Animal characters and authentic environments with Renée Treml

In this episode, Amanda Niehaus chats with Renée Treml about graphic novels and picture books, science for kids, designing museums (and specimens!) for books, and changing careers from science to art. 

Renée Treml was inspired by Australia’s wildlife and native birds after moving from the USA to Australia in 2007. She loves to create artworks that highlight the subtle details of nature with delicacy and humour. Renée’s books have won or been listed for awards including the CBCA Crichton Award for New Illustrator, Speech Pathology Book of the Year and the Environment Award for Children’s Literature. Renée’s illustrations are featured on a variety of products, including stationery, ceramics and fine art prints.

Purchase Sherlock Bones and the Natural History Mystery here.
Find Renee’s website (with heaps of books and art for sale!) here.

The Science Write Now (SWN) Podcast is a 3x/monthly podcast for people who love science and the arts. If you’re interested in learning more about great books, plays, and films; writing, research or editing; the lives of scientists; and creative insights into contemporary science … then you’ve come to the right place!

The SWN Podcast is hosted by Amanda Niehaus and Jessica White and produced by Taylor Mitchell with funding from the Australia Council for the Arts.

You can also find and follow us online - on Twitter - on Instagram - and on Facebook! 

Our opening song is 'Balmain' by Pure Milk: https://www.triplejunearthed.com/artist/pure-milk.html

Transcript

Amanda Niehaus  19:30  

Welcome, everyone to Science Write Now. I'm Amanda Niehaus and today I'm chatting with my very dear friend, Renee Treml, who's down in Victoria. Hi, Renee!

Renee is the author and illustrator of many successful and award winning picture books for young readers, including Once I Heard a Little Wombat, 10 Little Owls, and Let's Go Little Roo. She's also the creator of the junior fiction graphic novels Sherlock Bones, which feature a Tawny frogmouth skeleton and his dear stuffed bird friend Watts, as well as a whole suite of other characters. Thank you for being here today, Renee.

Renee Treml  20:10  

No, thank you for having me. Amanda.

Amanda Niehaus  20:12  

Yay. So um, I would love to hear Renee about how you got started in doing picturebooks? Was this always your dream? How did you come to this?

Renee Treml  20:25  

It wasn't always my dream. It was one of those things [I started thinking about] when I, when I kind of made the transition to trying to be a full time artist, and that was kind of how I came out of being a scientist. I started doing a lot of illustrations. And I kept having the thought: Oh, I want to illustrate a book for children someday, but I wasn't doing anything to make it happen. I just told people, and I just kept doing my illustrations and thinking how great they would be in a book. And eventually, my son was born and I got a little life kick in the pants to make some things happen. And so I decided to write my own book. 

I wrote a little story, and I submitted it to a competition. And then it won, and I was suddenly offered a publishing contract, and it kind of went from there. It was something I had always wanted to do, I think I just didn't know how to do it or make that connection into getting into publishing. I think [publishing] seemed like such a black box. And it seemed like I couldn't just do that, you know--I don't have a real arts background. I mean, I was kind of self taught or taught through community classes, I don't have a degree in writing or illustrating. And so I think I just kind of denied myself going down that path for a really long time.

Amanda Niehaus  21:39  

Now, I totally relate to that. I think like often we get this idea that we have to just be that one thing and sort of persist on this long track. And for you that track started with science.

Renee Treml  21:50  

It did. And I think as a child growing up, you know, in the 80s, my parents really didn't want me to pursue art. They loved that I was good at art, and that I was interested in it, but they were like--Oh, you're so smart. You need to do science, you need to have a real job, a real career. And actually, they didn't love that I was doing science. My dad wanted me to go into business. He thought I had a business mind. And he really thought science was not the right path either. But he liked that better than art. 

They meant really well. They were very supportive of me. But they really thought I should be putting my my skills to other purposes. And so I think I grew up taking that on board and thinking that art wasn't a real job. Writing wasn't a real job. I needed a real career. And I was going to be a scientist. And I think I really embraced that. I kept saying my art was a hobby, and it was something I did for fun. Yeah. So I think there was that kind of that generational thing to have growing up in that time where we were told artists were starving, you couldn't make a living. You couldn't make a living as an artist, which you can.

Amanda Niehaus  22:50  

Yeah, you are proof of that. Um, so So what kind of science did you do before you made the switch? 

Renee Treml  22:59  

Well, I was working in the government in the US as a contractor for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I was actually doing remote sensing and GIS for seagrass beds--a lot of aerial photography, interpretation and mapping. I didn't do much with the satellite data, but I you know, asked to have to deal with that. What had happened is while I was doing that, and I kind of got into that job again, I finished this master's degree and I got this position because I had GIS and remote sensing coursework from my Masters. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to do, but it really was kind of fun to have this job. I was young, I had a real job and a salary. And it just kind of went from there. And I ended up doing a lot of science. 

But then I started kind of veering off into being like, Oh, I actually like writing the PR pieces that we needed to then disseminate this technical information. And I really enjoyed creating the posters and the presentations and the brochures and the books and the all of the marketing material because really, even if you work in a science government department, you're marketing, you're selling, you're selling to Congress, and to the general public, to users, everybody. And so I really fell into that niche of having a science background but I really wanted to be a communicator. 

I think at some point, yeah, I started getting more and more into the art and I just, I just went from one extreme to the other. I just switched over and decided I was going to quit my job and do art full time. And I kind of let the writing go. I forgot about writing. I didn't really credit all that experience. I had been writing and marketing and creating all of those products. I just didn't--because it was such applied experience, I think I didn't give it a lot of credit for what I was actually had learned to do and what I was skilled at, if that makes sense.

Amanda Niehaus  24:53  

No, absolutely. And I look at your picture books and I can see all of that sort of design sensibility. That's going into them, in addition to the way that you--you know, you're skilled with the words and you're skilled with the illustrations, but there's also the way that you lay out pages that, that I could see how a background and doing marketing materials would maybe draw your eye in that direction naturally.

Renee Treml  25:18  

Yeah, it was. I mean, I like to joke around that the government paid for a lot of my education, hands-on education.

Amanda Niehaus  25:28  

Yeah, I think we're similar in that regard. Because like, that's been my experience, too--you know, coming to writing sort of overlapping with a government sponsored research position. But you know, you got to do it you got to do. And so now you're a full time writer and illustrator, is that right? 

Renee Treml  25:49  

That's right. Yeah. 

Amanda Niehaus  25:51  

And so like, how many projects are you working on in an average year? What's your schedule like?

Renee Treml  25:57  

These graphic novels that I work on, especially the Sherlock Bones, which you can see over my shoulder? They're, you know, that's 280 pages [and] that tends to consume a large part of the year when I do those. We've been doing them about every year and a half. And so when I have one of those on at the time, I'll have a much less going on. And I think like for example, this year, I've done a few of these all Ollie and Bea books, which are shorter graphic novels, and maybe one Sherlock Bones. And then I'm doing a picture book right now, a little board book. So a couple of projects, but they're all in different stages. And I have, you know, a new project that I'm working on next. In the background, I kind of work on it when I have little squirreling-away moments of free time to do it. So yeah, lots of little, little pots.

Amanda Niehaus  26:42  

Yeah and the Sherlock Bones books, which I love so much. Can you tell us a little bit about those, and where the idea initially came from? 

Renee Treml  26:54  

Well, the idea came from Brisbane, living in Brisbane and going to the Queensland Museum. They had this beautiful exhibit of Tawny frogmouth skeletons--and they still have it. When I was there, I don't know how long it's been since I've been there--two years, maybe--I was there, and they still had the exhibit, but they had been repairing it. So it was off display, but I got to go and see it anyway. And it's this display of about, I don't know, 8 or 10 Tawny frog mouths on a little stick--their skeletons. And they're in all these poses, and they have these hilarious expressions and they they look sweet and funny, like there's nothing scary skeletal about them. 

And at the time, that's when I was just doing art and so I started drawing them, and I was drawing them--at first I drew them seriously, like, you know, like a study of this skeleton, but he kept looking like he was having a good laugh. And I started drawing him getting into mischief in the museum and I kind of had this little series of drawings I did, where he's, you know, carrying around the stuffed bird because he was lonely and then he's riding like a little toy bicycle. I have them on my wall over here--I can look over there and see him, he's dancing. And so I started doing those drawings and that that really kind of started leading me to write a book. 

And the first version I did which I think I even had probably shown you ages ago was a wordless picture book for small children who couldn't read,  and all the pages were black and had these, you know, skeletons and dead birds and I was thinking it was really great for little kids who couldn't read because they didn't need someone to read it to them. And I really missed the mark on my age group that I was trying to hit there, I think you know. A scary book for kids who can't read that's-- I don't know, there should have been a lot of red flags. 

I ended up at some point having that realization I think I still love this character, and I really wanted to write a story. And I'm just going to sleep one night, and all of the sudden the term the name Sherlock Bones came into my head and I just went: Oh, of course! There's an actual idea that I can go with and I can create a story for older readers. 

I've always loved graphic novels, and I love the format and I think because I'm so visual for me it really suits. I've learned to be a to be good at my writing. I think it's a nice way to say that, but I'm not super articulate and skilled with my words. I don't write beautiful poetic sentences. So to be able to really rely, you know, rely on my pictures to tell what's going on--and I can do all the funny comedy things I want, but I don't have to rely on my words to carry all of that for me. And so I think it was a real natural fit. And all kind of came together with with Sherlock.

Amanda Niehaus  29:32  

Yeah, no, and your books are really funny. The Sherlock Bones books are just sort of full of light moments during the solving of mysteries, right? There's a mystery that that Sherlock wants to figure out the answer to. 

Renee Treml  29:50  

And he's a terrible detective. He's not a detective. I mean, he's a skeleton in the museum.

Amanda Niehaus  29:57  

So how does he do it? 

Renee Treml  29:58  

By fumbling around around a lot. Um, you know his stuffed dead bird--which you can see here and here [points]--well she's the voice of reason and she does steer him correctly a lot of the time, or she tries to and he just, you know, ignores her. But she does correct him and point things out a lot. And he's also got a very kind of crazy little raccoon, who's not really even meant to be in the museum. So she's a troublemaker. She likes to steal things, and she ends up finding a lot of the clues. She's not even trying, like she's completely doing her own thing most of the time and she's the one who keeps stumbling on the clues. And so yeah, I don't know it's just, um, it's a funny funny roundabout way, I mean there's lots of clues hidden in the pictures for the kids. 

My hope is that when someone's reading it, maybe they don't solve it straight away. But when they read through the book, when maybe when a kid gets three quarters of the way through, they've solved it before Sherlock Bones. So they've started to pick up on the clues, because I do add little clues in the pictures or to clues in the signs. And then if you listen to Watts, who doesn't speak but Bones speaks for her, you start to pick up what's going on. And I really hope that around the three-quarter mark the kids have figured it out and they know what's going to happen and Sherlock Bones is still kind of clueless.

Amanda Niehaus  31:14  

Yeah, oh that's great because it all happens inside a natural history museum, is that right? So it's full of exhibits of, you know, wild animals and the exhibits change between the books?

Renee Treml  31:29  

[Laughs] I'm laughing because I'm illustrating one now with a new exhibit and I've spent, I'm looking next to me, I have this messy pile and I can't turn my camera to show you because it's fixed on the screen, but this pile of notes and like all these little pieces where I have notes. These [shows notes] are all like kind of organized by which exhibit and display and oh wow. I don't know why i love it so much, but I do. I have to create the whole museum. Everything in the museum I've created and designed. I love museums, so I spend a lot of time visiting them and drawing in them and looking at how they present their information. But um yeah, I do totally geek out on that.

And there is a lot of sneaky learning because I think it's fun too with the kids you wouldn't want to be like "here's an educational thing," but it's fun if it's the background and you, you know, I try to make it interesting and kind of relevant to the stories. They might want to read what I've got in the background on a sign about you know, fossils or about how ghosts were, you know, perpetuated. This book features some math, some art and math, but it's not, you know, presented in a way I don't think that kids are gonna go "Oh it's educational, I'm stepping away," you know. 

I love science, if we kind of get other kids excited, get kids and get parents and anybody who looks at it kind of excited about these little facts and things that you might, you know, just things to get people excited about science and curious, and doing their own research and thinking.

Amanda Niehaus  32:58  

I love that. Yeah. And actually, I often like, I kind of think that your Sherlock Bones series, because they take place in a museum, and they're so full of these sort of thoughtfully crafted exhibits, it is almost like the book is a museum in itself, in which you can sort of walk through, and you have a map, do you have a map in each book?

Renee Treml  33:17  

I do. I do have a map. Yeah, a map at the start that shows the general exhibit. But I try to do a couple of pages in the book where you've zoomed out, and you can see all the exhibits, and the layout of the [museum] which is again, that's mine, I lost my mind, I don't know why I did that to myself. In a graphic novel, the character has to be walking in one direction as you're reading, you know, just like any book, you read the paragraph in a certain direction. So when you're reading a graphic novel, the character has to walk across the page that way,  [and] you have to know where they are all the time in three dimensional space in that museum, as to what's going to be behind them, in front of them, around them and if that exhibit is facing, which direction it's facing when they're walking the direction they're walking. 

And yeah, it's, it's, it's a museum, it is a full mapped out museum. I can show you a little [shows page]. This is my sketch from the one I'm working on right now. And this is my overlay of where they go at different stages in the book over my hand drawn map, because I've created a whole new exhibit. But I have to know exactly where every single exhibit is and what it's facing and what the sign says. ... because when the reader reads the book, you want them to know exactly where they are, and you don't want them to get confused. Or to have things really obviously not make sense. I mean, sometimes you have to switch things around a little bit to make it nice and you make your words fit with the pictures. But for the most part, you want, I want anyone who's reading it to kind of have an understanding of where they are and to not get confused and then kind of thrown out of the story. But it's my own little museum, yeah!

Amanda Niehaus  34:53  

Oh that's gorgeous. And maybe maybe someday like there'll be an in person version somewhere. That would be amazing. Speak to her agent, folks. 

So I'm curious, because so many of your books have this beautiful, they have such beautiful stories and illustrations about Australian native wildlife. Not including the raccoon, but you know, including the Tawny frogmouth, wombats, quolls – all kinds of animals. And so I just wonder what draws you to Australian natives and also, I'm curious if they play a role in a sort of kind of environmental education context for you.

Renee Treml  35:38  

Definitely some of the – there are so many ways to answer that question. I guess I'll start with why I love Australian animals. So Amanda and I share an American accent, and so I'm coming here from America where things where I grew up and--you would have grown up with as well [to Amanda]-- raccoons were common, you know, getting in the garbage bins. And when we went camping, we had to have bear--I've never seen a bear in the wild, but we always had to put our stuff in bear canisters, or squirrel protection devices. And all those animals that were really common, I was really used to them. I was always fascinated with American birds in particular, but when we moved to Australia, it was just it's a whole new world, and it was just everything is so different, like I don't know what percentage of animals here are marsupials, but very few of them are placental. You know, they're all these marsupial animals. And they're so diverse, you know, you've got the little predators and you've got, you know, the big herbivores and it's just, um, I find it fascinating. 

I do think I tend to be one of those people that I like to work in and create what I'm in the environment of as well. So it would feel odd to me--I think now maybe I would be more comfortable doing a book with maybe Blue Jays or squirrels or something, because I've been here so long--but when I first came, I was just like, oh, a platypus. And ... I've got to somehow get a platypus in there. And you know, I found out a baby echidna is called a puggle, and I had to have a book with a puggle, you know, and a wombat joey, and yeah, so a lot of it's just my--I think I just, I get excited like a little kid, like every animal, you learn some exciting new fact. And I've, you know, been in this country for, I don't know how many years now, a lot. I love it, it's my home, I'm a citizen. And I take a lot of joy and pride in sharing it and I am so happy to be here in Australia. So I love sharing that. 

And, you know, just getting these little kids to have a board book that shows them all these unusual Australian animals that maybe they weren't aware of, or are nocturnal animals that you don't normally see. And just, you know, even if a parent is just reading it to a baby, and they talk about, like you said, a quoll or, you know, Tasmanian devil or some some animal they might not see in real life--but that's going to stick you know. They're going to get a little bit older, and they're going to recognize that animal in other books and that little--it might be something when they grow up, maybe they will then want to protect those animals. Or they might want to learn more about them. Or they might just be more inclined to support organizations that are helping protect the environment. And so I'm just, it's always kind of my sneaky hope that these books are starting--I'm getting them really early with the baby books, you know--and trying to introduce these animals and build that love and passion in people. And that's I think that's that's what drives me. It's just that love of these animals.

Amanda Niehaus  38:27  

Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think in the illustrations, you gain so much kind of-- for some of the books, some of the books are a bit more sort of fun, and you know, like the wombat sleeping, and not, you know, trying not to be woken up by all of the creatures, but I'm thinking of the platypup. What is the name of that one--the playtpup--Sleep Tight, Platypup--and I'm thinking of that one, where you actually get a sense of, like, where platypuses live and sleep and what kind of trees they might have in their environments. And these kind of background details are just really beautiful, and it's not what you would think of as sort of, you know, education, but maybe it does sink in. 

Renee Treml  39:15  

It's like that--passive learning. Yeah, and that's, I mean, I did spend a lot of time on figuring out what a burrow might look like from the inside and from the outside, because they're really hard to see in real life so I had to just kind of research that and really recreate that. But yeah, it's um, I mean, like you said, that's kind of the interesting part. And it's fun. You can still have a story about a little baby who can't sleep and the mom trying to comfort it, but let's make it a platypus and put them in a burrow.

Amanda Niehaus  39:44  

Yeah, and and also like the kangaroo story, where you have a young kangaroo who's shy and, and is worried about making friends. Oh, yeah--Let's Go Little Roo.

Renee Treml  39:55  

It's behind me [points]. And Sleep Tight Little Platypup is back there, too.

Amanda Niehaus  40:02  

Yeah, there they are. Yeah, they're just beautiful. Renee just--you're very talented. Um, I wonder do you have--are there authors that you look to for inspiration? Tither in the children's books or graphic novels? Or are there other people that do things really well, that you admire?

Renee Treml  40:25  

Oh, yes. And knew I would have to try to make a short list because I knew you were going to ask me questions like these. And I'll draw a blank when I get asked. With graphic novels--like right now I think there's this huge trend, I mean, publishers are looking for them. Even five or six years ago, I think, when I first created Sherlock Bones, I remember my agent at the time--it might even been longer than five years now, I don't remember, but it was a harder sell. Publishers were like, We don't do graphic novels, that's just too hard. It's too weird. It's too obscure, blah, blah. Whereas now they're all --almost all these big mainstream publishers are either publishing themselves or they have their imprints, they have, you know, their own whole graphic novel branch. And it's booming. It's amazing. 

And I have some authors I love. One in particular is Ben Hatke. And he does these beautiful stories that have really strong female and male characters and so like Zita  the Spacegirl, and Mighty Jack--and they always have an element of magic, there's no science in them. I don't think. I mean, maybe there is--probably space, maybe there are things. But it's just that there are these amazing characters and really strong female protagonists and really strong male protagonists, but in a really healthy [way]--everyone's learning and working together and they have their faults and but really beautifully done. Like you wouldn't, unless you were a writer, you wouldn't pick all that up. I don't think even you wouldn't intentionally look for that and be like, Oh, you know, --and I also really love Molly Ostertag, and I, Amanda I recommend you check out some of her books as well--she does these beautiful books, and I think she approaches them with gender identity. She is, I think, it's an own voices type of situation. So she's writing these beautiful stories about children who might be transgender, or just maybe non binary, or just all kinds of different characters and they're so beautifully illustrated, beautifully written in a just, they're like, just heartbreaking and beautiful. I love them. And she's amazing. So I'd recommend either one of those for graphic novels for kids, or even adults, I mean. You know, those Molly Ostertag ones would probably be more like an early high school age.

Amanda Niehaus  42:42  

Do you think so? Because I obviously, like I'm one of the writers who are probably listening to this podcast who don't do graphic novels or children's books. And are there things that I could learn from looking at these books, in a craft perspective? Do you think?

Renee Treml  43:01  

Yeah. Especially the good ones-- I mean, the ones that I just mentioned I would think absolutely. I mean, because they're using visuals sometimes to do those big dramatic moments, it's ... they're so good at timing and pacing. And you have to do that you know--obviously, when you're writing, you do that with your words--but when, you know, to see it done visually I think just breaks it down, too. And when it's really well done, you can almost look at the mechanics of how they've made a dramatic moment and what they've slowed down and what they've left out and what they've sped up. And I think any writer would benefit from reading that because it's just presented in a visual way, so when I, when we read all these books about how to write or you take workshops, and it just it all these different approaches that people kind of are teaching you and I think it's just a visual way then of seeing that and seeing storytelling unfold, when it's done well. 

And yeah, and also if anyone has an interest--because a lot of us who write, we have that thought of maybe this could be a screenplay or, you know, maybe this can be made into a movie. And then looking at a graphic novel is a lot like having a storyboarded, you know, movie--because they're kind of screenshotting and I think it's a great way of looking at how that's done visually. And if you're writing and you think my book might be a fabulous, you know, movie then you can read a graphic novel and start to get an idea about how you visually pace these things. Because it does go hand in hand. 

But yeah, absolutely. There's so much to learn from them and I think they're, they do things--graphic novels can be a little bit edgier and a little bit more kind of--cover some non mainstream topics because they've always had that more subversive culture even though now they're so mainstream But still, they kind of hang on to that they could be a little bit more edgy and different than just a regular book for children so I think they're they're such a great--yeah, so many things to learn from them.

Amanda Niehaus  44:48  

Yeah, that's brilliant actually it because as soon as you started talking about pacing, I could picture some of the the spreads in Sherlock bones like where he's he's stumbling or he's falling off you know a desk or something and and it really slows down--yeah,or you know he stumbles and so you get all of these individual frames of of that moment. So I think pacing is a really big one and something that I think a lot of novelists struggle with. Have you have you ever written anything longer?  Have you thought of doing a longer story?

Renee Treml  45:29  

I'm working on a longer graphic novel? It's for older--slightly older--so those probably those age groups I was just talking about that early you know, seven maybe grade six-seven-eight  I frame it a little... you've read some of my short writing but um, I really feel like my strength comes with my writing and illustrating together so I'm not as comfortable relying just on my words.

Amanda Niehaus  45:54  

And you do you want to talk a little about this new project? You just got a Varuna fellowship for that didn't you?

I did just get a Varuna Fellowship! And thanks, Amanda, for encouraging me. 

So this new project is related to genetics isn't it? 

Renee Treml  46:15  

It is! Genetics was definitely one of those topics at school that I was always--I loved it I thought it was fascinating. I did really surprisingly well on it I don't know why. I just--you know some things. up get it, and you love it? I love genetics. It does deal with genetics and a girl with a maybe a misplaced identity or she, you know, there's a lot of... I keep changing some of these things as we go along. But it does come down to her not knowing her identity and being involved, you know, in a summer camp that's sponsored by a genetics company who's quite an altruistic type of genetics company. They're trying to help save the world and their goal is to find people who have superior DNA and they want to figure out what what genes are helping them maybe breathe better or be stronger or be faster and then trying to apply that towards disease control or disease management of treatment or prevention. And she she comes in with this very unusual genome and without knowing her background she has no awareness of it, and it just kind of unfolds from there. There's definitely a magical element--it's I think magical realis--so it is set in the real world but there is this fan fantasy element or magical element which is something I'd love when I'm reading. I'm definitely into magical realism and magic.

Amanda Niehaus  47:35  

Yeah, definitely!

Renee Treml  47:36  

It's definitely fun. 

Amanda Niehaus  47:39  

And also maybe a bit like knowing who we are, using whatever tools we have at our disposal.

Renee Treml  47:46  

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Amanda Niehaus  47:48  

Yeah. Oh that's really exciting. And so it's it's longe, and fully illustrated as well--is that right? So that it'll be a bit more of a process to write.

Renee Treml  48:02  

It will. And it's all people Amanda. It's all people characters which, you know, I always used to say that I do animal. I do draw people really well, but if you tell me that I've got to draw, like right now I'm drawing a flying sugar glider, and I can make that sugar glider go from grumpy to happ--I can use this body language, her body languag--I know exactly what I need to do to make her look whatever emotion I need. But even though I can draw people very well I can't do it as quickly and easily. With, you know, an animal I don't know why I can just do their their body language and their body but when I try to apply that to a person it's definitely harder. I mean, I do it and I can do it well but it takes me three times as long. So I'm just thinking of this 300 page... it'll probably be as long as Sherlock bones but full color, all people, all the way through. There'll be a very steep learning--if it goes you know when it goes through--it will be a very steep learning curve of me mastering doing that without always needing to reference or making someone pose for me or having a model. You know [I'm] trying to get that into my head where I can do that form.

Amanda Niehaus  49:05  

Yeah! Are there, sort of references that you look to help guide with expressions or do you just use your imagination?

Renee Treml  49:16  

I use all use my own expressions and you know like I'll make faces all the time and stuff. But I have a book full of facial expressions that are all these put together by a photographer just different models making all these different emotional faces and I might look through there. If you read through my Google search history you would find really bizarre things I searched like you know, "person looking sad walking away". I do get weird because I you know, I have my characters are 12 years old and I do feel weird I'm typing  "12 year old girl in a bathing suit" and I think I hope no one is going to red flag me over illustrations [laughs]. I Google a lot, I have books, I've had my son come in and I'll make him pose for me and I take photos to try to figure out what someone would look like in this position. I often use toys too--like little people toys--but they just don't work as well.

Amanda Niehaus  50:16  

No, no. Also this is something that we're running into because my daughter, Nelle as you know, loves drawing. But what are the resources for children of 14 to study life drawing without sort of having to look up or engage with naked pictures of people? It's really a challenge. 

Renee Treml  50:38  

Yeah, they need to have a you know... because it is confronting. I find life drawing confronting too but I've had a male, I've only had female models. I don't know if I--think I would be very--I don't know! I'm a prude, you know, let's put it that way. I do agree, like they need to have a, in a bikini or a bathing suit or something. Yeah, have you if you're not comfortable with that kind of nudity, it can be distracting, and hard.

Amanda Niehaus  51:12  

Yeah, definitely definitely. Thank you so much for for the chat today. I would love to hear, just before we sort of finish up, I would love to hear what some of your other favorite and recommended books are, and what you're reading now.

Renee Treml  51:30  

I'm reading a book now and actually i'm not i'm gonna be very embarrassed I don't know the author's last name or the author's name but it's called 'Still Life'. I mean it's a new novel-- it's new this year. A friend, I got it as a birthday present. I just read that and I've been enjoying that it's set, it's actually a kind of a historical fiction, which is different for me. I don't normally read in that genre, but I am thoroughly enjoying it. I also just finished a real sciency one called Transcendent Kingdom by--I'm gonna probably butcher how I pronounce her name, but it was Yaa Gyasi. It was a really amazing book that, again it was a birthday present, so it wasn't one I would have necessarily picked up, but it was about a woman growing up as an African immigrant in the southeast United States--I used to live in the southeast--and so I kind of connected with that idea. And [it's] really fabulous from her point of view. And she's not an angry point of view she's not feeling terrible racism but just being in that community, in a very religious community, and navigating life and you know, her brother ends up--he's an addict--and anyway... but her science was, she does this research on mice and rats on sensitivity to drugs and they do this brain research, and really the first couple of chapters when I hit that I kind of freaked out because I used to date someone who did that exact same research and so I was reading this book and it was so vivid and I was like I was like oh my god! I didn't know what was going on. She did a beautiful job of really tying in her story of the addictions and the brain of depression and these things that were going on in her family which had motivated her whole drive to this research field, but it really was beautifully tied together.

Amanda Niehaus  53:16  

I love that.

Renee Treml  53:17  

Yeah and really nice . A fresh, I think, look at kind of the differences in having you know a skin color, someone from Africa in rural Georgia...  it was t just not the normal way this is presented in a lot of books. I found that really refreshing Yeah, and also just read 'The Dry'.

Amanda Niehaus  53:38  

Oh, yes.

Renee Treml  53:40  

Amazing sense of place.

Amanda Niehaus  53:44  

Have you seen the movie? 

Renee Treml  53:45  

I did see the movie, but the book is obviously so much better.

Amanda Niehaus  53:51  

Even without Eric Bana in it?

Renee Treml  53:53  

Oh well you know, I like Eric Bana, but it was so good. And the book was amazing. And yes, it's such a sense of place--like you really feel like you understand and know that town and you know what it feels like in the people, and yeah, it was beautiful.

Amanda Niehaus  54:10  

Have you read any of her other books?

Renee Treml  54:11  

I did. I also just read, after that I read 'The Lost Man' which came out after, because I think the Dry was her debut. This was maybe her second or third. Again, it was great. This one was in... one of them was rural Victoria and one of them was rural Queensland. I forget which one I had read but um, which one was which. But yeah, again, that amazing sense of place like just understanding the community and the landscape--it was about living on a cattle farm, a remote cattle farm that is like a three hour drive to your neighbors kind of thing. Kind of those logistics of like, you know, having to have someone there to teach your children and running a farm. I don't know. It's really brilliant and such a great, interesting story as well.

Amanda Niehaus  54:57  

Oh, brilliant. Yeah, I haven't read her stuff but I've always had her sort of on my to be read pile as a kind of study of pace and in Australia as well, so it's good to hear that she is writing place really vividly. I do like that in a book so that's exciting. Oh well thank you again Renee, for chatting today. I hope that your writing goes really well--all the projects you're working on---and that they start work on that museum and all of those movies ASAP but thank you again. 

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