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Alli Sinclair’s books are recommended for readers of Kate Quinn and Judy Nunn and that tells you a lot about the sort of stories they are – dual timeline family stories unravelling long buried secrets.
Her latest book, The Codebreakers, takes that scenario one step further. It deals with national as well as personal secrets and tells the story of the cypher-breaking Australian women who staffed Central Bureau Intelligence – the equivalent of Bletchley Park in London.
Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and in Binge Reading today Alli talks about her passion for stories about strong women defying society’s expectations, and her exciting new film projects with an LA based collaborator.
We’ve got three eBook copies of The Codebreakers to give away to three lucky readers in our Loving You romance promo. Enter the draw on our website www.thejoysofbingereading.com or on our Facebook Binge Reading page.
Don’t forget to check out Alli’s answers to the five quickfire questions in our Patreon exclusive content on the Binge Reading on Patreon page. As regular listeners will know, we very recently launched Binge Reading on Patreon for those of you who like to hear exclusive fun content about our authors and the show, for a small contribution to costs – as little as a cup of coffee a month.
Your contribution to Patreon helps defray my costs in hosting and producing the show, but the time I devote to researching and recording the podcasts is still all free. Check it out on www.patreon.com/thejoysofbingereading and join in the Behind-The-Scenes fun.
Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:
- The long road Alli had to her first publication
- Alli’s collaboration with a Los Angeles film maker
- How the pandemic spoiled a wonderful writer’s programme
- A Romeo and Juliet story in Queensland cane fields
- The book at the top of her list for years now
- What she’d do differently second time around
Where to find Alli Sinclair:
Website: https://allisinclairauthor.wordpress.com/
Facebook: @allisinclairauthor
Instagram: @alli_sinclair
What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.
But now, here’s Alli.
Jenny Wheeler: Hello there Alli, and welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us.
Alli Sinclair: Hi Jenny. Thank you so much for having me along.
Introducing author Alli Sinclair
Jenny Wheeler: The Codebreakers, which is your latest novel, is like an Australian version of the Bletchley Park story. It’s the story of the work of the women who worked in the so-called Central Bureau in Australia during the Second World War. I had never even realized that this bureau existed. How did you come across the story?
Alli Sinclair: I had written a book called Burning Fields which came out in 2018, and I had my main character working for the Australian Women’s Army service in Brisbane. I didn’t really touch much on that because the story was set post-war, but I liked the idea of exploring what it was like for women working for the war effort in Australia.
I jumped on the old Google and put in Women World War Two, Australian Women’s Army Service Australia, and this very tiny article popped up about Central Bureau. It mentioned that it was Australia’s elite signals intelligence organization and had been kept a secret for decades.
I had never heard of this. The research went crazy and it took me quite a while to uncover the information, but as soon as I discovered this story, there was no way I was letting go.
Jenny Wheeler: That’s absolutely right. The researching of it must have been pretty difficult because we’re coming to the point where although there could be written memoirs, most of the women involved would now have passed on, wouldn’t they?
Some wartime survivors still available for interviews
Alli Sinclair: There are still a few women and men. They are all in their mid to late 90’s, but I’ve got to say, they’re all sharp as tacks. It’s amazing, really fantastic because I was able to ask them a lot of questions that you don’t get in history books, like what was it like to keep a secret? How did your day look when you woke up in the morning? Just little tiny things.
Even simple things like the women used to sing the latest hit songs in the truck as they were going from the army barracks to the headquarters of Central Bureau and do that as a kind of a stress relief. Those are things you don’t find in the history books. That’s why I was so lucky to actually be able to talk with these amazing people and hear their stories and their personal thoughts and experiences.
Jenny Wheeler: That is fantastic. Actually, I saw a news item in the last couple of weeks which you might have picked up on. One of the Bletchley Park women, I think now about 98, was given an honor by the French Government. Did you see that?
Alli Sinclair: Yes, I did see that.
Jenny Wheeler: She was as sharp as a tack, it seemed on TV. You’re quite right. I guess she is representative of the whole group because none of them could claim that they individually had done this. It was a total team effort, wasn’t it?
Wartime secrets bonded in close friendships
Alli Sinclair: It absolutely was. One of the things I really wanted to touch on in The Codebreakers was the strength of these friendships between the women, because obviously keeping their work secret bound them together but also, because they worked as a team, they were a very tight unit. They lived with each other, worked with each other. Definitely I think friendship and the strength of these women working together played a big role in their lives, and I wanted that to come across in The Codebreakers as well.
Jenny Wheeler: You mentioned the stress of keeping the secret. I did share with you before we got going that my mother worked at Bletchley Park during the Second World War and she met my father, who was a Kiwi airman. I knew she had to keep it a secret because she was very, very strong on that, even when I was a kid. She would never talk about it and if you ever asked her question, she would bring up the 50-year Secrets Act. But it had never occurred to me – I knew that she wouldn’t be able to discuss her work with my father, but I thought she would be able to hint that she was involved in some sort of secret mission. But they weren’t even allowed to about divulge that much, were they?
Alli Sinclair: That’s right. I know a lot of the women led their family and friends to believe that they were paper pushers or working as cleaners for the Army. That was a lot easier than saying, I was doing top secret work. I can’t tell you. It caused too many complications and it ran the risk then of things spilling out. It was definitely a lot easier for them to pretend that they were doing regular admin jobs.
Official Secrets Act bound them to silence for years afterwards
Jenny Wheeler: Yes. I think my mother probably said she was a secretary. They weren’t even allowed to divulge it after the war, or some of them didn’t, because they took that promise of secrecy extremely seriously. Did that create problems in later life with their relationships, do you think?
Alli Sinclair: Yes, absolutely. When I set out to write about the code breakers, my expectations were that it was going to be centered around World War II and what happened. Then as I got to know the men and the women and talking to them about their stories, I realized that there was a much bigger story than just their work at Central Bureau because their work, even though they weren’t doing it, carried on for the next five or six decades because of the secret they had to keep.
It was interesting learning how people dealt with that. Some people were able to sweep it under the carpet and get on with their lives. Other people felt it drove a wedge between their family and friends because they could never 100% give themselves to their loved ones. They always felt there was a piece of them they had to hide. One lady I spoke to took off overseas. She went to work in England for about six years because she couldn’t deal with having to fake it with her family and friends. For her, it was easier to head off overseas for a while. So, everyone dealt with it very differently.
Codebreaker – and best sponge maker and crocheter
Jenny Wheeler: The next generation down, like my generation in terms of my mother, because of that 50-year thing, it was really only the grandchildren who started to be able to understand what their grandparents might have done, isn’t it?
Alli Sinclair: It is. I have also spoken to a lot of family members of code breakers, the ones we have with us and ones who have passed on, and it’s really interesting hearing their stories about their grandparents and discovering what they did. All of a sudden they discovered that grandma was a code breaker in Brisbane but she was the best crocheter and made the great sponge cakes. It’s seeing them in such a different light.
I think it’s fantastic that younger generations get a chance to see older people in a new light and realize they’re not just these old people. They are these people who’ve lived amazing, fulfilled lives and have fantastic wisdom to impart as well. It’s nice to get that bond between the different generations, for sure.
Jenny Wheeler: You mentioned the Brisbane Line too, in the story. Obviously I don’t know a lot about Australian history, but I’d never heard of the Brisbane Line. The Government in Australia during the war did actually have this secret line they called the Brisbane Line. They agreed they would not bother to defend above that line if the Japanese invaded. They would only defend south of that line. Is that the right interpretation?
The Brisbane Line – which part of Australia would be defended
Alli Sinclair: It is. That line actually ran all across Australia through the Northern Territory and into WA, but they called it the Brisbane Line. I hadn’t heard of it either to be honest, and I spend a lot of time in Queensland. I’m a Victorian. It was interesting to learn about it and then to talk to people about it. People really felt that threat.
The people of Brisbane and further north lived with that reality. Even though the government turned around and said it would only be under extreme circumstances, just the fact that it was even discussed was a big enough threat. People lived with that, realizing they could be sacrificed should the worst come to worst. It was a pretty hard thing for a lot of people. Thankfully it never happened.
Jenny Wheeler: When did that become public?
Alli Sinclair: That’s a very good question.
Jenny Wheeler: Probably not during the war itself.
Alli Sinclair: I believe it was public during the war.
Jenny Wheeler: Oh gosh, that would be an amazing thing to live with – to know that if it happened, you could be sacrificed.
Alli Sinclair: Absolutely.
Jenny Wheeler: What do you think the biggest contribution was that the Australian cipher intelligence units made, or do we still not know to this day? Has it been kept secret? How much of it do we know now?
Alli Sinclair: We know enough to know that they helped shorten the war in the Pacific by two years, which is absolutely amazing. One of the reasons they did have to sign the Official Secrets Act is that a lot of the intelligence they gathered, and also I guess the systems they used to gather the intelligence, was used for quite a long time after World War II finished.
There are still a lot of elements we don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll ever know. Maybe not in my lifetime, maybe someone else’s, but there’s still quite a bit that is not quite out there yet.
Writing stories about strong women defying society’s expectations
Jenny Wheeler: These were the unsung heroes of World War II, and your website says that you like writing stories about strong women defying society’s expectations. You have done eight books. This is your most recent, but you’ve got a really good back list there, and they all deal with this issue of strong women and society’s expectations in different ways, don’t they?
Alli Sinclair: They do. I think most writers find a particular theme that we’re really drawn to and mine is definitely women ahead of their time. Case in point would be Ellie, the main character in The Codebreakers. She wants to go on and become a pilot after the war, a commercial pilot. Of course, that was not done, but Ellie is the kind of person to say, well, why can’t that change?
All my heroines are very similar. They look at the world quite differently to those in their era and they question why things are. Of course, their questions can sometimes put them in hot water, which is great for a writer. It helps move the story along.
Jenny Wheeler: I suspect this may be a little bit of Alli coming in there as well, because you yourself have led a very adventurous life. You seem to be the sort of person who asks why can’t I do this, or I can do this. You have done mountain climbing and lots of travel. I wonder how you’ve managed to fit the writing in that side of your life, the adventurous side. How did they fit together? Was that like a jigsaw puzzle of some sort?
An early life of adventure led to a life as a fiction author
Alli Sinclair: I got a lot of the adventuring in before I started writing fiction, but it was my adventures that led me down to the world of fiction. I had recently moved back from South America and a radio journalist was interviewing me about my work as a mountaineer. Afterwards he said to me, have you ever thought about writing fiction? I said, no, not really. I had heaps of travel diaries, so I always wrote. But he planted that seed.
Then one of the big travel agencies in Australia, they have a yearly magazine, and they were running a short story competition, 500 words. I thought, I’ll give that a shot. I finalled, got published, saw my name in print, and that was the end of me. I was like, I like this, so I enrolled in a creative writing course and haven’t looked back.
My first three books are set in Argentina, Spain and France. I call them my travel fiction books – probably fairly heavily influenced by my love of travel and learning about other cultures.
Jenny Wheeler: Then after those first three, you’ve switched to more Australian-based fiction. Why did you make that switch away from the international back to the Aussie based?
Alli Sinclair: I wanted to try something new and set myself a bit of a challenge, to see if I could write an Australian-based book. The first one was Burning Fields, but half of it takes place in wartime Italy, so I couldn’t help myself. Because a lot of my books are dual timeline, usually at least one of them is set overseas.
Linking Hollywood and Queensland – Cinema of Lost Dreams
All the stories have a strong multicultural flavor. I have different characters from different backgrounds, to make things interesting.
Jenny Wheeler: Burning Fields is a Romeo and Juliet story set in the Queensland sugarcane fields in the late 1940s. The one before The Codebreakers was The Cinema of Lost Dreams, a dual timeline story that links a small Queensland country town with Hollywood. I know you also have been working in the film industry yourself, so tell us a bit about how that came about.
Alli Sinclair: I love the Hollywood classics. I grew up on them. Lots of lovely family memories with my mum and dad and my grandma, watching the old movies when I was 10 years old. I’ve always been a fan of movies,, especially old Hollywood.
As part of my research, because my main character in the Queensland story works as a location assistant on a TV series, luckily a friend of mine’s uncle was working on a big Australian production. He was happy for me to come along and spend some time on set and get to talk to all the different people, learn about their roles and see how it all fit together and get that great atmosphere of what it’s like to be on a film set. There is something quite electric about it, which I love.
I think most writers have the idea, I’d love to see one of my books turned into a movie or a TV series. After being on set, I was like, I want to spread my wings. I really am interested in learning about the film industry, so for the last little while I’ve been working with a producer in LA on three book-to-film projects.
Converting books into TV or film is the next project
I’m also doing a documentary on the Australian codebreakers but there are of course a lot of Kiwi codebreakers as well in Brisbane with Central Bureau, so I’ve got quite a few projects on the go at the moment. And writing in between, as well as hanging out the washing and cooking dinner.
Jenny Wheeler: Those three books you’ve got on the go, are they all Australian books of some sort or other?
Alli Sinclair: One of them is The Codebreakers, so we are currently looking for a production partner in Australia. The other two are ideas I have developed. One is America-centric, one is definitely Australia-centric. I haven’t written those books yet, but we’re working on the book and the film together, which is interesting. With books I’m used to working out the idea myself, but to have input from someone else who is great at visual stuff has been such a great process, so I’m really enjoying the whole collaboration.
Jenny Wheeler: And as if that isn’t enough, you also organize writers’ retreats, don’t you? Are you still doing that?
Alli Sinclair: Pre-COVID we were.
Jenny Wheeler: COVID stuffed up that kind of thing, didn’t it?
Alli Sinclair: I know. We were running Writers at Sea with a close writing friend of mine, T.M. Clark. She does fabulous African thrillers. So yes, we were running writers’ retreats on a cruise ship out to the South Pacific. It was a mixture of workshops and writing sprints and then days on the beach. It was such a great way for people to combine holiday and their passion for writing.
Writing workshops on ocean liners – a dream that Covid killed
We ran a few of those but obviously that’s ground to a halt. We are hoping that maybe towards the end of next year we might be able to do those again, and if we can’t take them at sea then we’re definitely looking at somewhere up in North Queensland and running it with an ocean view but not necessarily on the sea on a cruise ship.
Jenny Wheeler: That’s a fabulous idea – a cruise ship. I didn’t pick that up from your website. It sounds really enticing.
Alli Sinclair: Yes, it’s great. My family don’t believe it’s work, but it is.
Jenny Wheeler: There is a perennial question that I like to ask everybody I talk to, and it’s amazing the range of answers I get. Is there one thing you’ve done in your writing career more than any other that’s been the secret of your success?
Alli Sinclair: Honestly, I think it’s just persistence. Believing in your story and following it through. There are days when you do doubt yourself and you do doubt your stories, but I think persisting and holding on to the vision of where you want that story to go. I think persistence, for any writer, is definitely something that we need.
Jenny Wheeler: Turning to Alli as reader. This is The Joys of Binge Reading and we like to make some recommendations for people of books they might like to enjoy following up on. You probably have been a voracious reader. Most writers have been. Tell us a little bit about your reading tastes and what you’re particularly liking to read at the moment.
Alli Sinclair’s favourites – What she is reading right now
Alli Sinclair: I’m quite an eclectic reader. I’m a big fan of writers from India and also South America. Isabel Allende – I absolutely adore her books. Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy. I think it came out in about 1992 and it sat at number one on my list and has yet to be knocked off. So any writers out there, I challenge you to knock that book off the top of the list.
I’m a big fan of Belinda Alexandra. (Ed Note: Belinda has been a guest on Binge Reading – hear her at Spelling Binding Mystery on JOBR) They are usually dual timeline stories and she has such a great array of characters and lots of different locations. She’s got fabulous books and you want to read one after the other. Great for binge reading and they’re fantastic books as well.
Jenny Wheeler: Circling round and looking back down the tunnel of time with your writing career, at this stage, if you were doing it all over again, is there anything you would change?
Alli Sinclair: I probably wouldn’t write those first three manuscripts that will never see the light of day. But I needed to do those. I needed to do those ones to learn the craft and learn the art of editing and character and those sorts of things. They were absolutely necessary.
I would connect with other writers a lot earlier in my career. I wasn’t aware of any organizations like RWA or RW New Zealand, or even the state writing organizations. I definitely would have connected with other writers a lot earlier.
If Alli Sinclair was doing it all over again – what would she change?
Jenny Wheeler: Just clarifying that. You have three manuscripts that are sitting in a bottom drawer somewhere.
Alli Sinclair: Yes. Quite an array. One is magical realism, another one pretty much autobiographical and the other one, I don’t know what I was doing with that one, but that’s okay.
Jenny Wheeler: I was going to ask you in connection with those workshops that you’ve held what you saw as being the biggest hurdle for writers starting out. It’s probably relevant if you had to do three manuscripts before you started to find your voice. There is a theory that we have to write 100,000 words before we find our voice. That’s probably not quite three manuscripts, but what is the biggest hurdle you see beginner writers coming across?
Alli Sinclair: I think – and I was guilty of this – having the expectation that you write a book and then you find a publisher and that’s it. I wish it was that easy. One of the things is realizing that this is a journey. Everybody’s journey is different and yes, sometimes people do sell their first manuscript to a publisher and it becomes a massive hit, but that’s not that common.
Being prepared for a journey that’s going to have a few twists and turns, a couple of dead ends here and there, knowing what you’re getting into, is great because it helps with managing expectations as well. Honestly, when I opened my first Word document I thought, you just write a book, then you send it to the publisher and yay, it’s published. I quickly learned that’s not the case.
Celebrating breakthrough when it comes…
Managing expectations and understanding the journey without being put off either. Sometimes writers just starting out think, oh my gosh, it sounds so hard. But along the way you meet people and other writers.
You meet authors who might have six hits and then you might meet another author who is starting out on their first manuscript as well. The people you meet along the way is what makes the journey so very special.
Then when you do have your breakthrough you can celebrate it, because (1) you’ve worked hard to get there and (2) you’ve got a lovely group of people who get it. They get how special your celebration is.
Jenny Wheeler: Talking about working with other writers and getting to know other writers, how did your collaboration with TM start with your writing workshops? Is there any possibility in the future that you might write a collaborative novel?
Alli Sinclair: We have talked about it, but we write such different genres. I don’t know. You never say never. Tina and I met through a mutual friend. I had just signed with my agent and got my first publishing deal. Tina was working for the same publisher, so our mutual friend introduced us. That was back in 2013 and I don’t think we’ve finished chatting since. We became very firm friends quickly.
Jenny Wheeler: Also, script writing is very different from novel writing, isn’t it, in the sense that it is more of a collaborative process. Are you attempting to write the scripts for these movies as well as develop them?
Novel and script writing different skill sets entirely
Alli Sinclair: Yes, and they are very different beasts. I’ve gone back to school learning to write scripts. There are some elements that are the same in terms of pacing and characters and character arcs and themes and all those things we work with when we’re dealing with books. But writing a script is quite different because you are telling the story as opposed to showing the story when you’re writing fiction for books.
It’s been quite the learning curve, but I have found that it has also improved my fiction. I think they do complement each other but they need to be treated as separate animals as well.
Jenny Wheeler: I think fiction writing, particularly In the mass market area, has been very much influenced by TV over the last few years. Some of those breakout hits that are on the content channels like Netflix give you a few ideas for how to help move your fiction along, don’t they?
Alli Sinclair: Absolutely. Quite often I’ll be sitting on the couch watching a movie or a TV series or something, and my husband will walk pass and go, studying character development, are we?
Jenny Wheeler: We’re watching how to plot a pivot.
Alli Sinclair: That’s it.
Jenny Wheeler: Alli, looking ahead for the next 12 months, tell us what you’re focusing on and what do you hope to achieve in the next 12 months. You’ve got so many irons in the fire, but where are your priorities?
Alli Sinclair: Write the next book for my publisher. That’s a good one, good start, get that one done. Our documentary about the codebreakers – get that finished. Also hopefully, get The Codebreakers to the point where it’s green lit to be developed into a drama. I am also working on what I call my passion project, which is a Cold War story I’m absolutely loving. It’s a story that’s been kicking around in my head for about the last eight years. I was waiting until I felt ready because it’s a pretty big project, this one. I now feel I’m at that point where I can tackle this.
Where to find author Alli Sinclair online
Jenny Wheeler: Fantastic. The next book that you’re doing for your publisher, is that in a similar vein to The Codebreakers?
Alli Sinclair: No, it’s quite different actually. I’ve gone back to my dual timelines because I can’t resist them. We are going back to 1888 in Paris and present-day rural Victoria, so two very different timelines and places, but of course there’ll be something tying them together.
Jenny Wheeler: That’s fantastic. Do you enjoy hearing from your readers and how can they connect with you online?
Alli Sinclair: I love hearing from readers. It is one of the reasons I do what I do. I love to hear from readers and their thoughts and how they feel about the characters and those sorts of things.
I have my website which is www.allisinclair.com. There’s a contact form there. I have an Alli Sinclair Facebook page as well, I think it’s under Alli Sinclair author. I’m also on Instagram. I am on Twitter but I rarely check it, so you might not find me there.
Jenny Wheeler: All those links will be on the website when the show is published. We give a total transcript of our conversation which will be there for ever more. What happens is that people continue downloading these episodes for ages after they are first published, which I find really exciting when you look back on the figures. They’re like evergreen content that sit there, which is really nice.
Alli Sinclair: That is lovely. How long have you been doing this for?
Jenny Wheeler: Nearly four years. We’re coming up to the 200th episode in December.
If you enjoye Alli Sinclair’s books you might also enjoy….
Alli Sinclair: Wow. Good on you. Well, thank you for supporting other authors. I know what you do is a lot of work, so thank you.
Jenny Wheeler: That’s lovely. When I started out I didn’t quite frame it that way, but it definitely is a resource for everybody who takes part so I’m quite proud of it as we’ve gone on. When I started out I wanted to reach 50 episodes. I saw a very well-known writer and she said she wouldn’t go on any podcasts that didn’t have a minimum of 50 episodes. I thought, that’s the first goal.
Alli Sinclair: And now look at you.
Jenny Wheeler: Alli, thanks so much. It’s been great talking.
Monica McInerney is another Award winning Australian author who is in Alli Sinclair’s “Also Boughts’ in Amazon. You can find here on The Joys of binge Reading at Monica McInerney – Warm Family Dramas
Thanks To Our Technical Support:
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