Isobel Blackthorn's Blog

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Asylum – the story behind the story

Asylum is my first novel. It began life as��a story with a number of enticing elements bound together in truth. Like protagonist Yvette Grimm, I was an English-born visa overstayer and I really did invest my hopes in a palm reader��s prophecy that I would meet the father of my children before I was thirty!

In about six months I produced a first draft. I was pleased��with the achievement, producing 80,000 words of fiction is no easy thing, yet the��story��seemed to meander on, reaching a conclusion that felt flat. So I set aside the draft, reasonably happy never to look at it again.

Yet the title��nagged me. ��Asylum,�� with its double meaning, seemed well worth exploring, but how?

Months later a friend and blogger, Colin Penter, ��posted on facebook a link to a book. It was Profits of Doom by Antony Loewenstein. I borrowed a copy from the library and read it from cover to cover in two days. Profits of Doom led me to explore the plight of asylum seekers and I soon found a plethora of online commentary, and much activism around the country. I began to wonder how I could contribute.

It was a gnawing sense of injustice that caused me to return to that draft of Asylum. I axed over half the text, ripping into the narrative scene upon scene until the barest bones were left. I set about making visa overstayer Yvette Grimm an artist because I wanted her to be as different from me as possible and I can only paint walls. I managed to work Profits of Doom into a scene. Things were progressing well but towards the end the narrative still lacked intensity.

That was when a friend, Georgia Matthey, came round for dinner and after I had outlined how things were in the fictional land of��Asylum, she began to describe a recent event in her life. Seeing the potential straight away, I grabbed paper and pen and wrote down her vignette and with her permission used it to shape the climax of Asylum.

I could now call Asylum��a manuscript and I needed a reader. I was thrilled when writer, feminist and activist Jasmina Brankovich��put up her hand. I had to wait weeks for her feedback and when she told me she loved it I knew I could publish with some confidence.

At first I serialised the story in weekly parts on my blog but demand grew for a whole book, so I took the indie path and with the help of Cohesion Press��converted��Asylum��into epub and Kindle editions.

Asylum��explores��the theme of seeking asylum, Yvette juxtaposing her experiences with those of asylum seekers being held in detention. It is my sincerest wish that Asylum��both entertains and contributes to the larger dialogue on the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia.