A 13-word letter from a child was probably the most profound piece of writing ever to land in Paul Jennings' lap.
"All he said was: 'Dear Paul Jennings, how come you know what it's like to be me?'," the author says.
"Good grief, you know. That little boy could see himself in my story, which is exactly what I want."
Close to four decades and nine million book sales have transpired since Jennings began his career as a children's writer.
He turns 80 at the end of the month and is still writing, albeit more slowly than those days when children all over Australia clung to his every word.
"It's almost compulsive, in that I'm not really one to have a huge number of social things in my life, and the writing does fill a page," Jennings says.
"When a book comes out, I do get this sort of euphoria."
However, Jennings — who was born in London during the war, in 1943, and came to Australia on a five-week boat journey at the age of six — took decades to embark on his writing career.
Unlikely author
The author of Unreal!, The Gizmo and the Round the Twist TV series was not always destined for literary renown — or at least, it didn't seem that way.
His father refused to let him complete year 12 and attend university after learning that his friend had tried and failed.
"He had very low expectations of me," Jennings says.
"He said to me, 'He's smarter than you, so you won't pass'."
Jennings went to teacher's college, landed a job and finished his year 12 studies at night school.
When he later completed a university degree, he invited his father to the ceremony.
"All he said was, 'You didn't get honours'," he recalls.
He was 42 when his first book was published, but the seed was sown back when he was fresh out of teacher's college and overseeing a class of illiterate children.
Jennings recalls a visit from psychology and guidance officials, who were appalled to find an inexperienced teenager in charge of children with such profound intellectual challenges.
"When they left, one of them said to me: 'If you can find a book that these kids can read, and like to read … you'll at least be doing something'," he says.
"I could find books that kids with reading problems could read, but wanted to read was really hard."
Rising to the challenge
It would take a couple of decades before he decided to write a book himself and it became a hit … eventually.
Jennings was brimming with pride as he brought his four kids along to watch him at a book-signing in Melbourne with Unreal! hot off the press.
Nobody showed up.
"The lady in the shop felt so sorry for me, she went home and got her own kids and brought them in," Jennings says.
After about a year, letters started arriving from children all over the country, and he realised that teachers were getting students to write to their favourite authors.
It wasn't long before Unreal! hit the best-seller list.
"It totally changed my life," Jennings says.
"Like everybody who gets hit with a bit of success or fame, I suppose it did go to my head a little bit.
"Before long, I was sort of flying around the world and it took a bit of getting used to, but it was very exciting."
The writing process
Jennings says the key ingredient to success as a writer is finding your own voice.
"I think of it as, there's all these rocks on the beach, and underneath them there's an idea … but there's thousands of rocks and you just keep turning them over," he says.
"I remember once I was looking for an idea for a story.
"I just suddenly came up with, 'What if there was a boy who was born with luminous teeth and, when he smiled, they glowed in the dark, a sort of green colour?'
"Straight away, I laughed."
From there he had to inject feeling and meaning, and decided the boy had been left on a doorstep as an orphan and grew up being teased mercilessly about his fluorescent fangs.
"He wanted to find his biological mother," Jennings says.
"I have a lot of experience in my life — having adopted two children and [being] stepfather of two children — of that as an issue.
"I have a lot of feelings that I had when children were trying to find their birth parent, as both the parent and watching what the child was suffering."
The bright-toothed boy gets a note from his biological mother on his 11th birthday, saying she will be outside a doughnut shop in Swanson St, Melbourne, if he wants to meet her on that day.
He overcomes a slew of obstacles getting there, but finally arrives only to realise an underground railway station has been built on the site of the doughnut shop, and it is packed with commuters.
"He sees an electrician working on a switchboard and he rushes over and pulls down a lever, and all the lights go out," Jennings says.
"And there, glowing in the distance, is a little set of glowing teeth, and he knows that it must be his mother's.
"Through the darkness, two pairs of teeth come together in a little kiss."
Jennings uses that peculiar tale to help aspiring writers understand his writing process.
"I've got some emotion in the story. I've written about something I know about … I've waited until I've got a good idea, and I've persevered because you're sweating, trying to make this thing work," he says.
"You're not just sitting there and it's wafting off your pen.
"I always think it's like doing a really, really difficult exam."
'That's made my day'
It's the heartfelt messages from readers that keep Jennings going, even after all these years.
He remembers a letter he received from a young fan years ago after he wrote a story with a bed-wetting protagonist.
"My friend, she wet the bed all the time — and, after she read your story, she stopped wetting the bed," the letter read.
That may have been pure coincidence, but it encouraged Jennings all the same.
"A lot of people don't like it, if they've got a certain level of recognition, if people come up to them and want to tell them how much they liked their work," he says.
"But I always say, thanks for telling me that. That's made my day.
"If people like it and I get nice letters, that sort of endorsement, even at my age and stage of career, still is very meaningful."
