September 25, 2025 • 28 mins
Happy Pants Headquarters welcomes special guest, Deb Fitzpatrick, ahead of her appearance at Story Wheel as part of Totally Lit Festival in Fremantle, Western Australia. Deb has written 10 books for children and young adults, her latest being Tawny Trouble, the tale of 11 year old Tessa's adventures as she cares for an injured bird, a Tawny Frogmouth, while on holiday in WA's southwest.
Vision Australia Radio's Gemma Sidney speaks to Deb about books, writing, her real-life adventures in the cloud forest, plus you'll hear an excerpt from Tawny Trouble. As with all Happy Pants episodes, who knows what objects will emerge from their happy pants pockets??!
Find out more and book for Story Wheel on the Totally Lit website. You can take your pick of Deb or another children's author and have a spin on the Fremantle Wheel on Fremantle Esplanade, WA.
Totally Lit Festival events are happening all over Fremantle, WA from 26 September to 10 October 2025. Vision Australia Radio is a proud media partner.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:13):
One, two, three. It's happy pants.
S2 (00:30):
G'day, and welcome to Happy Pants, a show specially for
kids and especially for you on Vision Australia Radio. My
name is Gemma and today I'm joined by a very
special guest at Happy Pants headquarters. Her name is Deb Fitzpatrick.
She's written ten books for adults, young adults and children.
Plus is a part of the Totally Lit Festival happening
(00:52):
in Fremantle, Western Australia. Welcome, Deb.
S3 (00:56):
Hi, Gemma. How are you going?
S2 (00:57):
Good, good. It's great to see you today. Thanks for
coming in.
S3 (00:59):
Thanks for having me.
S2 (01:01):
So today my happy pants are super smooth and make
a swishy sound when I walk. There are waxy green
color that makes me think of eucalyptus leaves, which I
love to crunch between my fingers to enjoy the fresh
eucalyptus smell. What are your happy pants like today? Deb?
S3 (01:19):
So my happy pants are a sort of a pale
blue striped denim. That makes me think of the beach.
It makes me think of sea breezes and the salty
smell of the water and the sand and the blue sky,
and that sort of hot summer vibe. I suppose that
(01:40):
we've just started to have here in Perth the last
couple of days.
S2 (01:43):
We have. We've had a lot of sunshine. It's been lovely.
S3 (01:45):
Yeah.
S2 (01:46):
Before we check our happy pants pockets, I'd love to
know a bit more about you, Deb. What are your
first memories of books and stories?
S3 (01:55):
Oh, okay. So, I mean, I would have to say
my first memories of books and stories would be my
mum sitting on my bed with me, telling me stories
that she just made up. And they were very comforting
and very sweet. Eight. And then I very quickly became
(02:15):
absolutely addicted to the local library. So either the local
library or the school library. I was in one of
the two when I was at home. I would read
books of poetry. Um, mum and dad were both English,
and so we had a lot of sort of English
poetry and English books that had been sent over by
family members, um, that I would read over and over again.
(02:37):
So I fell in love with A.A. Milne and other,
you know, writers like that. Um, and then just loved
the library as I got older and became a primary
school student and then a high school student, I loved
the library.
S2 (02:51):
When did you start writing your own stories?
S3 (02:54):
Um, well, I started writing poetry when I was in
primary school, so in about grade five, I remember a teacher.
Her name was Mrs. Pugh, and she said that she
really liked my poetry, and she would send some home
to mum and dad, which was sort of embarrassing, but
in a good way. And then as I went into
high school, I continued with the poetry and I had
another amazing teacher who really supported supported me, and she
(03:18):
again went above and beyond and helped me sort of self-publish,
if you like, a little book of poems, which was
rather badly called Frozen Tears, which, you know, is so angsty,
classic teenager stuff. Right? But, um, stories didn't come to
me until I was in university. I started to write
stories when I was at UWA, doing my first sort
(03:41):
of proper thinking about creative writing.
S2 (03:44):
Mm. And whereabouts do you find inspiration for your stories,
your poems and books that you've written?
S3 (03:49):
So I am really not one of those people who
has an amazing imagination. I don't have one of those
JK Rowling style fantastical imaginations, and as a result of that,
I look to the world around me for my inspiration,
and most of my stories have come from a variety
of things that I've experienced myself or witnessed or heard
(04:12):
about from the real world.
S2 (04:14):
So they're mostly all based in the real world.
S3 (04:17):
All all based in the real world. And I guess
that's why I would just describe my writing as sort of,
you know, contemporary, realistic writing for kids, really. I always
tell kids when I go into classrooms, if they're thinking
about what they might like to write about. For me,
that always just comes back to what you most care
about and what interests you. So the things that you're
(04:38):
reading about in books, like I had a real fascination
for sharks at some point in my early years, and
I read every book about sharks from the library. I
would encourage kids who who are doing that to write
about sharks in a creative way.
S2 (04:53):
And any other tips that you'd give them to help
them with their storytelling. So following their passion, reading everything
they can about sharks, if that's their passion.
S3 (05:01):
Yeah, having a crack. So starting to put words on
the page, which is much harder than you would than
one would think because you imagine that they will flow
in a way that they don't always. And so that
crafting is quite tricky. But the other thing I'd say
to kids is to know that what they think and
feel is really valuable and really valid to write about.
(05:22):
So I think a lot of kids, and definitely when
I was a child, felt like what I was experiencing
and what I wanted to express wasn't really worth anything.
It didn't really mean anything to anyone else. It was
just my own sort of puerile, childish, you know, feelings,
which it's just not the case. And, um, feelings and
(05:42):
experiences and thoughts and worries and preoccupations and ideas and
creative vision. These things are really powerful when you're young.
And I really encourage young people to lean into those
and to have a have a go at exploring them
through words or through whatever creative field they use. So
(06:02):
there could be photography or it could be, uh, scribbling illustrations,
comics and things like that, or songs writing songs. That's
another one that I always talk about with kids.
S2 (06:14):
However, the creativity comes out. Yeah, it's all good. Just
let it out.
S3 (06:18):
Allow yourself to have a go, and don't think that
it always has to be shared with someone. So it's
great to keep it private, because I think a lot
of creativity is actually quite deep and private. And I
think if you think that you don't have to share
it with anyone, that can be quite powerful and personal and,
and sort of intimate, and it can allow you to
(06:39):
get into things more deeply, which is interesting.
S2 (06:43):
Dance like no one's watching.
S3 (06:44):
Ah, that's it Gemma. That's it.
S2 (06:46):
I was wondering, have any people you've met actually made
their way into your stories as characters in your books?
S3 (06:53):
Oh, absolutely. And most of them know who they are.
So in my latest book, 20 trouble, my brother made
his way into the book through a character called Uncle Mo.
That's not his name, but some of my brothers, um,
interests are in stargazing. And UFOs crept into the book,
(07:15):
and I made sure that I checked in with him
about that. In fact, he read a section of the
book to make sure that I hadn't made any mistakes
about stars in the night Sky, but also just to
make sure that he was happy with how sort of
a character based on him was being represented in the book. Yeah, absolutely.
And Helen Garner very famously says that many of her
(07:36):
characters have started with someone she knows quite well. And
of course, the person you know really well is yourself.
And that's why you often find little versions of you
in characters.
S2 (07:48):
So speaking of the natural environment that you referred to
before that you enjoy so much, I heard that you
once lived in the jungle in Costa Rica.
S3 (07:55):
Yeah.
S2 (07:56):
Wow.
S3 (07:56):
Can you tell us a little about that? Well, I
can barely believe it, you know? Really, even now, 20
years later. It was in the actually, it was in
the cloud forest, which is, um, about 1500 meters above
sea level. We were there because my husband was doing
his PhD research in Costa Rica. He was doing it
here at Murdoch, but he got a sort of an
(08:17):
arrangement where he could share the research element with an
institution in, in Costa Rica. So we were there for
we were meant to be there for three months, and
we were there for four years. That's how life happens, right? Wow.
S2 (08:32):
And so what did you see while you were there?
S3 (08:34):
Oh my goodness. It was like, oh, it's like a
Disneyland of amazing wilderness animals, birds. So the one that
springs to mind was something that we saw all the time.
Every day, multiple times we would see toucans. So the
sorts of two cans with the bright green, yellow and
orange striped beaks that you might have seen on the
(08:58):
Froot Loops cereal packet, that sort of thing. What else
do we see? Scarlet macaws. We saw three toed sloths.
We had a little shack that was facing into the
cloud forest, and when I was writing my first book
by that stage and when I was typing, I would
often look out and see spider monkeys or white faced
(09:19):
capuchins just looping one arm to another arm from tree
to vine to tree, literally through the window. And it
was sort of surreal. I really couldn't believe it. Absolutely
amazing period of our time, of our lives.
S2 (09:33):
Yeah, it sounds incredible. And you said Cloud Forest. I
just want to come back to that. So you were
so high up in the mountains, you were literally in
the clouds?
S3 (09:41):
Yeah.
S2 (09:42):
How was that?
S3 (09:43):
You're not sort of in the cloud so much as
what happens is that there's a lot of precipitation up
that high, and it comes in the form of cloud
that moved through that part of the forest on its
way up the mountain. And so at a certain time
of day, the weather would come in and there would
be cloud swirling through that mist swirling through our house
(10:05):
as it moved up the forest. And it was phenomenal.
And that's why there are a lot of bats that
lived there in that part of the of the cloud forest.
And as a result of all this amazing biology, fauna
and flora, um, there would be a lot of conservation biologists, zoologists,
botanists come up from the United States in particular to
(10:28):
do things like bat mist netting, which is where they
would put out mist nets to catch the bats at
certain times of the day so they could count how
many certain kinds of bats. And, you know, there are
other really sad, um, elements of that, of course, which
is that when we lived there, the golden toad, which was,
you know, a very rare toad, still lived in the
(10:51):
cloud forest. Uh, and then by the time we left,
it had not been seen for some time. So probably
extinct now. And that's climate change.
S2 (10:58):
Yeah, absolutely. And what an amazing part of the world.
And an experience so beautiful.
S3 (11:04):
It was like a Disneyland. Sometimes blue morpho butterflies would
all be coming out of the cocoons at the same time,
and you'd look out the window at one day and
it would be Blue Morpho birthday, with literally hundreds of
them bobbing around through those dark green leafed jungly plants
(11:24):
that lived there. It was so different from our Australian
sort of bush colours, the olives and the greys and
that drier feel, which is equally beautiful but just different.
S1 (11:33):
Got your happy pants on? I do. It's happy pants
on Vision Australia Radio.
S2 (11:39):
It's time to check our happy pants pockets. How about
you go first? Deb, have a look. What have you
got in there today?
S3 (11:44):
Okay, just foraging around in there right now. There's an
old tissue. No, that doesn't count. Okay. So. Oh. What's that?
I've got some moths in here.
S2 (11:53):
Moths?
S3 (11:53):
Moths? Do you not like? Some people are funny about moths. Don't.
Don't you like moths?
S2 (11:58):
I don't mind them, but if they're in my hand,
I get the sort of dust that comes off them.
That sort of sensation? Are they sort of a bit
dusty in your hands?
S3 (12:06):
They're very delicate, aren't they? You certainly wouldn't want to
try to touch them. They're actually just sitting on my
hand right now. I'm not touching them. They're touching me.
S2 (12:13):
Lovely. That must feel feathery.
S3 (12:15):
And it feels spidery and very delicate.
S2 (12:18):
What have I got here? I've got. Oh, it's quite hard.
I'm pulling it out. It's a book. Oh, it's tawny trouble.
I think you know this one.
S3 (12:28):
I might have seen that one before.
S2 (12:29):
Yep. That's your your most recent book. Excellent. I'm glad
we've got that here. Um, I've just got one other thing,
and it's really weird and large, and it's driving out
of my pocket. It's a food truck.
S3 (12:41):
Oh.
S2 (12:42):
What? Selling doughnuts.
S3 (12:45):
Mhm. Yum.
S2 (12:46):
Oh, I can smell the cinnamon, the vanilla and all
the fried goodness.
S3 (12:51):
Yum.
S2 (12:51):
Can't wait to get me a doughnut. I wonder what's. Mm.
I wonder what that's about. We'll find out about that
I guess. Have you got anything else in your pocket
there Deb.
S3 (12:57):
What else have I got in my pocket? I've got,
I've got the leaves of a curry tree in my pocket.
And they are. They have fallen from great heights because
carries are really tall, and they have that eucalyptus smell
about them that you mentioned earlier. And they make me
(13:20):
think of the Australian bush the south west of WA. Yeah. Mhm.
S2 (13:25):
Oh beautiful. Lovely. And I've just got one more thing
that's poking me here. Let me get that out. It's
a a mini model of a Ferris wheel.
S3 (13:34):
Oh.
S2 (13:34):
Huh. That's weird. Okay, well, maybe we'll get to that
one a bit later, but the book. Well, that's your book. Fantastic. Um.
The moths. And I'm curious about the moths and the
curry tree leaves. So they have something to do with
your book?
S3 (13:50):
They really do. Are they must have known that you
had my book in your pocket?
S2 (13:55):
Yeah.
S3 (13:55):
They wanted to make a connection. So. Yes. So, um, Tony,
Trouble is a book about an 11 year old girl
called Tessa, who is with her family in the south
west of WA on a holiday in the Nannup sort
of area for those, um, those of you who've been there.
They're driving through the forest at night time. They're driving
through karri forest, karri country, and it's really tall trees.
(14:19):
It's really spectacular. They're all really tired because they've been
at the Nannup music Festival, where there may or may
not have been eating a lot of doughnuts from the
food trucks there. And. Yeah, and Tessa's in the back
seat with her brother and sister, who are twins. And
Tessa's mum starts to slow down the car because there
(14:40):
are animals sitting at the side of this forest road.
It's at night time and the animals are out feeding
and you know. So she slows down because a kangaroo
pokes its head out, and then she slows down again
because something swoops in front of the car. And then
Tessa and her brother and sister hear a bit of
a thud.
S2 (15:02):
Uh oh.
S3 (15:03):
Um.
S2 (15:03):
They've hit something.
S3 (15:05):
And it's because of the moths. Gemma.
S2 (15:07):
Ah.
S3 (15:08):
Tawny. Frogmouths like to eat insects. And moths and moths
are attracted to light. And on the front of a
car at nighttime are the headlights shining into the forest
so the driver can find their way home. But the
tawny frogmouths also like what is attracted to these lights,
(15:33):
and that is moths. So the moths are attracted to
the lights and buzz around the headlights and the tawny's
dive in for a feed. And yes, so Tessa's mum
tries very hard to avoid a tawny frogmouth but isn't
entirely successful. Ouch. Sorry to say. Yeah.
S2 (15:53):
And so they pull over. That's it.
S3 (15:56):
And Uncle Mo is in the passenger seat. Uh, and
he and mum hop out and they realized that it's
a tawny. They weren't sure what had happened and they thought,
oh my goodness, please can we really hope we haven't
killed this bird? Um, but they haven't. The bird is
still alive. And so they bundle it up and they
(16:17):
put it in a blanket from the boot of the car,
and they hand it to Tessa, who's 11 and who
loves Nate nature anyway, to hold on to whilst they
drive back to the village to figure out what on
earth they are going to do with an injured tawny frogmouth.
And it's all about how we care for wildlife. Yes,
(16:37):
the book is about that. And, um, that's a really
important thing to talk about. So yeah, I've, you know,
I don't think there'd be too many families around who
who have had night time drives, who haven't also had
an interaction good or bad, with a bit of Australian wildlife.
And that's where the book began. We ourselves were driving
from the Nannup music festival one night, and I had
(17:00):
to jam on the brakes a couple of times to
miss tourneys. Luckily I completely missed them, but I thought, well,
what if you know what, what if, and what would
you do? And that's where the book began.
S2 (17:12):
Wow. And it's quite an adventure, I believe, for Tessa,
isn't it?
S3 (17:15):
It's great fun. It's great fun. She gets herself into
a bit of a pickle. But, you know, kids and
pickles are important, right?
S2 (17:22):
Absolutely.
S3 (17:23):
You got to have them.
S2 (17:23):
Yeah. Always. And what made you decide to set the
story in Nannup specifically?
S3 (17:29):
Well, that's partly because I have a huge love for
that south western corner of Western Australia. And I've been
going there different parts of it for most of my life,
I suppose, but I'm very lucky that I have access
to a shack in the karri forest, right where that
story unfolds. And I've been going there for the last
15 years on and off. And it was on one
(17:53):
of those weekends when this happened to me. We were
visiting the Nannup Music Festival. It's an incredible annual event
where all sorts of musicians gather. You know, there's rock music,
there's folk music, there's indigenous sounds. It's a really fun
event all weekend for the family. And we're taking our kids,
you know, driving home through that karri forest. It was
(18:16):
just alive with wildlife, and we had that experience. And
so I thought, well, why? Why not start a story
there and just see what happens? And that's pretty much
how I start all my stories. It starts with a
what if kind of scenario or question, or what if
I had hit that tawni, what would we do? What
would a child do? And then I have to make
(18:38):
my imagination work hard to see what happens. And of course,
it all unfolded in that beautiful karri forest with this
gorgeous 11 year old Tessa, who's a great character. I
don't know where she came from.
S2 (18:51):
Well, that's another great tip for any writers out there.
Any budding writers. What if to start with the what if?
And then something happens and then what? And then and
then and just going along and it can take you
right down a crazy path.
S3 (19:04):
That's it. And sometimes the path does go a bit crazy.
And you have to say, okay, that's a cul de sac.
I'm backing out of there. I'm going to get back
onto the main road and try another route, and I
have that as well. That happens to me regularly where
I've written a story and most of it's pretty good,
but I go a little bit off piste at one point,
and my publisher is fantastic about saying, you know, Deb
(19:26):
don't know about that bit. How about this happens instead? Uh,
so yeah, it's a it's a team effort writing a book.
S4 (19:34):
Yay! Story time.
S2 (19:36):
I wondered if you'd be able to share an excerpt
of Tawney trouble for us. Now, please.
S3 (19:40):
I'd love to. I'm going to read from the first
chapter of Tawney. Trouble. It's called tiger country. The road
snakes blackly through thick forest. Why is it that night
time seems darker in the country, darker and bigger. The
moon hangs like a crisp slice of apple over the road.
(20:01):
Moths and all sorts of insects dive across our headlights.
I press my cheek against the cold glass of the
window and look out into the trees for possums, owls
and who knows what else. Before we left the city,
Uncle Mo told us about a mysterious tiger that some
people believe lives down here. Seriously? A tiger in Western Australia?
(20:25):
The Tassie tiger, he said. It was real. But it
didn't just live in Tasmania. It roamed the whole country,
even here. Asked my little brother Felix. Even here, most
people believe it's extinct now, though most people, I repeated.
So you mean maybe it's not extinct? Maybe not. Tess.
(20:48):
Some people reckon there are still a few around. Uncle
Mo lowered his voice, And there have been sightings in
the Deep South. Not far from Nancy. That's where we're going,
said Felix, eyes wide. That's right. They call it the
nan up, tiger. No, mum, said, a playful grin on
(21:08):
her face. Oh yes, uncle Mo said. The tiger is
still out there. And now here we are, down in
the Deep South in Tiger Country. We're driving back to
our cottage in the forest, not far from the town
of Nannup. I'm not sure I believe Uncle Mo's tiger story.
He loves mysterious things and when we beg him to,
(21:30):
he tells us about the night he was walking home
from a friend's place and a strange warm green light
filled the whole sky above him. Uncle Mo said he
broke into a run to get home. He was so scared.
I laugh a little, thinking about that now beside us
hugging the edges of the road are gnarled, brown marri
trees and deeper in the towering white trunks of Carrie's. Whoa!
(21:55):
Mum slows down and swerves around something. See that? A
head snap up. What? Says Felix, sleepy face suddenly alert.
Half a tree on the road, mate, uncle Mo says. Oh!
Felix's eyelids fall back shut. Not a tiger, then. A
few seconds later, Vivi cries, look and points at the
(22:18):
edge of the road. A roo roo mum completely takes
her foot off the accelerator and we look where Vivi
is pointing. A big grey kangaroo is poised on the
road verge, its glossy eyes shine in our headlights. A
couple of smaller roos sit nearby, ears alert to the danger.
Far out. That's a big one, says Felix. Kinkanga, says
(22:42):
Uncle Mo, that's the boss of the pack for sure. Kangaroo,
I say, and the twins giggle. I'm going to take
it easy along here, I think. Mum slows right down
and adjusts her glasses. Don't want to ruin the night
for any of this wildlife or for us. You hit
something like that. Uncle Moe starts. Exactly. Mum nods, and
(23:05):
we have some precious cargo on board, don't we, kids?
Uncle Moe, I guess. No, Tess. Mum laughs. You three
is who I mean. But most precious too, of course.
I smile at her in the rear view mirror and
snuggle back in my seat. I want to think back
over everything we saw and did and heard today at
(23:25):
the festival. It was amazing.
S2 (23:28):
That was an excerpt of Tawney Trouble by Deb Fitzpatrick.
Read for us by the author herself. Thank you.
S3 (23:34):
Deb, such a pleasure.
S2 (23:35):
I really like the line the moon hangs like a
crisp slice of apple over the road. Creates a really
clear image in my mind that I can really hang
on to and bite on. It was great. I could
really feel the forest sort of are closing in around
them as they took these turns and these animals pop out.
And I'm curious, does Tessa end up seeing a nan
(23:57):
up tiger?
S3 (23:59):
You'll have. No, no, no, Gemma. Sorry. Not going to
go there. You're just going to have to read the
book to find out.
S2 (24:05):
Fair enough. I have to keep reading, so I will
absolutely do that. If you live in Perth, you can
meet Deb and have your own private ten minute storytime
experience on the Fremantle Wheel as part of Totally Lit Festival. Um,
now it makes sense why I had that mini Ferris
wheel in my pocket if my happy pants. So, Deb,
(24:27):
tell us, when is Story Wheel happening?
S3 (24:30):
So Story Wheel is such a fun idea. I don't
think I've ever been asked to do such a fun
lit festival event. It's part of the new Fremantle Literature
Festival called Totally Lit, and the story wheel idea is
literally to use the Ferris wheel that's on the Esplanade
Park in Fremantle. And to put an author into one
(24:55):
of those gondolas. And you, the author, can be joined
by up to four guests at a time, and the
Ferris wheel will go round. The author, who will be
me and a few others in different gondolas, will have
a book to share with his or her guests, and
(25:15):
I will just read to them for that time. So
I'll be reading from Tony Trouble or maybe one of
my other books. Who knows?
S2 (25:23):
Oh that's amazing.
S3 (25:24):
So fun. Yeah. Such a great idea. Who thought of.
I mean, I know who thought of it. It was
Sharon Flindell. It's amazing.
S2 (25:30):
Yeah, it's such an experience. So to have those words
spoken to you as you're experiencing the feeling of going up, up,
up and down and the swaying and the breeze, there's
always a breeze in Fremantle.
S3 (25:41):
Absolutely.
S2 (25:42):
And the views as well?
S3 (25:43):
Yes.
S2 (25:44):
And the sun. I'm sure it'll be a sunny day.
S3 (25:46):
I think it will be.
S2 (25:47):
I believe that's happening on Friday the 10th of October
between 10 and 2. Is that right?
S3 (25:52):
That's correct. Each author is on for one hour. I'm
on from 12:00 to 1 p.m.. You do have to book.
Each session will last for about ten minutes and there'll
be other amazing authors as well. Gemma. There'll be Meg McKinlay,
who's an incredible poet, children's book author Jeanette Stampone, and
Susan Joy Liu. So lots of different authors there to
(26:15):
share their stories.
S2 (26:16):
Fantastic. So that's the story. We're all happening as part
of Totally Lit Festival here in Perth and Fremantle, WA.
You can book via Totally Lit. That's totally lit. Dot
Deb Fitzpatrick, author, adventurer. It's been such a pleasure to
have you at Happy Pants Headquarters today. Thank you for
(26:37):
sharing your new book with us, as well as some
storytelling tips and tales of your adventures. Perhaps we'll meet
again on the Big Wheel.
S3 (26:44):
I hope so, Gemma, and honestly, thank you so much
for inviting me. I've loved getting to know you and
to learn a little bit more about what you do
here at Vision Australia Radio. And, um, I hope that
kids keep reading and having fun with books.
S2 (26:57):
Now I think. Let's go have some donuts from that
food truck that arrived earlier.
S3 (27:01):
Cinnamon, please.
S2 (27:02):
Yes. Thank you. Happy pants is produced on the lands
of the Whadjuk Noongar people. Vision Australia Radio acknowledges Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first Australians, and
(27:24):
the traditional owners of the land across our working area,
we pay our respects to elders past, present and future
in maintaining their cultures, countries and their spiritual connection to
the lands and waters. Vision Australia Radio acknowledges and respects
the genuine diversity and richness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander peoples across Australia. Happy pants has been made possible
(27:44):
with the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation.
One, two, three. It's happy pants.
S2 (00:30):
G'day, and welcome to Happy Pants, a show specially for
kids and especially for you on Vision Australia Radio. My
name is Gemma and today I'm joined by a very
special guest at Happy Pants headquarters. Her name is Deb Fitzpatrick.
She's written ten books for adults, young adults and children.
Plus is a part of the Totally Lit Festival happening
(00:52):
in Fremantle, Western Australia. Welcome, Deb.
S3 (00:56):
Hi, Gemma. How are you going?
S2 (00:57):
Good, good. It's great to see you today. Thanks for
coming in.
S3 (00:59):
Thanks for having me.
S2 (01:01):
So today my happy pants are super smooth and make
a swishy sound when I walk. There are waxy green
color that makes me think of eucalyptus leaves, which I
love to crunch between my fingers to enjoy the fresh
eucalyptus smell. What are your happy pants like today? Deb?
S3 (01:19):
So my happy pants are a sort of a pale
blue striped denim. That makes me think of the beach.
It makes me think of sea breezes and the salty
smell of the water and the sand and the blue sky,
and that sort of hot summer vibe. I suppose that
(01:40):
we've just started to have here in Perth the last
couple of days.
S2 (01:43):
We have. We've had a lot of sunshine. It's been lovely.
S3 (01:45):
Yeah.
S2 (01:46):
Before we check our happy pants pockets, I'd love to
know a bit more about you, Deb. What are your
first memories of books and stories?
S3 (01:55):
Oh, okay. So, I mean, I would have to say
my first memories of books and stories would be my
mum sitting on my bed with me, telling me stories
that she just made up. And they were very comforting
and very sweet. Eight. And then I very quickly became
(02:15):
absolutely addicted to the local library. So either the local
library or the school library. I was in one of
the two when I was at home. I would read
books of poetry. Um, mum and dad were both English,
and so we had a lot of sort of English
poetry and English books that had been sent over by
family members, um, that I would read over and over again.
(02:37):
So I fell in love with A.A. Milne and other,
you know, writers like that. Um, and then just loved
the library as I got older and became a primary
school student and then a high school student, I loved
the library.
S2 (02:51):
When did you start writing your own stories?
S3 (02:54):
Um, well, I started writing poetry when I was in
primary school, so in about grade five, I remember a teacher.
Her name was Mrs. Pugh, and she said that she
really liked my poetry, and she would send some home
to mum and dad, which was sort of embarrassing, but
in a good way. And then as I went into
high school, I continued with the poetry and I had
another amazing teacher who really supported supported me, and she
(03:18):
again went above and beyond and helped me sort of self-publish,
if you like, a little book of poems, which was
rather badly called Frozen Tears, which, you know, is so angsty,
classic teenager stuff. Right? But, um, stories didn't come to
me until I was in university. I started to write
stories when I was at UWA, doing my first sort
(03:41):
of proper thinking about creative writing.
S2 (03:44):
Mm. And whereabouts do you find inspiration for your stories,
your poems and books that you've written?
S3 (03:49):
So I am really not one of those people who
has an amazing imagination. I don't have one of those
JK Rowling style fantastical imaginations, and as a result of that,
I look to the world around me for my inspiration,
and most of my stories have come from a variety
of things that I've experienced myself or witnessed or heard
(04:12):
about from the real world.
S2 (04:14):
So they're mostly all based in the real world.
S3 (04:17):
All all based in the real world. And I guess
that's why I would just describe my writing as sort of,
you know, contemporary, realistic writing for kids, really. I always
tell kids when I go into classrooms, if they're thinking
about what they might like to write about. For me,
that always just comes back to what you most care
about and what interests you. So the things that you're
(04:38):
reading about in books, like I had a real fascination
for sharks at some point in my early years, and
I read every book about sharks from the library. I
would encourage kids who who are doing that to write
about sharks in a creative way.
S2 (04:53):
And any other tips that you'd give them to help
them with their storytelling. So following their passion, reading everything
they can about sharks, if that's their passion.
S3 (05:01):
Yeah, having a crack. So starting to put words on
the page, which is much harder than you would than
one would think because you imagine that they will flow
in a way that they don't always. And so that
crafting is quite tricky. But the other thing I'd say
to kids is to know that what they think and
feel is really valuable and really valid to write about.
(05:22):
So I think a lot of kids, and definitely when
I was a child, felt like what I was experiencing
and what I wanted to express wasn't really worth anything.
It didn't really mean anything to anyone else. It was
just my own sort of puerile, childish, you know, feelings,
which it's just not the case. And, um, feelings and
(05:42):
experiences and thoughts and worries and preoccupations and ideas and
creative vision. These things are really powerful when you're young.
And I really encourage young people to lean into those
and to have a have a go at exploring them
through words or through whatever creative field they use. So
(06:02):
there could be photography or it could be, uh, scribbling illustrations,
comics and things like that, or songs writing songs. That's
another one that I always talk about with kids.
S2 (06:14):
However, the creativity comes out. Yeah, it's all good. Just
let it out.
S3 (06:18):
Allow yourself to have a go, and don't think that
it always has to be shared with someone. So it's
great to keep it private, because I think a lot
of creativity is actually quite deep and private. And I
think if you think that you don't have to share
it with anyone, that can be quite powerful and personal and,
and sort of intimate, and it can allow you to
(06:39):
get into things more deeply, which is interesting.
S2 (06:43):
Dance like no one's watching.
S3 (06:44):
Ah, that's it Gemma. That's it.
S2 (06:46):
I was wondering, have any people you've met actually made
their way into your stories as characters in your books?
S3 (06:53):
Oh, absolutely. And most of them know who they are.
So in my latest book, 20 trouble, my brother made
his way into the book through a character called Uncle Mo.
That's not his name, but some of my brothers, um,
interests are in stargazing. And UFOs crept into the book,
(07:15):
and I made sure that I checked in with him
about that. In fact, he read a section of the
book to make sure that I hadn't made any mistakes
about stars in the night Sky, but also just to
make sure that he was happy with how sort of
a character based on him was being represented in the book. Yeah, absolutely.
And Helen Garner very famously says that many of her
(07:36):
characters have started with someone she knows quite well. And
of course, the person you know really well is yourself.
And that's why you often find little versions of you
in characters.
S2 (07:48):
So speaking of the natural environment that you referred to
before that you enjoy so much, I heard that you
once lived in the jungle in Costa Rica.
S3 (07:55):
Yeah.
S2 (07:56):
Wow.
S3 (07:56):
Can you tell us a little about that? Well, I
can barely believe it, you know? Really, even now, 20
years later. It was in the actually, it was in
the cloud forest, which is, um, about 1500 meters above
sea level. We were there because my husband was doing
his PhD research in Costa Rica. He was doing it
here at Murdoch, but he got a sort of an
(08:17):
arrangement where he could share the research element with an
institution in, in Costa Rica. So we were there for
we were meant to be there for three months, and
we were there for four years. That's how life happens, right? Wow.
S2 (08:32):
And so what did you see while you were there?
S3 (08:34):
Oh my goodness. It was like, oh, it's like a
Disneyland of amazing wilderness animals, birds. So the one that
springs to mind was something that we saw all the time.
Every day, multiple times we would see toucans. So the
sorts of two cans with the bright green, yellow and
orange striped beaks that you might have seen on the
(08:58):
Froot Loops cereal packet, that sort of thing. What else
do we see? Scarlet macaws. We saw three toed sloths.
We had a little shack that was facing into the
cloud forest, and when I was writing my first book
by that stage and when I was typing, I would
often look out and see spider monkeys or white faced
(09:19):
capuchins just looping one arm to another arm from tree
to vine to tree, literally through the window. And it
was sort of surreal. I really couldn't believe it. Absolutely
amazing period of our time, of our lives.
S2 (09:33):
Yeah, it sounds incredible. And you said Cloud Forest. I
just want to come back to that. So you were
so high up in the mountains, you were literally in
the clouds?
S3 (09:41):
Yeah.
S2 (09:42):
How was that?
S3 (09:43):
You're not sort of in the cloud so much as
what happens is that there's a lot of precipitation up
that high, and it comes in the form of cloud
that moved through that part of the forest on its
way up the mountain. And so at a certain time
of day, the weather would come in and there would
be cloud swirling through that mist swirling through our house
(10:05):
as it moved up the forest. And it was phenomenal.
And that's why there are a lot of bats that
lived there in that part of the of the cloud forest.
And as a result of all this amazing biology, fauna
and flora, um, there would be a lot of conservation biologists, zoologists,
botanists come up from the United States in particular to
(10:28):
do things like bat mist netting, which is where they
would put out mist nets to catch the bats at
certain times of the day so they could count how
many certain kinds of bats. And, you know, there are
other really sad, um, elements of that, of course, which
is that when we lived there, the golden toad, which was,
you know, a very rare toad, still lived in the
(10:51):
cloud forest. Uh, and then by the time we left,
it had not been seen for some time. So probably
extinct now. And that's climate change.
S2 (10:58):
Yeah, absolutely. And what an amazing part of the world.
And an experience so beautiful.
S3 (11:04):
It was like a Disneyland. Sometimes blue morpho butterflies would
all be coming out of the cocoons at the same time,
and you'd look out the window at one day and
it would be Blue Morpho birthday, with literally hundreds of
them bobbing around through those dark green leafed jungly plants
(11:24):
that lived there. It was so different from our Australian
sort of bush colours, the olives and the greys and
that drier feel, which is equally beautiful but just different.
S1 (11:33):
Got your happy pants on? I do. It's happy pants
on Vision Australia Radio.
S2 (11:39):
It's time to check our happy pants pockets. How about
you go first? Deb, have a look. What have you
got in there today?
S3 (11:44):
Okay, just foraging around in there right now. There's an
old tissue. No, that doesn't count. Okay. So. Oh. What's that?
I've got some moths in here.
S2 (11:53):
Moths?
S3 (11:53):
Moths? Do you not like? Some people are funny about moths. Don't.
Don't you like moths?
S2 (11:58):
I don't mind them, but if they're in my hand,
I get the sort of dust that comes off them.
That sort of sensation? Are they sort of a bit
dusty in your hands?
S3 (12:06):
They're very delicate, aren't they? You certainly wouldn't want to
try to touch them. They're actually just sitting on my
hand right now. I'm not touching them. They're touching me.
S2 (12:13):
Lovely. That must feel feathery.
S3 (12:15):
And it feels spidery and very delicate.
S2 (12:18):
What have I got here? I've got. Oh, it's quite hard.
I'm pulling it out. It's a book. Oh, it's tawny trouble.
I think you know this one.
S3 (12:28):
I might have seen that one before.
S2 (12:29):
Yep. That's your your most recent book. Excellent. I'm glad
we've got that here. Um, I've just got one other thing,
and it's really weird and large, and it's driving out
of my pocket. It's a food truck.
S3 (12:41):
Oh.
S2 (12:42):
What? Selling doughnuts.
S3 (12:45):
Mhm. Yum.
S2 (12:46):
Oh, I can smell the cinnamon, the vanilla and all
the fried goodness.
S3 (12:51):
Yum.
S2 (12:51):
Can't wait to get me a doughnut. I wonder what's. Mm.
I wonder what that's about. We'll find out about that
I guess. Have you got anything else in your pocket
there Deb.
S3 (12:57):
What else have I got in my pocket? I've got,
I've got the leaves of a curry tree in my pocket.
And they are. They have fallen from great heights because
carries are really tall, and they have that eucalyptus smell
about them that you mentioned earlier. And they make me
(13:20):
think of the Australian bush the south west of WA. Yeah. Mhm.
S2 (13:25):
Oh beautiful. Lovely. And I've just got one more thing
that's poking me here. Let me get that out. It's
a a mini model of a Ferris wheel.
S3 (13:34):
Oh.
S2 (13:34):
Huh. That's weird. Okay, well, maybe we'll get to that
one a bit later, but the book. Well, that's your book. Fantastic. Um.
The moths. And I'm curious about the moths and the
curry tree leaves. So they have something to do with
your book?
S3 (13:50):
They really do. Are they must have known that you
had my book in your pocket?
S2 (13:55):
Yeah.
S3 (13:55):
They wanted to make a connection. So. Yes. So, um, Tony,
Trouble is a book about an 11 year old girl
called Tessa, who is with her family in the south
west of WA on a holiday in the Nannup sort
of area for those, um, those of you who've been there.
They're driving through the forest at night time. They're driving
through karri forest, karri country, and it's really tall trees.
(14:19):
It's really spectacular. They're all really tired because they've been
at the Nannup music Festival, where there may or may
not have been eating a lot of doughnuts from the
food trucks there. And. Yeah, and Tessa's in the back
seat with her brother and sister, who are twins. And
Tessa's mum starts to slow down the car because there
(14:40):
are animals sitting at the side of this forest road.
It's at night time and the animals are out feeding
and you know. So she slows down because a kangaroo
pokes its head out, and then she slows down again
because something swoops in front of the car. And then
Tessa and her brother and sister hear a bit of
a thud.
S2 (15:02):
Uh oh.
S3 (15:03):
Um.
S2 (15:03):
They've hit something.
S3 (15:05):
And it's because of the moths. Gemma.
S2 (15:07):
Ah.
S3 (15:08):
Tawny. Frogmouths like to eat insects. And moths and moths
are attracted to light. And on the front of a
car at nighttime are the headlights shining into the forest
so the driver can find their way home. But the
tawny frogmouths also like what is attracted to these lights,
(15:33):
and that is moths. So the moths are attracted to
the lights and buzz around the headlights and the tawny's
dive in for a feed. And yes, so Tessa's mum
tries very hard to avoid a tawny frogmouth but isn't
entirely successful. Ouch. Sorry to say. Yeah.
S2 (15:53):
And so they pull over. That's it.
S3 (15:56):
And Uncle Mo is in the passenger seat. Uh, and
he and mum hop out and they realized that it's
a tawny. They weren't sure what had happened and they thought,
oh my goodness, please can we really hope we haven't
killed this bird? Um, but they haven't. The bird is
still alive. And so they bundle it up and they
(16:17):
put it in a blanket from the boot of the car,
and they hand it to Tessa, who's 11 and who
loves Nate nature anyway, to hold on to whilst they
drive back to the village to figure out what on
earth they are going to do with an injured tawny frogmouth.
And it's all about how we care for wildlife. Yes,
(16:37):
the book is about that. And, um, that's a really
important thing to talk about. So yeah, I've, you know,
I don't think there'd be too many families around who
who have had night time drives, who haven't also had
an interaction good or bad, with a bit of Australian wildlife.
And that's where the book began. We ourselves were driving
from the Nannup music festival one night, and I had
(17:00):
to jam on the brakes a couple of times to
miss tourneys. Luckily I completely missed them, but I thought, well,
what if you know what, what if, and what would
you do? And that's where the book began.
S2 (17:12):
Wow. And it's quite an adventure, I believe, for Tessa,
isn't it?
S3 (17:15):
It's great fun. It's great fun. She gets herself into
a bit of a pickle. But, you know, kids and
pickles are important, right?
S2 (17:22):
Absolutely.
S3 (17:23):
You got to have them.
S2 (17:23):
Yeah. Always. And what made you decide to set the
story in Nannup specifically?
S3 (17:29):
Well, that's partly because I have a huge love for
that south western corner of Western Australia. And I've been
going there different parts of it for most of my life,
I suppose, but I'm very lucky that I have access
to a shack in the karri forest, right where that
story unfolds. And I've been going there for the last
15 years on and off. And it was on one
(17:53):
of those weekends when this happened to me. We were
visiting the Nannup Music Festival. It's an incredible annual event
where all sorts of musicians gather. You know, there's rock music,
there's folk music, there's indigenous sounds. It's a really fun
event all weekend for the family. And we're taking our kids,
you know, driving home through that karri forest. It was
(18:16):
just alive with wildlife, and we had that experience. And
so I thought, well, why? Why not start a story
there and just see what happens? And that's pretty much
how I start all my stories. It starts with a
what if kind of scenario or question, or what if
I had hit that tawni, what would we do? What
would a child do? And then I have to make
(18:38):
my imagination work hard to see what happens. And of course,
it all unfolded in that beautiful karri forest with this
gorgeous 11 year old Tessa, who's a great character. I
don't know where she came from.
S2 (18:51):
Well, that's another great tip for any writers out there.
Any budding writers. What if to start with the what if?
And then something happens and then what? And then and
then and just going along and it can take you
right down a crazy path.
S3 (19:04):
That's it. And sometimes the path does go a bit crazy.
And you have to say, okay, that's a cul de sac.
I'm backing out of there. I'm going to get back
onto the main road and try another route, and I
have that as well. That happens to me regularly where
I've written a story and most of it's pretty good,
but I go a little bit off piste at one point,
and my publisher is fantastic about saying, you know, Deb
(19:26):
don't know about that bit. How about this happens instead? Uh,
so yeah, it's a it's a team effort writing a book.
S4 (19:34):
Yay! Story time.
S2 (19:36):
I wondered if you'd be able to share an excerpt
of Tawney trouble for us. Now, please.
S3 (19:40):
I'd love to. I'm going to read from the first
chapter of Tawney. Trouble. It's called tiger country. The road
snakes blackly through thick forest. Why is it that night
time seems darker in the country, darker and bigger. The
moon hangs like a crisp slice of apple over the road.
(20:01):
Moths and all sorts of insects dive across our headlights.
I press my cheek against the cold glass of the
window and look out into the trees for possums, owls
and who knows what else. Before we left the city,
Uncle Mo told us about a mysterious tiger that some
people believe lives down here. Seriously? A tiger in Western Australia?
(20:25):
The Tassie tiger, he said. It was real. But it
didn't just live in Tasmania. It roamed the whole country,
even here. Asked my little brother Felix. Even here, most
people believe it's extinct now, though most people, I repeated.
So you mean maybe it's not extinct? Maybe not. Tess.
(20:48):
Some people reckon there are still a few around. Uncle
Mo lowered his voice, And there have been sightings in
the Deep South. Not far from Nancy. That's where we're going,
said Felix, eyes wide. That's right. They call it the
nan up, tiger. No, mum, said, a playful grin on
(21:08):
her face. Oh yes, uncle Mo said. The tiger is
still out there. And now here we are, down in
the Deep South in Tiger Country. We're driving back to
our cottage in the forest, not far from the town
of Nannup. I'm not sure I believe Uncle Mo's tiger story.
He loves mysterious things and when we beg him to,
(21:30):
he tells us about the night he was walking home
from a friend's place and a strange warm green light
filled the whole sky above him. Uncle Mo said he
broke into a run to get home. He was so scared.
I laugh a little, thinking about that now beside us
hugging the edges of the road are gnarled, brown marri
trees and deeper in the towering white trunks of Carrie's. Whoa!
(21:55):
Mum slows down and swerves around something. See that? A
head snap up. What? Says Felix, sleepy face suddenly alert.
Half a tree on the road, mate, uncle Mo says. Oh!
Felix's eyelids fall back shut. Not a tiger, then. A
few seconds later, Vivi cries, look and points at the
(22:18):
edge of the road. A roo roo mum completely takes
her foot off the accelerator and we look where Vivi
is pointing. A big grey kangaroo is poised on the
road verge, its glossy eyes shine in our headlights. A
couple of smaller roos sit nearby, ears alert to the danger.
Far out. That's a big one, says Felix. Kinkanga, says
(22:42):
Uncle Mo, that's the boss of the pack for sure. Kangaroo,
I say, and the twins giggle. I'm going to take
it easy along here, I think. Mum slows right down
and adjusts her glasses. Don't want to ruin the night
for any of this wildlife or for us. You hit
something like that. Uncle Moe starts. Exactly. Mum nods, and
(23:05):
we have some precious cargo on board, don't we, kids?
Uncle Moe, I guess. No, Tess. Mum laughs. You three
is who I mean. But most precious too, of course.
I smile at her in the rear view mirror and
snuggle back in my seat. I want to think back
over everything we saw and did and heard today at
(23:25):
the festival. It was amazing.
S2 (23:28):
That was an excerpt of Tawney Trouble by Deb Fitzpatrick.
Read for us by the author herself. Thank you.
S3 (23:34):
Deb, such a pleasure.
S2 (23:35):
I really like the line the moon hangs like a
crisp slice of apple over the road. Creates a really
clear image in my mind that I can really hang
on to and bite on. It was great. I could
really feel the forest sort of are closing in around
them as they took these turns and these animals pop out.
And I'm curious, does Tessa end up seeing a nan
(23:57):
up tiger?
S3 (23:59):
You'll have. No, no, no, Gemma. Sorry. Not going to
go there. You're just going to have to read the
book to find out.
S2 (24:05):
Fair enough. I have to keep reading, so I will
absolutely do that. If you live in Perth, you can
meet Deb and have your own private ten minute storytime
experience on the Fremantle Wheel as part of Totally Lit Festival. Um,
now it makes sense why I had that mini Ferris
wheel in my pocket if my happy pants. So, Deb,
(24:27):
tell us, when is Story Wheel happening?
S3 (24:30):
So Story Wheel is such a fun idea. I don't
think I've ever been asked to do such a fun
lit festival event. It's part of the new Fremantle Literature
Festival called Totally Lit, and the story wheel idea is
literally to use the Ferris wheel that's on the Esplanade
Park in Fremantle. And to put an author into one
(24:55):
of those gondolas. And you, the author, can be joined
by up to four guests at a time, and the
Ferris wheel will go round. The author, who will be
me and a few others in different gondolas, will have
a book to share with his or her guests, and
(25:15):
I will just read to them for that time. So
I'll be reading from Tony Trouble or maybe one of
my other books. Who knows?
S2 (25:23):
Oh that's amazing.
S3 (25:24):
So fun. Yeah. Such a great idea. Who thought of.
I mean, I know who thought of it. It was
Sharon Flindell. It's amazing.
S2 (25:30):
Yeah, it's such an experience. So to have those words
spoken to you as you're experiencing the feeling of going up, up,
up and down and the swaying and the breeze, there's
always a breeze in Fremantle.
S3 (25:41):
Absolutely.
S2 (25:42):
And the views as well?
S3 (25:43):
Yes.
S2 (25:44):
And the sun. I'm sure it'll be a sunny day.
S3 (25:46):
I think it will be.
S2 (25:47):
I believe that's happening on Friday the 10th of October
between 10 and 2. Is that right?
S3 (25:52):
That's correct. Each author is on for one hour. I'm
on from 12:00 to 1 p.m.. You do have to book.
Each session will last for about ten minutes and there'll
be other amazing authors as well. Gemma. There'll be Meg McKinlay,
who's an incredible poet, children's book author Jeanette Stampone, and
Susan Joy Liu. So lots of different authors there to
(26:15):
share their stories.
S2 (26:16):
Fantastic. So that's the story. We're all happening as part
of Totally Lit Festival here in Perth and Fremantle, WA.
You can book via Totally Lit. That's totally lit. Dot
Deb Fitzpatrick, author, adventurer. It's been such a pleasure to
have you at Happy Pants Headquarters today. Thank you for
(26:37):
sharing your new book with us, as well as some
storytelling tips and tales of your adventures. Perhaps we'll meet
again on the Big Wheel.
S3 (26:44):
I hope so, Gemma, and honestly, thank you so much
for inviting me. I've loved getting to know you and
to learn a little bit more about what you do
here at Vision Australia Radio. And, um, I hope that
kids keep reading and having fun with books.
S2 (26:57):
Now I think. Let's go have some donuts from that
food truck that arrived earlier.
S3 (27:01):
Cinnamon, please.
S2 (27:02):
Yes. Thank you. Happy pants is produced on the lands
of the Whadjuk Noongar people. Vision Australia Radio acknowledges Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first Australians, and
(27:24):
the traditional owners of the land across our working area,
we pay our respects to elders past, present and future
in maintaining their cultures, countries and their spiritual connection to
the lands and waters. Vision Australia Radio acknowledges and respects
the genuine diversity and richness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander peoples across Australia. Happy pants has been made possible
(27:44):
with the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation.
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