84: Amanda Geard (The Moon Gate)

Charlie Place and Amanda Geard (The Moon Gate) discuss Tasmania in WW2 and in general, Australia's famed poet Banjo Paterson and his fellow Bush Ballad writers, British Blackshirts and the Mitfords, and the Moorgate Tube Crash in London. On a lighter note, Amanda also tells us much about the writing of her book, including a lot of what she left out in order to reduce her book from the lengthy draft it was to the mere 500 hardback pages it is.

Amanda was the guest in episode 63 in which we spoke about The Midnight House
Waltzing Matilda
The Man From Snowy River
The Mitfords - Letters Between Six Sisters
The Moorgate Tube Crash
I spoke to Kate Thompson about the Bethnal Green Tube Disaster in episode 76
Penghana

Where to find Amanda online

Website || Twitter || Facebook || Instagram

Where to find Charlie online

Website || Twitter || Instagram

Discussions

01:50 The inspiration - Banjo Paterson's Bush ballads and mining in Tasmania
03:17 Keeping up with all the characters and planning the timelines
08:43 How there is so much of Amanda in this book
10:51 Mining on the West Coast of Tasmania, and Amanda's dad
13:41 Banjo Paterson and Australian poetry
17:49 Tasmania in WW2, including Prime Minister Robert Menzies
26:01 Women Blackshirts in Britain (including Diana Mitford) and the awfulness of Edeline
30:47 The Moon Gate's lengthy first draft
33:12 Moon Gates and rebirth
35:45 The focus on grief
37:23 Including the Moorgate Tube Crash
40:44 Amanda's Balinn returns!
42:45 The epilogue and what was left out
44:45 Rose and what might have been
47:20 The House of the book, Towerhurst and Australia's Federation houses, and huon pine trees
52:46 What Amanda found when renovating an old Irish house
55:07 More on Amanda's current manuscript, a story looking at occupied Norway