Video transcript
NSW Premier's Reading Challenge 2025 - SWF author interview (secondary) - 02. Mike Lucas

[intro music]

SEHAJLEEN: Hi, my name is Sehajleen. I'm from Glenwood High School in western Sydney. I'm here on Cammeraygal land at The Concourse at Chatswood, and I'm here as part of the Sydney Writers' Festival Secondary Schools Day. And I'm so proud to have the opportunity to interview Mike Lucas here today for the NSW Reading Challenge. OK, hi, Mr Lucas. How are you today?

MIKE LUCAS: Yeah, fine, in theory. You can call me Mike as well. [laughs]

SEHAJLEEN: So I have some questions for you today, and let's start. OK, so firstly, young adult fiction is a big departure from your prior work of poems and picture books. Can you tell us what encouraged you to take this new direction?

MIKE LUCAS: Yeah, well, look, I've always tried writing novels, and never actually got to send them off. And it was a bit of a tragedy, actually, that caused me to write this book. About 5 years ago, I lost the sight in one of my eyes. So I've only got one eye now, which works. So I've always had treatment, bad eyes. But I had an operation on one of the eyes, and after 7 operations, they gave up, and they couldn't treat it anymore.

But while I was off from work-- I worked full-time as an engineer-- and while I was off work for 4 months and having those 7 operations, I thought I would take that time to write a book.

SEHAJLEEN: Oh.

MIKE LUCAS: So, I came up with this idea, and because of the eye issues, one of the main characters in it, Shell, is a girl who has been blind since birth.

SEHAJLEEN: Oh, OK, yeah.

MIKE LUCAS: So, I put all of my worries-- I used it as a bit of a catharsis. I used to put all my worries and concerns into the book.

SEHAJLEEN: That's really interesting, yeah. So how has your creative process changed as you've become more experienced as a writer? And are there any tips that you would give to your younger self?

MIKE LUCAS: Yeah, when I wrote my first novel, I had no idea how I'd done it because I literally-- I'm called a pantser. There's pantsers and there's plotters. There's plotters that plot everything out, and pantsers fly by the seat of their pants or just make it up as they go along. So I actually sat down and wrote 'What We All Saw' without thinking about anything. So when I have to give school talks, it's really difficult because I have no idea what I did.

So when I came on to the second novel, I tried to use what I remembered from it, but I still had to trust myself to sit down and just write rather than thinking about it too much. I know some people are plotters, and they want to plot it all out. So I didn't-- and I've got to be careful that I don't try to plot too much because I think it destroys my creativity for me.

SEHAJLEEN: Yeah, I've realised that as well, personally--

MIKE LUCAS: Because I think whether you're a platter-- a platter? A plotter or a pantser, the important thing is to get words down on paper. And I think one of the things I've learnt is not to worry about the first draft because the first draft is called the vomit stage because you're supposed to be throwing words up onto paper. And I'll be talking about that this afternoon. But it really is. Don't aim for perfection. Don't pressure-- because nobody's ever going to read it, your first draft. So it really is-- so that's what I've learnt. Don't get everything perfect on the first draft. You're going to be rewriting that story 5 or 6 times before you even send it to a publisher.

SEHAJLEEN: [laughs] Yes. That's great. OK. 'One by One They Disappear' follows a young Jewish girl through Nazi Germany. What made you take this route, and how did you approach your research?

MIKE LUCAS: Um, yeah, again, that came about purely by accident because the original idea I had for the book was some fictional village, maybe even a fantasy world, where it was said that one day of the year, if a child leaves their footprints in the snow, they will disappear from the world forever. And just when I started writing it, I thought, well, what a fabulous way to actually portray that. And also, I'm trying to-- and I like to set my books in the real world.

So even though I was thinking about fantasy, I'm not a big fantasy lover. So I thought what time of-- what part of history would that potentially happen? And then could I tie it in with, basically, what the Nazis were doing in 1945 to try and-- 1939 to 1945 to make people disappear. So that's how it actually-- just subconsciously. Again, I can't even remember it being a conscious effort to do that. But that's really how-- I just started writing, and within the first few paragraphs, it was evident that it was going to be set in that time.

SEHAJLEEN: Oh, that's really interesting. Yeah, OK. If there's one thing you'd want readers to get out of 'One by One They Disappear', what would that be?

MIKE LUCAS: Oh, that is a difficult one, isn't it? I mean, obviously, one of the great things you want to get out of any book is the fact that it's a wonderful-- you want somebody to think it's a wonderful story. I love putting plot twists in the book. So I love the fact that when you read my books-- don't expect everything you read to actually turn out who you think it's going to-- I mean, there's some serious-- there are some serious messages in there about the Second World War and about what the Nazis and what Hitler was doing and about what Goebbels was doing and how they were using radio for propaganda.

And also an interesting fact that I found out while writing this because it does-- it's not a spoiler here because it starts with the Brothers Grimm in 1811, this book. But Hitler wanted every child in Nazi Germany to have a copy of the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales because it depicted-- every evil character in it was depicted as somebody who was either not Aryan and not perfect and not physically or mentally-- that's what he wanted. And all the heroes were supposed to be these fabulously perfect people in a lot of the stories.

SEHAJLEEN: OK, yeah.

MIKE LUCAS: So that's just a little bit of something that I learnt while I was writing that as well. But just the main thing to get out of it is that it's a good story, I think.

SEHAJLEEN: [laughs] Yes. You just want people to pick it.

MIKE LUCAS: I just want people to pick it up, pick it up and enjoy it and keep reading.

SEHAJLEEN: Yeah. OK. A previous book of yours that I haven't had the chance to read yet is 'What We All Saw'. Can you tell me a bit more about this book?

MIKE LUCAS: Yeah, again, as I said, it came about when I lost the sight in one of my eyes, and it is quite autobiographical in a way because I grew up in 1970s. I know it's difficult to-- I am that old. And I grew up in 1970s, where we were left as children to just disappear, during some holidays, all day and go and play in the woods. And we wouldn't come back to-- our parents wouldn't know where we are. So that was based on that.

And the woods were always-- the woodland where I lived was quite a spooky place, especially if you got somewhere in the dark and you had to get back from the river in the dark, so-- And I-- I've always had this fear of 'The Wizard of Oz' kind of witch. And I wanted to depict that witch in it. And it was-- as difficult it was, how do you depict a witch like that in a realistic setting without turning it into some kind of fantasy novel? So I did that.

And I also brought into one of the characters based on one of my friends. There's a haunted-- or not so much haunted, but there's a manor house in there where the children visit, which is-- and when I was writing this, I thought, did I imagine that we used to play around this manor house? And I googled it, and there was an old manor house--

SEHAJLEEN: Oh my goodness.

MIKE LUCAS: --which has been around-- I mean, the actual-- there's been a building in that place since 1066, actually, since the Battle of Hastings. But I-- when looked into it-- yes, there was an old manor house that used to be a children's home that was derelict, and we used to go and play around it. I don't think we ever went inside. All that came back, the woodland, the quarries came back to me.

So, and also, a little story about how my father used to buy cigarettes when he was about 5 years old for the prisoners of war who were in England after the war. He used to live in the country, and the prisoners of war used to give him some money and say, can you go and get me some cigarettes. And he would go-- at 5 years old, and they'd sell cigarettes. The shop would sell them, sell him cigarettes. And one day, he lost the money, and the prisoner of war got really angry with him. And my dad-- but that was the story that my dad told me. So I wanted to put that in there. So there's a lot of stories from my past. Write about what you know.

SEHAJLEEN: It's so cool how childhood experiences shape you now.

MIKE LUCAS: Oh, 100%. 100%. And a lot of my childhood came back while I was writing that about what we used to do and how we used to climb and do so many dangerous things.

SEHAJLEEN: [laughs] Yeah. It's actually really-- I realised that as well, your childhood experiences, they affect you in so many different ways.

MIKE LUCAS: Oh, they do. They do. They never leave you. They never do. And if they do leave you, like that thing with the with the manor house-- I thought I dreamt it. You go back, and they were still there. I just thought it was a dream. How weird is that?

SEHAJLEEN: It is. OK. You've been outspoken in encouraging people to give writing a try. Why do you feel this is so important, and is there anywhere you would give to aspiring writers?

MIKE LUCAS: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of people out there who don't realise they've got artistic talent until they sit down and write. I suppose it's the same with any kind of talent, isn't it, really? But yeah, sit down, and it's so difficult, sometimes, to just get started. That blank sheet of paper-- and writers are, by all, they're naturally protagonists-- not protagonist, procrastinators. We naturally will always want to do something else. The worst thing, the worst job-- oh, I'm going to go off and vacuum that. I'm going to have to iron that instead of-- get it.

So it's really-- sit yourself down and write and see what comes out, even if it's poetry, funny poetry, which is how I get some reluctant readers to write. I think it's just important. And the same way, I suppose, if you could say that about music-- if people want to study-- try everything, basically. Writing is just one of those things you should try except-- I mean, I'm not a big sports fan, so I can't understand why people find it. But no, if you're sporty-- yeah, so if you're somebody likes sport, try a sport. But yeah, sit down with a blank piece of paper. Put yourself under pressure and see what's going to come out in 15 minutes just by writing-- writing.

SEHAJLEEN: I feel like writing is all about challenging yourself.

MIKE LUCAS: It is all about-- it is. And don't expect perfection, especially when you're not starting out. You learn from what you-- you don't know what you-- you don't know how much you know, sometimes. You don't-- You think sometimes, you don't know until you find somebody else who doesn't know what you consider basics. You go, oh yeah, I do know all that. So yeah, so some advice-- just write. For aspiring writers, do not stress about getting everything perfect. Do not think too far ahead. Just write down, write down. We've got things called delete. We've got backspaces nowadays. You used to have erasers. Now we've got backspaces. You can always delete, edit. So just write.

SEHAJLEEN: Definitely, yeah.

MIKE LUCAS: In fact, there's a good statement by an American novelist, James Thurber, who says, don't get it right, get it written.

SEHAJLEEN: Oh, OK, yeah.

MIKE LUCAS: So the first draft.

SEHAJLEEN: How has your creative process changed as you've become more experienced as a writer?

MIKE LUCAS: I think back on it, it's really difficult. I mean, the last book I wrote, I used the same real process, a lot more research. I think I'm probably better at editing. So I think when-- because I've got another book out in May 26, and my editor will probably disagree with me, but I think it will need less editing because I think I'm more aware of what the finished product needs to be before I send it to the publisher. So I think I'm more polished in what I write. I've had--

And the other thing is to be able to give talks to students. I've actually had to reverse engineer, go back to look at how I write things and look at how things get written because I knew nothing about character study or setting or the plots or any of that. I had to literally go back and-- even though I'd done it once, I had to go back and think, well, I should really know what I've done. I really should be able to tell. It's all very well. I said, just write, but I know I should-- so I know some of these tools that are around.

SEHAJLEEN: So you've just mentioned that you've got a new book coming out. Could you tell us a bit more about it?

MIKE LUCAS: Yes, so May 2026 is a new novel coming out-- and I've got 3 more picture books in between- in this year-- in the next couple of years. But this-- May 2026 is my most stereotypical horror novel I've written yet. It's a very Gothic novel set in-- because you can tell from my accent. I'm not from Australia. So I'm from Plymouth, which is near Cornwall.

So this is actually set on a Cornish island with 3 orphans. And the island is reachable by a causeway. So only when the tide's out is it reachable. And the parents are-- not giving too much away-- but they become orphans. And they get told they have to go and live with their grandmother they've never met who lives on this island called Black Island off the coast of Cornwall.

And I said it, it is the most-- I've used a lot of tropes in this one, more than anything else. It is a very Gothic--

SEHAJLEEN: I think I'll be looking into that.

MIKE LUCAS: Yeah, my wife is saying it's the scariest one I've written because it's very difficult, you write for YA, so you've got to keep the scares down a bit. I mean, I was reading Stephen King at 12, so I'm-- but yeah, so that's what it's all about. And I'm really looking forward to that one coming out because I had a good bit of fun writing that one.

SEHAJLEEN: So, thank you so much for letting me interview you today, Mr Lucas. It's been amazing talking with you, and I hope everyone watching enjoys your incredible novels as much as I did. And I hope everyone keeps working for their Premier's Reading Challenge.

MIKE LUCAS: Thank you so much. And thanks, that was good fun, yeah.