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The Worm Hole Podcast Episode 16: Isla Morley (Come Sunday; Above; The Last Blue)

Posted 7th June 2020
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Charlie and Isla Morley (Come Sunday; Above; The Last Blue) discuss growing up and travelling back to South Africa, creating a negative heroine, the 1800s medical phenomenon wherein people were literally blue, and what it’s like owning five tortoises.

Image of the Fugate family, as mentioned
Cathy Trost’s article ‘The Blue People of Troublesome Creek’

Release details: recorded 23rd May 2020; published 8th June 2020

Isla’s social media: Twitter || Facebook || Website

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Show notes:

Question Index
Book Purchasing Links
Transcript
Photo Credit Line

Question Index

01:03 Can you tell us more about your background in South Africa?
03:04 How did novel writing come about?
08:05 You’ve lived in several places – can you tell us about your journey?
11:12 Have you been back to South Africa?
13:48 Have you ever considered writing a memoir?
15:34 Come Sunday’s Abbe isn’t a nice person; why did you want to create her?
17:41 Why was grief important to explore?
18:19 When did you decide to incorporate Christianity?
20:19 Was narrative style always in your mind?
22:08 Why poetry?
23:38 Was African mythology, used in the book, something you experienced in childhood?
29:01 Was it daunting to have so much of Above set underground?
31:31 Would it be fair to assume that the book will continue to be an outlier as you move forward?
33:48 When did the idea of going along with Dobb’s idea of what’s going on come into your process of writing?
42:02 Tell us about the medical background to The Last Blue
46:48 Am I barking up the wrong tree thinking the concept of blue people as per your book has to do with commentary on racial discrimination in history?
51:31 How important is the narrative of women to you?
52:34 Is there any interesting fact you can share with us about photography in the 1930s?
55:15 What’s next?
55:54 What’s it like having five tortoises?