In Conversation ... with Cameron Macintosh

     

In Conversation with 

Cameron Macintosh

This "In Conversation" has been organised in conjunction with 

Books On Tour PR & Marketing

as a part of the Max Booth Future Sleuth campaign.

Tell us about your most recent publication. 

My latest book, Map Trap, is the sixth title in the Max Booth Future Sleuth series, illustrated by the amazing Dave Atze and published by Big Sky Publishing.

In each book in the series, our 25th century heroes – 11-year-old Max and his trusty beagle-bot Oscar – investigate a long-forgotten item from the 20th or 21st centuries and are catapulted into fun and adventure by what they discover about it. In Map Trap, they come across a car GPS unit. They follow the previous owner’s most recent journey and find themselves at the scene of a high-tech art robbery. Not being the kind of folks to sit idly by, Max and Oscar use all of their wits (as well as a certain GPS unit) to try to apprehend the robbers and put things right.

Published @ BIG SKY PUBLISHING

What do you enjoy most about being a writer?

The more I think about it, the luckier I feel to have a job that allows me to spend inordinate amounts of time on my beanbag, thinking stuff up. I also love that it’s opened the doors to meeting so many interesting creative people, many of whom have been incredibly generous with support and advice.

What is the hardest aspect about being a writer?

For me, it’s the need to have ideas ready to go at any given moment. If a commission comes up and I don’t already have a few ideas scribbled down, I can get very stressed trying to harvest them out of thin air. This is where notepads and dictation apps are so helpful – any idea that strikes me as interesting or workable, I try to get it down and file it away before it escapes!

Writers are sometimes influenced by things that happen in their own lives. Are you?

Very much so. More often than not it’s in simple observation of physical locations, or people’s behaviours or speech patterns. Sometimes though, it can take a more concrete form. This was the case with the Max Booth series, which was sparked by a visit to Pompeii and the archaeological museum in Naples. I spent a lot of time looking at 2000-year-old artefacts – even mundane things like combs and cooking pots – imagining them being used by very real people all those centuries ago. This made me wonder what future generations will think when they see everyday items from our present-day lives, which gave me the idea for a future detective with a specific interest in precisely that, and (ka-boom!) Max was born.

Other than writing, what else do you love?

My other big passion is music – listening to it, writing it and performing it. I can occasionally be seen onstage at pub open mics and singing with classical choirs. I especially love 60s rock, and post-rock like Radiohead and Sigur Ros, as well as old-school gospel and Motown.

How did you get published?

I was incredibly lucky with the first Max Booth book – it was an unsolicited submission, and we’ve all heard stories about how hard it is to get published that way. It may have helped that I had a bit of a track record as an educational author over the previous six or seven years, but hopefully the concept for the series was strong enough on its own. 

Big Sky asked me for a second title shortly thereafter, and we’ve basically put out one a year since then. Map Trap is book 6, which blows my mind the more I think about it!

Have you ever had a fan moment and met somebody famous? Tell us about it.

Back in 2014 I went to a Salman Rushdie speech at the Melbourne Writers Festival, which was followed by a book signing. I lined up for about half an hour with book in hand, trying to think of suitably witty and/or profound things to say. Of course, the moment I reached the signing table I froze up and said some really boring thing about his speech and welcomed him to Melbourne. He was very gracious nonetheless.

How can we learn more about you? 

     

 

    

Thank you for joining In Conversation this week. Remember to always 

Dream Big ... Read Often.