Misfits Media, the parent company of B&T and Travel Weekly, recently hosted the launch of Teresa Russell’s first novel, A Bad Period, at an after-work soirée in its swanky offices in Surry Hills.
Although the book is Russell’s first novel, she spent a decade in the early 2000s as a freelance business writer for an HR magazine. She initially undertook research and wrote articles for B&T on the gender pay-gap and lack of diversity in senior creative positions in Australian advertising agencies, resulting in B&T taking a leadership role in driving industry-wide change through its Changing the Ratio conferences, starting in 2017. She’s also penned travel writing articles for Travel Weekly over the years, most recently to Kanchanaburi in Thailand in June.
Set in Sydney, the cheekily-named A Bad Period starts on Day 1 of Maggie’s period and goes for 28 days – and chapters. On page two, Maggie and the reader discover her husband is having an affair. Her world unravels over the next 28 days as she tries to navigate a series of calamities that affect her and those she loves. It’s a bad period, to say the least.
According to the blurb, ‘Maggie doesn’t have great work/life balance – hell, what full-time working mother of three does? Work needs extra attention and so do her kids. Her marriage needs CPR. Her tight group of best friends are usually there to lean on, but a life-threatening illness trumps her own marriage woes.’
‘I’ve had great feedback and online reviews about the book so far. I knew women would love it but I’ve been quite surprised that the men who’ve read it have really enjoyed it too’, says Russell, whose husband initially read the first page and then famously declared, ‘Well, clearly I’m not in your target market!’
‘When you’re writing a novel, you have to think about who you are writing for and I definitely wrote this for working mothers. I think we all know how messy and difficult love, relationships and parenting can get, especially when various aspects of our lives go off-script,’ Russell says. ‘I aimed to have an honest and sometimes funny take on how one woman tries to hold it all together during a bad period, and it seems to have hit a sweet spot among readers.’
Russell originally pursued the traditional publication route but ended up self-publishing on Amazon. The novel is available as both an eBook and a print-on-demand paperback. ‘I wanted my story out there and decided the Amazon route was the best way to go. With my corporate and small business marketing experience, I didn’t want to wait to be rejected by dozens of publishers before being eventually discovered. Commercial success may or may not eventuate, but that’s the case with traditional publishers too. And on the upside, as soon as A Bad Period was published and started to sell, I began plotting my next novel!’
Misfits Media is keen to support other writers and budding authors or illustrators in its ecosystem of partners who want to promote their books or other creative endeavours. Email us to have a chat.
