5 Minutes With ... Brodie Lancaster

Before I was an author I was …

Freelancing for places like Rookie, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Junkee and Smith Journal; DJing pretty poorly using as many Nicki Minaj songs as possible; making Filmme Fatales, a zine about women in film; and working at The Good Copy, a writing studio in Melbourne.

I started writing because …

It was something I knew how to do on a technical level; I got my first editing job after correcting spelling and punctuation on stories written by the contributors of a site I interned for. I knew how to express myself, but it was much harder and took a lot longer to work out what I wanted to say.

The best part of writing No Way! Okay, Fine was …

The validation that my stories and ideas matter. Reminding myself that there is value in what I have to say got me through the tough days of writing when self-doubt was nipping at my heels.

No Way! Okay, Fine was inspired by …

Everything I’ve spent my life watching, listening to, learning and feeling.

My favourite place to curl up with a book is …

On a train. When I’m at home there’s always something pressing to do on my computer, and reading can be demoted on the list of priorities, so I like to jump on a train and ride it to the end of the line and back, where there’s nothing to distract me from my book.