Q&A with Jane Tara

 

Photo by Dominika Ferenz

 

 

Jane Tara is the author of the new novel Tilda Is Visible. Her other books include Fish Out of Water. She lives in Sydney, Australia.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Tilda Is Visible, and how did you create your character Tilda?

 

A: I wrote Tilda during a long, tough second Sydney lockdown during the pandemic. Tilda had been with me for years, when a decade earlier I’d been misdiagnosed with a degenerative eye condition and told I was going blind. It took three very long months of further tests through the University of NSW Centre for Eye Health to confirm a misdiagnosis.

 

During this time, something interesting happened to me. For the first time ever, I looked in the mirror and didn’t criticize myself. I liked what I saw.

 

The idea that I wouldn’t see myself age horrified me. And if that was so…then why would each new wrinkle be anything but a celebration. If I want to see myself age… then why erase that age? Why try to beat it, deny it or ignore it? Why not fully and utterly embrace it?

 

The character Tilda came to me during this time. I wrote a short story about her but always felt there was a novel there as well. Ten years later, when I sat down to write, I realised that somewhere along the way I’d merged with Tilda, and the only way I could do her story justice, was to be honest about my own. The process was hard but healing for me.

 

Q: The writer Eleanor Brown called the book a “warm, big-hearted story encompassing all the foolishness and wisdom, rage and humor, and most of all, the hope at the heart of midlife.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I think it’s incredibly generous of an author of Eleanor Brown’s calibre to read and endorse Tilda in this way. And I love that she has identified the extremes that Tilda experiences.

 

I always say that while an extraordinary thing happens to Tilda, with her invisibility, the reason the book is resonating with women is because of how ordinary her story is. Most of us can relate to her life in one way or another.

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: I always know how a novel will end by chapter two. As I start writing the beginning, the ending just “drops in” and I aim for that. I describe it like shooting an arrow at a bullseye. I don’t know how I’ll get there…I just know that’s where I need to get the characters to.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?

 

A: Mostly, I hope that Tilda is Visible reminds readers to be kind to themselves. Writing it reinforced my desire to inspire women to see themselves through kinder eyes as they age and show them how to remain visible.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on a family saga about the stories we tell ourselves. It’s set in LA in the late 1960s and in the current day just outside Sydney in a grand old country estate. I’m enjoying spending time with the women in this family, but they are feisty and keep taking me in unexpected directions.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb