Author shines light on intriguing people

Author John Kinsella

Local author John Kinsella is back writing full-time after years spent in Perth and overseas academia. His latest book of short stories, Beam of Light, has been well received and reflects his depth of characterisation, most commonly found in a full-length novel.

“It’s an interesting observation, isn’t it?” John says in an interview with Have a Go News. “I write relatively short stories, usually about 3-5,000 words, so they’re not super long stories but that’s what I like doing.

“As a story writer my aim is to try and capture a glimpse or insight into someone’s life, taking one incident or detail and looking at it closely. I think that way you can get a really intense understanding of an aspect of a person.

“Obviously, you can’t paint all the things that happened in their lives and you can’t describe everything. But what you can do is show them as they behave in the world in one incident or scenario. That way, I reckon, you can gain a deep insight into what makes people.”

John Kinsella lives on Ballardong Noongar land at Jam Tree Gully in the Wheatbelt. He has also lived in Germany, the United States, Britain and Ireland. He returned home last March after a stint as visiting professor of English at Tübingen University in southern Germany.

“It was a fantastic experience being there, Tübingen has lots of forest trails so I spent a lot of time walking through magnificent forests and stuff.”

John is also an emeritus professor at Curtin University and a fellow at Churchill College in Cambridge, still retaining his university connections.

But, he says, he’s now back in the Wheatbelt and working away at stories. 

“I’ve been writing for 40–45 years so now it’s a full-time occupation.”

Beam of Light’s collection of stories shifts in tone, setting and narration, creating a sense of the uncanny.

A man is disturbed by the sight of a familiar dining table and chairs atop an impending bonfire of bulldozed trees; a girl finds a fox skeleton and feels compelled to protect its spirit; a couple are invited to dinner by Christians in a new town; two men awkwardly meet again when their daughters attend the same ballet class and a man and woman struggle to balance addiction and poverty with the joys and hopes of a new baby.

John says he has been around a lot of people throughout his life.

“You come into contact with many different kinds of people and I’ve always taken an interest.

“Whether I agree or disagree with them is irrelevant, I find all people interesting. They can be brief or long-term contacts but they never fail to fascinate.”

Beam of Light did not have an official launch in September because, John says, he was involved with other things.

“But it’s had a really fantastic reception and some wonderful reviews.”

The book also had an airing at the Short Story Festival in Fremantle last month.

A lifelong award-winning published poet of more than 20 books, John says he is currently working on more works and a new book of a different genre, science fiction, which he has enjoyed reading since he was a child. 

“I like to push my range and do different things; I don’t ever want to get stuck in one spot.”

John believes that whether people are writers or not they should not only try and understand other people but “we really do need to try and understand ourselves.”

Beam of Light by John Kinsella ($32.99, Transit Lounge Publishing), is available from all good bookstores.

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Josephine Allison
Josephine Allison started her career in journalism at 18 as a cadet on the Geraldton Guardian newspaper. She realised her ambition to work on a daily newspaper when she later joined The West Australian where she spent almost 34 years covering everything from police courts to parliament, general news, the arts and real estate. After moving on from The West, she worked on several government short-term media contracts and part-time at a newspaper in Midland before joining Have a Go News in 2012. These days she enjoys writing about interesting people from various fields, often unsung heroes who have helped make WA a better place.