Fame and music stardom in YA with Frances Chapman

 Frances Chapman was born in Henley-On-Thames in England and she spent her childhood pinballed between continents before settling in Sydney. She worked as a journalist and social researcher for several years before she became a freelance writer in 2015. Her debut novel, Stars Like Us, was published by Hardie Grant Egmont in July 2020 after winning the Hardie Grant Egmont Ampersand Prize in 2018, and the Varuna-Black Inc Publisher Introduction Program in 2017. 

Interview starts at 22 minutes.

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Bonus: We discuss the amalgamation of our two music icons Sir Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift for the first Musicians on Musicians feature in Rolling Stone. Read the article here.  

In this interview, we chat about

• How Justin Bieber eating fried chicken in Sydney inspired Stars Like Us (see the image here)
• The paparazzi and the impact on celebrities and famous figures
• The fact we’ve all got the capability to snap a smartphone image of any celeb we see
• Is fame really an attractive prospect?
• Why Frances wanted to explore fame in the context of a young adult novel
• Having diverse music tastes (and being teased for it)
• The character inspired by Harry Styles
• How Frances wrote song lyrics for the book
• Winning the Ampersand Prize for Stars Like Us and the road to publication
• To sum up everything we’ve talked about, enjoy this Harry Styles cover of The Chain

Books and other things mentioned:

• Downton Abbey movie
• 10 Things I Hate About You
• Miss Americana (Taylor Swift documentary)
• Giving You Everything (Spice Girls documentary. Pssst, there’s actually a new documentary scheduled for 2021 to mark 25 years since Wannabe. SAY WHAT?)
• The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit (documentary)
• The Eternal Sunshine of Harry Styles (Rolling Stone article. Read it here)
• High Fidelity (TV adaptation)

Follow Frances on Instagram @Franceschapmanwriter.

Follow us on Instagram @betterwordspod

Caitlin received a copy of Stars Like Us from Hardie Grant Egmont.