| When you meet Tim Winton, it's easy to
understand his success at writing for teenagers. He likes surfing and fishing
and camping and hanging out in the vast tract of sand dunes that borders the
one-pub fishing town where he lives in Western Australia. He even
looks like the big kid who sat behind you in high school and has the kind of
laid-back manner and earthy conversation that you know appeals to those too
young to be treated as kids but not grown-up enough to be admitted to the adult
world. Winton's first foray into teenage fiction, Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo, is about to go into its second printing. Even more gratifying for the writer has been the response the book has prompted. He's had scores of appreciative letters "from kids, parents, teachers", and has read passages from the book to students in country high schools. Writing for young readers has also enabled Winton to find a wider, non-literary audience. "It's very difficult to break out of the few-thousand-group of Australians who read, of whom half or all are professional or semi-professional readers. It's nice to get to people who aren't jaded, who will come at a story and read it for what it is. "You don't have to deal with their education and their past and their biases." Winton was himself still a teenager when he started writing seriously at 16. Three years later, in 1981, he was named joint winner of The Australian Vogel Literary Award for his first novel, An Open Swimmer. Had he known when he was 16 how difficult it is to make a living as a writer, he would never have started. "I was about 10 when I decided I wanted to be a writer, and I guess I lacked the imagination to think of anything else," he said. "I got the idea and I just stuck with it. I was unaware of how hard it is to make a living from the people you have to deal with." Neither lack of imagination nor inattention to detail is evident in Winton's writing. In That Eye, The Sky, he takes us into the turbulent soul of his 12-year-old protagonist, Morton Flack, with prose that sends you back to long, hot summer holidays in the country. The hot white day swims along real snow like the sun is breast-stroking through that blue sky when it should be going freestyle. Everyone hangs around the shade of the house listening to the trees in the east wind. The ground is wobbly with heat. The house ticks. You can hear seeds popping, grass drying up and fainting flat. You can hear the snakes puffing. Other young protagonists have been given voice in Winton's short stories, so the transition to writing for teenagers, instead of about them, was a smooth one. "Lockie's not so different in tone from the adult books," he said. "If you get too self-conscious when you're writing for kids, you end up talking down to them--you just use your own tone and be yourself, and if that doesn't work, it probably wouldn't have anyway." |