I sit down with Sydney novelist Cassie Stroud to hear about her creativity and why knitting taught her everything about writing a book, and creativity as the best bit of being alive.
This post is part of the Interviews with Creatives series
Cassie Stroud is a Sydney writer, editor and bookseller whose debut novel Iluka was published by HQ Fiction Australia in February 2026. A family drama set on the south coast of NSW, Iluka centres on three siblings who reunite after their grandfather’s death and discover their mother, long presumed dead, may still be alive. The manuscript was written over many years, mostly in snatches and longhand around freelance editorial work and raising a small child. Cassie has been writing all her life not because she was chasing publication but because creativity, in all its forms, is simply how she lives. This is a conversation about what it means to make things for the love of making them, and why that might be the most important creative disposition of all.
In this interview, we talk about:
- How Cassie writes in short bursts of longhand to delineate it from her paid work
- Why she thinks of creativity as the whole point of living and the alarm bell when she’s consuming more than creating
- How knitting taught her the single most useful thing she knows about writing a novel
- What ‘done is better than perfect’ really means in practice
- The freedom of making work that has no purpose or audience
Whether you are trying to find your way into a longer project, wondering whether you are a creative person or just needing to be reminded that a little bit, done consistently, is enough, this episode will settle something in you.
Cassie is wise, warm and very funny, and she makes creativity feel like what it actually is: the best bit of being human.
Listen or watch the podcast interview
Cassie Stroud, Debut Author
CS: My name is Cassie Stroud, and I am a writer. My debut novel, Iluka, came out about three months ago. I live in Sydney. I’m a writer, editor and bookseller, and I live with my husband and son.
MD: That is a beautiful background behind you.
CS: Thank you. It’s actually from the cover of my book. It’s an original painting by an artist called Jon Doran. Jon’s a Cornish painter who paints landscapes all around Cornwall, and while my book is set in Australia, it luckily looks enough like Australia that they were able to use it on the cover. It’s just the most stunning thing. I’m so grateful he agreed to let us use his work, and I’m so proud that we have such a beautiful piece of art on the cover.
MD: Have you got your book there too, that you could hold it up so we can see it as well?
CS: That is blending into the background.
MD: I was going to say, it kind of blends in beautifully. It’s absolutely stunning. So you’re a writer, and this is your first book?
CS: It is, yeah. Not the first I’ve written, but the first published. I’ve written all my life. I’m one of those people that was writing when I was 11, and then the only thing I could think of doing when I finished school was studying creative writing. Then I spent my 20s writing lots of short stories, and then in my 30s, after I had my son, I was like, I think I really do want to write a novel. That was the form that spoke to me the most, and that’s when I started trying to write a novel. They’re very big and unwieldy, so I found it quite difficult. I wrote one that didn’t quite hang together as a whole. It didn’t feel like it had the right shape. And then I sat down and wrote another one, and that turned into Iluka, which has been published.
Creative Routine
MD: Can you tell me a little bit about your routine for your creative work?
CS: Yeah. I was very interested to do this podcast because I think a lot about creativity, and even though I’ve just introduced myself as a writer, which is very fun, I feel like my creative work is something that I have to have in my life every single day. Something creative, making something from nothing, in terms of my version of living a full and happy life. I can get quiet. I can catch myself feeling a little bit low or a little bit down, and I think usually that’s because I’m consuming more than I’m creating. It’s usually a little alarm bell to me that I have to make something. Whether that’s knitting, drawing with my son, mucking around with a bit of craft or writing, creativity is something that’s really important to me. When I say I try to include it in my life, it’s the best bit of life for me, that kind of daydreaming and play. It’s the joy. Writing, I would say, is my favourite form of creativity, but that might be because I enjoy the product. I love reading so much, so it’s what I’m drawn to and probably because I’ve devoted most of my time to it, it’s probably the thing, if I do say so myself, that I’m best at, because I’ve invested that time.
But my routine is … it’s nothing like a routine. Since I had my son I’m lucky enough to work freelance, and any creative writing I do specifically, I’m fitting it in snatches and bursts around paid employment and around the work of the home, and all the other things that we do in life. I tend to write in snatches, longhand, whenever I can. I think that probably does come across in how my prose reads. It’s very short sections, quite precise in a way.
My paid employment as an editor involves translating work into plain English, trying to make things easy for people to understand, either on websites or technical documents. I think that comes across in my fiction as well. I strive for clarity. So yeah, I’m scribbling away whenever I can, in very short sections, and very slowly.
MD: You work as a freelancer. Do you work your own hours?
CS: Yeah. I’ll take on project work so I’ll have a certain amount of time to do those things, and I’m more and more trying to prioritise creative writing. I’ve struggled with that so much. I will tend to, if I’m honest, always prioritise the paid work, which is depressing, but a necessity. The dream would be to write every morning, but I usually set a timer, so I know that I’m just going to do 20 minutes or half an hour, and then I feel like I’m working within a certain parameter, I’m not going to muck about, and then I’ll go back to my paid work.
MD: Are you doing your creative work every day, or is it not as clear as that?
CS: Not as clear as that. I could go for weeks and months without writing. At the moment it’s probably becoming a little bit more imperative that I do it more regularly. That word ‘discipline’ sends me into a bit of a shiver, because I can be a bit oppositional. I feel like I’m being made to do something. And I think I’m going to have to start working daily in order to meet a deadline. I do have a deadline for a second novel. But it can come in fits and starts. I’m always thinking about my characters. I’m just enjoying that dreaming space of an idea. I’m usually writing about the kind of thing that, when something’s in your mind and you can’t stop mentioning it, it’s an idea. For example, with Iluka, I was thinking about motherhood, and anger in motherhood. That was one of the starting-off places. I caught myself having many conversations with friends, thinking about the idea, thinking about how different people approached motherhood. It’s like when you can’t stop saying something, you talk about it so much, you’re like, I think I need to write about this. That’s how I ended up pushing through to a novel-length piece, knowing that I had enough spark.
It’s similar with this second book. I’m thinking a lot about friendship, friendship in middle age, what it means, female friendship specifically, as we get older. I think it’s a way of working through the ideas that you can’t let go of.
MD: So do you write every day now then?
CS: As I’m coming into this second novel, I’m realising that I’m going to have to. So that word ‘discipline’, I might have to become a little bit more attuned to it. I found that when I was doing the editorial work, working with a publisher and with an editor, that was definitely much more structured. I sent the work to them, they would provide a structural letter back to me, I had a set amount of time, and I was working every day to meet the requirements to send it back by a certain date. I surprised myself because I did enjoy it. I thought I would hate that, but it turns out I can perhaps do more than I think.
Creative Process
MD: Tell me, do you have a process for your creative writing? How do you start with an idea and then create the longer piece?
CS: For me it is that spark of an idea and then it always comes down to characters. I’m interested in people, I’m interested in why people behave the way they do, how they interact with each other, those little moments of truth that make us the creatures that we are. I’m always going to be thinking of particular people and particular places. Often, the houses they live in, the things they have around them, the stuff in their domestic life. I find that really evocative. I love that almost still-life visual to help me find my way into character. When I have these characters, I have to butt them up against something and that’s how I end up with plot. It never comes first, but it’s the thing that I want to push them through to create a bit of narrative momentum.
Creative Inspiration
MD: Can you tell me from where you get your inspiration?
CS: Those conversations with friends, those ideas that you can’t let go of. Also I think one of the most important things in my life is maintaining a sense of curiosity. I’m curious about what people are doing, why they’re behaving a certain way, what they’re wearing. If you’re curious, you’re constantly looking and thinking and transposing ideas on top of what’s happening and that’s the exciting stuff about writing when you read something that you recognise. I’m trying to write something that people will recognise.
Creative Wisdom
MD: If you were having a chat with someone who is early on in their career, or maybe they’re having a transition moment, or a wobbly moment in their creative work, what wisdom would you want to share with them?
CS: I think the ‘done is better than perfect’ thing, which is such a cliche, is so helpful. We can get really hung up on what is good, and I think that stops a lot of people from creating anything. People don’t want to draw a stick figure because they say, I can’t draw, or, I’d like to write a book but I could never do that. I’m like, have a go. Just do it. Just try. Write a bad novel. Paint a bad painting. I really think just trying to remove the idea that it has to be good is so freeing. Then maybe a little bit of grit and persistence to push through a little bit further. That’s when you get into editing and refining and working on craft. You have to be in it for the long haul and be willing to keep going to the end. When I was younger, I was never finishing work. I was writing short stories because I was scared of a novel. I was scared of the last third of it and how long it would be. Even the short stories I started didn’t go anywhere, they didn’t land. So being willing to keep pushing through until you complete things will be so satisfying. Just have a go.
MD: Does your other creative work, like the knitting and drawing, feed into your creative writing?
CS: Knitting, honestly, without sounding too religious about it, taught me a lot about being able to write a novel. I was knitting a lot when I was pregnant, and that was also maybe two years before I sat down to write the novel. One thing it taught me was, even if you think you have no time, which with a newborn you don’t, if you can sit down and knit one row of that pattern every night, you do actually end up with a cute little cardigan. You don’t know how it happened. I can’t remember knitting it, but I did one row a night, and there it was. And that is actually how you write a book as well. Write a few lines, write 200 words. You don’t have to be at a typewriter ten hours a day, or some sort of horrible process. It can just be doing a little bit. It accumulates, and you’ll be amazed.
MD: I love that so much. I’m a knitter as well, and interestingly, I have decided to find a ball of yarn from each city or town I go to, if there is a wool shop, so I can knit myself a kind of sock souvenir.
CS: Love that.
MD: Knitting is part of that creative work as well. I love that answer because it does show us that even if you can only do ten stitches, you are still ten stitches more than what you had before. I think it has also taught me about patience. You make a mistake, it’s okay, just rip it back and go again, because, like writing, do you want to be walking around with that piece of knitted work that has a glaring error in it? Do you want to put a piece of writing out there that hasn’t had its due work on it? So, it’s a bit like the editing of writing as well. There is also a meditative part of knitting that I definitely get with writing as well. Once I’m in that flow, it’s almost like a meditation. You’re lost in another world.
CS: Absolutely, and that’s what I mean about dream space. It’s akin to daydreaming, in that it’s sort of fuzzy, the dial has turned down a bit on all your other sensors, and you’re just in the zone. But I think ripping back is the perfect analogy. When you spot a mistake five, ten, fifteen rows down, you have to just completely undo everything you’ve done and if you’re doing one row a night, that can be two weeks’ worth. And it is exactly that feeling. The first time I ever had to do that, I thought, I can’t possibly … no … I need to just keep going forward until I get this cardigan. But as you say, I didn’t really want one with a hole in the side. So, you learn that it’s okay. You go back to that point, and keep going again. You can do it.
MD: So true. And it is about loving the process. The end product is beautiful, and fun to have, or a gift to give someone, but it is the process. The sitting, the doing, the making something out of nothing. You mentioned that before, and I really love that line, that that’s what creativity is. We are making something out of nothing. Are there other creative things that you do?
CS: I think so many things are creative that we don’t necessarily claim as creative. I’m not a great cook, but I have friends who definitely express themselves through food and baking and trying out new things, and they’re really expressing that sense of play. I do like to paint. Terribly. But I find it really fun. I love colour, I love texture.
MD: Would you say ‘paint playfully’?
CS: Paint playfully. I like that.
MD: As adults, we forget to do the playful thing, and we don’t have to be making something for anyone else.
CS: And it’s got no purpose, it’s got no end result. I’m not going to call myself a painter. We can get a bit tied into that. Writing in particular … I’m very lucky to have just been published, but I’m in my 40s now, so there’s been a long time where I’ve been writing without people being able to … I probably didn’t say, oh, I’m a writer. I mean, I worked as a copywriter, but I think people want to have written a book, but don’t want to write.
MD: That’s a great line.
CS: It’s about finding the right phrase or the right rhythm. There are some things about it that I find so pleasing, which is why I say it’s my favourite creative work. When I get it right, it’s such a thrill. It makes me happy to be alive. Five words that are sitting just that right way, I feel overjoyed. And that is the point of being human, especially at this point, creative and social collective. We need to hold on to those things that make it worthwhile to be human.
Home for Creativity
MD: What is home for you and your creativity?
CS: Home for me has always been a sense of refuge, both the building that I’m in and a sense within myself of being at home. And as I said at the beginning, because I’ve written all my life and because it’s been such a source of joy and reading is such a source of joy, I do feel at home with pen and paper in my hand. I think that is part of the reason why I separate things. My paid work is often on a screen and on the laptop, and I think that’s why I write my first drafts by hand, so that I can separate them a little bit. I like that tactile nature of holding the paper, and that does feel very calming. I feel at peace, and I think that’s the feeling of home for me. That represents a refuge and calm. And openness.
MD: Thank you so much, Cassie, and thank you for joining me on Creative Momentum with Meg. The title of you book is Iluka, is that right?
CS: Yes, which means ‘by the sea’. It’s an Indigenous word from the Dhanggati language.
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