A South Australian country girl by birth, Cathryn loves nothing more than a rugged rural hero who’s as good with his heart as he is with his hands, which is probably why she writes them! Her romances are warm and emotional, and feature themes that don’t flinch from the tougher side of life but are often happily tempered by the antics of naughty animals. Her aim is to make you smile, sigh, and perhaps sniffle a little, but most of all feel wonderful.

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Transcript:

Sarah Williams:            G’day and welcome to Write with Love. Today I’m chatting with my all time favorite Aussie river romance author, Cathryn Hein. Thanks for joining me today.

Cathryn Hein:                    Thank you, that’s a bit [inaudible 00:01:02]. I’m very flattered, thank you.

Sarah Williams:             So I met you in 2016 at the Australian Romance Readers Association book signing event. Do you remember that.

Speaker 2:                    My goodness. Where was that?

Sarah Williams:             That was in Adelaide.

Cathryn Hein:                 Adelaide, yeah that was fun.

Sarah Williams:             That was. And I remember going up to you because I’d already read all the books I wanted to get from everyone and I asked for Rocking Hill-

Cathryn Hein:                  Rocking Horse Hill.

Sarah Williams:             Rocking Horse Hill, yep. And you didn’t have that one. And I said well what is your horsiest book? Because I love horses. So you gave me Promises and signed it and I went home and I read that. And I loved it.

Cathryn Hein:                 Thank you, thank you.

Sarah Williams:             Yeah it was just beautiful and we’ll talk about that book in a minute but first, can you tell us your story and how you got into being an author?

Cathryn Hein:                    Well like many authors, it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do. I wrote short stories mainly when I was younger and then in my 20s I really tried to write novels but between study and work and more study, it’s very, very difficult and I didn’t really know what I was doing. I didn’t understand any of the craft. I was just an avid reader and this is going back quite a few years before the internet had everything. Information wasn’t as accessible I guess so I just kept on plodding along. I’d write 10,000 words and then get completely stuck, put it aside, start something else when I had the time and I just couldn’t get anything done.

Then in the early 2000s we moved overseas and I wasn’t working and in the third year we were there I said this is my opportunity. If I don’t make the most of this spare time that I have and sit down and actually write that book that I’ve been wanting to write for so long, the this is a huge opportunity that I’m just letting go. So I did. Instead of treading off to the markets every morning as I tended to do, I sat down and I would write every morning and eventually ended up with 130,000 word monstrosity of a book which I still adore but it has an awful lot wrong with it. It had some really fun characters and it had some really cool things in there but just finishing that book for the first time, that was the end of me. I knew I’m doing this now.

I don’t think that’s an unusual thing for a lot of authors. The thrill of actually finishing a book is so huge and it’s so addictive too. And how many people do you talk to who say I’m gonna write a book one day. Well I did. Then we came back to Australia, I write another one and I joined the Romance Wri...