Contributor's Copy Arrives!

Yesterday I went to the PO to pick up a parcel. I was able to do it on a week day because I spent the day at our Senior campus with the students involved in the school concert and was allowed to leave when they did. And the Senior campus is near the station...

Anyway, I picked up my Ford Street title in its padded post bag and thought, "Oh! Another review book," and felt guilty thinking of those I still haven't done and thought, well, the weekend is coming and Belinda The Ninja Ballerina shouldn't take long to write about, though I'm less than half way through the Gary Crew novel - Gary Crew is unquestionably one of our top YA novelists, but his books are not for the faint hearted and you need to give them all your attention when you read them. 

But when I opened it and that gorgeous Shaun Tan cover began to appear I knew what I had! 

Yay! My contributor's copy of Rich And Rare, working title Trust Me 3, with its intro by Sophie Masson, comparing anthologies to patchwork quilts in their way of combining all sorts of different bits and pieces into one beautiful thing.

There are a lot of the usual suspects plus more. And this volume is illoed! My story has a picture by Paul O'Sullivan, of the bushranger Frank Gardiner and a hand with a pocket watch(read the story to find out what that's about). The other artists include Shaun Tan and Leigh Hobbs, who have illoed their own work, Judith Rossell(who is also an amazing novelist, the author of the wonderful, twice-shortlisted Withering-By-Sea), the inimitable Mitch Vane, who illoed my book Your Cat Could Be A Spy and David Miller, who has had picture books of his own published. 

As usual, there are some of the top names in Aussie children's and YA fiction, names I'll leave you to look up on the Ford Street web site. I'm always one of the  "and many more" anyway. ;-) 

As usual, the stories are arranged by genre. Mine, of course, is under historical fiction with only one other story, by the very popular Deborah Abela! But there's also quite a long list of contemporary this time, SF, fantasy, crime, horror, ghost and romance. Take your pick! My plan is just to read it in order from beginning to end.

I've started reading it. Even if I am biased, I think this is the best of the anthologies so far.