Dirt by Sea by Michael Wagner, illustrated by Tom Jellett (published by Penguin Random House Australia)
Inside the CBCA Shortlist
Inside the 2023 CBCA Shortlist
Dirt by Sea by Michael Wagner, illustrated by Tom Jellett
(Puffin Books, Penguin Random House)
Author Interview with Michael Wagner
Dirt by Sea by Michael Wagner, illustrated by Tom Jellett (Penguin Random House) is a most appealing graphic novel in picture book form for children. It is about a father and daughter’s trip around Australia’s coastline. As well as highlighting their love for each other, the vast and diverse beauty of Australia is showcased.
Congratulations on your 2023 CBCA shortlisting in Picture Book of the Year, Michael (and also to Tom), and thank you for speaking to Joy in Books at PaperbarkWords.
How did you get from ‘girt by sea’ to ‘Dirt by Sea’?
When my daughter, Lizzie, started school she’d happily sing the national anthem at assembly thinking it described Australia as ‘dirt by sea’ – a pretty reasonable mistake for a five-year-old to make if you ask me. She got a very big surprise when she realised she’d been getting it wrong for ages. As someone who sings the wrong lyrics ALL THE TIME I could relate. For some reason that little anecdote had stuck in my mind and twenty years later it helped me to get this whole story started.
How did you choose which places Daisy and her father visited?
Initially I wanted them to only visit places I’d personally been to, but that would have left out too much of the Western Australian coastline. So we ended up taking them to places I’d been to or Tom Jellett (the illustrator) had been too, and a couple of extra places we’d only ever visited via the internet. That way we were able to get a really nice balance of beaches around the whole Australian coastline. And I’m secretly still planning to visit every place they go to one day. That’s become a bucket list item for me.
Please tell us briefly about one of the highlights of their trip.
For me, one of the highlights of their trip is their stop in Wonboyn, a tiny town on the NSW coast, near the Victorian border. I visited Wonboyn with my partner, Jane, and at the invitation of some friends, one New Year’s Eve about ten years ago.
I had never heard of Wonboyn and had no expectations, but it turned out to be a magical weekend. We ate oysters that had been picked straight out of the local water and were about the tastiest thing I’ve eaten in my life. And at midnight on New Year’s Eve we went down to these old jetties and splashed in the water below, only to discover that it had naturally occurring bioluminescence. That meant wherever we splashed, sparkles of light would erupt on the surface of the water like fireworks. Instead of watching the usual fireworks on New Year’s Eve, we watched what looked like mini fireworks in the water. It was a very special New Year’s Eve in a place I’d never heard of.
What is a place you really wanted to include but had to leave out? Why did you want to include it?
I wrote a whole scene that I really liked set at Brighton Beach in Melbourne, where Dad and Daisy met a very wealthy woman who has her own bathing box. At first she’s a little dismissive of Dad, but after getting to know the two of them she takes them out for a special day on her yacht – a day Daisy says she’ll never forget.
I still feel quite moved when I think about that scene. The woman at the beach was a lovely character. She had a brusque exterior but a very kind and generous heart. We ended up having to cut it in order to reduce the amount of time spent in my home state of Victoria – I’d been a biased in that regard, wanting to put all my favourite places in the book, and we really needed to get the balance right and spend more time in all the other equally beautiful parts of Australia.
The timeline of Daisy and her father’s travels around Australia must have caused a few headaches for you. Could you please give an example of how you adapted one of their activities according to season or time of year?
It was quite a logistical challenge to keep the journey possible. I actually created a whole itinerary for the trip: roads they took, caravan parks they stayed in, how long it would take to drive from location to location in an old Kombi. While doing all of that, I discovered they’d visit Ningaloo Reef in WA at a time when the whale sharks wouldn’t actually be there. So I had them discover that upon arrival and have to do something unexpected – which turned out to be swimming with manta rays. I think making the most of any situation, even when you’re feeling a little disappointed, is a really important part of travelling. And it turns out, Dad’s disappointment about the whale sharks leads to Daisy’s favourite experience of the whole trip.
Your characterisation of Daisy and her father are a highlight of the book. You show a real affection between them both. What do you see as the essence of each? How would you describe their relationship? How do they change during the course of their trip?
Daisy and Dad are very much based on myself and my daughter, Lizzie, when she was seven or eight – she’s in her thirties now. She was a delightful little human being with a hilariously sassy (but never nasty) sense of humour and an excellent ability to assert herself in ways that you just couldn’t argue with. All I did really was try to capture the way she and I would talk to each other back then.
I would describe their relationship as loving, respectful and equal. No one’s trying to control anyone else. Dad takes responsibility where he needs to, but Daisy’s pretty sensible, so he’s able trust her to do the right thing almost all the time.
As for their internal journeys, both complete a ‘character arc’ that’s very clear to me (although probably quite subtle to the reader). Daisy grows from a happy but fairly sheltered country kid to a confident little adventurer who knows all about having fun and being safe at the beach, and can’t wait to discover what’s over the next horizon. She learns all of that from her dad.
As for Dad, he starts the book stuck in a bit of a funk – still grieving for the loss of his partner three years earlier. Gradually, he comes back to life and learns to treasure each moment again. He learns all of that from Daisy.
Your books are known for their humour – and humour tinged with poignancy and pathos. How have you created the humour in Dirt by Sea?
Firstly, thank you, that’s very lovely to hear. I guess the humour in my stories comes from a couple of places, like situations, plotting and touches of slapstick, but mainly it comes from the characters.
I guess I try to create characters who are both relatable and quirky so that, when they speak, you smile at the familiarity of what they’re saying, but also the freshness of their world view. And I try to achieve that by partially basing my characters, wherever possible, on real people – especially likeable, empathic, imperfect people.
Once I’ve got a character I feel strong empathy for, I put them in a challenging situation and see how they cope. And, being imperfect, they tend not to cope all that well at first. I think watching a decent, vulnerable person deal with a difficult situation produces a sense of pathos. And if you exaggerate things a little, it can also be funny.
That sounds more formulaic than it really is. I just create characters and put them into situations, then try to let them speak and act for themselves. I think if you do that, you end up with humour and pathos, intentionally or otherwise.
How did your collaboration with illustrator Tom Jellett work? Who decided on the graphic novel form?
Tom and I worked in separate cities, but kept in touch via email and phone. And also met up when we visited each other’s cities (I’m in Melbourne, he’s in Sydney). But it was a long-distance creative relationship, co-ordinated by our editor at Penguin Random House, Michelle Madden. So, really, it was a triangular kind of process.
I don’t remember how we decided on the graphic novel format, but we both loved comics as kids and wanted to produce one of our own. And I really don’t know how we would have told this story any other way. To us, it’s almost a film inside a book, which probably means it’s ideally suited to a graphic novel format.
We ended up working on the book for about three years. The three of us, including Michelle, agonised over every page, every panel, every word of dialogue and every design element. It was a tough project, with a few bumps and struggles along the way, but we all really believed in it, so were never going to just let it cruise along. And, in the end, we feel our efforts paid off.
Please choose a page featuring one of Tom’s most clever use of panels Why does this work so well?
I love the Nullabor Plain spread where Dad and Daisy are playing I Spy.
The first thing I like about it is that it’s just peaceful on the eye – a nice little break from the denser pages preceding it. But it’s also beautifully designed, and the colours are vibrant but not garish, there’s not an element that isn’t needed, it captures the feel of location perfectly, there a story being told by the dialogue but another one being told by the images (i.e. the emus), and it’s smooth and easy to read. I also like that there’s a nice little payoff just where you want it, at the very end of the whole page.
Who designed the endpapers?
I’m not actually sure who got the first spark of the idea but Tom and Michelle devised the endpapers together. And they did it brilliantly.
How do you present this book to children? Do you read the whole book straight through? Or use other visual aids or techniques?
I actually find this book quite challenging to present to an audience of children. What I generally do is show the cover and a couple of the spreads, usually on a screen, while talking about the initial ideas I got for the story and how the characters are based on me and my daughter. I then relate a story or two about my daughter’s very amusing cheekiness when she was little.
Because of the graphic novel format, it’s a bit hard to read through the whole story to an audience, but there’s so much in it the kids like to talk about. We end up sharing anecdotes about family trips together, camping, how to have a fun and safe time at the beach, what are the most fun places they’ve visited in Australia and the most amazing places thev have visited.
What impact has being shortlisted for the CBCA Picture Book of the Year award this year had on you or this book?
Well, the most obvious impacts have been to sales and exposure. I’m told it’s selling well, which is fantastic, and there’s certainly been a lot of interest in both the book and its two creators, which is lovely. But the other less obvious impact is the warm feeling of acceptance and validation I get inside every time I remember it’s been shortlisted. As an author it’s lovely to be recognised in such a special way.
Could you tell us about some of your other books (including those with Tom Jellett)?
Tom and I have developed a bit of a picture book partnership over the past few years, producing Why I Love Footy, Why I Love Summer, Goodnight Little Tough Guy and Dirt By Sea and I’m thrilled to say we’re working on at least one new book together at the moment. It (or they) should come out in late 2024.
The other books I’m very proud of, which like Dirt by Sea came out in 2022, I co-wrote with Australian Test cricketer Nathan Lyon. They’re two middle reader novels about a ten-year-old boy who discovers he’s an excellent spin bowler – a discovery that leads to many great things as well as some really difficult things. The series is called Nice Garry.
What are you writing or working on now?
Right now I’m working on two picture books and a YA novel, but only one of the picture books is certain to happen. The other picture book is something I dearly hope will happen, and the YA novel is so strange and dark there’s every chance it will never get published! But I’ve been working on it for 28 years now, so I really hope it does.
What have you been reading that you would like to recommend?
I’ve been reading some US and Russian classics lately.
I read several Ernest Hemingway books in a row, and for the most part, loved them. After that I read Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, which was hard work from start to finish, and now I’m reading The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, another Russian classic, which I’m enjoying, but finding tough to get through. Russian characters have so many names I struggle to know who’s actually in each scene. But the ideas behind each story are fascinating.
How can your readers contact you?
Via my website’s contact page works. Michael Wagner’s website
Thanks for all of your wonderful generous and funny responses, Michael. I’d love to visit many of the place you and Tom Jellett describe and look forward to your upcoming books, including that ‘strange and dark’ YA novel.
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