Lyn Hughes is the author of the critically acclaimed novels The Factory (1990), shortlisted for the National Book Council’s New Writing Award, One Way Mirrors (1993), The Bright House (2000) and Flock (2011). She was born in Wales in 1952 and spent some years in South Africa before moving to Australia in 1982. Lyn divides her time between the south coast village of Austinmer and Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains.

Lyn’s Agent is Lyn Tranter of Australian Literary Management.

Acknowledgement of Country: I pay my respects to the Dharug/Gundungurra and Dharawal peoples on whose land I live and create. Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land.

Profile Images are by Stephanie Simcox.

For more about me, see the autobiographical piece, Arabesque.

 

On writing:

Like Kafka, I believe that: “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.”

On my own work:

When Booktopia asked, in Ten Terrifying Questions, what I hoped people would take from it, I said:

“Hope. Joy. Laughter. Curiosity. Good stuff. Because I do deal with some tough stuff, I don’t resile from it. In fact, when I’m writing, it sometimes feels like I’m taking an elevator down into the very basement of myself, a place full of shadows and dark corners. And that all I have are words, to cut through the murk. Then again, I really don’t see much point in writing, unless you’re going to try and illuminate something.”