By Jed Lanyon
Local author Catherine Moolenschot returned to Yarra Junction Library on Monday 3 June to speak about the process of writing Jim’s Book, a biography on Jim’s Mowing founder Jim Penman.
Ms Moolenschot interviewed over 100 people involved in Jim’s life, many having different views and recollections of moments from his journey.
“It was difficult , it’s very hard when you bounce between different accounts of what happened and different opinions on what should have happened, while trying to dig deep to find out what actually happened.
Ms Moolenschot explained the challenge of being asked personally by Jim to write his biography to then have to uncover stories and details of his life that sometimes depicted Jim in a poor light.
“You have to go to the hard places, you have to ask the hard questions and ultimately that is where the juice and the interesting stuff comes out,” she said.
“I think it’s a little scary following all the threads to a story because Jim isn’t a perfect person at all and the book really does highlight his flaws and how some people have been really hurt by some of the things he has done.
“Obviously it highlights the good as well, but finding all of that out was a job and it wasn’t always easy.”
Ms Moolenschot grew up in Yarra Junction and said it was great to be back at the library to tell her story.
“It was so special to be back, this was literally my library. This is where I went every week or more, so it was very special to come back and share the journey of my writing.”
Ms Moolenschot spoke to a few students who attended, including one from Little Yarra Steiner School, where she was a former pupil.
The 24-year-old author, ghost-writer and TEDx speaker gave students some one-on-one advice about their writing.
“There was a student from Little Yarra who was thinking about writing a book for her year eight project, so she shared a lot of questions about that and it was really beautiful,” she said.
Ms Moolenschot wrote her first book at the age of 13 as a school project in year eight and has now published three books to date.
“There was a grade six student from Healesville as well and she came prepared with a whole lot of questions, she even had a question from her friend who was at school.
“She also brought a printed out short story that she had written that I got to read… I was really touched, it was nice.
“It’s so exciting that they want to write and I just hope that maybe the fact that I’ve managed to build a career out of writing will inspire them to know that it’s something that they can do too,” Ms Moolenschot said.
Ms Moolenschot said she is currently working on writing her next novel.
The Surprising Story of Jim’s Mowing is available for purchase from Booktopia.
Visit https://catherinemoolenschot.com.au/ for more information about Ms Moolenschot’s work.
