Pauline Montagna

I was born into an Italian family in Melbourne in 1957. After the usual Catholic schooling, I attended La Trobe University where I studied French, Italian and History, graduating as a Bachelor of Arts in 1978. Having realised that I was unable to face a high school classroom after all, I decided against continuing onto a Diploma of Education as I had originally planned, and instead joined the Commonwealth Public Service. The Department of Social Security thought that someone with a major in French would be perfect for the Finance Department. It was fortunate for them that, as the daughter of shopkeepers, I happened to have a good head for figures.

I escaped from the public service after less than two years to undertake the young Australian’s rite of passage, backpacking in Europe. On my return to Melbourne I thought I might use my developing accounting skills to break into the arts industries. This proved difficult, so instead I pursued temporary work in a wide variety of industries. At the same time, having attended acting classes, I indulged my artistic side in Melbourne’s thriving amateur theatre scene. Again, acting roles proved elusive, but there was always plenty of backstage work to be done.

My big break came in the mid-eighties when I scored my first job as a freelance Production Accountant in the film industry. The industry was booming at the time as a result of Tax Regulation 10BA which was a generous incentive to invest in films. However, with accountants directing investment, most of the films made at the time were…well let me put it this way, of the five films I worked on, four have sunk into the obscurity they deserved.

I spent most of the long breaks between films in South-East Asia, and, as the 10BA incentives were slowly reduced, drying up film production, I decided to try my hand at importing and selling Thai handicrafts and tableware. However, while my record keeping was exemplary, I couldn’t have sold a glass of water in the Sahara. The business collapsed leaving me chastened and bruised and forcing me to fall back onto my accounting skills again.

In the early nineties, I decided to give a career in the film industry another go and so moved to Perth to work on a children’s mini-series. It proved to be a disastrous experience, reminding me of why I had left the industry in the first place. With that career no longer viable, I fell back on my first ambition, teaching. I returned to university and qualified as a teacher of Literacy and English as a Second Language for adults.

After five years in Perth and another long-awaited trip to Europe, I returned to Melbourne where I discovered the Professional Writing and Editing course. Having proven to myself that I was an A-grade student who enjoyed writing and got her assignments in on time, I decided to apply those skills to my secret passion, writing. Under the discipline of a course, I hoped that I could finally finish all those half-realised projects that were accumulating on my computer. Enrolling in PWE proved to be a good move and I gained the confidence to become what I had always wanted to be, a writer. (Although, of course, I didn’t give up my day job!)

My first novel, The Slave, began as an assignment for PWE, but the idea was born way back at La Trobe University. In my second year I was attending lectures on French literature which were also being attended by a rather handsome Asian boy. Not actually enrolled in the course, he sat in regal isolation at the back of the theatre. Although I was too shy to approach the lad, he played on my girlish, and necessarily romantic imagination. I saw him as a Laotian prince, driven out of his country by the communists, attending French lectures just to be able to listen to the language of his childhood. At the same time my History subject was Medieval and Renaissance Italy. And somehow, as I indulged my fantasies, the Asian boy found himself stranded in Medieval Italy.

As I was writing The Slave, I kept telling myself the novel was just a learning experience, that I should never expect to get it published, that all writers had at least one unpublished manuscript in their bottom drawer. But once the book was finished I knew it was good enough to be published and so decided to give it a shot. However, I soon discovered that, just as we’d been told in PWE, getting published in Australia was virtually impossible.

Well, that wasn’t the only thing I’d learnt in PWE. I had also learnt how to self-publish, and so self-publish I did. I undertook the editing, typesetting and cover design and got 100 copies printed with the best in digital technology. All right, so I still have 40 copies on my hands, but I have faith in my creation and am willing to give it the time it needs. In the meantime, I’ve published my second book, a short story collection called Suburban Terrors.