That Day with Jac Hawkins & Kylie Orr
Everyone has a day they never forget. In That Day, Australian women tell the powerful stories of the moment that changed their lives and what happened next.
That Day with Jac Hawkins & Kylie Orr
The Day Vikki Petraitis Was Called Into The Boss's Office
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What happens when the person who tries to block your teaching dreams accidentally launches your career?
For years, Vikki Petraitis lived a double life. By day, she was a teacher in a prestigious private school, shaping young minds and paying the bills. By night, she was deep in cold cases—researching, investigating, and writing true crime stories driven by a fierce desire to see justice served.
What began as a side passion grew into something far bigger: twenty books, a loyal podcast audience, and a thriving community of writers.
And yet, within the very institution she worked, Vikki found herself repeatedly overlooked. Despite her qualifications, her publishing record, and her growing public profile, she was told she wasn't qualified enough to teach senior English.
But instead of shrinking, she expanded. She enrolled in a PhD and quietly proved—to herself as much as anyone—that her value was never up for debate.
Her PhD novel The Unbelieved went on to win the inaugural Allen & Unwin Crime Fiction Prize and was later adapted for television as Dustfall, starring Anna Torv and premiering on the ABC in 2026.
Today, Vikki is a full-time writer, podcaster, speaker, and workshop facilitator, still devoted to the power of story but now working in a world that recognises her worth.
This is a story about what can happen when you refuse to be defined by the limits other people place on you.
For more information about Vikki, head to her website or follow her on Instagram @vikkipetraitis.
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Production assistance from John Hresc at Sydney Sound Brewery
Life can change in a day. A betrayal, a diagnosis, a devastation, a breakdown. This is That Day, the podcast where women tell real stories of the moment life changed, the chaos that followed, and the strength they found along the way. No subject is off limits. I'm Jac, a former coroner-turned empowerment coach. And I'm Kylie, once an HR manager, now a published author. Together, we help women tell the stories that matter. By the end of each episode, you'll feel it, you'll learn from it, and carry it with you. Welcome to that day.
Speaker 3This podcast contains conversations about difficult life experiences. Some episodes may include coarse language and themes such as illness, suicide, infertility, or childhood trauma. Please take care while listening and prioritise your well-being. Help lines are listed in the show notes. Today's guest is Vikki Petraitis, an Australian true crime author, podcaster, and educator whose career was shaped as much by rejection as it was by ambition. While teaching at a prestigious private school, Vikki faced repeated barriers despite her qualifications and achievements. She was blocked from teaching senior English, but told she wasn't quite enough. Instead of shrinking, she doubled down and used the setbacks to fuel a writing career that would grow into something extraordinary. Today, she is a full-time writer, podcaster and speaker, a living reminder that sometimes the door that closes simply nudges you towards the one that's meant to open. Thank you so much for having me. Welcome, Vikki. Thanks, Kylie. So can you tell us briefly what your life looked like before that that big day, that pivotal moment where everything changed?
SpeakerSure. I was a teacher for 31 years and I worked alongside, like a lot of writers do, you have to make a living. And I was kind of lucky enough, I think, in hindsight, to to have have to work and I love teaching. So alongside of working a full-time teaching load, I wrote on the holidays, I wrote on weekends, and I was able to successfully work full-time and be a writer as well as a few years. Well, were you a high school or primary school teacher? So I spent the first 17 years in primary school, and then I worked at a school that was prepped to 12. So I worked across the middle years up into year seven and eight. And then I took a job in a secondary school working in that year seven and eight space. And spent the last, I don't know, 13 or so years working in secondary. And I loved teaching and I loved working with kids. And I wrote in my holidays. And every time I would, you know, the bell would ring for the school holidays, and I would hop in my car and I would go, I'm a writer now. Oh. I I worked really long hours at work, but I didn't ever take it home. So I was happy to stay till six or get there at 7:30, so that I could separate and never take stuff home.
unknownYep.
Speaker 1And you were also a mum at the same time?
SpeakerYeah, yeah. So when I first started writing, my daughter was maybe about four or five. People would often say, How do you fit writing in? But I think the better question was, how do you not? Because writing was just for me. And if anyone listening is a mum and working full-time, those kind of things can be quite overwhelming. But when you have a hobby that is just for you, be it cooking or gardening or jigsaw puzzles or sewing, that you have a moment to step away from mum, mum, or Miss P and you have a moment to step away from that and you step into this glorious thing that is just for you. I think everyone needs a creative outlet. And I think everyone has a creative outlet, whether it is cooking or whether it is hot yoga. Hot yoga. I'm not saying that's what I do.
Speaker 2People do that in your dreams.
SpeakerAspirational hot yoga. I had the writing, and that was something that I protected really fiercely because it gave me time to just be me. And it also gave me time to say to people, I would love to do that, but I'm writing the case. Did your colleagues at school know that you were writing in your did, but I think it was just one of those weird things that I didn't really talk about a lot. Because as you would know, being writers, is that you can talk about it to other writers or people might be momentarily interested, but it's n not something that I spent all day talking about writing. I don't know, I just didn't. It kept them separate.
Speaker 3And also people ask, what have you written? And if you're still in the process of writing and you're not yet published, it feels hard to adopt the title of a writer.
SpeakerYeah, I I I didn't have that situation because I was very young when I got published. And I got published at a time when I was maybe twenty six. Wow. So I had written a book. I literally bought a book called How to Write and Sell True Crime and followed it step by step. And it said, Find a book that has been published by a local publisher that is in your genre and send it to that publisher in the old typewriter, clunk, clunk, clunk, typed a letter saying, I'm writing this book about the Philip Ireland case. He rang me the next day and went, Wow, that sounds great. You're a teacher, not a writer. Get uh I'll I'll find a journalist to do it with you. And I'm like, he approached was Paul Daly, who was at that time at the Sunday Age. And so I was in this glorious position of being able to sit next to a journalist and I would, you know, write up a chapter and then he would weave his magic. And so I was just this sponge. And I think I said in the the latest book that once you watch the magic occurring, you then can become the magician. I had that aptitude to write and certainly had the enthusiasm. And the hunger, yeah. And the hunger to tell the story. And then that book comes out and you have this incredible feeling of loss. And you have this incredible feeling of, what do I do with my time? You know, because there's this energy that you put into not only writing the book, but thinking about it and holding it in your head. Cops that I had interviewed along the way said, Oh, if this book doesn't work out, we've got heaps of good stories. So I picked up the phone and went, Can you tell me those good stories? And that was my next book. And when I was doing literally, I was doing a ride along with the Frankston police because um I wanted to do a story about a typical night shift. Because you do not know what your neighbourhood looks like until you view it from the back of a police car at three in the morning.
Speaker 3Yeah. What?
SpeakerBecause I'm asleep, you know, and I'm I I was a mother at I just turned 22 when I had my daughter. So I was, you know, engaged at 18, married at 20, baby at 22. So I never did the let's go and have a nightlife or a life. I didn't ever have a life. Like I went straight from school to teachers' college to back at school. Four years ago I left school at, you know, 56. That was a long time in school. And actually I'm then I was still at uni, so I I've actually never left school. You know, when the Frankston serial killer was operating and I ended up at the crime scene for Natalie Russell's murder, just that night I I was at the scene. Not of course out of the police car and nowhere near where her body was, but as a crime writer, you're sitting in the back of a police car thinking, I have to write this book. I live in this in the suburbs. I am right in the thick of watching the police helicopter shining the night sun down on the crime scene from the back of a police car thinking.
Speaker 3Would you ever be allowed to do that today? Or would there be a lot of hoods to jump through? Yeah, so that was a was a time that you got access to some incredible information.
SpeakerYeah, because no one else was doing it. When I was ringing cops saying, you know, I'm I'm writing a book and so uh, you know, it was just I I was a novelty. No one would touch the Frankston serial killer book. And then I self-published because I believed in it and I knew that it needed to be told.
Speaker 3Yeah.
SpeakerAnd I think that gave me the sense that no one is as much of an advocate for you as you are.
Speaker 1Vikki, if um you're clearly a curious person. What kind of woman were you at the time you were working in a school and crime writing? Describe who you were.
SpeakerI was very young and very naive, but I think naivety works for you and a lack of knowledge works for you because I think if I knew how hard it was to write that first book, maybe you wouldn't do it. And I think that having a naivety and a lack of knowledge can really work for you because you jump in and you're quite fearless because you have no idea what kind of hurdles that you might face. And because of your desire to write this book, you kind of bat them out of the way or you tackle them head on. And I think that also looking back, I think I was quite fearless and I would just say to various cops, if I'm ever found dead with the letter of the alphabet carved into my torso, maybe look in that direction, just in case somebody murdered me. But I I don't think I ever felt that kind of fear.
Speaker 1Where do you think your limitless possibilities and your desire to just like it doesn't seem like you had anything holding you back?
SpeakerI think that one place that it can come from is that when I was eight, my brother did judo, and my mum and dad wanted me to do ballet classes, so they went, if you do ballet classes for a year, you can do judo if you don't like ballet. And I think they were certain that once I discovered what graceful looked like and I that I would absolutely love ballet. So I stomped my way through a year of ballet and then went, I don't like it, and then I I started judo classes and I started throwing people. And the whole point of doing martial arts, and I did it for 10 years and I competed nationally. I think that when you do martial arts and you have this strength and you know that you could, you know, strangle somebody or break an arm or throw somebody. I mean, it's not really a combat thing that if, you know, you're on a train and you were attacked. It maybe it wouldn't work, but I think you get this feeling of I will never have to use it. But if I did have to use it, even now, like the muscle memory of doing that, I think that You know what you you have to do. You would know what you would have to do. So maybe walk through the world with an innate kind of strength when you know that you you you can throw someone.
Speaker 3Do you think it was also a little bit of gendered injustice that you had to do ballet when you wanted to do judo, and then you've kind of sought out fairness later in life or through these crimes, trying to show you so ingrained back then, wasn't it?
SpeakerIf you're a girl, you did ballet and I think there was this be dainty, and it's like I don't want to be dainty, I want to throw people. And the two don't really go together. But judo, to its credit, has a certain daintiness to it because it's like people gracefully, right?
unknownYeah.
Speaker 1Yeah. You do it by with your words now.
Speaker 3You actually do. So you're a crime crime writer by night, a teacher by day. Did your colleagues kind of celebrate this part of you? Did they know that this was your passion at night? Or I know you said you didn't talk too much about it, but just leading up to that that day that you're gonna tell us about. You just want to get a sense of their understanding of you outside of the school environment.
SpeakerEvery writer faces this, right? So you write books, and I learned very, very quickly that you can't ever attach any part of your self-esteem to whether people read them or not. Because when I wrote books, you'd think that people would go, Wow, you're an author, that's great. They don't. And in fact, I experienced the opposite in that people seem to go out of their way to say, ooh, I'd never read that kind of thing. And I learnt very quickly to say, well, just as well 10,000 people have, so it's a bestseller. Writing is very much you sitting at your computer and weaving your magic. It is very removed from, wow, you're excellent.
Speaker 3And the story is not yours once you let it go. It's lives in the reader's head and how they interpret it. And also you're representing true crime cases.
SpeakerSo you're trying to get a voice for the family and the victims. Yeah, and that's what it was always about. It was never about accolades for me. I find that weird. There's Vicki with the red lippy. Be going, wow, aren't you great? Because families don't do that.
Speaker 3Families go, Where's the pav loafer? Yeah, Vicki does make a mean PAV. I know, yeah. She definitely does.
Speaker 1I mean, you also write a mean book. So did you take the writing experience into the classroom for your kids?
SpeakerWhat I took is I took the storytelling experience. So when I taught prep, what I did know was that when my daughter started prep, that she went to school on day one with the expectation that she would learn everything. Because that's what we told them, right? You're gonna be a big girl, you're gonna go to school and you're gonna learn everything. And so they walk in day one going, hit me with it. And what I found when she did walk in that the prep teacher, what it looked like to me, she kind of dumbed it down. And I took my, say, 20 preps over and they were taking off their shoes in the foyer of the hall, and there was this massive huntsman in the corner, and one of them saw it, one of them screamed, and then they're all screaming and they're all gonna get hysterical. And I said, if you have a spider that is that big, that's a five-year-old spider. And so they turned from fear and hysteria to and I went, Oh my goodness, like you're your age, you're five. And I went, what if it was the spider's birthday today? I said, we should sing it happy birthday. And so the preps all turn to the spider, happy birthday. So what an example of that is the reframing using story to turn hysteria into curiosity, into singing to a spider. And it's this kind of thinking on your feet that you can use in education. And you know, five-year-olds are a tough crowd. Yeah. Any crowd, whether they're five or whether they're lawyers, anybody has a curiosity if you go, did I ever tell you the story about? And everyone leans in. And so storytelling is the gift that I think I brought to kids. You just don't know how kids are going to react. And the impact it can have. And so storytelling was what I honed and what I developed very good at.
Speaker 3Tell us the story of that day.
SpeakerSo I had moved into secondary, and I won't mention the school, but I worked in a role that wasn't teaching English. And I think that's a good one. Is this what you taught before or not? I had taught that at the previous school, across the middle years. And I had applied to the school a number of times to in order to move into an English position. And the man in charge was very adamant that I would never teach English at that school because I was a primary teacher. Like it was Yeah, okay. And so what I've come to understand when you have an outlying talent as a teacher is that there's a hierarchy among the staff. The people in charge can feel like they're in charge and they can feel like they're the best in the school because they're the boss. But someone like me who has this outlier talent is, I've found out, kind of challenging to people in charge if you are the kind of leader that leads because you want power. If you're the kind of leader that leads because you want everybody to grow and everybody to benefit, and you had a best-selling author on your staff, you would have that author, front row center. But if you want power and if you want superiority over somebody, what you do is you don't just ignore that talent, you stomp on it. So you never miss an opportunity to have a snide remark of this was actually said to me. Just because you're a writer doesn't make you an English teacher. That's like saying my love of travel makes me a geography teacher.
Speaker 3Wow. He was stomping on your head like you stomped through ballet.
SpeakerYeah.
Speaker 1Was it one conversation that started this? Can you remember where you were and what your reaction was?
SpeakerOne of the worst conversations was that I was on long service leave and I was driving. I had sent an email to the head of campus and said, What exact qualifications do you require for me to teach English? I had a master's degree, and so that means that you can teach year 10, year 12 in your subject. You know, what is it that you want? And I remember driving and he rang me on long service. So I had this surround sound in my car coming from all the speakers, and I had what I received as quite a violent conversation. You've been told what you need. I hadn't, because why would I ask? I'm just Googling right now and I can see you could do a degree in English or you could do this, you could do that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, I'd looked at I'd actually been to a a postgraduate expo in the city and went round to every single institution. And all of them required kind of f full-time study or part-time study, but with teaching rounds. It's like I don't need to do teaching rounds. I'm a full-time teacher. I can't actually do, you know, I can't take six weeks off to do teaching rounds. So none of them were something that I could fit in. And so this this violent conversation that um I came home and sort of looked at all the ones that he'd suggested and I couldn't do any of those either. And so I decided to do a PhD. He said, even if you get a PhD, you'll never teach English here because you won't have experience. So he made it very, very clear that no matter what I did, I would not be able to teach English. How many years ago is this? Maybe about six or seven years now.
Speaker 3I mean, that's very modern time. Yeah. I used to work in HR and you know, I can't imagine that six or seven years ago that this kind of conduct is I mean, I know it happens, but surely someone who's highly ambitious, who has experience, who has this amazing external skill as well, can bring something. And this was a fairly high-end private school that we won't mention. But I mean, to me, that's that's an accolade and kudos that you want in a school like that. I mean, in any school. But you know, if if you're trying to attract parents, imagine if you could say we have a best-selling author on staff. Imagine the passion that the kids who love writing could gain from that. Which is a really interesting potential product, isn't it?
SpeakerAnd the fact that the people in charge preferred to put me in my place rather than have that, it defies logic.
Speaker 1Do you think it was power intentionally to keep you small? Or to potentially make you leave? I don't know. Like had it got to a stage where things weren't working out.
SpeakerNo. I mean, you know, I did my job, I had a role, and I won't mention the role because that would identify the school, but it was a role, you know, within the year seven and eight m cohort, and I just wanted to teach English. So I went to all the English meetings, I wrote all of the booklets for all of the units of work, and but I wasn't allowed to teach them, so I watched other teachers teach the work that I had done. And I did this for ten years, you know, because I'm persistent, passionate. At the same time, I was writing other books and I was also working on my PhD. But because I'm not in the English department officially, and I did sort of talk to the principal about this at one point and said, Why aren't I teaching English here? And and he said, Well, I don't know. What do you think the blockage is? And I went, I don't know, you tell me. And I said, And how many times do you think, like I'm a best-selling author, how many times do you think I have been invited into English classrooms to maybe talk to the kids? And he winced because he knew the answer was never. And I said to him, Imagine if I was like an AFL footballer and I was teaching history at the school. Can you even conceive that the P department would not say, Oh wow, there's an AFL footballer. Let's get that person over to talk to the kids about football. Of course they would. It was bizarre because I never walked through that school going, I'm an author. I I just I never talked about it and I just quietly did my thing and I always let the school know if there was a book coming out because there would be some publicity. I would always do that on the holidays, so I didn't ever clash. And I don't know that I ever took a day off in order to promote a book or to do anything to do with my books. It was like I write them, but it will never interfere with my calling.
Speaker 1So there was just something central to him that he couldn't cope with you having this talent, being an outlier.
SpeakerDon't know. It's such a mystery. And then what happened was it started to get bigger than me. So when I started to do podcasting and I got my first podcast, had a million downloads in the first five weeks, it was phenomenal.
Speaker 3Just better get a million downloads, Vikki. Yeah.
SpeakerHonestly. Oh, why wouldn't it? Why wouldn't it? And so the kids were starting to come into school and say, My mum is why aren't you teaching us English? And I went, That's a really good question. She might need to direct that toward the head of campus.
Speaker 3So on the day that you were in the car when he was so nasty to you on the phone, did something change for you that day? Did he start to impact your own self esteem about your ability to teach English? Did you doubt yourself, or did you just like solidify in your head that I'm gonna do this and you are not going to block me? Like what what changed on that day?
SpeakerHere's the thing that conversation, I I just went, I'm gonna do a PhD. And the thing is that when When you do judo, when somebody pushes against you and you push back, the strongest wins, right? But what the principle of judo is that if you like push your fingertips together on both hands, there's pressure. But what judo is all about is using your partner's strength against them. So if someone pushes you, you pull and they go flying. And so this kind of balance. And I think if your self-esteem is not connected to other people, it doesn't matter what he says. I've always, from the time I was, you know, as one of five kids, and this is really common, I think, if someone says, Oh, you can't do that, and you're one of five kids, you go, watch me. And that's what I do. Like that's always my response. So I have never ever linked my self-esteem to what anybody else thought of me. I mean, that's impressive.
Speaker 1I would say that's rare, wouldn't you, Jac? Yeah, I would. And it's inspirational. And if we all need to learn judo at school so that we um can educate our kids to have that sense of self-belief, why aren't we doing that? Because there's so many people walking this earth that have imposter syndrome, me included, um, that just don't have that innate sense of self. Admirable. And if you could bottle that and teach young kids, why aren't we doing that?
Speaker 3Yeah, it seems so normal to you, Vic, but I don't think I don't think it's normal for most people. But it's it's so important to not connect your self-esteem to external things that you can't control.
SpeakerWhen people say you can't do it or you'll never do it, then it just becomes something that you say, well, I'm gonna do a PhD. And I knew when I started the PhD that I probably wouldn't ever teach well, he made it quite clear that I would never teach English with a PhD in creative writing. I did it because I could. And well, I thought I could. It's hard. But you know, I've submitted it now, so I have shrugged off the holy moly. We can nearly call you Dr. Potato. Yeah, I I and I've bought the hat, so I I've submitted it. So I it's like next, you know, it was hard and it challenged me in ways that I didn't ever expect to, but I never did it for him and I never did it for the school. I did it because I could.
Speaker 1Can you identify the emotion? Was it revenge? Was it I'll show you? What what was the emotion that fueled your energy to go ahead and do it?
SpeakerThat's a really good question, because it was none of those things. Because I never linked doing a PhD to anything to do with him, because what I did was it's just like, well, I'm gonna do a PhD because I can. And if I and I expected fully to still be at the school and I would be called doctor.
Speaker 3Did you have no desire to leave that school and teach English somewhere else?
SpeakerI'd worked there for so long and I think that it, you know, it paid really well, it paid the bills, and it gave me the freedom to write. So coming to that day every year for book week, I would organise an author day or a couple of author days where I would reach out to author pals and we would get them in and I would coordinate. So I would say to one of them, All right, you do a class in every year seven and every year eight on setting, and someone else would do character and someone else would do plot or whatever it was, like whatever we were focusing on.
Speaker 3You as the person who doesn't teach English was organizing book week and authors.
SpeakerThe the author days, yeah. And so what what happened was that the school paid $1,000 a day and they would come in for a couple of days and I would always get sort of lovely people that I knew would be r really great with kids and that worked a lot with kids. So one year when I when they'd made it really clear you will never teach English here, and a lovely mentor of mine, Sandra Nicholson, who was an assistant commissioner in the Victoria Police and she was retired, and she's lovely because, you know, she said to me, stop giving them for free those skills that they have said they won't pay for and they don't want. And so the head of English came to me and she said, Will you organise the author visits? And I said, Sure. However, this year, if you want me to be an author, I will need to be paid as an author. Yes. Otherwise, I'm really happy to organise another author. I'll organise three authors, not two, and unless you want to pay me. And she said, Oh, absolutely, you should get paid as an author. So I did the author days and I sent her the invoice and she came up to me and she said, Oh, you know, the head of campus is refusing to pay. And I said to her, it wasn't an optional invoice. No, I said I'd try, and I went, no. I said I wouldn't do it unless I was paid. So anyway, we both got called to the, you know, Head of Campus' office. Naughty little Vikki . He just, you know, went tore through me. Who do you think you are? Why would you think you would get an extra this has to come through me you know it was just violent. It was really violent, and I'm expected to sit there and cop it. And so after a little while, I said, Are you gonna pay this invoice or not? And I'm not gonna and I just got up and walked out and slammed the door because I thought, you know, you don't have to sit there and take this. You get to walk away. You can scream and yell all you want, but uh, you know, and it was viol it was bullying and it and that was the day that I remember walking across the other side of the school, and I was so angry that he would talk to me like that. I was so angry. And as I'm walking back across the school, I was saying to myself, I will do my core job, and I was very efficient and did that very well. But I have, you might have picked up, I just have this what's next, what's next? I don't know, frenetic energy. And so I made the decision, kind of walking, it was about half a kilometer to walk to the other side of the school, and I made the decision that I was going to when one door slams in your face, you go through the one next to it that is open and welcoming. And on that walk back, I made the decision that I would take these skills that I had, these outlier skills that were not welcome at the school, and I would sell them outside of school. And so I started to email libraries and say, I would love to give a library talk, I would love to run a workshop or run a series of workshops. They would run like a 10-week, you know, during the term, every Saturday morning for two hours. And one woman had driven from Kitan to come to this workshop. Authors got published and won prizes and just to have this community that when you're a teacher and you're an author, that there's this beautiful combination that you can help people um fly.
Speaker 1What a magnificent story that you turned a bullying, most shameful kind of experience into something that worked for you. You made it power you to be a full-time author.
Speaker 3And put in some boundaries around the way they treated you. Exactly right. You've been getting this for free all these years. Did they pay that invoice?
SpeakerThey didn't.
Speaker 3No. Wow. Did you ever worry on that day when you walked out of that office and slammed the door that you were going to lose your job? Did you think he would campaign enough to get rid of you? Or you never felt in jeopardy of that?
SpeakerI never felt in jeopardy of it. And I guess that from his point of view, he's doing the aggression and he's doing the who do you think you are? What you know, blah, blah, blah. And then I just go, I'm not listening to this. And I walk out. And I guess he would have felt that he won. And he did win because he didn't pay the invoice. But sometimes there's a cost when you don't pay what you should pay. The cost to them was that they got what they paid for. I was running lunchtime writers classes for the kids who were winning national competitions, and I made a decision on that very angry walk across the school. And my immediate boss kind of saw me as I'm coming back, and she went, Right, you and me are going for a coffee. She was beautiful and we went down the street and we sat and had a coffee, and I think it was, you know, the pressure just came down from that. And I don't think she'd ever seen me angry before. Because I don't, you know, I'm very even-tempered and very non-assuming, I think.
Speaker 3Also, does he not know you're a crime writer? You have seen, you know how to bury the body.
Speaker 1Yeah.
SpeakerYeah. So I've got this mug that's on the side of it. It said, Don't annoy the writer, or she'll put you in a book and kill you.
Speaker 3Yeah.
SpeakerWhen you're a writer and you hear this kind of language, half of your brain literally is going, Oh my god, this is abusive and it's vile and it's it's bullying and it's all of those things. But the writer half of your brain is just going, This is God.
Speaker 1And that's exactly what you did in your first novel.
SpeakerThat's exactly what I did. So I, you know, I'm doing a PhD, I'm creating fiction. When you have that kind of attitude at the top, right, there's a trickle-down effect. So that what I found was that other male staff members look at the way the person at the top treats women, and then you get this trickle-down effect. I remember one English teacher when I was asked for one term to take over an English position, and he said to me, I thought you were already an English teacher. And I said, Well, you know, no, I'm not, but I've written 14 books. And he just looked me up and down, and he said, It's not a competition. And I just looked at him and I said, Well, unless you've written 15, it really isn't. Don't annoy the writer. We're good with all. As one of my kids said to me, You're really good with words and stuff. And I went, I want that on a business card. I do them goodly.
Speaker 1Vikki, can you tell us a little how that character was built in The Unbelieved?
SpeakerYeah, so what what The Unbelieved was about, you know, as my PhD novel, it was about all of the things that had gotten up my goat as a true crime author. So low conviction rates for crimes against women and children. I had spent, you know, at that stage 25 years interviewing victims and seeing the carnage that was left behind. I'd written books on child sexual abuse and I had written extensively on that. So I wanted to highlight the fact that at that stage 80% of victims didn't come forward. Of the 20% that did, only one-fifth of those made it through to trial. Conviction rates were below uh 10% and imprisonment rates were below 1%. And I don't think anybody fully grasped the horror of that. And every time I saw a celebrity, either here or overseas, standing on the steps of a court saying, They have been found innocent, I would be sitting there saying, You had a 94% chance of being found not guilty before you even walked through the door. And when people would say, No, innocent until proven guilty, that preset does not work for women and children. Because that assumes that everybody that is a offender is found guilty, and that is not the case. The latest figures that I read recently uh from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, I think like 92% of victims don't come forward. They don't trust the justice system. They don't think that they'll get justice because the justice system that's based on the fact that so few people get justice. And the process is horrific. The process is horrific. And if you've read Louise Milligan's Witness or Briley's Egg Shell Skull, which I highly recommend, you will see that the victim is treated like in court. You don't have representation as the victim, and yet, you know, these high-flying lawyers will treat you like you're dirt and will try and trip you up and that's all about tarnish their character, even though they've done nothing wrong and they are the victim. Yeah. It's not only unfair, I think it's re-traumatising. So that if you stand up and you're made to second guess yourself or you're made to trip up and then you feel stupid or you feel like you didn't get your point across to an expert that was trained to trip you up. I just think that's horrendous. And that is one of the reasons why the conviction rates are so low because the victim is is re-victimized and re-traumatized on the stand. I wanted to cover these kind of things and I wanted people to read the novel and be outraged. But at the same time, I wanted my character, Antigone Pollard, to be facing the kind of hardship at work that I think so many women recognised. Because not only is she going to work and trying to solve crimes because she's a a detective, but she also has to deal with a boss that makes her job harder, that she's always watching him out of the corner of her eye because he's gonna come at her with something. We talk about equality in the workplace and oh no, teachers have got it, teachers have got equal pay. You know, the school that I was at, a quality report said that of, you know, we had 60% of the staff were female and 40% were male, and 40% of, you know, the males got 60% of the promotion. And so you you have this, oh no, it's equal pay, you get what they get. But if you're promoting your male staff more than what you you're promoting your female staff, it's not a it's not equal. I saw the announcement last week of the assistant commissioners in the Victoria Police, and three of them were called Michael, and there were two women. And so you had more chance of becoming an assistant commissioner in the Victoria Police if your name was Michael than if you're a woman. Yeah. Outrageous. But what my PhD research showed was that I read this amazing book by Susan Faludi published in 1991 called Backlash. We have spoken about it, Jac. And she talks about when there's every every period where there's female empowerment. So when the world wars happened and women step into the workforce and and step into their power, there's this sort of almost a global backlash. Get back in the kitchen, get back in your place. And after the 70s and then the eighties are like, yes, you've achieved equality, and we all put on our padded shoulders and we had kids and we all went to work. But what happened was that there was this notion of, but you have to do it all so that you're carrying the mental load. And I remember doing that. I don't even know how we got into that pattern. But just doing all the washing and all the ironing and doing all the cook-ups and you just as well as holding two jobs. Yeah. And writing books and and then thinking, well, I have to do this because I'm so lucky to be able to work full-time, but I have to make it look like I'm not working full-time and the house has to be clean and just the pressure that we put on each other. And then I think people think that we achieve equality, but we don't expect the backlash. And we're seeing it in America at the moment with the pulling back of reproductive rights and the tread wife movement and this whole you should be back in the kitchen, you should be having babies, and this male loneliness epidemic, and women should you know, it's just exhausting to go, can't we just get equality? And these things all poured into the book. And of course, the golden language that I had heard from a number of male staff members, I can weave that into a narrative because it's authentic. And so many women after I wrote that book went, Oh my god, that senior sergeant reminds me of my senior sergeant. And I'm like, Yeah, well.
Speaker 3You think um Mr. Not Pay Your Invoice guy read your book?
SpeakerI believe he would have because his power was always based on my not being good enough and my probably me being nothing, and that that's something that I can just get crushed underfoot. But the thing about it is what I experienced at that school, so I worked for another couple of years and just did did my job. And then the PhD novel won the Alan and Ungwen Crime Fiction Prize. She doesn't do things by halves, does she? And I knew it would. Like I just had this, I just entered it and I went, I I'm gonna win this because if I don't win it, I'm not worth my chops as a writer. Because I'd spent four years writing this book and I just and I had it marked in my calendar because it said the winner would be notified by the end of September. And on the 30th of September I had a note saying I'll be notified, and sure enough they rang. So I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. I couldn't say that I'd won it. And I could tell my family, and that was about it, until they announced it the following year.
Speaker 3Following year.
SpeakerThe following year. You had to wait for April or something. Yeah, you learn patience in this thing. Do you uh I haven't. And then we had also been approached. I was working for Case File and I was doing my podcast, and we were approached by the Australian Federal Police, and they had asked us to do their podcast called Crime Interrupted, but until it came out, we weren't allowed to talk about it. So I had to sign in a second NDA. Now teachers never have to sign NDAs, it's not a thing.
Speaker 3And so when I was But you used to confidentiality, because you're not allowed to talk about students outside of the school.
SpeakerYeah, but you don't sign NDAs. Like you don't it's not a I don't know, other professions might have to, but teachers certainly don't. So when I went into the head of campus, who was a new head of campus at that stage, and I said I need to take a year's leave without pay, and I can't tell you why, and she's like, okay. And I left and I never went back. So that sort of launched me into the career as, you know, I took the leap, which was a calculated risk-averse leap. But then when the book came out in the August, it was read by a movie producer who read it and went, We have to make this. He was doing something with Anna Torv, an Australian actor who who's amazing, and gave the book to her and she went, I want to play that character. And so when I stepped away from teaching, this snowball rolling down a hill ended up becoming so big. I think by then I'd had 10 million downloads, TV, and again, you can't, you know, you can't talk about it until it was an hour. I I had to keep that secret for two years. You find the walking epitome of success is the best revenge. And the thing is that that school will go down in history as having me as a teacher there for 13 years and not letting me teach English. Never celebrating qualified.
Speaker 1Yeah. Ridiculous. And I love the analogy of the doors. So when you slammed the door and you walked away from the principal, opened the door that opened into a world you couldn't even imagine back then. But look what happened.
SpeakerYou can't imagine it. You know, the things that have happened to me since I made that leap have just been extraordinary. Like last year we did a tour, uh, we we went to the UK and we did a show in London with Case File. And, you know, I had lunch with a TV producer, and we're just sitting there with the case file host and we're just saying, this is nuts. Like pinch me moment. Pinch me. This I had this wonderful moment where we went to Monet's garden, which is so beautiful. And you have to walk under a tunnel to get from the road through to the garden. And it had a smell about it that was exactly the same smell as the camp that I would take, you know, the earthy kind of damp, the this camp that we that I would go to with the kids every year. And I just had this blinding flash when I, you know, when smell will evoke something. And if I went through a different door, if I made different choices, I could be on Canvas smell right now on Canvas with a whole bunch of urea. Or I could be in Normandy at Monet's Garden. Meanwhile.
Speaker 3And it just shows the I just got goosebumps.
SpeakerI got goosebumps when I was just sort of smell. You know if you smell scones and then you transport it back to your nana's kitchen or my kitchen. This evoking of uh this crossroads, this voice. And I'm like, I'm in Monet's garden, just about to look at his, you know, what are they, floating lily pads or whatever they're called.
Speaker 3I heard another author, Catherine Collette, she said to me once, go where the green light is, Kylie. Like, why are you, you know, banging your head against this wall where there's just constant red lights? Follow the green light, which is the same kind of concept. But I mean, Jacie would probably describe it as surrender almost. Like I'm not gonna get through to this guy. He does not respect me. He doesn't want me teaching English. Why am I smashing my shoulder against this door? You can't control him, but you can control what you do.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 3I think a lot of us don't surrender because we feel like, like you were saying before, then he gets to win. But who's the winner now?
Speaker 1Your story is just magnificent. And the fact that um you couldn't you couldn't even imagine it yourself. So when you do surrender and let it go, I always talk about the universe. The universe has bigger plans for you than you even could imagine, beyond your wildest dreams. And you're a perfect example of that. So what did that day teach you, Vic?
SpeakerEverything that ever happens to you, I have a default setting, and maybe it's a crime writer, or maybe it's just innate, that everything that ever happens, negative or positive, I always say my first response is what can this teach me? And so if I experience grief or loss, or what can this teach me about the world? What can this teach me? Like when you lose someone that you love to death, and that you know, for s for a lot of us, that doesn't happen till we're quite old. You don't know who you are as a griever, right? Until you lose someone. And then you go, huh, I'm a crier. If if if bad things happen to you and you go, Oh, I'm really unlucky, bad things always happen to me, bad things will always happen to you. But if something negative happens and I experience this kind of treatment, what that does is it fuels me to write about it. So that kind of treatment in hindsight, so we're looking back, this is the fifth year that I haven't been teaching. I look look back on those experiences as gifts. Yeah. Because if I didn't have that, if I had smooth sailing, if they had a said, yeah, come and teach English, and I could have been correcting 9,000 essays, and instead I'm sitting with you guys on a school day in school hours. And it's a gift, everything that happens. I was in a I was interviewed for a podcast and one of the questions that they ask all of their guests was if you could go back and give your younger self some advice, what would it be? And I said, I wouldn't. You wouldn't Never go back and say, don't do that or don't work at that school or whatever. Because every single interaction, positive or negative, builds your strength and power. And if you have to butt heads with somebody like I had to, I never ever walked away thinking that I had lost. I walked away thinking I will use this. And I would literally go home and write scenes the night these conversations would happen, and I would write scenes using the language because it was gold and it was abusive. And it gave me real-time examples of these put downs that aren't technically, if you went to HR, they're not actionable, but nonetheless they would be effective to somebody who wasn't like me. And that was always the worry that if people that weren't like me that just were looking at that going, This can't touch me, if people weren't that strong, this could be really abusive stuff. Of course.
Speaker 3Also it shows that your story is over a long period of time. Like you you tolerated this weedy little man for a long time, but also you tried many different avenues. Like you you showed him or showed yourself, I will try this and I will make myself invaluable in this way. And also you were advocating for students, not just for yourself. You wanted them to have a richer experience at school that he was blocking. So it's not like you hit one roadblock and said, Oh well, screw him, I'm done. Like you did try many different ways, which I think is a really good lesson for all of us, and your wisdom is very helpful because it shows us that determination and endurance is really important. It's a long game, isn't it? But also you you everyone reaches a tipping point where they say, Right, that day, that day taught me he can go fuck himself.
Speaker 1And it's necessary, necessary for you to get to the next stage. Without that day, that push, you wouldn't be here.
SpeakerYeah. And that changed everything. And I I remember that walk across the school, sort of walking all that way and just thinking, that's it. I am never going to give we're done. And I I was done. It's just like you get what you pay for, and you don't get anything else. And I will sell the skills that I was giving you for free. I will sell them in the marketplace to people that want to buy them. Yeah. And the people that value them. And desire them and and get excited about them. And that I could go into a place where, like, you know, the Sandringham Library where I'd done these 10-week courses and people would travel great distances to do them, and they were so grateful. And libraries offer them sort of almost for nothing, and they fund them so that people don't have to pay huge amounts to do these courses. And it was just so fulfilling. And I'm like, that's because they want to be there too. That's what I want to do. I want to work with adults and I want to work because kids are often reluctant to Oh, I hate writing. And but you get these adults that are coming from all different places that really want to be there and really Yeah. And so it's it's I think that taught me how to best direct my talent. And I often think of the analogy that when I was uh y you know, young and I think Stace was a baby and I hadn't started a full-time teaching job, you know, I used to clean houses and I used to work at pubs and I could do those things and I could do them really well. But I think that the more that you hone these skills, you go, what is the best use of my talent? And so people now are asking, oh my goodness, I get asked to do all sorts of things. And I look at each request thinking, oh my God, that's a day out of my very busy schedule. Is that the best use of my time? And so you get to sort of hone in. I was asked recently, could you come to talk to kids at a secondary school? I'm like, hell yeah. I would absolutely do that because who knows who you could inspire or whose creativity you could spark. There's a lot that I I'm now gonna have to say no to just because I don't have the time.
Speaker 3I mean, what a good problem to have. And how lucky are we that we got chosen out of your busy schedule to spend a day with us talking to us about We're so lucky.
Speaker 1We are so lucky. I just wanted to pick up on something that you said before and it sort of segued in beautifully, that you had a mentor, former assistant commissioner Sandra Nicholson. You are also mentoring me to be a writer, which I'm so grateful for and honoured to have your time as well. What is it about the importance of mentoring and being a mentee that helps someone on their journey?
SpeakerI learnt that at the coroner's court, right? So I had gone into the coroner's court to get the file for the Philip Island case back in probably 1991 when you could get the files. And there was a guy in there, David, who was kind of I think maybe clerical. And I said to him, Look, there's statements missing. I'll hunt them down for you. You know, he hunted down statements for me. And then there was Dr. David Ranson who went Professor David. I think he was doctor then, but I think you know, he he was extraordinary. And I reached out to him and he sat with me at the coroner's court and read through the autopsy findings from the doctor. Um, oh, the left vena cava, yes, well that's and explained it all to me. And I remember being so grateful that these really important busy people took the time out of their very busy schedules to say to me, if you need help and ask for it, we'll give it to you. And I just felt always that when I needed help, it was there, and then felt an obligation to if other people needed me, I would be there for them. Pay it forward. Because that's how it works, and that's certainly how it worked for me. People were endlessly patient and generous with their time and with their stories and with their truth. I always naturally paid it forward. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 3So if there's a if there's a woman listening to this now, hopefully plural women, more than one, what would you say if they're kind of standing in the middle of this life-changing moment that day that often feels like a massive crisis? What what would you say to that woman?
SpeakerTo understand that it may seem like a crisis today, but in a year's time, what will it seem like? I had this thing when someone is going through a crisis and I use it myself and I I tell other people. I say, when this when enough time has passed that this is a dinner party story, that you're telling it at a dinner party.
Speaker 3Yeah.
SpeakerHow do you want the story to end? What do you want the story to be? And what that does is it reframes a current crisis into what will this look like a year from now? I was at a workplace, I don't know what it is about school principals, and I hope that it's changing. This is going back maybe twenty years. And the principal was an incredible bully. I was only there for a year because I I left there. And I watched her with the greatest fascination on how she treated people. And I figured that she would attack people in their strengths, which is a master move if you want to keep your staff shaking in their shoes. And I watched her do it and I was old enough to, you know, you get to a certain age and you go, Yeah, try it. You can try it, but it won't work. That's why people don't want to employ middle-aged women. I had just finished my master's in IT in education, and my work programs were a work of art. They were hyperlinked, they were hyperlinked to results, lessons, blah, blah, blah. And so I'd handed in this work of art in a very fancy folder. And she said, Oh, this work program doesn't meet a Catholic education office standards, which I knew they didn't have standards. And I said, Why? And she said, Well, you haven't this lesson here, you haven't got the time that you taught it. And it was a complete fabrication. And I double-checked with a friend of mine who was a principal who I'd gone through uni with, and she goes, They do not have standards for work programs. Super petty. And I went, This is what you do. The light bulb went on. You attack people in their strength. Because if she had said to me, I think your maths teaching needs work, I would have gone, fair enough. Probably I peaked at grade three. But it because she attacked me in my work programme, and then all the staff would go down the pub every Friday because we had to debrief from this horror. And I said, one day she attacks you in your strength. So then it became a game that the next week someone would go, she criticized. Bingo maths. That must be what I'm really good at. So what it reframed this constant pressure and shifting goalposts that I was watching as an author with absolute fascination. It's like, whoa, you are a master at this. If people haven't figured out what you're doing, this is gonna feel really bad. And in the end, I and I did this. One day this will be a dinner party story or a podcast story, even though podcasts haven't been invented. And when I went in, I was I had applied. I I'd been doing some work at another school, very fancy school. When a job came up at that school, I applied and I got it. And I'd gone into her and she said, Oh, you haven't given me your intentions for next year. What grade do you want to teach? And I said, Actually, I'm leaving. And it was one of those, again, sliding door moments that I could have said, my daughter's doing year 12, or I it's a bit too far from home, or what I could have made up an excuse and I just went, I'm going in. And she goes, but why? And I said, Well, it's you. It's and she does the what? And I and I had no idea. I said it's the shifting goalposts, it's the attacking people in the things that they're really good. I don't think gaslighting was invented 20 years ago, but I would have said that. And she's going, No, you misunderstand. You know, when I criticize, I'm challenging. And I and I went, No, because when you're the principal and you're up here and I'm the teacher and I'm down here, it just looks like bullying. Whatever it feels like to you, this is what it looks like to the staff.
Speaker 3And I thought, Yeah, man, I had nothing to lose.
SpeakerYou know, because in 25 years' time when I'm telling this story, I didn't want to say, I kind of went off, it's a bit too far from high. I didn't want to say I just and it's hard. Like it's it's hard to say that to people. Yeah. But at the same time, if if I don't say it.
Speaker 3That might have been her that day. You never know. Maybe she changed after that, was much more aware of how she dealt with people, probably not. But I feel like she wouldn't have been.
SpeakerAnd what was really interesting is when I started at that school and did, you know, the parent teacher interviews that you do like a couple of weeks in, where the parents tell you about their kids so that you can cater for them. I had this parent after parent kept saying to me, Are you you're gonna stay the whole year? And I was a bit taken, and but I'd never been asked that before. And I said, Well, you know, failing death or a Tatsloto win, that's goal. But it's not a good idea. That these kids hadn't had a teacher that had lasted all year since they were in grade two, and I was teaching grade five, was the origin of this is what was happening to teachers in this school. And teachers, unless you're pregnant, you know, they never leave mid-year. And I think the one that replaced me lasted about six weeks and then she left. So the principal hadn't learned any lessons. But this is the kind of stuff that you get very good at dealing with because it it seems to be really prevalent at schools.
Speaker 3In many workplaces, probably.
SpeakerNever left school, so I don't know.
Speaker 1I can borrow it for that.
Speaker 3There are bullies in every workplace.
Speaker 1I've had a few. Just before we we close, you talked about identifying your gift and following that. If someone doesn't know what their gift is, and we have listeners thinking, Oh, if only I knew what my talent was, what's some advice that you could give to help them find what fires them up? Good question.
SpeakerI think that when you do something that you love, that's your gift. So if you're sitting there saying, I don't have a gift, then you're not asking the right question. It's like, what do I love doing? I love cooking. I love it. Great.
Speaker 3My husband's leaving his job to make salami now.
Speaker 1I love it. Is it energy as well? Is it like a tingling? Is it like a lot of things? Yeah, what makes you feel that you're happy?
SpeakerAnd I say this to kids, what's the best use of your smarts? Because as I said, I could be a house cleaner and I could do that really well. On the weekend, I painted my pagola because I'm in between books and I can do that real I could be a house painter. I love painting. What is the best use of your smarts? Because anyone can paint a pagola. No one can write the books that I write. So I think rather than sort of sitting there thinking I don't have one, what could I possibly do? Maybe I could take up knitting. It's like, what brings you joy? And it might be bushwalking. I don't know. Some people like going out into nature.
Speaker 3Me. Yeah. It's really nice, Vic. You should try it. You should see her grimace.
SpeakerI I say I would prefer the outdoors if it was indoors and it had non-suite. It's not there's that thing about like going to the toilet in a hole that you have to dig. There's nothing about that that says yes to me.
Speaker 3But you can go and walk amongst trees without pooing in a hole. It's possible. We cannot end the thing.
SpeakerFind things is finding that happy medium. But what brings you joy? What I did for 31 years, it didn't matter what I wrote because I wasn't relying on that income. If a book made nothing, my first book took two years and it made $600. Yeah. But it didn't matter because I had an income. I I had the bills being paid. So I was able to chase stories that I wanted to tell without thinking, is this gonna make me money? Is this gonna be a bestseller? That was so good to separate. So while I wouldn't think that your husband should give up his job to make his salamis, but he does it in his spare time. Like he does his job and is risk averse and brings in the, you know, pays the bills, and he makes his salamis because that's his passion. Yeah. And that's an exact example of someone who has a creative outlet like gardening or doing something that just brings you joy that you just happen to be really good at, desire it enough for you to become really good at. Yeah. Because, you know, I none of us were good at writing the first time, but we never ever took note for an answer and we just kept doing it until got good at it.
Speaker 1Vikki, you've given us so many pearls of wisdom. Is there any one thing that you think could help our listeners?
SpeakerI heard this thing on because I love scrolling on Insta at this time of year because I haven't started my new book yet. And I I heard this thing that said if you're walking along and you're bitten by a snake and you're injured, you don't follow the snake going, but why did you bite me? What is it about you that you don't want to understand the snake, you just limp away and you heal yourself. How beautiful is that? Oof, I love that. And when you were asking questions before about the boss, I don't give him a thought. I don't have animosity toward him. It's like you were with me for a part of my life's journey, and you treated me in a way that made me stronger and made me able to articulate in a book that kind of treatment and therefore teach other women. And maybe if that's picked up in the TV series, that then goes around the world and that everyone that you encounter, it's like the snake. You don't follow along with him and go, what's your motivation? Why did you do that? Why me? You just let the snake slide away and you heal yourself if you need to, and then you move forward with an immunity that you might get from being bit. Love that.
Speaker 3What a way to end. Well, thank you so much, Vikki, for your time today. We feel very grateful for your amazing storytelling ability and your, I don't know, ambition and control, actually. I don't feel like I would have been that reserved in those moments, but you have taught me wisdom. Thank you. Thanks, Vikki. Amazing. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to That Day with Kylie and Jac. If this story stirred something in you, if you've had that day, we'd love to hear from you. Find us on Instagram at That Day Podcast or get in touch via email. Hosts at thatdaypodcast.com. Your story matters. We're listening.
Speaker 1We record that day in Naram on the lands of the Warangri Boywarong people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to elders, past, present, and honour their enduring tradition of storytelling.
