Charlotte Wood

And Georgia was the first friend I'd had who died.

And I was so sideswiped by the depth of it.

And there are other things.

The way they talk about Sylvie, I drew, and I kind of felt like Georgia would think that was cool, to take it from your life and just pour it into a book because I feel like that's what she did.

So in a way, I didn't need to protect myself.

It was really nice to have a place to go with it that was making something.

And Sylvie in the book has nothing to do with Georgia.

There's no...

there's no relationship between them as people, but that experience of their grief was very, yeah, kind of direct for me.

And Sylvie...

Initially, this sort of idealised versions of her being.

I know that Wendy says in the beginning, she couldn't ever tell anyone that in her mind, Sylvie was like a goddess, you know, this kind of very sentimental language.

And she knew that was ridiculous.

She couldn't say it, but that's what she felt.

But then over time, you get other little glimpses of Sylvie that aren't quite as, you know, that she wasn't a goddess.

She was a human and fallible.

I write for probably about three of my friends.

You know, I think they're smarter than me.

They're very critical readers, but they're also generous human beings.

So I kind of write to live up to what I think they would like.