You have a strong relationship with water and in particular the ocean in both of your books, can you talk to us about this?
I learnt how to surf as a small child. I must’ve been six or seven the first time I stood on a surfboard, and in the years that followed, I spent every hour I could in the sea, sitting in the lineup, watching and learning to read undulations of ocean. In many ways, I learnt how to read water before I learnt how to read a book. My work has therefore always been informed by water. And when I renamed myself, I chose Dylin, meaning “born of the sea”, or “toward the tide,” because everything from the metaphors I use to the ways I structure my novels is guided by my relationship with water. When writing the first draft of A Language of Limbs, I surfed or swam almost every day in waterways that have been cared for since time immemorial by the Bundjalung People. In those rivers, tea tree lakes, and seas, I was able to laugh, be playful, cry, feel joy, and grieve, as I worked out the edges of the novel. 

 

As someone who has an embodiment practice like surfing, how does this inform or affect your writing practice?
Most of my time surfing is actually spent sitting out beyond the break, reading the surf. This practice, over many years, has ultimately taught me how to sit, be still and patient, to be with myself, and how to observe - all of which are lessons that I believe were necessary for me to learn for me to become a novelist.

 

 

Your writing feels very intimate, close to the skin, embodied, what environments feel conducive to writing from this place? Is it your home or somewhere else?
I love writing in the company of my friends. Whether that’s in the living room of a sharehouse, or all together at the library, I’ve always written my best work when in close physical proximity to my friends. Writing - especially novels - is always thought of as such a solitary endeavor, but my work has always been enriched by collaboration. Because when we bounce ideas off each other, it’s genuinely sparky - making everything feel charged and electric, which in turn affects the world inside the novel. It makes it all come alive - hot and viscous. Because if the world feels real for me, it will (hopefully) feel real for my readers too.  

 

Your recent book A Language of Limbs feels like an important moment in the Queer literary canon in this country, were you aware of contributing to that in your research and writing process? 
I was definitely aware of contributing to the Queer literary canon in this country and thought about the weight of that responsibility constantly, especially since I was writing about a time I haven’t lived in, and therefore writing about a community I have in some ways “inherited” its legacies, but ultimately wasn’t a part of. I really wanted to do that time and the people who lived through it justice, and that meant I was consulting throughout the entire process - from early research, to writing, to the final proof read. A Language of Limbs was very much a collaborative effort, and I feel indebted not only to the community who shared stories and insights, but also to the community who’ve worked tirelessly to record and archive the histories - especially those at Pride History Group - all of which made researching and writing this book possible.  

 

 

What was the motivation behind foregrounding queer joy in this book?
Because joy is a way to resist as much as it is a way to survive. The decades this book is set in - the 70s, 80s and 90s - were steeped in immense loss and tragedy, but it would be a disservice to that time and the people who lived through it to suggest that it was all bleak and depressing. Everyone I spoke to and everything I read and watched reminded me that even in the darkest corners, joy persists. Like how the jokes people tell as they’re dying are so often the jokes that make us laugh the hardest. Or how, in the height of the AIDS crisis, people danced with everything they had, because they would see a friend who was sick and know that it was probably going to be the last time they’d see them. 

Ultimately, however, it was important for me to foreground queer joy because it’s the truth. At the first Mardi Gras, protestors chanted Out of the Bars and Onto the Streets because they wanted to bring the joy and the glamour and the colour and the theatrics that existed inside the clubs and the bars out onto the streets… to show the world that they were here and queer and bursting in love. 

 

 

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 If the world feels real for me, it will (hopefully) feel real for my readers too

~

 

 

How do you develop your characters? Do they find you or vice versa?
I feel that with each book, I’ve had to work less hard to find my characters, and I think that’s because I’ve learnt how to relax, surrender, and trust myself in following my own curiosity. When I was a child, I got one of those beaded curtains you might hang across your bedroom door for Christmas, and I ran through my grandparents house with it, getting it all tangled. My great uncle, Douglas, who was an artist, and a lover of opera and flowers and wine, sat with me for hours, helping me to untangle the beaded curtain, constantly telling me to use the light touch of an artist’s hands. I think that writing a book is similar to untangling that beaded curtain, knowing that if I yank on the string too hard, I’ll break it. But with the light touch of an artist’s hands - gentle and forever curious - the characters emerge on their own accord as the story unravels. 

 

I think of novel writing as a kind of world building practice, does it feel like that for you? And what is it like to live in these worlds or stop living in them when the book is finished?
World building is all about remaining curious and following the thread… I think the light touch Douglas spoke of also makes sense to me when I think of world building as a process of asking questions, rather than trying to give any sort of answers, as a conclusion is a thing to be drawn ultimately by the reader.

What’s more, the world inside A Language of Limbs felt so real to me, and it’s been such a joy to have my friends now reading the book and befriending the characters I’ve come to love so deeply. Honestly, it’s just such a gift to see these characters live on in other people. 

Are you working on anything new that you are excited about? What are you dreaming of next?
I’m working on a graphic novel with the extraordinary artist Peo Michie (who I’m lucky enough to call a dear friend), and a new literary novel that spans an entire century, following five generations of queer folk living fully realised lives, hidden in plain sight. And I’m working as a writer on the TV adaptation of A Language of Limbs. 

 

Photography by Rosa Spring Voss