Transcript
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Welcome, you’re listening to Between our pages, a Premier’s Reading Challenge WA podcast.
My name is Fiona Bartholomaeus and together we’ll be diving into the wonderful world of books and reading right here in WA.
Today we’re chatting with author and artist Renée Treml about her beautifully illustrated book ‘This Little Joey.’
Let’s go.
‘This Little Joey’ is a beautifully illustrated book that features many of Australia's baby marsupials, all of which are known as joeys. And even though they share a name, they all come in different shapes and sizes.
It's the latest book from author, illustrator, and all-round creative Renée Treml.
Renée, thank you so much for joining us.
Renée Treml
Thank you for having me.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Now, you're an artist and was previously an environmental scientist and biology teacher. What made you decide to combine that and move into the world of children's writing and illustrations?
Renée Treml
Really having a child, I think myself, and I had always been told as a kid that illustrating wasn't a real job.
So I think it wasn't until I became an adult that I realized it was actually something I could do and something that I was always trying to keep as a hobby and on the side, and I was never quite happy until I got my hands on, you know, paintbrush and some pencils.
So at some point I just realized I had to leave the science and move into the art full time.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
You’ve written a number of children's books. Your latest one is called ‘This Little Joey’. Can you tell us what it's about?
Renée Treml
This Little Joey was really inspired because I was trying to figure out what a baby wombat was called. I thought they would have a really cute name like an echidna, a little puggle or a platypup like the platypus.
I just found it was a joey and I thought ‘that was interesting’. I knew a kangaroo had a joey and I knew a koala had a joey. But when I started looking into this, I realized that every marsupial baby was called a joey and I found that really fascinating because, you know, we have marsupial moles and antechinus and phascogales and these animals that look wildly different and they were all joeys.
And I really just wanted to illustrate a book with some of the ones that were probably lesser known and people wouldn't really think of as a joey.
So that's what inspired that entire little poem and illustrations.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Because you're right, because when we hear joey, we go, ‘oh, kangaroo’, but there's so many, especially in Australia, that all use the same word to describe their young.
Renée Treml
That's right, and they are wildly different. I mean, a marsupial mole is shockingly different than a wombat.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
I read that this little joey is art meets knowledge. Can you tell us a bit about that intersect there?
Renée Treml
Well, I think through my art and with my science background, I can always try to put information into my drawings that is educational or at least interesting, I would like to think.
And yeah, I really try to bring a little bit of that background into all of my drawings, and I think because that's probably where all of the motivation and inspiration comes from as well.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
So how important is it, do you think, for kids to not only have fantasy and non-fiction books, but to have stories that have all those science and knowledge embedded in it?
Renée Treml
I think it's important to have a little bit of everything. So I like that I can fill this niche, I think. But yeah, I think it's really important especially if it's what they're interested in.
I think as long as you're not forcing it down anyone's throat, I think absolutely science can be interesting or just fantasy and non-fiction, anything really. Yeah.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
And especially with a book like this, depending on where they live, they might see a koala or they might see a kangaroo and it just broadens their knowledge a bit.
Renée Treml
It does. And I love that idea of people. I shock people when we talk about a marsupial mole because I keep mentioning it because nobody knows what one is and they're very rarely spotted.
There's very few specimens out there, but it's really fascinating and a fun little bit of knowledge, I think, to hold in your back pocket.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
And I love with this book that it has a bit of rhyming in it as well. How do you go about planning the rhymes? Do you have to like write it out and move it around to make sure it keeps that flow and that rhythm?
Renée Treml
Absolutely. And I think one of the things I do is I usually make a list of all of the animals I might like to include and I make little notes about them, maybe if they're hoppers or if they run, if they climb trees and I make all these notes and then I'll start a list of rhyming words that that might work with some of them.
So I might have tree and flea and bee and things like that and then I start matching up those rhyming words back to what some of those notes I had listed, and I try to put it all together that way.
So I start with what I need to say and then try to find the words to say it with, if that makes sense.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
That's a really interesting way of doing it because I know with some people I've spoken to, the rhyming sometimes just comes into their head or they have to sit down and plan it and make sure everything works together.
Renée Treml
Some of them come really easy, but some of them you really have to work at.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Did you have to do a huge amount of research for the different things that the marsupials like to do and eat et cetera?
Renée Treml
I always do too much research. So yes, but I probably didn't have to, but I really wanted to look at every single marsupial and try to find ones that were all a little bit different from each other and then trying to find ones that were rare or endangered.
And then trying not to, because I have written a lot of books in rhyme, I'm trying not to rely on some of the rhymes I've used before.
So then it's also trying to come up with new rhymes and new ways of saying things.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
I can imagine that'd be quite hard not trying to divert, go back to the one that you've used multiple times.
Renée Treml
It's very comfortable. Yeah, it's a very comfortable place and I really have to work to make sure that everything sounds new and fresh and a different perspective or a different animal.
I love wombats and I tend to always sneak them in and I try to open it up to everybody.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
We should have a book all of wombats.
Renée Treml
I think I've done a few.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Now, I also love the artwork in your book. It's fairly simple in a way, but it captures the animal and the environment quite well. Can you tell us a bit more about your art style?
Renée Treml
Yeah, I use a technique, or it's based on a technique I learned called scratch board. And it's on a masonite board that's been coated with clay, and it's pre-prepared, and I paint ink on it, and then I use a number 11 craft knife, and I'll scratch back into it.
So you etch back in to bring the white out, so it's a bit like etching. That is how I did the first few books and then because those boards are very rigid and heavy and expensive and probably not super environmentally friendly, I've gone to a digital method. So I figured out step-by-step how to make it look the same. So you really can't tell the difference.
So it's based on that.
I'm still sitting there hair by hair, you know, scratching every little bit away.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
That's really cool that you've been able to bring a physical way of doing art into the digital and learning step-by-step so you can still have that same style and what you know.
Renée Treml
Yeah and it really it eliminates that step of having to then send things off to have them scanned and then bring them back and clean them up so it really also speeds that up and I think it's probably better for the environment.
I think it's really nice to have those little boards of art but then they can also just be little boards of art that collect dust.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Now, I read on your website that the book supports children with vocabulary expansion, cognitive development, cultural enrichment, and emotional intelligence. How much of that is planned when you’re creating your book? Or does it just come together as you write and illustrate the story?
Renée Treml
I think especially for this age group it's not something that I intentionally plan for, I just write it, how it comes out and how it sounds and how it flows. And then looking back on it, we can kind of pick out those key things.
I always try, especially for a book, when I know that the parent will be reading it to a child, I'm free to use a lot more language than perhaps if I was writing for a young reader.
So there is a lot of, you have an opportunity to really use a lot of language and beautiful language in ways that you can't do when a child is just learning how to read.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
I haven't really thought about that much. I can imagine when you create your stories as well, trying to keep in mind, or would this be better for an older audience or would it be better for a younger audience?
Renée Treml
Absolutely, and I even have a little thesaurus that's for children's writers that you can look up what age group of the words you're thinking of using and realise that, ‘oh, that's actually a word they don't learn until grade 6’. And if you're writing for preppies or grade ones, you need to rethink how you're writing.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
I didn't know such a thing existed. That’s really cool.
Renée Treml
It's brilliant.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Now, for those who pick up your book, what do you hope they take away from it?
Renée Treml
I hope they just really love Australian wildlife and maybe learn that there is such a diversity out there and they're hiding. I mean, they're nocturnal, they're often really small, they're not running around the city streets. So just understanding and knowing that there's this huge diversity of amazing, unique wildlife here in Australia.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Now a lot of your books feature Australian animals or landscapes. Is that from your environmental science background and biological science background or is that just a passion of yours?
Renée Treml
I think it's a passion of mine and you may have noticed I have an accent from America. So I think coming here I just was absolutely fascinated with the wildlife and I tend to really want to draw where I am.
So I know when I lived in North America when I was growing up, I drew lots of chickadees and squirrels and raccoons, but then having moved to Australia, I'm just fascinated with all of the wildlife here.
So I think it's really me being influenced by the environment around, around me.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
We've got lots of strange and wonderful animals here, which I mean I don't even know half the stuff we have here.
So there's always something you can pull from, I guess.
Renée Treml
Absolutely. Absolutely. There's so much.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
And with your background in ecology, what is the benefit of having quite a different skill set along with being a writer? Can you pull a lot from it?
Renée Treml
Absolutely. And it, I think it gives me a lot of, it obviously gives me a lot of inspiration, but it also helps inform me and inform my writing and about the topics that I want to talk about. And even now I'm working on a book about the de-extinction of the thylacine, which is the Tasmanian tiger, and so I really get to draw back into some genetics and some ecology and landscape level interactions, you know, populations. And it's, I don't know, it's really fun and it gets, so that knowledge was never lost.
It's just being kind of harvested and used in different ways.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Translated into a different way. I can imagine trying to like pull some of that data and trying to simplify it in a way for a younger audience.
Renée Treml
It's fun. And I get down a lot of rabbit holes where I get so excited about the research that I lose a lot of time looking and reading and learning and just wanting to share everything, and then I have to go back and trim it back and cut it back down to.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
I feel like that would be me if I wrote books. Lots of deep dives.
Renée Treml
Lots of deep dives.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Now, one of the things I love about your art style is that you primarily work in black and white for your illustrations. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Renée Treml
Well, a lot of that is that function of working with that scratch art. Traditionally, I was working with black ink, but I also really love and am comfortable working in black and white. It's a really nice way to have that contrast of your darks and your lights and get a really good sense of light. And I think I'm naturally just drawn to black and white art.
And colour, when I work in colour, it takes a lot of effort. I really have to search my colour palettes and colour theory and really, again, rabbit holes of research. But I definitely am naturally drawn to the black and white.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
And I guess with the black and white, depending on what books you're creating, you can use the background colour of a page if you do so to make those pop a little bit.
Renée Treml
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, just watercolour backgrounds and we put the black and white on top.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Now, I read that you also do some work creating illustrations for stationery, ceramics and homewares. How does that process kind of differ from your author and illustrating process?
Renée Treml
It's often quite different because, well the illustrations that I create for my own range are from my imagination. So that's really anything that I come up with. But when I'm creating work for the ceramics or the homewares, I'm often directed by what they want and need.
So it is working to a brief sometimes a very specific brief it might be you know we need a Christmas wombat wearing a Santa hat and so it just depends on who I'm working with and what the level of the direction is.
With some of the ceramics I work with a ceramicist in Noosa called Kim Wallace and we're really good friends as well so we have this shared love of Australian wildlife and so we kind of nut it out which animals we want and then I give her sketches and we go from there, so it's different every time.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Do you ever pull inspiration from the ceramics and homewares art that you do and bring it into your books?
Renée Treml
Oh, absolutely, I think everything that I do is influenced by everything else, so yes I might, if I do a little technique of a drawing for something that's going to appear on a dish, I might realize it's really cute style and I might use that style for some other project and vice versa.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
And now not only are you busy writing, illustrating, homewares and everything in between, you also do a lot of author visits as well. How important is it for students and young children to meet authors like yourself?
Renée Treml
I think it's really important because like I said, when I was growing up I was told that being an illustrator wasn't a real job, being an artist wasn't a real job, you needed to have this career. And I like to go in and remind kids that you can be a writer, you can be an illustrator, and also giving them some tools to try in their own work and just showing them how much fun it can be and what a great job it is to get to go and just talk to kids at school and then sit at home and make up stories and draw pictures.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
I think that's the best bit, like seeing someone doing that as their job and going, ‘oh, these stories that I write at home, it can be a big seller on a bookcase or something’.
Renée Treml
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, and I just think reminding everyone that it is a real thing and you can do it.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
What about yourself? There must be a lot of benefits for you as an author being able to go to your target audience and maybe share with them the book that you're currently working on.
Renée Treml
Absolutely, it's a great way to see their responses, but also they have so much energy and enthusiasm that it really rubs off on you and I think being around kids, even if it's just for a few hours even sometimes when I do the online visits just their excitement really re-motivate you to get going and to come up with these new ideas. And yeah, it's a benefit for both of us, I think.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
We've been talking a lot about your most recent book, ‘This Little Joey’, but are you working on anything new at the moment, if you're allowed to give us a sneak peek?
Renée Treml
Yeah, I am. Well, I mentioned I was working on a book about the thylacine, which is the Tasmanian Tiger, which I was fascinated to learn was here in WA as well as all across Australia, and I'm working on a book for that, which will be out next year.
And I'm also working on, I guess it's a companion to ‘This Little Joey’. It's called ‘Goodnight Joeys’ and it's about, it features a lot of other different Joeys because I couldn't quite let go of the Joey theme yet.
And then I'm working on a few other graphic novels with another author, but that's all probably still not signed and sealed yet.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Sounds like you've got a lot on your plate of things that you're doing at the moment.
Renée Treml
There's never enough time. I have so many things I want to be doing.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Now, the Premier's Reading Challenge is back for 2024, and it's always important to keep reading. How important has reading been in your life?
Renée Treml
I have multiple books on the go all the time and I have as a child as well, and in fact, right now I'm gone back and rereading a series of books I loved as a child just to kind of remember what was so great about them, which are the Trixie Belden mysteries, if anyone's interested.
They were actually written when my mom was young so they've really had a longevity like not many other series. But I read those, I'm reading some nonfiction memoir, I read lots of fantasy and fiction.
It's just what I do to relax, it's what I do when I'm bored, which is not very often because I'll just pick up a book. It's what I do when I'm waiting or sitting or on the train. It's absolutely a part of who I am.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Time passer.
Renée Treml
Yeah.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Now, before we let you go, one thing I like to do with a lot of my guests, I like to ask them a couple of rapid-fire questions. And I just want the first answer that comes into your head.
What are you reading at the moment?
Renée Treml
I'm reading a memoir by author Nova Weetman.
So she's a children's author, but she's written a memoir for adults about grief and love and death, and it's a really beautiful book. That's actually on my bedside table right now.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Do you prefer nonfiction or fiction?
Renée Treml
I tend to read a lot of fiction. So the nonfiction reads are few and far between, I think. But then again, I read so much nonfiction in my research, so maybe that's not quite fair to say.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Do you have a favorite genre?
Renée Treml
I do read a lot of fantasy and science fiction.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
And in the spirit of the Premier's Reading Challenge, how many books do you hope to read in 2024?
Renée Treml
Probably several a month is where I'm usually at, probably 4 or 5 a month, so maybe one a week.
So I'd say about 52 this year.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
That's a lot of good books.
Renée Treml
Yeah.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
You’ve been listening to Between our pages, a Premier’s Reading Challenge WA podcast.
Thanks to our guest Renée Treml for joining me on this episode.
This episode was recorded on Whadjuk Noongar land, we acknowledge the Traditional Custodians and pay respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
Stay tuned to your favourite podcast player for future episodes.
Thank you for listening, happy reading and we’ll see you next time!