Meet the mastermind behind this gripping crime novel and our July Book of the Month.
A murder. A disappearance. A sinister network. Paradise has a price.
Steels Creek is an idyllic retreat in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. It’s a place where everyone knows their neighbours and no one locks their doors. Investigative journalist Lars Nilsson has moved to the settlement for a quiet life, leaving behind a public fall from grace and the crime reporting he was once feted for.
But when a body is found floating in a nearby waterhole and hours later his best friend’s daughter is reported missing, Lars is compelled to investigate, putting him back in the crosshairs of police. What he finds may not only destroy his tight-knit community but also the life he has worked so hard to rebuild.
Q&A with Christine Gregory
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m a Melbourne-based writer of crime and general fiction. In my day job, I work as a director for a national not-for-profit and I’m a former international aid worker. I live with my two teenage kids, my partner and our Labrador, Dustin Martin. I’m a passionate reader and love travelling. I grew up in Queensland and still get home to visit family and friends whenever I can.
Describe The Community in one sentence – it’s tricky, we know!
A crime thriller, it centres around a murder of one woman and a disappearance of another, within a small, tight-knit community in the hinterland region of the Sunshine Coast.
What sparked your writing journey?
I’ve always written, from a young age and always dreamed of writing a book but never really thought it was possible until a few years back when I decided I had to stop procrastinating and at least try. Writing this book was aided by my acceptance into a 3-month selective novel writing program with Curtis Brown Creative in the UK and the arrival of Covid, during which time I decided it was now or never. I set myself the task of completing a draft in 2020.
What does your writing process look like? Do you listen to music? Start with characters or are your plot-driven? Do you write in a specific place or during a certain time of day?
This depends on what stage I’m at with the project. I’m very character driven in my approach so that’s usually my starting point. I will write the first ten thousand words and re-write it multiple times until I feel I’ve captured the voice. Sometimes this means switching between point of view characters or changing from first person to third person. Once I’m happy with that, I stop and do a rough plot outline. Then I try to set myself a bit of a schedule. I don’t have the luxury of writing every day, but I try to return to it at least a few times a week while I’m in the drafting phase. Early morning is the easiest time to write if I can manage it. Music is a big part of my life and an inspiration, but I don’t listen to it while I’m writing. I’ll go out for walks with the dog in between writing sessions with my headphones on and listen to music that captures the mood I’m going for, and I imagine the soundtrack to my character’s lives. Most of my writing is done from my home office. Editing, I can pretty much do anywhere.
The setting of Steels Creek is so potent in The Community. Is it based on a real place?
Yes, it’s based on a real place on the Sunshine Coast but there are similar places that also inspired it like Springbrook on the Gold Coast hinterland and various towns in the northern rivers of NSW. While the geography is the same, the characters are purely fictional.
Your protagonist, Lars Nilsson, is fantastic. How did you come up with Lars as a character and was it easy to find his voice?
Lars was the first character to come to me and the story always centred around him. I knew that I didn’t want him to be a police officer because I wasn’t prepared to write a police procedural. I had the problem that he had to be someone whose work was somehow connected to this case and so I landed on him being a journalist. I also wanted the story told from the perspective of someone from within the community where the story is set, but who is still somewhat of an outsider. The storyline about his relationship with his daughter Annika, came before I’d worked out the other plot points. I knew that his feelings about fatherhood needed to dictate his actions, so I spent a lot of time on those scenes between him and Annika. I wouldn’t say his voice came easily. As a woman, it’s not easy to write from a male point of view, and I have two male narrators, but they were the right people to tell this story, so I just had to plug away until I got it right. Skye was much easier for me to capture because I clearly remember what it was like to be that age and stage of life.
What kind of research do you do and how long do you spend researching before you begin to write?
I don’t research heavily before I start. I like doing it too much and so can get distracted for hours researching (aka, diving down internet rabbit holes). Research is more likely to come in as I’m redrafting and fact checking. Because I grew up in Queensland, I knew the location so didn’t have to do any research there. In fact, I couldn’t leave a five–kilometre radius for the majority of the time I was writing it so it’s not like I could have visited the area during that time even if I wanted to. When I did finally get up to Queensland on holiday after things opened up, I was amazed at how accurately I’d captured it just from memory. I use a mood board and had photos of the real place and I keep a file of news articles on related topics. I read a lot about organised crime and motorcycle gangs in the beginning. A lot of that didn’t end up in the book but it was good background.
What is the most important thing you’d like readers to take away from reading The Community?
As an author, first and foremost you want people to say they enjoyed it. Beyond that, I would like it if the characters stuck with people. I want my characters to resonate, even the ones that aren’t necessarily likable. Human beings are deeply flawed and complex and so are our relationships. I hope people can relate to those aspects of the story.
What do you look for in a good book?
I look for exactly the things that I described above. Interesting, flawed and well-written characters. Plot is important of course but plot and character need to work together. If the characters aren’t interesting, it’s hard to care about what happens to them. I do like stories that evoke setting as a character where you can imagine yourself in that place. I read most genres and I like those books which aren’t easy to pigeonhole, including those that blend genres like literary thriller or gothic horror.
Who do you think would play the main characters in a TV or film adaptaion of The Community and why?
I think Richard Roxburgh would make a great Lars. Erik Thomson would play Davis. Chris Pang for Ling. Eliza Scanlen as Skye.
What’s one piece of advice you would give to aspiring writers?
Keep going. Writing takes time and you will get rejected along the way, so you need to tap into the joy of it so you don’t get dejected and give up. The joy is in the process as well as the finished product.
Find The Community by Christine Gregory in your local QBD store, or buy online today.
