Grace McKellon isn’t a ‘people person’. All she needs is her magic tricks and her wise-cracking grandmother – until a new friend comes along and promises to make her a social media star.

Meet Barry Jonsberg, the author of Smoke & Mirrors, a wonderful, heart-full book that will bring a touch of magic into your world.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Grace McKellon isn’t a ‘people person’. All she needs is her magic tricks and her wise-cracking grandmother – until a new friend comes along and promises to make her a social media star. A wonderful and intriguing middle fiction novel from an internationally acclaimed, bestselling Australian author.

I don’t know about love. I suspect the emotion that others apparently feel all the time is just . . . absent from me. Like there’s an ingredient missing from the recipe. The possible exception is Gran.

MEET THE AUTHOR

What sparked the idea for Smoke & Mirrors?

I’d just finished a book and was taking a small break from writing [it HAS to be a small break], so was scrolling through YouTube and came across a video from the TV show Fool Us with Penn and Teller – world renowned magicians. The idea of the show is that a magician puts on an act and Penn and Teller try to work out how it was done. If they can’t, the magician gets a Fooled Us trophy and the joy of knowing that they have tricked the best tricksters in the business. The most famous act [in terms of YouTube views] was for a magician called Shin Lim. It’s quite amazing. Watch it here:

I was blown away by what Shin Lim did and thought it might be fun to write a book about a girl who is similarly talented and determined to perfect her routines. It also occurred to me that what these types of magicians do is not a million miles away from what writers do. We use words to trick people into believing something that isn’t real. In a way, anyone who writes fiction is a kind of magician. So that was enough for me. It was just a matter of writing the thing…

Can you discuss the inspiration behind Grace’s character and the role that magic plays in her life?

I think that magicians, like writers, have to be more than a little obsessed. If you do a trick and mess it up, it’s embarrassing. But when it works, wow! Your audience is amazed. You appear to be special. So, in terms of Grace’s character, she had to be focused to the point, maybe beyond the point, of obsession. She is in pursuit of perfection. This means that she is driven, giving up all other interests in favour of practice, practice and more practice. I suppose that’s how many people think about the talents they’ve got – sportspeople, especially, may push themselves to the limits to become the best they can be. Musicians are probably the same. But this type of passion has its negative side. If magic becomes all important, then other things suffer. Personal relationships, in particular. And, for Grace, at least, who knows so much about fooling people there is also the idea that everyone is trying to trick everyone else. No one can be trusted because everything is an illusion. So, in the process of writing the book, Grace became very much an outsider, treating everyone else with suspicion. She doesn’t allow anyone to get close. Except Gran, of course. But Gran is a bit like Grace. She weaves stories that aren’t true, but her brand of magic is so fun. And Gran perhaps teaches Grace that sometimes it’s okay to trust others.

Tell us a bit about your writing process.

I try to get the story down as quickly as possible while it is still ‘hot’ in my head. During this stage I don’t worry too much about what I may be doing wrong; I follow the story in my head and worry about problems later. That’s what re-writes and editing are all about. So I set myself targets, hopefully two thousand words a day. If I don’t get there, I feel guilty and try to catch up the following day. I write in my study – in fact, I can’t write anywhere else – and when I sit down in front of my steam-driven computer [definitely no internet access] I know that this is work. When the book is done, I put it aside for a while and then go over it, fixing up those problems with characters or story. When I’m happy that it’s the best I can do, I ask my wife to read it. She is a fan of my writing but she also isn’t afraid to tell me when I get stuff wrong. She did that with Smoke & Mirrors, telling me quite bluntly [and correctly] that I’d made a complete mess of the ending. So I went back and fixed that. Except I didn’t. My editor got me to do it again. And again. And again. I’m grateful, because I think the book is so much better for all those changes.

Simon promises to help Grace turn her magic tricks into a small business and get social media stardom. What messages do you hope to convey about the impacts of the digital age?

I’m not sure I was trying to give any messages about the digital age. It is what it is. But I suppose that for Grace, who has so many problems with personal relationships, TikTok would be the perfect platform to get her talents recognised. And she doesn’t have to actually talk to anyone! Bonus. But it’s an interesting question. Grace doesn’t really have much interest in social media – for her it’s a means to an end. It is, after all, Simon, who does all the work in the digital space. She is actually focused on the ‘real’ world, if magic can be considered to be real, and anything is else is irrelevant. Social media, almost by definition, is a strange and distant way of making contacts with others. It can be strangely impersonal, which suits Grace down to the ground. She is a lonely cuss. Maybe social media gives her the illusion of real contact. I think that idea would appeal to her.

Grace seems to be pretty closed off for the world. How does fear influence Grace’s decision making?

Another great question. Grace is terrified about all sorts of things – getting close to people, being irrelevant, being fooled into thinking that others might be good and generous and kind. She is scared about facing her own past and the role she may or may not have played in the destruction of her family. That fear shows itself in being closed off from everyone except Gran. I would like to think that the ending shows Grace is opening herself up to possibilities, that her loneliness isn’t something that is fixed, but can change as time goes on. One of the reasons why I like Grace so much is that she comes over as confident, brash, a smart-arse, armour-plated if you like, but underneath all that she is just a lonely kid in desperate need of love. And maybe she can find it if she learns to trust herself and others.

What was your favourite part of writing this novel?

It’s all fun. Every part of it. The blank page at the beginning, full of possibilities. The re-writes, the editing, seeing the cover designs. It’s all magic!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

For 21 years I was a lecturer in the UK, the head of English, at a very large college in Crewe in Cheshire. It was there I met my lovely wife, Nita.

In 1999 we emigrated to Australia, firstly staying with my brother in Brisbane but quickly moving to Darwin in the Top End for teaching work. Nita and I had adjoining desks. Our children, Lauren and Brendan, enrolled at Darwin High School and we bought a house – one we still live in today [though the kids have moved out].

It was while I was teaching at High School that I fell in love with Australian Young Adult fiction – in particular the writings of Scot Gardner, Phillip Gwynne and John Marsden. One day my school had a visiting author, Markus Zusac [before he became VERY famous] and I asked him about writing for young people. You see, I had a hankering to write my own book. He was very encouraging, though he must have been asked for advice from English teachers hundreds of times.

So I sat down and wrote my first book, in between marking, preparing and teaching. It was a rambling fantasy novel and I sent it off to three publishers. One rejected it, another never even bothered to reply. The third publisher, Allen & Unwin, rejected it but asked to see anything else I might have written. As it turned out, I was writing another novel based on a minor character in my first book. I called it Kiffo and the Pitbull.

It was published in 2004 under the title The Whole Business With Kiffo And The Pitbull. To my surprise [and delight] it met with great critical acclaim, encouragement enough to write another. And another.

So far, I have written over 23 novels, I have won many awards and been published in 18 countries and translated into 12 languages.

Visit Barry Jonsberg’s website