And I wanted this creature to feel like that as well.

That’s not how nature works – animals and plant life are completely uncaring of humans. “What doesn’t chime with fables and myths is when a creature of the natural world is very concerned about what’s happening in the humans’ lives.

The heron emerged from the idea of a creature that could influence the weather and nature and Arnott wanted to write it into a fable, but one with a difference. I want to focus on the why of the natural world and just try to evoke that sense of wonder that it evokes in all of us.” When we read about climate change so much of it is reduced to statistics, percentages and numbers and while those things are important, they can almost form a mirage against the sheer glory of the natural world. “I hope to present the natural world in a way that feels as fantastic as it really is. The judges were poet Thuy On, editor and author Susan Wyndham, and me.Īrnott says he’s not a didactic writer – he wants entertainment for the reader – but if there’s one message the novel has it’s about how we’re ruining the world, and how we need to stop. It is the 40th time the award has been presented and marks its return after a hiatus of nine years.Īrnott’s novel was chosen from a shortlist of seven works of fiction – four were by Tasmanian writers – that also included The Tolstoy Estate, Steven Conte The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, Richard Flanagan A Room Made of Leaves, Kate Grenville The Labyrinth, Amanda Lohrey Song of the Crocodile, Nardi Simpson, and Born into This, Adam Thompson. Scattered thunderstorms in the morning, then mainly cloudy during the afternoon with thunderstorms likely. But what he wrote, he admits, was dreadful – he had no experience, no craft and, crucially, nothing to say.įast forward quite a few years and the Hobart-based writer’s second novel, The Rain Heron, has been named Age Book of the Year, for which he receives a prize of $10,000, thanks to the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund. Having grown up in a home surrounded by books, with a mother who read to him all the time, it was all he wanted to do. Robbie Arnott was obsessed with writing when he was younger.

The rain heron