Author Holly Craig on imagination, perseverance and writing full-time after the success of The Shallows

In a strange way, Holly Craig has a cranky neighbour to thank for her wildest dreams coming true. When the woman next door would complain about her daughters playing in the fort in their Perth backyard, Craig’s mind would naturally wander. What if they saw something over the fence one day? What if, while they were pretending to be YouTubers, they unknowingly caught a crime on camera? The benign daydream became the kernel of an idea for Craig’s first published book, a thriller titled The Shallows. Within a week of being published last month, it climbed Amazon’s book charts in the US, UK and Australia. Now, the former English teacher is a full-time writer; The Rip, her second book, set on Rottnest Island, is due out in February. Craig, who has just returned to Perth after an east coast book tour, admits it’s a slightly surreal scenario, after years of writing, exploring different genres, submitting manuscripts that were never picked up and about 200 rejections. “From the outside looking in, and maybe even new readers or followers on Instagram, are probably looking at it like, ‘Oh my God, she’s so lucky. She’s got overnight success’,” Craig says. “But it’s just been years and years and years, and just so much hard work and determination . . . It’s just been a really long ride, but I think that’s awesome. “The book tour was the first time I really felt like an author, especially in the Readings store in Carlton, which is a famous bookstore where they have all the celebrities and stuff. I was there on the last night, and there was a massive crowd, and a line of people going down the shop wanting their copies signed. “And in that moment, I really did feel like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m an author’. It was a bit of an out-of-body experience.” Craig has always been a writer; she started composing stories as a kid of just eight, then as a teenager branched out into Judy Blume-esque YA and romance. She wanted to make it a career, but after studying a double degree in journalism and public relations, she realised that career path didn’t quite fit her. Craig then had her first daughter (she is a single mother of two girls, aged 14 and 10) but kept writing as a hobby. Then as her girls got older, she decided to go back to university and study creative writing. “I had the most incredible supervisor at Curtin — he’s the first person to say ‘you will get published’ and he was an author as well,” she remembers. “I just loved it so much and I so passionately wanted to be published once I was there, amongst other writers.” Craig became a high school English teacher after university, helping ATAR students with their writing during the week and working on her own in her spare time. One manuscript was a thriller called The Hidden; it was unlike anything she had written before, but something about it stood out. Her gut instinct was right; Craig put the manuscript out to agents and publishers globally and got 15 requests for the full manuscript. One of them was Darley Anderson, a London-based agency for books, film and television that prides itself on producing bestselling commercial fiction (its signings include hugely popular Jack Reacher author Lee Child and British crime writer Martina Cole). Craig became their first Australian client. But The Hidden, for all its promise, didn’t land with publishers; Darley Anderson put it out on submission, but no one picked it up. But Craig was desperate to capitalise on what felt like it might be a once-in-a-lifetime wave of momentum. As the COVID pandemic raged around the world, Craig sat down at her computer and started writing. First came a murder mystery manuscript that she put aside after deciding it didn’t represent the type of author she wanted to be. Next, Craig decided to delve into the idea sparked by her neighbour. She wrote all day, every day, and sometimes into the night. Two months later, she had The Shallows. The story is described by Craig’s publisher as “a truly propulsive and gripping thriller . . . gives a peek behind the curtain of picture-perfect families in a gated Sydney suburb”. Its protagonist, Emma, lives in an exclusive suburb with her husband, Charles, and daughter, Kiki, who unwittingly films and uploads footage of the murder of their neighbour, Emma’s best friend. Fearing for their lives, the family flees on their yacht as the mystery continues to unfold. At the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest trade event for authors and publishers, The Shallows was picked up by Amazon Publishing’s mystery, thriller and true crime imprint, Thomas & Mercer. Craig felt the benefits of landing such a massive backer almost immediately, when The Shallows was selected by Amazon as part of its global “first reads” promotion. The online retailing giant offered the novel early to its e-book members at a discounted rate, and it shot up the behemoth’s bestseller chart before the hard copies or audio books were even released. The success is such that a twisty thriller set in a palpably Australian setting is now Craig’s brand, she laughs. “My editor and publisher have said, that’s what you’ve got to keep writing now, and they have to all be set in Australia,” she says. “For The Shallows, my readership is mainly the US and the UK and there was this whole idea during COVID that people wanted armchair travel. They wanted it so people would feel like they’re escaping; capturing just that beautiful humidity and getting so much attention with the setting. “I also like to go deeper into human insecurity and human behaviour and people seem to be loving the character’s strengths and her determination.” Craig’s next book will introduce readers to an iconic destination well-known to West Australians — Wadjemup, or Rottnest Island. She spent lots of time there as a kid; her father owned a boat brokerage company and the family spent a lot of time on the water. As soon as she returned from her book tour, she took her daughters over for a night to stay with family. “Even with the weather the way that it was, there’s just something about being there. I just love it, doesn’t matter if it’s windy or wet. It’s the best,” Craig says. Again, the plot for her second book sprang from her imagining a dark undercurrent to an idyllic place. “You let your kids ride and roam around, and we’d stay there with groups of people where we would be at one house having nibbles and drinks, while the kids are in another playing board games and stuff,” Craig remembers. “And I just thought, imagine if you went back there one night and one of the kids is missing?” Craig has also written a third book and will start work on a fourth next month, while also gearing up for publicity for The Rip’s February release. And while she gave up her job as an English teacher, save for some tutoring on weekends, she’s maintained a writing group for adults she established. Dubbed The Write Club, Craig set it up to pass on techniques she had learned through university and through experience. She’s done about seven courses for its 40 full-time members from around the world, as well as masterclasses and retreats. “I just love going really deep and analysing literature and art, analysing texts and seeing how to provoke a response in the reader,” Craig says. She also makes time for her social media promotion, which she believes is an integral part of her success. “I’m really, really active on social media,” Craig says. “I think these days, you have to . . . A lot of readers want to get to know the author. “It’s really hard, I think, for some authors because a lot are introverted, private people, which I am, too. But I really enjoy that side, because I find it like another outlet for creativity.” While some might find the idea of writing multiple books back to back in short time frames daunting, Craig finds that her free-flowing writing process lends itself to a fast turnaround. “I think if you’re excited by the plot, and really excited about the characters, it should just naturally flow out of you,” she says. “I want to be as excited as the readers are going to be. I don’t plot out my scenes, I just sit down and I write and what comes to me excites me. I will normally write a synopsis of how I think the story is going to go and how it’s going to end but I never plot from then on. “In November, I’ll start writing my next book and hopefully will get it finished in eight weeks. I’ve done it before. Twice. I’m sure I can do it again.” The Shallows is out now. The Rip will be launched at a sold-out event at Kidogo Arthouse on February 21.