About Me
I’ve been writing short stories since I was a little girl, but I penned my first full novel, a junior fiction book call Celia Snoop the Fairy Tale Detective and the Icelandic Trolls, on a train journey in Norway during my honeymoon. No… don’t bother looking for the book. It, along with the sequel, was never published, but it did wet my thirst to write a book that was worthy of publication.
From there I wrote a myriad of picture book texts and middle grade fiction with little success until a short story I wrote called Tap Tap Tapping At My Window was published in a 2010 Short and Scary Anthology by Black Dog Books (Walker Books).
Next I forayed into Young Adult fiction and VOILA… I finally found some success as a writer. My debut novel, Unspoken Rules was published in 2017 by Rhiza Edge.
Unspoken Rules’ strong cultural themes, and the protagonist’s challenges in walking a swaying tightrope between two very different worlds was inspired by my own adolescence and written at a time I was grieving the death of my mother. Growing up as an immigrant in the early 1980s/1990s in Australia was not easy for a girl with dark hair, dark eyes, and a very different perspective on life.
In 2019, my short memoir piece titled One of A Kind was published in an Anthology by Pan Macmillan titled Arab, Australian, Other – stories on race and identity – co-edited by Randah Abdel Fattah and Sara Saleh. The memoir was inspired by my mother who was truly unique for her gender and era. My mother never sat me at a desk, but she taught me many things – mostly without realising she was teaching me. The most valuable thing she taught me was that women in our community did not need to fit a mold. They could paint, build houses, drive race cars. They could be smart, and strong and they could lead… an army if they wanted to.
Books
Find out more about my books.
Exploring Culture Through Children’s Literature.
I’ve always loved books. The smell of the paper, the weight in my hands, the adventure that each one promised. Within the pages I could be anyone, go anywhere, do anything, and meet the most captivating characters. Stories gave me the fuel to learn and grow, to form ideas and opinions.
As a child, walking into a library or a bookstore held a sort of magic for me … in fact, it still does. And so, it wasn’t long before I yearned to build my own worlds, curate my own characters, create my own narrative. I started writing when I was in primary school and never really stopped. And as I got older, I became fascinated with culture, all facets of it – language, religion, beliefs, norms, customs, laws and family rules, food, music, stories and superstitions, and so much more.
Culture can unite and divide in equal measure, but through my stories, I hope to show all the ways in which we are beautifully diverse, but also how much we really do share in common.
“We may have different religions, different languages, different coloured skin, but we all belong one human race.” Kofi Annan, 2021 Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
News/Info
Lora Inak joins Jacinta Dimase Agency
https://www.jacintadimase.com.au/news/lora-inak-joins-jdm
Arab, Australian, Other – stories of race and identity
https://others.org.au/reviews/book-review-arab-australian-other-by-randa-abdel-fattah-and-sara-saleh/
Lora Inak speaks on Accent of Women radio show on 3CR about Unspoken Rules
https://www.3cr.org.au/accentofwomen/episode-201709050830/unspoken-rules
Lora Inak speaks to author Kate Gordon about Unspoken Rules
https://kategordon.com.au/2018/12/08/questions-with-lora-inak/
The Cultural Tightrope – a discussion with Lora Inak
https://wombatrhiza.com.au/blog/chatting-with-our-authors-the-cultural-tightrope-with-lora-inak/
