For author and musician Holly Throsby, a sea change to the south coast has sparked creativity and community, including her latest novel Clarke.

Words Penny Keogh @oursliceofpie Image Yanni Kronenberg

On welcoming her first child, author and five-time ARIA award nominated musician Holly Throsby, realised that city life held less of the pull it once did. The inner-city Marrickville bustle was replaced with days seeking out bushwalks, beaches and playgrounds. A change was needed, but where to go?

Holly and her partner Zoe chose the Illawarra for their young family in 2019. It was a natural next step that rekindled an earlier affair with the region which inspired Holly’s first two albums recorded at Kiama’s Saddleback Mountain.

On the release of her third crime novel, Clarke, Holly attributes its interweaving of themes of community, family, identity, and longing, to a new-found sense of home and place.

“I was a city kid and never expected I’d move,” Holly said. “I had located a lot of my creative energies in the south coast and have enjoyed falling in love with the area again.

“City life is different,” continued Holly. “You’re always looking to see someone three weeks in advance. Now we just run into people up at the shops or on the beach. We’re connected to people and place down here.

“It’s the best thing we’ve ever done as a family. Our daughter, June, was born down here. Our other daughter Alvy started kindy here and has made great friends,” Holly said.

Others among Holly’s creative community have also been drawn here, which Holly reveals was an added motivation for the move.

“Aaron Curnow, owner of Spunk Records, has released all my albums and he lives in Stanwell Park,” she said. “Our good friend and painter Mignon Steele lives in the Illawarra too.” Mignon exhibits a lot of her work at Wollongong’s Egg & Dart gallery.

Holly’s creative life has continued to thrive with this kind of inspiration around her. Holly says Clarke, set in a fictional regional town of the same name, derives much from her interests and the people she knows.

“You create characters from anyone you’ve met or stories you’ve heard,” said Holly. “Characters might be a blend of three or four people and then they become themselves. 

“One of the characters, Deb, is a really passionate gardener,” Holly said. “Gardening is my hobby and my partner Zoe’s work.

“We love the escarpment and the bush around here and that feeds into the rural setting of Clarke.

“Writing a novel is a bit like having a dream, where there’s a little bit of this thing that you saw, or this thing that happened,” continued Holly. “It all blends together.” 

This blending of inspiration is not constrained by format. On the eve of releasing Clarke, Holly’s collaboration with fellow musicians Sarah Blasko and Sally Seltman, with their band Seeker Lover Keeper, is revived with three new concerts booked in November.

“It’s good to get on stage again,” said Holly.

The latest sold-out Seeker Lover Keeper gigs reflect how desperately Australian fans have been hanging out to hear the trio’s melodic, folk-pop music again.

With a pandemic, other projects, and growing families in the mix, it’s been two years between gigs which have seen Seeker Lover Keeper perform their two critically and commercially acclaimed albums.

As for those other projects, Holly says that despite her natural creative bent, writing her three novels hasn’t necessarily been easy, but well worth it.

“It was a huge challenge and not a natural progression, but one I was ready for,” said Holly. “The idea of writing fiction was confronting and exciting.

“I like the process of getting completely lost for long stretches of time. Revolving around my brain. It really suits my sensibilities.

“I have small children and a busy home life, so it’s quite a nice contrast.

“I hope I am discovering my own style. I think of the books less as crime novels and more as books about people and relationships. And they are kind of low-key comedies too. Their tone is never too heavy or serious. I like to use humour as a counterpoint to the subject matter, which, in Clarke, is a lot of grief and sadness.  

“The plot is like a puzzle I work out as I go,” continued Holly. “The first draft is satisfying but hard. Some days I might work just three hours and be completely exhausted and I have nothing left in me.  

“The second and third draft is about making things better and adding colour and that is genuinely a pleasure. 

In that process Holly’s appreciation for neighbourhood and friends, which is mirrored in Clarke, seems to be just the right fit for the community Holly’s now found around her. As they say, like attracts like. 

“We’ve landed next to fantastic neighbours here and that is certainly reflected in Clarke. There is a great affection in the book for great neighbours. If you’re lucky, there can be a lovely ease with which neighbours relate to each other.”  

To purchase Clarke, visit www.hollythrosby.com or head to Collins Booksellers Thirroul.