AS a young mother, Robbi Neal was diagnosed with cancer, and told by doctors that she only had a twenty per cent chance of surviving the next three months of her life.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy youngest child was three, the next was five, and the others were teenagers. I realised the youngest two weren\u2019t going to know who I was if I died, so I wrote a memoir for them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The resulting book, Sunday Best<\/em>, was published after winning a HarperCollins\/Varuna manuscript award.<\/p>\n Neal recovered from the disease, and her career as a writer took off.<\/p>\n The Secret World of Connie Starr<\/em> is the local author\u2019s latest novel, not only written in Ballarat, but set here too.<\/p>\n \u201cI love Ballarat and have lived here since 2001. It\u2019s a wonderful, fantastic place, and a lot of Connie Starr<\/em> happens around central Ballarat,\u201d Neal said.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother grew up in Ballarat, went to Dana Street Primary School and Ballarat High School, and my grandfather was the minister at the Baptist Church in Dawson Street.<\/p>\n \u201cQuite a bit happens around the Baptist Church and the hospital in the story, the Yarrowee River has a strong thread through the book, and a character works at Faull\u2019s Shoes, so there\u2019s a lot of Ballarat in there.\u201d<\/p>\n The character of Connie Starr is inspired by Neal\u2019s mother, who was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder late in her life.<\/p>\n Neal said she has crafted this secret world with an aim of celebrating the differences within people, like her own mother.<\/p>\n \u201cOften what is the weakest point about ourselves, and what separates us from people, is often also the very thing that can be our strength.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been told the characters are quirky and different, but there is a real respect for them in the writing, and that\u2019s really important,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve often felt like an outsider watching others live life. I grew up in a strictly religious family with a father that was really violent and a mother with mental health issues, so this makes me want to write about characters that also feel like they don\u2019t quite fit in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" AS a young mother, Robbi Neal was diagnosed with cancer, and told by doctors that she only had a twenty per cent chance of surviving the next three months of her life. \u201cMy youngest child was three, the next was five, and the others were teenagers. I realised the youngest two weren\u2019t going to know […]<\/p>\n