Unlike any other author I know, I write reclining in an armchair. There’s something in my contrarian sense of humour that enjoys working at the craft – and working pretty bloody hard, I might add – in the lap of luxury, in a chair which epitomises rest and relaxation. Kind of like the old Woody Guthrie thing – “Take it easy. But take it!”

It’s been an experiment to find the best solution for my bad back. Part of all my novels were written sitting on lounges. Killing Darcy I mostly wrote very fast at a desktop computer in Tonga, and also part of my third book, Hard Yards. But by the time Mullumbimby came along in 2011-2012 my crook back was refusing to sit in a conventional chair for more than about ten minutes or so. My sciatica would regularly cripple me if I tried.

I must have discovered the Lazy-Boy brand around that time – I certainly didn’t grow up around them. Now, a dozen years later I own two identical recliners. They’re pretty expensive but are essential for the hours of seated work it takes to compose a literary novel.

I work where I live, in a suburban house. I also often work deep in the rainforest country of the Border Ranges, in a remote unlined wood shack without electricity, internet or running water. It’s a place where I need to be sure to turn off the tap to the water tank, in case the koalas accidentally knock the lever open and waste all the drinking water, and where I don’t go more than fifty metres from the shack without a precautionary stick, in case the dingoes are close by.

Unlike any other author I know, I write reclining in an armchair. There’s something in my contrarian sense of humour that enjoys working at the craft – and working pretty bloody hard, I might add – in the lap of luxury, in a chair which epitomises rest and relaxation.