We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Bronwyn Hall. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Bronwyn below.

Alright, Bronwyn thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you take vacations? Why or why not?

Absolutely. Vacations are vital opportunities to let some air back into my brain, and create space for new thoughts and ideas. They’re also opportunities for new experiences, new scenery, new people – everything I could use for story inspiration.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hi, my name is Bronwyn Hall and one of the things I am is a writer of thriller novels. Other things I am is a mother, wife, daughter, sister, pet owner, reader and consumer of potato chips. I also have a day job which is accompanied by qualifications in psychology and management, and involves working in the community health sector where I come into contact with people who experience real hardships. It means I get to witness first hand the resilience and fortitude that humans innately possess when faced with adversity, and I’m humbled by that every day.

Although I’m a lifelong reader, actually being a writer wasn’t something I aspired to until quite late in my thirties, when a story got stuck in my head and I began writing it to get it out, and give myself some peace. That didn’t work. When it was finally on the page, the story wasn’t very good, and I didn’t get any peace because other stories moved in to take its place. However, I did fall in love with the process, so that’s when I enrolled in some writing courses to get myself educated.

After that, came a book that was a lot better and won Romance Writers’ Australia best unpublished manuscript award in 2019, but I still hadn’t found my genre. It was the third book, my first thriller, that was picked up by Harper Collins Australia and New Zealand in a two book deal. GONE TO GROUND was the first published in 2022, and THE CHASM was the second, published in 2023. Both were moderately successful, and THE CHASM has recently been shortlised for a Davitt Award.

Self pride is a slippery friend, so the things I let myself be proud of are about achieving the basics – the time was carved out; the books were written all the way to the end; the bad bits were re-written as many times as it took (a lot in some instances). The basics are hard but without them, nothing else happens. Reader choice is as it always should be – subjective – and to expect, or wait for, or depend on approval, is futile and a sure way to undermine mental health and wellbeing. When or if it happens, is always a bonus. The same goes for awards. They’re nice but it’s a given that you’ll miss out more than you win and they’re not a healthy focus.

What I strive for, and hope I offer with my stories, are characters who are everyday people, inadvertently caught up in criminal situations where they need to dig for courage and smart solutions to keep themselves alive. More than anything, I want my characters to be multi-layered, emotionally intelligent, and people that readers want to identify with and root for.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

The thing I’ve struggled with most is the yearning to be at the keyboard writing but when I indulge it and spend too much time there, I have an opposing yearning to be back in a normal job role, with people around and my workday somewhat more regulated.

The creativity of writing (and perhaps other arts) is addictive. Literally. To not have opportunity or space to do it, leads to emotional distress and poorer mental wellbeing, and agitation that resembles withdrawal. But it’s also exhausting and to replenish myself, I also have a need to feel worthwhile and regulated in a different space, which is where my other work is so important.

It’s a pendulum swing that’s very hard to balance but each pursuit is benefited by the other, and to have only one or the other hasn’t worked for me, which means I need to keep striving to have them both.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The freedom. To make up people, places, plots and pace – it’s wonderful. And to have it all come together in a final product, is an amazing feeling. Not because it’s out there, but simply because it’s done and it’s a story that’s unique in its own right. The feeling of bringing something to life.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bronwynhall.com.au

Image Credits

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