By Beattie Tow
A week out from the release of his third Family Disaster’s trilogy and in the thick of the Sydney Writers’ Festival, Nathan Luff found a spare moment to have a chat with TAFE Media about the pros and cons of the creative industry and the Young Adult (YA) and Children’s genres.
If you were to walk through most school libraries these days, Nathan Luff would be a staple with successful children’s books including the Nerd Herd series, Family Disasters trilogy and Chicken Stu, among more.
Memory and writing
His creative writing and ideas come from a mish-mash of childhood memories, anecdotes, and his time as a teacher and now as a father.
“I certainly have a very strong recollection of being young,” said Luff. “There are lots of things in the world that have changed, including technology and how we raise kids. It’s different but there’s a universal thing about what it feels to be young.”
The Family Disasters books each focus on a family holiday where something inadvertently goes wrong. When asked whether the ideas for his books came from his own childhood, Luff said his childhood growing up on a farm meant it was difficult to get away as a family, instead his “holidays were through books”.
The first two Family Disasters books were released in 2023, the short turnaround the product of having a young audience.
“I used to be a really slow writer. I’ve been forced, basically, to get fast,” Luff said of having a book trilogy published within about a year and a half. “Publishers want to get these books out because kids grow up so fast. If you leave it too long they’ve moved on.”
Turning these books around within months of one another is no small feat.
“Often the actual first [draft] is hard, I’ve kinda got a routine now. Once I’ve done that hard thing of getting the first draft ready, I’ll spend every morning rewriting a bit.
“Rewriting is one of my greatest joys.”
Challenges in the writing industry
Australian news was recently dominated by the struggling music and festival industry, challenged by digitalisation of art and an underfunding of creative fields. Luff feels that “writing and [the] music industry are the two that have been hit really hard”.
For children’s books the market is still predominately printed books. However, the YA genre is one of the most impacted by digital readers, particularly in the face of a strong American-led market.
Although there is a convenience to e-readers, Luff said “one of the biggest concerns is the discoverability of yourself in an e-space. In a bookshop your cover can do a whole bunch of work there on the shelf, the book seller [and] the selling that they can for you … all that sort of stuff is so important to our industry.”
“There’s pressure on authors to be out there selling stuff at festivals and schools … and a lot of authors don’t enjoy being in front of people,” he said. “It’s like the music industry where so many musicians are forced to tour for so long, because the industries are not like they used to be.”
The influence of Australian writers
On the importance of having a rich Australian writing industry, and opportunities for our authors to have space in a competitive global industry, Luff reflected on the impact of having access to Australian books on the direction of his life.
“When I was a kid, while I lived in a country town and we never had authors visit us, all of my favourite authors were Australian. Victor Kelleher, Robin Klein, Gillian Reubinstein, these were all amazing authors.
“I never saw them in person, but I knew that they were Australian, they existed in this country and maybe that would be something that I could then do.
“I think that affects everything that I do these days.”
Promoting and seeing the continuation of Australian writing is part of Nathan’s mission in his work as Children’s and YA Manager with the Sydney Writers’ Festival.
“When it comes to programming, you don’t actually have to look internationally all the time because we’ve got all these great people here that make for fascinating conversation.
“I want to be able to give them a platform.”
Release of Road Rage
With the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival wrapped for another year, Nathan will turn his attention to the launch of Family Disasters: Road Rage.
“One of the joys of doing what I do is you get to hang out with other authors … some of those conversations you have like ‘what does your publicist do, do you get any marketing support?’”
Nathan said they did the classic book launch in a local bookstore for Family Disasters: Crash Landing. However, “the release of a first book is different to the third book in a series”.
“Generally in publishing there isn’t much money for marketing, it’s down to the author to see what they can do.”
Social media can play a big role, and Luff said he’s made a few amateur socials videos in his time.
Despite having a solid resume of successful children’s and YA books, he admits “It’s a scary time, like ‘what’s happening, are people buying it?’”
“When a book comes out you want to make a fuss of it, you want to acknowledge it’s coming out in the world. Sometimes it’s also for yourself.”
In between the business and hustle of being an author and a manager for Sydney Writers’ Festival, Nathan finds an outlet at home.
“My first Father’s Day, my wife via my son gave me a ukulele and so I learned to play that, and I play that every night and sing along. It’s not for anyone else but for me.”
Featured image: The Nerd Herd is one of Nathan Luff’s babies. Photo: nathanluff.com.au/SWF