We did it! Only a few more weeks left of 2021. It’s been a weird year, friends. Indulge me for a moment while I count some things.
3 rewrites of A Hunger of Thorns (nearly there!)
3 new books sold
3 more new books begun
3 Pfizer shots (got my booster yesterday!)
3 chickens hatched
42 books read
45 work gigs cancelled
78 days of remote learning
119 days in lockdown
… and a partridge in a pear tree?
I’m really looking forward to some time off over summer. I want to read books, go to the beach, and play Animal Crossing. And eat alllll the mince pies. I’m including my recipe below, so you can too.
So in my last newsletter I told you about my fascination with literary lost girls, and how it was one of the early sparks for A Hunger of Thorns. But as a child I also liked being a lost girl. Lost Girls was the name of the game my best friend and I liked to play the most. We’d go down to the Merri Creek and lose ourselves in imaginary play - escaping from dragons, consorting with fairies and doing all the other fun things that lost girls in stories do. For me, these memories are always tinged with melancholy, because I lost that best friend. She had a difficult home life that I didn’t understand at the time, and so she had to grow up a lot faster than I did. I became a bit scared of her, and we drifted apart.
This photo is of Banjo walking the labyrinth by the Merri Creek in Clifton Hill, right where I spent many, many hours playing as a child (although the labyrinth wasn’t there when I was little). A Hunger of Thorns is set in Anglyon, a kind of alternate England/Wales, but there’s still a bit of Merri Creek in there.
I was a deeply imaginative kid. Perhaps it comes with being an only child? In any case, I had 27 imaginary friends, and spent a lot of my time pretending I was in a fantasy world. I see my own child lose himself in this play as well, and I love it. I’ve always wanted to write about it - about the comfort and thrill of childhood play, but also the way it can become a bit strange and scary as you get older (the Vendy Wiccany episode of Pen15 captures this beautifully).
My favourite book of all time is Diana Wynne Jones’ Fire and Hemlock - about Polly Whittaker, a similarly imaginative child, who finds herself in trouble as her fantasies begin to come true in unexpected and often frightening ways.
Inevitably, my story that started out as being about outsider artists and lost girls in literature became more personal, incorporating childhood play, the intensity of preadolescent female friendships, and the grief of losing a best friend.
I’ll be back next year to talk some more about the development of A Hunger of Thorns.
Read
I just finished Lauren Groff’s Matrix, a historical novel about Marie, a French princess who is sent to be the abbess of a run down, bleak abbey in England. Marie creates an extraordinary feminist utopia in her abbey. A hugely satisfying, beautifully written book about women getting shit done.
Watch
We just watched Get Back - Peter Jackson’s documentary comprised entirely of remastered footage of The Beatles in 1969. I thought I would find it a bit boring (it is very long), but ended up being transfixed. It’s so fascinating to watch the relationships between these four people (and those around them). To watch their creative process, and realise that they are all just kids in their 20s who have been working nonstop for a decade. I wish they’d had the opportunity to all take a year off and regroup - perhaps things would have turned out very differently.
Hatch!
So of our twelve eggs, only three hatched, which is not a great strike rate, but the eggs were all a bit scrambled from being in the lockdown post. But those three chicks are now ten weeks old and thriving. We ended up with an Araucana mix, an Andalusian and a Wheaten Marans. And I think they are all females! Cross fingers - I’m not (ahem) counting my chickens until they start laying eggs. Our chickens are all named after witches, so below are Madame Razz, Professor McGonagall and Kiki, as well as our Senior Chicken, Esme Weatherwax.
Make
My mince pies are the best. I’ll prove it.
This recipe will make 24-36 mince pies, depending on the size of your baking tray. I usually triple this recipe, because I give them away and also eat, like, a lot. I make all the mince at the beginning of December and do them in batches, it keeps for ages in the fridge if you leave the banana out (add it just before you bake them). The pastry will also keep in the fridge for a few days, or the freezer for months.
For the mince
100g currants
100g raisins
100g sultanas
100g dates (chopped up)
50g candied peel
50g glacé cherries
50g flaked almonds
1 ripe banana, mashed (the riper the better)
4 tbsp brandy (whisky or rum also fine)
1 tsp each of ground ginger, grated nutmeg, mixed spice
Mix it all together. If you have time to let it macerate for a day or two, then do that, but it’s not required. If you are personally offended by peel or cherries, then leave them out. But don’t skip the banana, even if you hate banana. You won’t notice it’s there, I promise, but it helps hold the mince together and adds an unparalleled depth of flavour.
For the pastry
250g butter, softened
150g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
400g plain flour
pinch of salt
icing sugar for dusting
Prepare a tart/mini muffin tray. I use a silicone mini-muffin tray and it’s perfect, but small tart cases are good too. I brush them with a thin layer of melted butter. Preheat your oven to 200C.
Cream the butter and sugar until pale (2-3 mins in a stand mixer). Add the egg yolk and mix for another minute. Add flour and salt and mix until just combined - if you overdo it the pastry will be tough. Wrap it all in cling-wrap and stick in the fridge for an hour.
Reserve maybe a quarter of the pastry for the tops, and divide the rest into 36 even portions (they don’t have to be perfectly even, I just eyeball it). Roll them into balls. Use your fingers and squish each ball into the tray like it’s play dough to form the bottom case. This sounds weird but it’s quicker and easier than rolling out the pastry, and keeps everything lovely and delicate. You’ll get the hang of it, just make sure the pastry is pretty even and goes all the way up to the top of the casing.
Fill each case with mince.
Roll out the remaining pastry dough and cut out your tops. I usually do a little star that I nicked from Banjo’s play dough accessory kit, but if you like a completely closed mince pie then do circles. Put tops on.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Be careful not to let them burn.
Cool on a wire rack, then dust lightly with icing sugar. They keep for AGES, but you’ll eat them all first, trust me.
Lili Wilkinson is the author of sixteen books, including Green Valentine, The Boundless Sublime and After the Lights Go Out. She established insideadog.com.au and the Inky Awards at the Centre for Youth Literature, State Library of Victoria. Lili has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne, and now spends most of her time reading and writing books for teenagers. Her latest books are The Erasure Initiative and How To Make A Pet Monster: Flummox.
Find her on Twitter, Instagram and at liliwilkinson.com