Fancy Meeting You Here: An Interview with Australian Authors Ali Berg & Michelle Kalus

Having recently got the opportunity to review Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus’ newest romantic comedy with a twist, Fancy Meeting You Here, I was delighted to be able to ask the collaborative authors for some insight behind the book.

In this interview we discuss all things writing, navigating COVID-19, screenwriting research and much more.

Congratulations on the release of your new book, Fancy Meeting You Here. I loved it! For those who aren’t aware, can you tell us about what readers can expect from the book?

Thank you so much! We are so excited to have our newest book baby out in the world.

Fancy Meeting Here is a romantic, bookish novel with just a splash of time travel magic. It’s about friendship, dreaming big, love and reliving that oh so dreamy, yet complicated time … your twenties. It takes you to another world where life is sort of simpler. It was super cathartic to create this story during a pandemic, and we hope it will be the comforting, uplifting read we all need this summer.

You’ve been friends your whole life. What’s it like writing a novel with your best friend? Do you ever find yourself surprised by the ideas the other comes up with, or have you got pretty good at anticipating each other’s motives and ideas?

We can’t believe how lucky we are to get to write stories together for a living! Not only do we have so much fun concocting these new worlds and quirky characters, but I think we’re able to navigate the setbacks and anxieties so much more easily.

We’re able to be self-deprecating and use humour to move forward quickly. Plus, we get the best of both worlds – writing and reading! It’s always such a treat seeing how the other person brings to life a chapter. We have such a shared sense of our story’s trajectory, but often find ourselves laughing as we read each other’s work for the first time.

How do you write your novels (i.e. do you each do an alternate chapter or a character each and then bring it all together?)

We spend a lot of time nutting out our characters and finessing the plot in depth. This allows us to divvy up the chapters and write on our own when it works with our schedule. Our plot map is key as it’s not unusual that one of us is writing a chapter that comes after another that doesn’t yet exist!

We then read over and edit each other’s work, putting a bit of ourselves into each part. Over the three books, we’ve almost created a new voice that is a bit of Ali, a bit of Michelle. When we read back over our stories, we often can’t remember or work out who wrote what!

You both live in Melbourne and obviously worked on this novel together. However, with the recent lockdowns in Melbourne and COVID-19 changing things so rapidly, did you find that your usual collaborative processes had to change slightly, or were you able to adapt fairly quickly?

Like everybody, we didn’t have much choice but to adapt pretty quickly. Luckily, the book was already about three quarters of the way written by the time we went into lockdown, so the heavy plot mapping and character development, which is the most important time to be together, was well under way.

But we will say that we really missed our regular routine of working together on a Saturday morning over bagels and avocado!

What do you want people to take away from reading your work?

Mostly, we hope we make our readers smile, enjoy a bit of escapist goodness, and feel uplifted. We want our readers to have fun with our books and feel good while reading them.

Can you talk me through your path to publication?

Our path to publication was a little less conventional. In 2016 we launched Books on the Rail, a community project in which we drop books on public transport for people to discover, read and return.

We were very fortunate to work with a host of amazing Australian publishers, which led us to securing a contract to write our first novel, The Book Ninja, which is loosely based on the Books on the Rail concept..

Who are your idols, both professionally and personally?

Gosh, we have so many. Professionally, we salivate over the works by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Dolly Alderton, Holly Wainwright, Davina Bell, Liane Moriarty, Rebecca Serle, just to name a few. We’re also very lucky to work and play with our idols – each other!

We have a tremendous amount of love and admiration for one another. We’re so lucky to get to be inspired and enriched and motivated and heartened by each other in our professional and personal lives.

This book is touted as a love story that rewrites history. What do you love so much about writing in the contemporary rom com genre?

We loved bringing Evie to life and growing alongside her throughout the pages. It was always our wish that she would be a fully formed human, and that the collected dreams we seek – fulfillment, contentment, connectedness – were realised in her.

We are definitely big believers in the importance of having full lives, being independent, curious and having a strong sense of who you are. You can’t expect to find all of your happiness in one person, you have to create that story for yourselves. Which is why we love writing imperfect, yet empowered women!

Is there a particular character from Fancy Meeting You Here you particularly enjoyed writing?

Evie’s best friend Ben Feldman was a joy to write. He is so wholesome, warm and the perfect amount of eccentric.

Who are the authors that inspired you to write (particularly in this genre, and as a whole)?

We discovered Mhairi McFarlane’s books a couple of years back and instantly fell in love with her writing. She writes such dynamic, poignant and laugh out loud funny romantic comedies. Her heroines are multi-faceted and powerful, which we love. She’s been a big source of inspiration for us.

What is it about this genre that appeals to you so much?

There’s so much more depth to romantic comedies than the genre is always given credit for. We love exploring big issues – friendship, parent-children relationships, feminism, identify, to name a few – in a way that’s easy to digest and comes served with a healthy dose of humour. We also get this incredible avenue to process a lot of the big questions that plague us. It’s very cathartic living vicariously through your characters!

This book discussed film and screenwriting a fair bit, as it’s the main character Evie’s vocation. Did you have to do much research for this?

Yep, definitely. We are actually in the process of writing a screenplay for our first novel, The Book Ninja. So we were able to do a lot of ‘two birds, one stone’ research. It ended up being very complimentary. And we probably ended up pouring a lot of our own angst into Evie’s struggles with writer’s block!!

You both have other jobs in addition to your careers as authors. Michelle, you’re a primary school teacher and Ali, you’re a copywriter. How do you balance that with writing books collaboratively?

All we can say is, it’s not easy! Having deadlines means there are times when things are very intense, and we’re pretty much writing and editing every minute we’re not at our day jobs. At times, this takes a lot out of us. We sort of collapse in a bit of a heap after finally clicking the submit button! But, at the same time, that’s the beauty of having a writing partner. We have somebody to share the workload with!

You’re founders of Books on the Rail, an initiative where you leave books on public transport in Melbourne for readers to find. Can you tell us a bit more about how you developed that initiative and how it’s been fairing with all the lockdowns lately?

When Ali moved back from London after helping run Books on the Underground (a similar concept to Books on the Rail), we couldn’t think of a more bookish place than Melbourne to launch an Australian branch.

We launched in 2016 by leaving our own books and ones purchased from second-hand bookstores on Melbourne trains and trams. Since then, we have developed a passionate and thriving following and now collaborate with publishers and authors, distributing their notable and up-and-coming books.

Thanks to our crafty Book Ninjas (1000 and counting!), we have been able to launch Books on the Rail Australia wide! You can now find our books cruising around all states, including many regional areas. As with many things, Covid put a temporary halt to our moving library, but our Book Ninjas continued to spread bookish love online with our #booksonthebed campaign.

We are very excited to be relaunching #booksontherail on November 30 to celebrate the release of Fancy Meeting You Here.

Do you have any other creative outlets?

We’re lucky that both of our full time jobs require us to be creative, although in very different ways. Ali has also recently become a mum, and coming up with games, stories and songs to occupy her baby Lily has surprisingly been a huge creative outlet for her!

What books did you read growing up that still resonate with you? Why those particular books?

Little Women was a big one for us! Jo March was everything to us. She was bold, creative, a storyteller through and through, what more could you have dreamed of.

Watching the movie remake more recently, we feel grateful that we had a role model growing up who was so unapologetically unconventional and willing to challenge societal expectations, even if we weren’t completely conscious of this at the time.

Although, after having toiled over three manuscripts, there’s no way we would have been as forgiving as Jo if one of our sisters threw our laptops in a fire! So hats off to her!

If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of writing advice, what would it be?

Ali would really like to tell her younger self that she would NOT have more time to write once the baby was born and she should NOT delay editing until then!

Do you have any virtual events/in person events coming up that you’d like to mention?

Yes! We have quite a few interviews coming up which we’re looking forward to. A couple to listen out for … We’re sitting down with Jordana Levin for Talk Wordy With Me on December 16, and Jackie Russel for Global Girls Online Book Club on January 8. We also recently did a podcast with our mums on the Mothers and Daughters podcast which was so much fun!

Particularly in these uncertain times, how important is it for you to maintain a strong social media presence and interact with your readers?

We adore the Bookstagram community. They always have the answers to life’s biggest question – What the hell should we read next?! The online bookish world has always been such a fun and thoughtful community to connect with, and that was certainly even more important for us during a time of relative disconnection. We love getting to interact with our readers too. They are (usually) so kind and supportive and warm hearted. We feel very lucky to be able to have an avenue through which we can get to know them.

If you could invite three people from history (living or dead) to dinner, who would you invite and why?

Princess Diana, Jane Austen and Beyonce. Because we can’t think of more iconic female change makers of their time.

Do you have another project on the go? What’s next for you?

We are currently working on the screenplay for The Book Ninja, which is very exciting. We’ve also already started brewing a new idea for our next book, which we hope to start writing in the calm of the new year. Stay tuned!

Fancy Meeting You Here is out now through Allen & Unwin. To find out more about Ali and Michelle, click here. If you’ve missed my review of Fancy Meeting You Here, catch up.