“Being published is amazing, but I treated it as a bonus – all I wanted was to write something that I could look at and go: ‘I’m really proud of what I’ve created’.”  TIA PRIEST-WILLIMOTT meets excited debut author Scott Woodard.

It was in a dingy, dark, 19th-century printing press room, with few windows, a mismatch of chairs and a small stage, that Scott Woodard had an idea. 

“At the time I was living in Ballarat, and Ballarat has a really exciting, fun art scene and I got involved with Ballarat writers and their monthly reading nights at the printing press,” Scott says. 

That’s where his coming-of-age novel, Poster Boys, started as something for those reading nights. 

“It was just a sketch about two characters that kind of got out of control. It just kept expanding and expanding until it became a novel,” he says. 

Seven years later, Poster Boys is officially out in the world.

It follows an unlikely trio of private schoolboys as they try to take down their school’s archaic traditions, rules and culture. Things quickly get out of hand, leaving Edward Heffernan, Nolan Li and James Crombie to deal with the consequences of their revolution.

The characters were formed deep in a Ballarat winter, when Scott decided to “comfort read” Winnie the Pooh in a tough period of his life. 

“When you re-read it as an adult [the stories] are really funny in a way you don’t remember as a kid. I loved the character of Pooh because he had such a kind heart, but he was also entirely self-interested,” Scott says. 

“And I thought, what would this character be like in a high school setting? And so that became the very bare-bones basics of the character Nolan.”

It’s been a lifelong dream of Scott’s to write a novel, growing up with a love of stories and a keen imagination.

“When I was a little kid, probably three or four, my parents brought home this big cardboard fridge box and they drew some knobs on the side, cut a flap in it and called it The Gachine,” Scott says. 

“I would sit inside and they’d feed paper in and I’d draw pictures and come up with stories and feed it back out to them. I loved it in there.”

This passion for writing saw him through high school all the way to RMIT, where he completed a Bachelor of Creative Writing.

But Poster Boys didn’t come directly after that. 

After graduating, Scott moved to Port Augusta to work for a radio station, before relocating to Ballarat to work for Power FM.

“Then in 2019, I met this amazing girl from Canberra,” he says.

“I thought she’s the one – I’m going to make the leap. I quit my job, had nothing lined up, and moved to Canberra to be with her in 2020.” 

Once in Canberra, Scott joined the public service and hosted a radio show on Hit 1047 on Saturday mornings. 

In the background of all this, he was working on the novel.

“When this idea came along… I just started writing and writing. I used all my lunch breaks in the Ballarat library under the heater working on this book. Then in Canberra it was every morning, every evening, every lunch break working away,” he says. 

“I was trying to write something that I was proud of. Being published is amazing, but I treated it as a bonus – all I wanted was to write something that I could look at and go: ‘I’m really proud of what I’ve created’. 

“And I’m so proud of this book.” 

Coming from a private school background, Scott is all too familiar with the notion of school pride and trying to fit the expectations given to each student. 

“The school in the book is fictional, but I did draw a lot from the culture of [my] school, which I think is common across a lot of private schools – those traditional values and the idea of exceptionalism, success, being leaders and being the top of the pack,” Scott says. 

“That culture of always trying to be the poster boy isn’t very healthy. I think it encourages kids to compare themselves and creates the groundwork for bullying,” he says.

“Writing this book, I wanted to address that culture and encourage kids to see it for what it is, which is this is the school’s vision of success, it doesn’t have to be your vision of success. 

“It’s been so personal for such a long time, to think it’s out there in the world, with people reading it is a dream come true.”

Poster Boys (Hachette, 19.99)