Welcome to Meet the Author! Today we’re featuring Gabriella Page. Gabriella is a West Australian singer and children’s author based in Italy. Since completing her master’s degree in classical music, she’s worked as an opera chorister, English teacher and occasional translator. In 2022, Gabriella was selected to take part in the ASA/CA Award Mentorship programme. She has a penchant for puzzles and mystery, and she blends humour and darkness in her novels.

Your new release is The Nardi Puzzle, a middle-grade novel where 12-year-old Sebastian Walker is thrust into a real-world escape game where he has to solve clues to find the secret exit. What’s your favourite part of the story?
Definitely the escape game! I’ve always loved puzzles and mystery, so you can imagine how much fun I had creating my own escape room in book form. All the clues needed to solve the game are scattered through the chapters, so anyone up for a challenge can play alongside the main characters. I’d be curious to know whether any readers arrive at the solution before the reveal.

Where did the inspiration for the story come from?
I’d been wanting to write an escape room novel for a long time, and I knew I wanted to set it somewhere bizarre. Italy has some wonderfully weird places, and a few of these inspired the game-maker’s mansion: the surreal La Scarzuola, a sort of architectural fever dream; the Bomarzo monster park, with its giant stone creatures and monuments; and the mysterious Villa Palagonia in Sicily. A few of the clues in the escape game also draw on Italy’s rich heritage. You’ll have to read the book if you want to find out how!

What’s your writing routine?
My work schedule is so irregular that it’s impossible for me to follow a routine. I try to find time to write every day, though. When I’m writing the first draft of a novel, I usually aim for 1000 words per day. Sometimes I manage double that, and other days it takes me hours to get a paragraph down (like yesterday!) but I always show up. Nobody can ever tell which sections came naturally and which made me question my life choices. I like to think so, anyway.

Before you start writing a book, do you have the plot and the characters all worked out or do you not know how the story is going to unfold until you’re finished?
I’m very much a plotter. I need to map out exactly what happens in each chapter before I think about tackling the first draft. It would be too easy for me to get lost otherwise. I typically write 10–20,000 words in the planning stage. That said, I don’t always stick to my plans. In the process of writing, I’ll occasionally realise there’s a better way of handling something or my characters will evolve in ways I didn’t expect. That’s okay too! My plans exist to help me reach the end of a manuscript with a plot that mostly makes sense. The story comes together during rewrites.

Which authors were your best reads in the last couple of years?
In Australian middle-grade, Ash Harrier’s The Deadly Daylight blew me away. It’s got one of the most memorable openings I’ve ever read in a children’s novel (the protagonist pierces a dead woman’s ear!) and has just the right mix of whimsy, darkness and mystery for my liking. More recently, I adored Emily Gale’s The Wild Unknown, which is as fast paced as it is timely. Sandy Bigna’s debut, Little Bones, had me tearing up, and Rebecca Fraser’s Sea Glass manages to capture the sense of wonder we experience in childhood so beautifully. We’ve got some unbelievable talent in Australia.

How important is it to read books when you want to be an author?
It’s crucial. If you want to be published, you need to be reading books in your genre, and not just the classics, amazing as they are! There is so much that we learn about the art of storytelling when we read: how to create three-dimensional characters, for example, or how to keep readers turning the page. Reading new releases also gives us insight into the current market. While I don’t suggest chasing trends, it’s useful to know what’s appealing to our chosen age group and the people publishing books for them. Reading shouldn’t be a chore, though. I think it’s important that you genuinely enjoy reading the books being published for your target audience.

What advice would you give to writers just starting out?
Constructive criticism is your friend. Seek it out as often as you can and really take it on board. Nobody enjoys receiving negative feedback, but you can’t expect to grow as a writer without it. If it weren’t for the comments I got about varying the length of my sentences or the gentle suggestion I’d be better off writing about humans than talking animals, I might never have landed a book deal. Nowadays, I ask my beta readers to be brutally honest. I’ll take actionable feedback over compliments any day.

Share three things that people may not already know about you.

1. My day job is singing in an opera chorus.
2. At the age of four, I loved animals so much that I decided I’d no longer eat meat. I remained a vegetarian for 21 years.
3. I’m able to recite over 30 digits of pi because I wanted to one-up a boy in high school. I hope he never reads this.

You can find out more about Gabriella on her website or Instagram:
https://www.gabriellapage.com/
https://www.instagram.com/glpagewrites/