Orphaned buttons corralled in a tin and a fragile woman’s poems hidden in a car glove box … in this Q&A Vivienne Plumb reveals how such details helped shape the title story of her new collection, to be launched in Sydney on August 16.

The Glove Box & Other Stories will be launched at the New South Wales Writers Centre in Rozelle along with Writing To The Edge, an anthology of ‘edgy’ poems/micro-fiction edited by novelist Shady Cosgrove (and in which my story ‘Pelts’ appears). Both books can be purchased online from publisher Spineless Wonders.

Shady Cosgrove described Plumb’s new collection as heartbreaking and hilarious.

Questions in this Q&A first appeared in Spineless Wonders’ online book club (SWBC) — a great Facebook club, where members meet with authors to chat about their work — and I recommend you join it.

ABBW: The Glove Box is a lovely story — rich in detail and thoughtfulness. Was there a real button tin with reindeer on the lid and ‘the orphan buttons corralled inside’? (I know my family had several.)

It’s just a tin I made up in my head. The buttons at the beginning and at the end of the story help to make a circulatory shape to the story.

Just to fill you in: I have recently returned from Christchurch (city of earthquakes) where I held the 2014 Ursula Bethall writer-in-residence at University of Canterbury. While I was there I was working on making The Glove Box story into something larger. I feel there is a lot of information in the present story that could be enlarged upon. It’s been interesting trying to do it.

Ursula Bethall was a wonderful New Zealand poet who, in particular, wrote some beautiful poems about nature and her garden. She was fairly opinionated and I think she would have probably done better than me in answering the book club questions!

ABBW: The glove box and the button tin are everyday objects made into more mysterious things. How purposeful was this?

I just think that so-called ‘normal’ things have their abnormalities. Although, I have been living in Christchurch for the last six months while the rebuild of the city goes on (and of the university, where I was working), and there they like to talk about the ‘new normal’ (it’s really abnormal but it’s become normal). The everyday things are often the scariest, the most beautiful, or are filled with the most mysticism. Say to anyone from Christchurch the words ‘orange traffic cone’ and you will get a million stories. (I think those traffic cones are breeding in secret nests by Christchurch byways and highways.)

ABBW: Talk about the names in the story — they’re so delightfully exotic — Phineas and Duvall for example.

I particularly like the name ‘Flavia’ (Old Roman). I feel that the names I chose for the characters helped to create the family of my Glove Box story. I think I did once read about someone called ‘Whitey Someone’ — I think he was the man who did Marilyn Monroe’s make-up for her for years and years.

ABBW: In a story with such dark themes the snatches of humour are welcome. When telling a story how do you know ‘how much is enough’?

I guess you’re taking virtual measurements as you go.

Ultimately, I think that, for me, first comes the story and then comes the way I decide I am going to tell the story. With The Glove Box, I clearly remember thinking: I’m going to tell this story slow and steady.

SWBC: Before you wrote this narrative did you plan to structure it around photographs?

Photographs can be strong indicators. I liked the idea that writing about photographs could indicate ‘memories’ to the reader.

SWBC: What are your strategies and techniques for coming up with the perfect metaphor?

Small phrases and metaphors can come to you when you least expect it. It seems to me as if these things suddenly float up out of somewhere else. Then I always think: ‘aha’, and write them down. So my strategy would be: I have a pen and piece of paper in my bag. I think the longer you keep writing the more you understand the value of these small thoughts, when they arrive.

SWBC: Where did the inspiration for the mother’s story come from?

That’s the sort of question writers don’t always wish to answer. And it could even be a little close to ‘where do you get your ideas from?’ The best answer I ever heard to that question was Stephen King’s. He said something like ‘there’s a little shop in the mall that I often drop into …’

I think the mother in this story is a character that we have all come across during our life — someone who is not coping, and is falling, falling. Sometimes we have even experienced that situation ourselves.

SWBC: Were the characters based on real people?

This is another question frequently asked of writers. And I guess that by the time the writer has finished the story, the characters do feel ‘real’ to them.

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Vivienne Plumb is a playwright, poet and fiction writer who has lived in both Australia and New Zealand. Her plays have been performed internationally, she has published several collections of poetry and a novel, had her work translated into numerous languages and held several residencies. She holds a Doctorate in Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong, Australia.

The Glove Box and Other Stories
Vivienne Plumb
Spineless Wonders $24.99*

Writing to the Edge
Edited by Shady Cosgrove
Spineless Wonders $22.99*

(*costs less if purchased pre-launch)