencing. Unfortunately my current home (Sydney) doesn’t get a mention, but I’m thinking of remedying that in novel two!

Running away with the circus

23 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by kellydoust in Art, theatre & culture, Fashion, markets & shopping, Inspirations, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Circus Factory, Historical Novel Society Conference, Powerhouse Museum

Merry go roundIt being school holidays my friend Jess and I decided to take the smalls to Circus Factory at the Powerhouse Museum. We thought it might be more fun for them than us. How wrong we were!

Wending our way through two lower floors of amusements, performances and other curiosities – including an authentic Gypsy caravan from the early 19th century – we finally arrived at the costume collection.

Gypsy caravan

Situated on the third floor, we realised this extraordinary archive of circus costumes and accessories was the lemon butter on top of a prizewinning cake of an exhibition. Definitely up there with a V&A presentation, it made me wish I’d bought a season pass so I could visit another few times to soak it all in. At AU$35, the one-off entrance fee is a bit pricey but hot damn it’s worth it.

I was so enthralled, an attendant was obliged to warn me of Olive running up and down the viewing paths, hooting at the top of her lungs… I was so totally lost reading up on all the descriptions, off in a fantasy imagining where those pieces might have been. Who were their original owners, I wondered, and where were they now? How had these incredibly hard-worn threads managed to survive all these years?

If the same costumes had been around while I was researching and writing my last novel, I’d have been in heaven. Or at least camped out at the Powerhouse for a week. I had to be satisfied browsing through books on Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes instead, and ended up scouring the markets, with only one or two really good finds to show for my days of toil. That was about this time last year. And I spent tens of hours lost in an Etsy wormhole researching vintage dresses and dancing paraphernalia from the Belle Epoque era to 1920s, without much success. It wasn’t a hardship but I really wish these had been around then, because one of the characters in my new novel is a trapeze artist (I may as well introduce you to her now; an Austro-Hungarian beauty who falls in love with the circus’ resident Strong Man).

My character started off being inspired by Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, but she definitely grew into herself as the writing wore on. Actually, it’s not fair to say the writing wore on at all, because at times she almost wrote herself. It was a matter of my fingers keeping up with her story – always a blessed relief when others seem so difficult to wrangle onto the page.

Anyway, back to the costumes. Designed and embellished and meticulously repaired, I had to be pulled away from these exquisite pieces (literally, Olive had grown quite bored by that stage), but I may go back soon. Here’s some of my favourites – the photos don’t do them justice.

Tightrope costume

Circus headpiece

Repair kit concealed under porcelain doll's skirt

Repair kit concealed under porcelain doll’s skirt

Capes

Send in the clowns

Send in the clowns 4

Band leader

Send in the clowns 2

Send in the clowns 3

History is what’s always drawn me to vintage clothing. So much more exciting than new things, don’t you think? Dangerous, even.

I once bought a fringed tan leather skirt from a willowy actress-slash-model, and she told me that skirt had seen some wild parties in her day. Whether it was the preface she’d given me, or something ingrained in the supple leather hide of that barely-there skirt, I’ll never know, but I went on to have a good few nights of partying wearing her myself. I hope she’s still making memories (alas, I passed her on when I feared I was becoming too old for miniskirts, but have since bought two or three… there goes that theory; today I simply don’t care). And my love of vintage is what caused me to start writing fiction with an historical element in the first place. I don’t know why, but I feel the inexorable pull of the past whenever I see or touch a vintage dress… it’s my form of catnip. That and Reese’s butter cups.

This is probably a good time to mention Australia’s first Historical Novel Society Conference, to be held between 20-22 March this year. What can fiction writers learn from historians? A lot, I imagine. I’m looking forward to hearing authors such as Kate Forsyth, Colin Falconer, Toni Jordan, Jesse Blackadder and many more speak on the theme, ‘The Historical Novel in Peace and War’, and will be thinking about what characters were wearing, at all times.

More on that later, but have I convinced you for the time being to visit Circus Factory? Make haste – this wonderfully curated show won’t be on forever.

Programme

Why write?

13 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by kellydoust in Art, theatre & culture, Books & films, Inspirations, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Children's books, Fiction, Imagination

A still from Sydney Dance Company's recent performance, Louder than Words (costumes by Dion Lee)

Sydney Dance Company‘s Louder than Words, performed at Sydney Theatre. Costumes by Dion Lee.

Someone asked me recently why I wanted to write a novel. Not an unusual thing to ask, but it stumped me for a bit. Because at this stage of the process, when most of the writing is done and it’s now a case of editing and polishing and trying to make the book the best it can be, it’s easy to get caught up in outcomes and lose sight of this central question, which is of course the most important one of all.

Why?

Ever since I was small – about five or six from memory – I was enthralled by the people and places authors created from their imagination. With those books I loved the most, I so very desperately wanted them to be true… each found a way to affect and remake me profoundly, not unlike certain people I’ve met over the course of my life. Somehow these characters reside in me still. Michael Ende’s Momo, the Narnia children, Frodo Baggins and Roald Dahl’s BFG. Anne of Green Gables and Moonface from the Magic Faraway Tree. The Famous Five and Owen Meany, and the strange worlds of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. As a child I lived in a sort of half-place between reality and imagination (the way most children do) wishing these people could escape from the pages and invade my own world the way Bastian found in The Neverending Story, or that I could escape into theirs. I wanted all my books to be ‘dangerous’ in this way, until one day – probably during my mid to late teens – I forgot to wish for such things.

I can tell you now, decades later, that reading has always been a way of connecting with that same sense of childish wonder and delight. Along with forays into other art forms like illustration and dance, film and music – or a trip to Cirque du Soleil – it’s the best way for me to recapture it. That another person can make us feel this way through their writing is amazing, don’t you think? It’s a small miracle, and I want in!

The same person who asked me this question the other day also said; ‘books are powerful, they change lives’. Of course she’s right, and no writer should wield this power lightly. It’s taken me a few days, but I have an answer for her (which is why I’m so rubbish in exam situations – I need time to ponder these things).

I want to take readers on a journey, and make them delight in wondrous things. To make a connection, and leave a lasting impression. Because we are all essentially the same underneath, and narrative is everything.

I would like to tell you a story…

Home again

21 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by kellydoust in Art, theatre & culture, Fashion, markets & shopping, Food, Inspirations, Travel, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Clara Button, Italy, Natural History Museum, UK, V&A Museum, Vanity Fair

Shakespeare shoes, V&A Museum

I’ve only just regained my equilibrium after an overseas holiday and find myself starting to sink into old routines again with pleasure and a little sadness.

Being on the road is lovely. Visiting new places every few days and catching up with old friends and family… It’s always a surprise to find I enjoy the nomadic lifestyle when I’m such a homebody at heart. I miss it – even the annoying bits like airports and disappointing meals. But one can’t travel forever (one can, of course, but I doubt it would suit me and we’d end up very poor!) so here we are, home again.

Tile detail, Bangkok's Grand Palace

It was a wonderful holiday. There were a few days spent exploring Dubai, a week in England visiting London, Oxford and tripping about the countryside catching up with everyone, four days in Rome alone with James (bliss), a week in Umbria with the extended family and another couple of days in Thailand on the way home, just us three. It felt like being away for twice as long. The key was to keep moving; nothing felt stale.

Roman rooftops

 

Special of the day: lunch in Rome

Our Umbrian villa

There were so many favourite moments: England was all nostalgia for me, my second home. Visiting my husband’s family farm in Somerset, wandering about the galleries in London with essential trips to the V&A, Natural History Museum and Liberty (yes, I’m a grown-up Clara Button) and a day in Oxford with my treasured friend, Meiling. Dubai was a blast of heat and strange luxury, Bangkok humid and delicious (oh, how we ate) and Italy was, as always, sumptuous, inspiring and seeped in the sort of history that makes my mind boggle. Get this – in Rome we were staying in a little hotel (a former Palazzo with soaring ceilings) opposite 2,500-year-old Etruscan ruins. With a bus stop and busy thoroughfare roaring only a few feet away. It felt like madness that it wasn’t cordoned off or treated with more fanfare.

Hairy fella, Orvieto

Country girl, Somerset

Drooling over designer vintage, Liberty London

After pouring everything I had into the novel I’ve been working on for the past year or so, I was feeling so empty; emotionally and physically drained. It came not a moment too soon.

Vanity Fair’s May issue featured an article about Salman Rushdie, and went into much depth about the circumstances surrounding the release of The Satanic Verses and the subsequent fatwa placed upon him by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini. One passage struck me as very true: “One holds so much of a novel in one’s head during the years of work that when it’s done and the thing in your head evaporates it’s a little like having your brain removed. I felt lobotomized.”

While my novel is certainly not on the scale of Verses and didn’t take me five years to write, I have to say that I do understand how he felt.

Kelly Doust

IT’S COMING!

Next book publishedNovember 5th, 2019
The Power Age, Published by Murdoch Book

Instagram

Great to see the Czech version of @8weekstowow, out in Jan. Congratulations @chiefbrabon @emiliebrabonhames - more remote training for your international peeps!!💪🏼 💪🏼 🏃🏽‍♂️🏃‍♀️@murdochbooks
Fairgrounds 2019 with these lovelies, Evan Dando in a fetching red blouse, Kasey Chambers celebrating 20 years since the release of The Captain and Meg Mac absolutely rocking it. Brilliant weekend!
Book people are good people (and mostly female people, as you can see). @allenandunwin @murdochbooks Xmas party @viewbysydney #walshbay for cocktails and finska yesterday
@skynews - live tonight on the #changemakers segment with @jacintatynan @drjoannamcmillan talking health, wealth and positive ageing in #thepowerage. Olive made a valiant effort to stay quiet behind the scenes but bounded up afterwards for pics with our panel. And, that’s a wrap! @murdochbooks #murdochbooks #kellydoust
Shrill was one of my favourite non-fiction reads a few years ago from journalist and fat activist #lindywest. I’ve been waiting for this to come out and it does not disappoint. The introduction, ‘They Let You Do It’, about Trump’s America is chilling, hilarious and so shrewdly observed. West manages to articulate the grey areas that are so destabilising for us all at this point in history. Loving this #thewitchesarecoming #whatimreading #bookstagram
On set with the feisty and fabulous women of @studio10au talking confidence, style, finances and giving something back for the greater good in your power age. Thanks for having me on, ladies - what a buzz #thepowerage @murdochbooks #kellydoust @whatsarahsnapped #denisedrysdale @angelabishop10

Facebook

Facebook

Category Cloud

Art Art, theatre & culture Books & films Design Fashion Fashion, markets & shopping Food Inspirations markets & shopping Music Other Publicity & events theatre & culture Travel Writing

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel