Sofia Laguna : 'There is no reader in the room'

Sofie Laguna is the author of over twenty books for children and young adults" and two acclaimed novels for adult readers. She won the 2015 Miles Franklin Award for her novel The Eye of the Sheep (2014). We meet the narrator of this book, Jimmy Flick, when he is a young child and stay with him as he grows up in an unstable and violent family environment. Her first novel, One Foot Wrong (2008), was longlisted for the Miles Franklin and shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards. It is a disturbing narrative of abuse and adolescence at the centre of which sits a traumatised girl named Hester. In Laguna's words, these books 'express very primal emotions and they explore primal urges'. This is the first in what will be a regular series on the Sydney Review of Books of interviews with Australian writers. I spoke to Laguna about how the characters in her novels emerge and about her formation as a writer. Our conversation started in the theatre" and ended on the practicalities of the writer's life.