Paulene Turner, author of The Time Travel Chronicles

I am the author of a six-book YA time travel series, called The Time Travel Chronicles. Secrets of the Nile, book one in the series, will be released on 18 July, 2023. I hope to release books two and three by the end of the year and the final three in 2024.

Creating this series has been the most fun I’ve ever had as a writer.  It took me over a decade to write, involved researching five historical periods and tapping out over half a million words!

The process for each book began with research. I spent a couple of months reading as much as I could on each new period and taking notes. I usually filled an A4 notebook and more with details — not of historic events or real characters — but of the way people lived. I focused on the food, the homes, the social order, courting rituals, the general vibe of a place, ferreting out as many true details (especially the gory ones) as I could find. Only when I felt I had inhaled the essence of each period did I sit down to write. 

Once I had a completed manuscript, I edited it multiple times, before giving it to my family to read — they’re all good writers and structural editors. They gave me notes. Then my script editor went over it…more notes. And some people from my writing group looked at parts of it…notes, notes, notes. I also had input from my writing teachers at the Faber Academy. Plus sensitivity readers when cultural issues arose. The proof reader mopped up what was left!

And so…after that looong process of writing and revising, I’m now here, preparing to launch my first baby out into the world.  

A bit about my background. I’m an ex-journalist –I wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald among others. I also write short stories and short plays, which I direct at the Short and Sweet play festival, Sydney. My plays have ranged from the serious Second Chance, about hit-and-run accident, to the mysterious Monet Monet Monet, an art gallery heist, and the rom-com Boyfriend 2.0 in which a human male competes with an A.I. for the love of a woman. Videos of most of these are on Myvimeosite. 

I began writing creatively as a screenplay writer.  One of my scripts, an animation called Space Cadet, was nominated by the Australian Writers Guild for best unproduced script. Unfortunately, there was no real opportunities to have the film made in Australia.

That screen training has made me a very visual, dialogue-oriented writer. For me a scene, is an image with moving parts before it has any words. I watch what happens in my head and try to jot it all down. Which means my books have a lot of in-the-moment scenes, where we are on the character’s shoulders as the important moments play out.

This is especially so in the  six books of The Time Travel Chronicles, a high-concept roller-coaster of a  series, with romance, history and mystery and a droll narrator steering us through it all — for better or worse.

I hope you’ll try it out and that you enjoy reading the tales as much  as I enjoyed writing them.