Jennifer Larmar * Australian Author | Initial Inspiration

WHAT INSPIRED JENNIFER TO CHANGE CAREERS?

For many years, this wannabe author harboured an idea for a novel deep in her soul. The only problem was, she wasn't exactly sure in what time period, background or location it should be set. Snippets of ideas or lines would come to her - often in the middle of the night - and she quickly jotted them down, though never truly believing they would ever actually come together as a complete story.

As a birthday present, her husband purchased tickets to Doctor Zhivago - A New Musical, knowing the love story running through Boris Pasternak's large tome had touched her heart as a teenager and then again when she saw it on the big screen with Omar Sharif and Julie Christie in the leading roles. He had no idea this small act of kindness would turn into one of the biggest life-changing events of her life.

Consequently, in July 2011 she sat in the atmospheric darkness of one of Australia's largest theatrical halls and set out on an emotional journey as the pages of Mr Pasternak’s evocative novel Doctor Zhivago came to life on a musical theatre stage during its world premiere season. Ms Lucy Simon’s** haunting score blended beautifully with stirring lyrics from the pens of both Amy Powers and Michael Korie and, for nearly three hours, Jennifer sat mesmerised watching this tragic love story fall from the mouths of a brilliant cast, with music giving it a new and touching dimension. The world renowned Anthony Warlow and Lucy Maunder, a talented young performer, took on the lead roles to join voices, weaving together a glorious tapestry as this hauntingly poignant story unfolded from their lips and souls, transporting this music enthusiast back to another place and time.

The entire experience left her heart soaring at the perfect clarity of lyrics and melody and was something Jennifer will never forget. In fact, this avid fan returned to see it again three more times over the same amount of weeks - and after witnessing it from the front row for the final Aussie performance, she still came away aching to see it again.

This was the beginning of Lara and Adam’s story. As soon as she arrived home from that very first show on the 23rd July, Jennifer was aware that a tiny seed had germinated - she could feel the tiny sprout stirring inside her heart as it pushed and prodded to break free. Nine months later more than eight hundred completed pages sat in a file on her computer, telling the story of two people who were always meant to be together despite formidable obstacles, hardships and tragedy trying to keep them apart.

Several wonderful and totally unexpected events occurred because of this exciting event...

Firstly, after contacting Amy Powers and then the composer, Lucy Simon, to thank them for providing the inspiration to begin this writing process in earnest, a warm friendship began to form between them. After a lot of further communication over the space of several months, much to Jennifer's astonishment, both lyricists and the composer granted her the privilege of including the lyrics to one of their numbers as the concluding page of her second novel Fractured Symphony.

Then, because of the make-up of the story, several from the cast were happy for Jennifer to include them in the epilogue and a few special friendships have sprung up because of this connection. Another unexpected offshoot was when she was granted the privilege to sing a couple of verses of South Pacific's well-known Honey Bun with Lucy Maunder's talented father, Stuart, at a performance of their family show The Sound of Rodgers - A Tribute to Richard Rodgers. Lucy's delightful and just as talented mother, opera singer and musical director Anne-Maree Macdonald, accompanied them on piano at this anniversary performance held at the Riverside Theatre in Sydney back in 2013.

Lucy (pictured on the right with her mother, Anne-Maree, and Jennifer following the Richard Rodgers Tribute) has been a wonderful inspiration over the years and Jennifer has flown to Sydney on several occasions just for the day purely to see this talented young artist perform in a variety of roles and concerts over recent years - and sometimes two or three times for each one! Volume 2, Fractured Symphony, has been dedicated to Lucy as it because of her and Anthony Warlow's exquisite rendition of On the Edge of Time that a desire to begin writing this series was first born. Since then, Jennifer (and sometimes her husband) has shared many a drink and chat with her afterwards, as well as partaken in a load of fun and laughter in her car on one most memorable occasion!

And last but not least, due to her love and support of this musical and much to her astonishment, Jennifer was given free tickets to attend the Broadway opening of Doctor Zhivago - A New Musical in April 2015. In addition, she received personal invitations to attend Amy Powers' private pre-show party (pictured in the bottom right photo with Jennifer), as well as the 'invitation only' after-show party held at the Rockefeller Centre in New York City where she was able to meet and thank the creative team in person, along with the stars of the show. She still has to pinch herself to think that from one thoughtful birthday present, a whole new career has grown and brought so many delightful people into her life. As she often says, "I've been blissfully blessed!"

A final postscript is that from a love of words and fitting in writing sessions between her days working as a Court Reporter for the Queensland Department of Justice and Attorney-General, she is now writing full-time after the government decided to sell off the State Reporting Bureau to a private company in May 2013. The redundancy package granted to all 200+ staff who lost their jobs enabled this keen author to put all of her time and energy into a much-loved new career and, even though she misses the intriguing goings on inside of a courtroom, it may turn out that similar occurrences of some of those unique experiences could end up between the pages of her novels.

** Lucy Simon, pictured in the red gown with Jennifer after the musical's Broadway opening, is the talented older sister of Carly Simon of You're So Vain fame - a popular song from the early 1970s.

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