Just So Stories

Welcome to Just So Stories Idan, and thank you for your time – you are the first Q&A for 2024 and I am so glad I get to kick off the year’s interviews with someone who is both interesting AND quirky!

Yaay! Thanks for having me!

First of all, I think many of us would like to know more about the journey from microbiology through detours to published author, specifically the non-fiction for children. Could you tell us about that?

I had very little to do with it actually. I arrived in Australia as a microbiology PhD student, not a very good one really, and certainly with no inkling that I might be any sort of writer (let alone in my second language). One day an ‘all staff’ email showed up for a uni writing workshop. I signed up on a whim and found myself a bewilderingly short time later with a contract for a pop science book about microbiology.

 I wrote that book in 2008 and another ‘grown-up’ book, this one about immune system, in 2014. A little while later Allen & Unwin contacted me to ask whether I might have an idea for a microbiology book for children. Thus was conceived ‘Do Not Lick This Book’, which I made in 2017 with my absurdly talented friend Julian Frost. It was lots of fun, and I carried on from there.

What about young Idan: your childhood, family, what you enjoyed/disliked. Were you annoying or sweet? Naughty or nerdy? You get the idea I’m sure…

Following that train of thought, were you a reader as a child? Favourites – authors, genres, series? What other hobbies or interests did you have? Have you kept any of these or diversified into new ones?

I was your standard-issue, head-always-in-a-book nerdy short kid with glasses. I liked school well enough and my parents and siblings liked me well enough (still do) so that was fine. We did move around a lot – I was the ‘new kid’ for 7 of my 12 school years, which probably had some effect on my personality.

I started playing basketball at 6 and the guitar at 12, and am still doing both at a level that has not noticeably improved in the intervening decades.

 I read everything, with an early inclination towards “boys’ own”-type adventure books, Wild West comics and Tarzan books later evolving to science fiction and fantasy (at age 11 I was essentially a resident of Middle Earth), and (as you’d expect) non-fiction.

I also read a surprising amount of grown-up poetry and plays. But the most consistent thread of my literary and cultural input, then as now, is a ravenous appetite for the funny. 

What prompts you to write each book i.e. how/why do you decide which aspect of science or anatomy to tackle next? What does the process look like? How long does your part of each book take – that is the text rather than the complete project (which as we know can be lengthy).

Ah, the question of questions. I have a whole pile of things I want to say about the world that I think are interesting. The bottleneck is getting a ‘yes’ from a publisher – not all my concepts are commercially viable. And so my prompt for tackling a topic is when “I want to tell people this” is joined by “…and I’ve thought of an angle that people might appreciate”. 

The process involves me thinking very hard indeed about what it is exactly that a person (of any age) absolutely must know about that particular aspect of the world, and what’s the simplest and most entertaining path to telling that story. That bit can take any length of time from one minute to many months. Once I’ve cracked that, and if a publisher accepts the project, I go deep into the relevant scientific research to find what’s new, what’s amazing, and most importantly what’s correct (the amount of widely accepted nonsense about any given topic is just astounding; I try not to add to it) and write a first draft, which involves about a week of furious, intense whimsy. 

On occasion it’s the publisher who asks whether I would like to tackle a certain topic. I invariably agree; I enjoy the challenge. Case in point: for “Lump of Goo” my publisher Anna at Allen & Unwin asked if I could write a book on how the brain works. I replied that it would be a very concise text: “No-one knows” nicely covers it. She asked whether I could elaborate just a little further, and I was happy to oblige.

A question I always ask visiting creators is: what does your working day look like? And what does your working space look like? (we love photos if you are willing to share any)

My working day involves sitting in an office and sending emails to people (see below). Once a fortnight I take a ‘writing day’ to do writerly stuff. I don’t have my own writing space at home (there’s four of us in a 2br apartment; very little wriggle room) so I take my laptop and sit in libraries and cafes all over Melbourne. 

To be honest, though, the real act of writing usually looks a lot like a guy lying in his bed at midnight, staring vacuously at the ceiling for entire minutes while the words dance around inside his skull. This elusive scene has never been captured on film. 

Although you are qualified in several disciplines, you say your day job is very different. You also don’t actually say what that is so I’m assuming that it’s either deeply embarrassing or you’re an undercover agent. You don’t have to elaborate on that but it would be good to know one way or the other 😊.

I’m a deeply embarrassing undercover agent. No, wait, I shouldn’t say that. What a deeply embarrassing giveaway. My cover story real job is as a research administrator at the Baker Heart & diabetes Institute and the University of Melbourne.

If you were not a scientist, library person, author, spy or pole dancer, what other occupation appeals to you?

Luthier.*Unfortunately, my fine motor skills are nowhere near good enough for such work.

*[note for those not familiar – think Antonio Stradivari 🎻]

What would you like your epitaph to read?

Personally, I couldn’t care less. I’ll be gone and it’s up to the rest of you to decide how to make the best use of my earthly remains. That said, my wife said she will be considering “Do Not Lick This Grave” as a fitting tribute to my literary output.

Idan, thank you so much for sharing those deeply profound thoughts and reflections with us all! I know that the new book will be as wildly popular as your other titles, and, I’m sure I speak for many (kiddos and adults alike) we look forward to many more.