KNITTING is your first novel. While you were raising your children, did you think about becoming professional writer? Where did you find the inspiration to move your life in this direction?

While I was an undergraduate it never occurred to me that I might be ‘a writer’, though I did write a short children’s novel that I hoped to get published. When the children were small life was demanding on several fronts and as far as writing went I had a strong sense that ‘now is not the time’ but that I would come back to it later. My first child was born when I was 22 and I didn’t really feel old enough or experienced enough to tackle anything too serious. When our last child went to school I started to make deliberate writing choices. Meanwhile I puddled about with a variety of freelance work.

You are a knitter and originally from South Australia, where KNITTING takes place. How much of the story reflects your own life?

I never know how to answer this. Nothing and everything. It’s not autobiographical, but at the same time I have drawn on the whole of my life experience. I do knit and I have worked as a boutique knitter, I’m part of a church community, and the story is set in Adelaide, in a suburb where I used to live. The places are real places, though I’ve moved Muggs Hill Road a couple of miles to a more convenient location. (My apologies to the locals, but I’ve always liked the name of that road and the story needed it closer to the city!) While the novel is not autobiographical, at the same time I think the different characters probably do represent different parts of myself which I was trying to get to co-operate rather than be in conflict.

What does “women’s work” mean to you? How did your interpretation of this term determine the occupations of Sandra and Martha and their roles in the story?

The novel was partly a subterranean attempt to define women’s work and to explore the tension I’ve always felt between different kinds of work. There’s the Sandra type work, that you get paid for and that you may or may not love, and there’s the Martha work, that you do mainly for love and that rarely earns money. And either or both can be very demanding. And then there’s ‘life work’, which is another whole ball game. Sometimes the paid work is a haven from the other kinds of work. A lot of work often done by women – care of family members, and many kinds of volunteer work – has little status because it doesn’t earn a bank balance. What’s more, many of the workers are highly skilled, and work extremely hard, but the skills are to do with relationships, rather than something that can be defined by a diploma. It’s very important work and it’s grossly undervalued. It’s a kind of social cement.

You’ve said that you never intended to write about knitting. What did you intend to write about?

The first piece I attempted to write was simply an experiment, and never meant to begin a novel - the scene where Martha throws the roses in the church. The scene was clear in my mind, but when I began what came out was all this mad knitting talk – a two page lump of monologue, which I’ve since broken up for the hospital scene. I tucked it away for a few years because I didn’t know what to do with it. Then I read it at a workshop and people liked it and encouraged me to expand on it. But Martha couldn’t carry the action alone, and I began to realize there was a back story, which in the end became the main story. I also had about a page of the glass woman, also written as an early experimental piece, so I introduced the glass woman to the knitter, so to speak.

In KNITTING, Martha acknowledges that knitting is revived by cycles of popularity, though it never fades away completely. Knitting is certainly at the peak of one of those cycles today. Why do we always return to this craft?

It’s such a simple craft – sticks and string – but it has endless possibilities, from very simple to very complex. It’s not exclusive – unless you’re attempting something very difficult you can do it while talking with other people. It’s practical – you get something useful in the end. (Though I’ve got my doubts about knitted mobile phone covers!) But I think it’s mainly in the joy of creating, the choosing of patterns and colours, the anticipation of the new item – it’s often a gift, an expression of love. We all want to express creativity and knitting offers guidelines without being too rigid. And it slows us down. Some people find it quite meditative.

You’ve previously written about Aboriginal history for children and recorded the life stories of three Aboriginal elders on commission from the South Australian government. Do you find yourself more drawn to fiction or non-fiction?

I probably get the biggest immediate buzz from fiction, but both kinds of writing are important and satisfying. It depends on the story that needs to be told: some stories are better told through nonfiction. Skills learned in fiction are useful in nonfiction and vice versa. I often write both simultaneously – it’s useful to change genre/project when something needs to brew for a while.

Sandra Fildes says that the knitting exhibition and the study of textile history and women’s work is her “making.” Is KNITTING your “making”?

Oh yes, that’s very true. Writing KNITTING was such a joyous experience – the best writing fun of my life, and the best thing I’ve made to date. I’ve never worked so hard on anything or enjoyed it so much. As for the word ‘making’ – I first heard it used in this context by Kay Lawrence, a South Australian tapestry weaver. ‘Making’ is well understood by textile artists. But ‘making’ is also much broader than that. We ‘make’ dinner, ‘make’ family time, ‘make’ things better. Making is part of being human.