A Belated Friday 13 Post

I have written about Friday 13 before, so won't go into the background. Go check out my earlier post here. Yesterday I cheerfully mentioned it in class. One student said, "Would you stop talking about that!" Later I discovered it was her birthday. No wonder she was upset!

So let's just waffle about books with appropriate themes.

I've just started rereading Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. My ebook edition has an intro about all those old, battered copies they were brought to sign, indicating they had been well loved, and, for some reason, a copy that the owner had put on black velvet in an elaborate box made especially for it. They didn't ask.

A wonderful book I've read over and over - a send-up, of course, of The Omen, in which the Anti-Christ baby goes to the wrong family. But it has fun with plenty of other deadly serious horror fiction.  And, o joy, I've just read that not only is it finally being made into a movie(or TV series), but the role of the cool demon Crowley has been perfectly cast with David Tennant! I've seen a picture of him and Azirophale and he is just right for the role! Wonder if he'll do it with his own Scottish accent? There was a touch of Scottish in his Benedick, but on the whole, he seems to have to go English for most roles.

Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin(mortal woman bears the Devil'd child)is not as scary as I had thought it might be, but it does bring horror to the home front, instead of somewhere in Transylvania, as had always been the way of things before it. Maybe that, and not the Satan stuff, is what's scary. The author wrote some much scarier novels, as far as I'm concerned. The Boys From Brazil, in which someone is creating clones of Hitler - brr! And The Stepford Wives, in which women's husbands, in a small town, are killing them and replacing them with androids who stick to housework.

But speaking of Transylvania(I was), I found Dracula much easier reading than I'd thought it might be. It was written in letters and diary entries, so short, and the novel itself was not all that long. And it was scary! You'd mutter, "No, you idiot, leave the garlic in place! Don't open the window!" And she does, of course, and that's the end of her. 

Terry Pratchett has great fun sending up the vampire genre in Carpe Jugulum, in which a family of vampires takes over the tiny mountain kingdom of Lancre, due to an invitation to the royal infant's christening. That counts as inviting a vampire in. And these vampires believe in being all modern, like in those vampire novels where the camp wears his hair in a ponytail and suffers angst. They make the mistake of challenging top witch Granny Weatherwax and find themselves craving tea...

There are other vampires in the series, such as Black Ribboner Otto Chriek, who has given up blood drinking and who loves light. But he is an iconographer for the Ankh Morpork Times and falls to dust every time he takes a picture. Eventually, he gets into the habit of wearing a small bottle of blood when he works, which breaks and lets him come back without relying on anyone else's kindness. 

And there's Lady Margolotta from the Discworld Transylvania, Uberwald(means the same thing) who has replaced her addiction for blood with one for cigarettes. 

Dan Simmons' vampires, in Carrion Comfort, are vampires of the mind, who can control and manipulate others. They are truly evil, and one of them is a Nazi. It was very very good, and I went on to read some of his other books, but it put me off horror fiction, as characters I cared about were killed off. (Are you listening, Mr Martin? And by the way, I like Fevre Dream, your vampire novel, much better than the Game of Thrones series)

This author also wrote Children Of The Night, in which the historical Dracula is still around. He has gone off blood drinking and thrown himself into starting a business empire. He thinks the Stoker novel is dumb. And he's fed up with his family and planning to blow them all up, perhaps the only way to get rid of them. See, these vampires are not undead. They have an extra organ that processes blood and re-builds their cells. 

I confess to not giving read a lot of Stephen King, mostly his short fiction, and I do enjoy his non fiction, but his novel Misery was truly terrifying, especially for a writer. It has no fantastical elements as far as I recall, but it's as scary as any horror novel. In it, a historical novelist has been writing a series about a character called Misery. He has had enough and has written one last novel in which he has killed off his heroine. After an accident, he is rescued by a qualified nurse who is a huge fan of the series...and not at all pleased to find out the series is over...

Look, I could go on and on, but I won't. Instead, I'll invite anyone who reads this to suggest some other Friday 13 titles. Hope you had a great day! 

International Day Of The Girl

So, I woke up this morning to find out it was the International Day Of The Girl. I haven't heard of this before, but it's a nice excuse to write a post about girls' books, off the top of my head, before I get to work.

Has anyone noticed that most YA and children's books these days seem to be either for girls or about them? Or both? Girls save the world in YA novels, while making up their minds which of two gorgeous boys they will settle down with once the world is saved. Fortunately for their decision making, one of them either dies or lets them down - badly. 

I'll just mention a few books or series I've read as they come back to me, in hopes I can get the post done before I reach Sunshine Station in Melbourne. 

Let's start with a classic. I've missed a lot of them, but I have read Little Women, the story of four teenage sisters during the American Civil War, living with their mother and housekeeper while waiting for their father to get back from the war. They don't have a lot of money, so the two eldest, Meg and Jo, have to work, Meg as a governess and Jo as paid companion to their grumpy old aunt. Beth, who is not a healthy girl, stays home and does housework,  presumably with Hannah the housekeeper, and only Amy goes to school. Not a lot happens as a novel - it's all dreams and hopes and individual stories. I hear it was semi-autobiographical, though Jo, the would-be writer(and didn't we all want to be Jo!)is somewhat younger than Louisa May Alcott, whom she represents. Louisa was already old enough to be working as a nurse during the Civil War. But still, it's nice to know. You should totally read Geraldine Brooks's novel March, which mixes the real Alcott family with the fictional March family. The real "Mr March" was quite a character. Look him up.

Noel Streatfeild wrote children's books in the 1930s. In Ballet Shoes, she writes about three girls who aren't actually sisters, though they've been brought up as such. They've been given the surname Fossil because the man who adopted them is a crazy old Professor who collects fossiłs. When he disappears and his niece Sylvia is left with three children to look after and not much money, she takes in boarders and the girls go to work in the theatre, something children could do in those days, and discover what they can do. The oldest girl, Pauline, is very good at acting and eventually finds she can do it for a living. A few years ago, there was a TV mini-series in which the role was played by Emma Watson, of Harry Potter fame. The middle sister, Petrova, isn't all that good at it, and longs to be a motor mechanic. The youngest, Posy, is a gifted ballet dancer.  The book had some sequels, but I haven't got around to reading them. I rather liked the idea of a 1930s novel with a girl motor mechanic. 

Anyone remember the YA romance novels of the 1980s? What was that American series called? Oh, yes! Sweet Dreams. The girls loved them but they were junior Mills and Boon. In them, the girl was a sort of Cinderella figure, in love with the captain of the football team. How could she even compete for him with the bitchy head cheerleader? Of course, we know who always got the boy in the end, don't we? I guess girls can dream of being that shy little thing who defeated the Mean Girl. That's still happening to some extent,except now the young woman who defeats the Mean Girl is not doing it over a boy, but over the matter of bullying. 

There were Australian equivalents, Dolly Fiction, which I think we're better than the American ones, and no wonder. The authors, who wrote under pen names, were all either top Aussie YA novelists or would become that. I have written a post about it before. 

A few years ago, Allen and Unwin published something called Girlfriend Fiction, which was even better. Some of the books were written by male authors, and oddly, they weren't all romances. But I've sold those quite easily in my library. And the authors didn't use pen names this time - you knew who you were getting.

And then there are all those novels in which girls fall in love with fallen angels, who are brooding and tragic, not to mention the half/quarter angel thing(I always thought of angels as asexual, but there you go. All that business of "the sons of God and the daughters of man" comes from a mis-translation.). Well, there was Aussie writer Rebecca Lim's Mercy series, in which the fallen angel was female. She had done something truly stupid back during the war in heaven and managed to avoid being thrown down to Hell with the other fallen angels, but the un-fallen angels looked after her. She has been on Earth for centuries, doing a sort of Quantum Leap thing, temporarily taking over bodies and fixing their problems before moving on. But by Book 2, Exile, she has started thinking of herself rather than fixing problems for others. She fell in love with a mortal boy in the first book and is trying to keep up the relationship, whichever body she is in. The series is very entertaining.

Present-day novels have girls in all sorts of situations, including obesity and anorexia, but the fantasies go on. I probably don't have to tell you about The Hunger Games, which is very good in my opinion, better than some of the other girl-saves-the-world fiction that came out at the same time. Before the current crop of fiction on "teen girl saves the world" John Marsden created Ellie, the heroine of Tomorrow When The War Began and its sequels. Ellie and her friends go bush-walking and camping one weekend and when they return to their small country town, Australia has been invaded and their friends and relatives have all been herded into the local showgrounds, which have become a prison camp. The group does guerilla warfare, under Ellie's leadership. I've found that both boys and girls loved these books, though they haven't been read much in recent years - perhaps fresh covers
would help.

There is far more out there than I can cover in a single post.

Got any suggestions?

And happy International Day Of The Girl!

Finally Got Around To Reading...Every Breath by Eliie Marney

You know how it is when you have a book lying around for ages and then you finally get around to reading it and it takes about a day?

I had this on my cyber-shelves almost since it came out. I knew about it, read a few pages and then ... read other stuff.

But yesterday I read the bit left on the cutting room floor, which was published as a short story in the LoveOzYa# anthology, which was about the first meeting of James Mycroft and Rachel Watts and suddenly I knew it was more than time to read the novel Every Breath. 

And now I've downloaded the second book, Every Word. 

On the remote chance you haven't heard of this trilogy, it's set in Melbourne, told from the viewpoint of Rachel Watts, a country girl whose family had to leave their farm near Ouyen and make a new life in the big city. They are living in Coburg, one of Melbourne's more multicultural suburbs and Mycroft and Watts attend North Coburg Secondary College, along with their friends Vietnamese girl Mai Ng and her Sudanese boyfriend Gus Deng. Mycroft lives with his aunt Angela, since he lost both parents in a horrific car crash back in England. Aunt Angela is so rarely at home that for a time Watts wonders if she even exists. Mycroft is an intellectual genius, who does a forensics elective at school, but admits to being a social moron - not entirely true, since he seems to know a lot of people around Melbourne, from the tram drivers along their route to the Greek cafe owner who gives them coffee and baklava on the house.

And then there is Homeless Dave, who camps in Royal Park, outside the zoo, and whom Mycroft and Watts take a meal every week until one night when he turns up very dead...

It's such an entertaining novel that hopefully I will be able to "sell" it at school before the year is over. I know just the young lady for it - in fact, she's the one who requested the LoveOzYa# anthology for the library. It's a bit like the writing of Lili Wilkinson, except that I admit to liking it better than A Pocketful Of Eyes. It's not as funny - these kids have both been through bad times and the murder victim was their friend, whom they don't believe will get justice, because he was just another street person.  A Pocketful Of Eyes was an over-the-top whodunnit with likeable characters, but this one is - well, not over-the-top. Anyway, I will recommend it for girls who like Lili Wilkinson.

It's not exactly Sherlock Holmes, though there are a lot of references to it. Watts(they call each other by their surnames)points out that his name is that of Sherlock's smarter brother, and he even has an online identity called Diogenes, as in Mycroft Holmes's Diogenes Club - he does that on purpose, though. And she is not a Watson or for that matter a Hastings, mainly there to have things explained to him/her. She picks up a few things Mycroft doesn't, asking the right questions at the right time. 

Their friends Mai and Gus aren't just sidekicks. They make good suggestions and at one point Mai uses her Legal Studies knowledge to argue Mycroft out of the slammer. 

There is a lot of adventure in this one and before it's quite over, Mycroft finds himself heading for the role of "consulting detective" online, due to his Diogenes articles and website. 

I've just started reading the sequel - I believe that one takes place in London, should be fun! 

It is available both in and outside of Australia, so if you've missed out on it, why not give it a go? 

Translation And Info: Who'd Have Thought?

Re-posted from my Dreamwidth blog...

I need a passport for ID. Getting a passport is harder than it used to be, much harder. You need a passport for proof of ID, right? But some of the items you need for your passport, you almost might as well use for your ID anyway, unless you want to go overseas. My birth certificate is in Hebrew. The last time I used it was when I went to do my compulsory jury duty. I showed it to the lady on the desk and she just laughed and let me through. Well, it wasn't me who had demanded to do jury duty, was it? I figured if they objected to being unable to read the certificate, that was their problem, not mine.

 

Anyway, you have to get your overseas birth certificate translated for passport ID, and it has to be done by one of their approved translators. So, I found a lady, one of two in Victoria, who fortunately lives within easy tram distance of my place and I am on term break. I contacted her and she said that I could scan and send, or I was welcome to come to her place today. I decided on that. I don't have a scanner any more and although I could take a photo, I wasn't sure it would turn out readable. It's a very old, crumpled document - well, as old as me, anyway. ;-) 

 

Off I trundled on the tram to a small street off Hawthorn Rd, South Caulfield, and found it easily. The lady was quite a character, as it turned out. She was very thorough, but also had a lot of fun Googling things to make sure they were right. For example, the hospital where I was born was called the Municipal Maternity Hospital at the time. It is currently known as the Rabin Centre - we agreed it might be best to simply use the term on the actual certificate, but she had a lot of fun satisfying her curiosity. Likewise with the Hebrew DOB. According to Google, the year I was born the Hebrew date was August 29! And here I was finding it amusing that the certificate says September 3, when it's September 4. "August 29!" she exclaimed. "Forget about that!" But we agreed there had been a stuff-up. 

 

And then there was the doctor who delivered me. It was a Dr Kattab? Katib? Qatab? Katab? (That was how it was spelled in Hebrew, which I don't think does double letters). Anyway, he/she was an Arab, a Muslim. Which makes sense, because it was a Friday night, when the Jewish staff were going home or to synagogue for the Sabbath, while Muslim staff had finished theirs and were able to do a shift. But it hadn't occurred to me. So, now I know, and it will be fun to tell any Muslim kids at school who might ask that I was delivered by a co-religionist of theirs. I think they'll be tickled. 

 

But Taly(translator) and I did a bit of Googling to check spelling and while there were many possibilities, we decided on Khattab, the name of an Aussie Muslim doctor we found on line. It was closest to the original. 

 

I told Taly that my sister, who was about five at the time, had to be left behind when Mum hitched a ride to hospital on a bakery van. She said, "Oh, that happened all the time back then. It happened to me. Nowadays they'd call it child abuse." She grinned. But there were neighbours and Dad came along soon enough and also had to hitchhike, because it was Friday night, no public transport. 

 

Anyway, I felt Taly was well and truly worth the small fee I was paying, and more if she had asked for it. She had a series of templates to use - " Here's one I prepared earlier..." But all the research and careful thought about her translations was quite a bit of work. And afterwards she printed out - we proofread and I found one inconsistent spelling - and then printed out again, two copies, plus a photocopy of my original, which she suggested I take to the PO and get certified. And she emailed me a PDF for my files which, however, had her stamp and signature on it. So it will be safe, even if I mislay the original. 

 

And then, all done, she enthusiastically showed me a website called,"On The House" which gives away free tickets to shows, as long as you don't mind what they are. She had grabbed a free double pass to two shows while my translation was printing out. 

 

Who would have thought such a humdrum, necessary activity would turn out to be so entertaining?

 

Look What I've Got! Some SF Classics

It's Sunday. I decided to wander down to Acland St, my favourite street in all of Melbourne, for a falafel and a haircut, if I could get one. The haircut has to wait fr tomorrow, but I had my late lunch and an ice cream and entered the local Reading's Bookshop. 

They were selling SF Masterworks for three for the price of two. Some I already have, in print or ebook, but I haven't been able to get hold of Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man on iBooks, alas!  And I want to read it. It's where the author of Babylon 5 got his idea for the Psi Corps, which is led by a man called...Alfred Bester. The role was played by Walter Koenig, whom we know best as Ensign Chekov of Star Trek. He made a very impressive villain! 

I think I have a battered old copy of Ursula K LeGuin's The Lathe Of Heaven somewhere, not sure where. It will be fun to reread. It's about a man who dreams true, in the sense that when he has a true dream, he wakes up and finds that it has happened and nobody remembers it ever being any different. There was a telemovie of it which I saw at Cinecon, the convention where I was lucky enough to meet Robert Bloch.  

And I hadn't realised that Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? was so short. I shouldn't have any problems getting through it. I hear that Bladerunner is very different, but it is a classic in its own right and I read a rave review of the sequel online this morning, only it didn't tell you anything about the film except the basic blurb, because literally anything else you might say is a spoiler and the journalists all had to sign something promising not to give it away. All this one would say was that it's even better than Bladerunner. We'll see about that. I'm hoping I can arrange to see it with my friend Bart; Bladerunner is his all-time favourite film. 

Meanwhile, I have a nice haul of books! 

The Hobbit: A New Edition

So, my great-nephew Eden is eight years old and currently reading Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix. I figured if he can handle that, he can certainly handle The Hobbit. And about time he does read it! I told him so, and yesterday I popped into the Avenue bookshop in Elsternwick and asked for it.  I had hoped to find a copy of the classic edition illustrated by the author - you know, four or five colour plates, depending which edition it is(I think the U.S. edition is the one with only four plates)and drawings. But they didn't have it, only one without art and the one you see above, illoed by Jemima Catlin. 

I didn't want to wait - I knew I would be seeing him today - so I bought the illoed copy. And what a beautiful piece of work it is too! The cover, as you can see, looks like something from an illuminated manuscript, and better still, the internal art is very reminiscent of Pauline Baynes, who was a friend of Tolkien and C.S Lewis and who illustrated both Tolkien's other children's books and Lewis's Narnia novels. 

I am rather tempted to buy a copy for myself. You see, I have several copies, different editions. I have the Tolkien illustrated version, of course, my first. I have an annotated Hobbit, given to me as a farewell gift from Heathmont College, where I worked before going to my current school. That one is lovely, and fascinating. I have the Alan Lee edition, and gorgeous it is; you probably know that Alan Lee and John Howe worked on the LOTR movies. I have the very rare anniversary Michael Hague edition, which is exquisite. It was brought to my school by a ruthless bookseller who knew I would have to buy it! It cost me $75 and was worth every cent. And there is my ebook edition, which has a lot of extra materials - fold-out maps, Tolkien drawings that can be coloured, earlier drafts of some scenes and Tolkien's voice singing and reciting the poems. 

So the idea of having an edition with art that reminds me of Pauline Baynes is very hard to resist.

How did young Eden react to this book? He drooled over the art! He started to read it till his Dad told him to stop and wait till he got home.  He asked questions - I have mentioned it before. I told him that Gandalf was a bit like Dumbledore. He asked me if any of the good guys died at the end. "Sorry, spoilers!" I said. "Just read it." It will be nice to see him discover a classic. 

If he does enjoy it, the lady at the shop suggested The Sword In The Stone. I hadn't thought of that, but nice idea! What do you think? 

Food In The Vorkosiverse

It's odd, really, but  the food that gets the most detailed description in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosiverse seems to be on Barrayar, the homeworld of her hero, Miles Vorkosigan, or in Barrayaran homes elsewhere.

 I've just been rereading Cetaganda, in which Miles and his cousin Ivan arrive on the capital of the Cetagandan Empire to attend the funeral of the Dowager Empress Lisbet Degtiar, the current Emperor's mother. Cetaganda is a world which specialises in genetic engineering and loves things artistic. The palace spends the days to the funeral running different events and catering for hundreds of attendees, and we're told, on the first day, that Miles and his fellow delegates are served morning tea and lunch and that it's many courses of small delicate finger-food-type things, but not what any of them are. Same thing with the early reception at the Marilacan Embassy. Yet when Miles invites over Mia Maz, a Vervani etiquette expert, to their Embassy,  she pounces delightedly on chocolate petit fours. That is, we start to get some details. There is something called zlati ale on Cetaganda, but that's a part of the plot. I won't tell you what it does, in case you want to read it - spoilers! 

Because so much is centred around the military, we do hear of ration - rat - bars. They're not very tasty, but if you're desperate, as Miles sometimes is, you're only too happy to have one. At one point, in The Vor Game, he is imprisoned in a cell on board Commander Cavilo's ship, and fed on very basic food. Cavilo was unaware of this, telling him he was being fed only what she and her men have, but orders him something better - so much better that he wonders what her soldiers have. They must be overweight and happy. In that case, there was some detail. 

But once you get back to Barrayar, the home cooked meals begin, such as those prepared by Ma Kosti, the mother of two of Miles's guards, whom he offers a job as his cook. Miles gives lunch to Ekaterin, a young widow he first met on Komarr, where her husband was working before he was killed stupidly and needlessly. Ekaterin is the woman he wants in his life, and lunch is a Ma Kosti special, with peach tarts for dessert. Actually, Ma Kosti can make a gourmet delight of a sandwich. She concocts fishy delights for the cat! Before the end of A Civil Campaign, she has cooked a banquet for Miles's guests(using bug butter from the butter bugs being raised in the basement)and created maple ambrosia for the Emperor's wedding. 

A typical local breakfast is a cereal called groats, which are also used as part of wedding ceremonies. Barrayar has been terraformed for the most part, so that Earth maple trees are there to produce sugar - they are big in Miles's district. But there are, oddly, some edible indigenous fruit, brillberries, which are eaten quite safely by the human colonists and cooked into tarts. Well, they must be native fruit, unless they've been developed from Earth berries over the centuries. 

Bujold seems to take great delight in describing her food, especially little cakes, but mostly Barrayaran treats. Otherwise, food is there because it's part of the plot. 

Maybe Barrayar is "home" to the author! 

Take One Of Three Girls: An Interview With Simmone Howell!

A few weeks ago, I received an invitation from the publicist at Pan Macmillan to do an interview regarding the new novel, Take Three Girls, a collaboration by three of this country's top YA novelists. I have yet to read a novel by any of them that I didn't enjoy, so of course, the answer was a glad cry of, "Yes! Absolutely!"

As Cath and Fiona had both appeared on this blog, both in review and interview posts, we decided that Simmone Howell should be the third girl of this trio on The Great Raven. And very welcome she is, too! Simmone says she remembers us meeting at what I think must have been a Booktalkers event at the State Library, back when they were doing these wonderful sessions. 

Anyone remember a British TV series with the same name? It was about three young women living together in London. No connection except the title(though I keep hearing the folk rock group Pentangle singing the theme tune, Light Flight, in my head...)

The three young women in this novel, Clem, Kate and Ady,  attend a boarding school in one of Melbourne's posher suburbs. Clem is an athlete who is losing interest in sport. Kate is a musician from the bush, a hugely talented cellist who has come to the city for her music and is preparing both for a scholarship exam that will let her remain at the school and an audition for a scholarship that will let her go to Finland for her cello playing. Ady, a gifted dress designer, is not a boarder and, due to family issues, might have to leave the school at the end of term. The three form an unlikely friendship. They all have their own problems, including an on line forum, Psst, which is a nasty gossip column along the lines of such web sites mentioned recently in the news, connected with a private boys' school in Melbourne. But these girls refuse to be victims...

So, without further ado, I'd like to welcome Simmone Howell to my blog. 

A basic question to start with: who got the idea for this novel? And whose idea was it to make it a collaboration?

We actually can’t recall who thought of it. But once it was suggested we all went YES! The idea went collaboration first, story next. As soon as we knew we were going to do it we spent some time thinking about what we all really wanted to write about - the main thing being friendship, and unlikely friendship within a school - with the school with its heirarchies and posturing and lies and bureaucracy being like a microcosm of the world.

How did the three of you work on this? For example, was it planned out together, then perhaps you each worked on your separate bits? 

Exactly that way. We each created a character and then had mutual plotting sessions around a big table with a whiteboard, then we’d go off and write our chapters, then re-meet, read, discuss, repeat.

I'm guessing that each of you created and worked on a separate leading character - am I right? If so, who was yours? What did you have in mind when you created her? 

My character was Clem. I had a few people in mind. It was the early stages of(US TV series) Girls and I loved watching Lena Dunham run riot over our screens - and I loved the idea of a character who maybe didn’t know what she wanted eventually but could be passionate in the moment. I was also drawing on aspects of my teenage life, in particular my thoughts around boys and self-esteem.

The novel is centred around life in a boarding school - is this part of your experience or the experience of Cath or Fiona? If not, how did you research it? 

None of us went to a boarding school. I always wanted to (too much Mallory Towers). I did however go to a Catholic girls' school for some of my high school years, where I was a late arrival and never felt quite right. We all do a lot of school visits and residencies, so it wasn’t so much research as experience.

Clem and Iris are twins who had once been close. I don't think we ever found out why they had lost this closeness. Thoughts on this? 

Clem’s reasons might have ended up on the cutting room floor. But it was nearly completely clear cut. I think just sibling rivalry, each one feeling like the other was more loved by their parents - their parents seeming not  to have enough time for them, and then familiarity breeding contempt. I think for some people having siblings is an empowering experience, where for others it just serves to make them feel more lonely.

In fact, there were one or two other ends that were left untied - if you can answer this without too much spoiler, was this deliberate? 

None of us is a fan of the tied-up-with-a-nice-bow ending. We wanted the book to feel realistic, and for people to imagine the characters being friends off the page into the future.

Is this novel very like or very different from your other work? In what ways?

I think it’s a bit different as there’s one main idea to Clem. In my other books I have a lot more time and space to develop with secondary characters and storylines. It’s closest in tone to Everything Beautiful - Riley Rose is also a fat and feisty character - a girl who wants to eat the world. The main characters from my other books are more introspective and ideas-y.

I see that before you turned to YA you wrote a lot of short stories - what made you decide to have a go at YA fiction? 

I was told that my no one was ever going to publish my collection of short stories (because it was indeed a collection by then) unless I also had a novel … And now writing novels seems easier, even though they take me ages and ages.

Are you working on something at the moment? 

I am working on a YA book that’s set in San Francisco … and a memoir filtered through my formative film, music, and literary influences. And I’ve got two half-written things all shiny in the corner of my eye but I’m doing my best to ignore them!

I'm looking forward to reading your  new YA novel when completed and, some time, those two shiny things! Thanks for visiting, Simmone.

If you'd like to check out the author, further, Simmone has a web site here.

To buy the book, it should be available in Australia at all good bookshops. You can also buy it on line. Here are a few suggestions:

It's available in both ebook and print copy at Booktopia, in Kindle edition at Amazon, or in ePub on iBooks. 

Music And Memories

Tonight my mother and I went out to dinner in a local restaurant, something we do most weeks, though not always the same place.

This time, there was music in the background. I don't much care for restaurants with music; I like to eat in peace and have conversations with my eating companion. But this time the music was the Beachboys and suddenly I was taken back to my teens.

My friend Denise and I used to go to St Kilda beach every summer, and Denise would bring with her two things: a transistor radio(yes, that's how long ago it was!) and reading matter. Quite often the music coming from the transistor was that of the Beachboys. My strongest memory is of "Good Vibrations".

And along with that are the books and magazines she shared with me. Denise and her family owned a boarding house, where boarders came and went. Sometimes they left soft drink bottles, for which, in those days, you got a deposit, which we used to buy comics and ice cream. That was, of course, in our primary school years, and I loved it, because my mother wouldn't let me have comics at home.

But by my teens, we were reading other stuff. Sometimes the boarders left books and magazines - speculative fiction books, SF magazines. Denise would read aloud so I could share them. I discovered Robert Bloch in the magazines. I can't even remember the titles of those short stories, but I do remember the stories themselves, and mentioning this to Mr Bloch years later, when he was in Melbourne for a convention. There was a story, for example, in which an old movie extra, who had lost a girlfriend during the silent era, kept seeing her in films she had never been in, seeing her wave at him, and received a note from her from the other side, explaining what was happening. He was telling someone else about it, then died himself - and turned up in the movie Intolerance, with his girlfriend, waving at the narrator. We shared that story on the beach.

And I encountered my first Robert Heinlein book. One summer, Denise got a copy of Stranger In A Strange Land, left behind by a boarder, and read it to me by the sea... I did eventually borrow it and read it fully, but my first memory of it is in the heat of summer, sitting on a beach towel with my friend, in between swims...

Who would have thought that a couple of Beachboys songs would bring back book memories?

Final Day At The Writers Festival!

Well, I went, as planned. But I left later than intended, so missed those 11.30 sessions I was debating with myself about attending - the one with John Safran? The one with father and daughter team Thomas and Meg Keneally? I had opted, in the end, for the Keneally session, but it was too late - I reached the city about twenty minutes too late for either session. My own fault, I was a bit slack.

However, I was glad in the end - I at least downloaded the new Safran book and bought Volume 1 of the joint historical crime series by father and daughter Keneally, and was just in time to have it signed by both authors. Mr K, about to pack up for lunch with his daughter's publisher, promised to wait till I returned from the book stall. Very nice they both were, and they expressed genuine interest when I mentioned I had a book blog. I grabbed a pen and envelope and wrote down the URL, and will be reviewing the book when I've finished. I've started and am enjoying it so far. It seems to be a murder mystery set in the Port Macquarie penal settlement. Lovely!

So, why am I glad? Well, before I left home, my nephew David rang to wish me happy birthday and told me that his brother, Mark, would be going with his delightful family to the Harry Potter event. His elder son, Eden, is reading the series now. He is eight years old and is nearly finished Goblet Of Fire! I've told him he is getting a copy of The Hobbit from me when he has finished the series. If he can read a YA novel like Goblet, he can certainly handle The Hobbit.

So, both boys wore a bit of basic costume, although Jonah didn't want to participate in the costume parade. There were trivia questions from the stage - Eden did put his hand up, but was never chosen. Still, he had a great time and he did get a chance to be "sorted" by the lovely Sonia Palmisano from Bloomsbury, who gave me a hug. Eden is a Ravenclaw(he plays the piano).

After it was over, they left. I had lunch, then returned for my one and only session, which was about the LoveOzYa anthology. There were five authors, including the editor, Danielle Binks. There was Alice Pung, Amie Kaufman, Melissa Keil and Ellie Marney, whose short story was actually based on a chunk she had chopped out of her first novel about the youthful Holmes and Watson-type characters. I bought two copies, one for me and one for the library, because young Raiesah of Year 8 had asked for it. "All those great authors!" she enthused.

I've read the first story, "One Small Step" by Amie Kaufmann, who explained yesterday that she had got the idea from two sources: firstly, from overhearing some Year 12 students talking about what they wanted to apply for as opposed to what their parents wanted, and secondly from the story of the world's first IVF baby, who had had to put up with the whole world  wanting to know about milestones in her life. It's about the first baby born on Mars, now seventeen and having to share her life with the entire population of Earth. Oh, and she falls in love with another girl, her best friend.

I've just started the next story, which is by Will Kostakis. Will wasn't part of that panel, though. It was all female. In fact, eight of the ten stories in the anthology are by women - the other man is Michael Pryor. However, the purpose of the anthology, as Danielle Binks explained, was that in the ALIA survey of most-borrowed books in Aussie libraries, only two out of the top ten YA books were by Australians. So this one is for Aussie voices, though of course, they have every respect for overseas work. Last year, we were told glumly, not one of the top ten were local.

I'm hoping to read the whole book this week, so I can suggest it for next year's English text. The stories are unfortunately a bit long for "short story" work, but so far, quite readable and not too dreadfully hard for our weaker readers. And there seems to be a variety of genres, which is good.

Anyway, a nice day out! 

September 3 - Happy Birthday To Me... And Andy G!

I woke up this morning to a personalised Google Doodle, with birthday candles, so thought I might as well post about it. This is my official birthday, the one on my birth certificate but I believe my real birthday is September 4, because I was definitely born on a Friday and the year I was born September 3 was a Thursday. September 4 has a lot more interesting and positive stuff about it than the 3rd, and I've posted about that too(and September 5, the birthday of the delightful Kate Constable, YA author, who, I think, shares a birthday with historical romance novelist Frank Yerby, or maybe Joan Aiken...?).

However, here I am, and I will be shouting myself at least one session at the MWF later today, to celebrate. If nothing else, I'll enjoy the Harry Potter day. Friday was the day when, according to The Deathly Hallows, Harry Potter saw his son Albus off to Hogwarts, so they're having fun with a Harry Potter theme today.

BUT there's Kiwi SF author Cherry Wilder and I also share a natal day with Andy Griffiths! Yes, THAT Andy Griffiths, author of so much fiction that has delighted young children and even teenagers in Australia and other countries. I think his novel The Day My Bum Went Psycho had to be retitled The Day My Butt Went Psycho in the U.S. because over there "bum" means "tramp", not "backside" as it does here.  Oh, well. Happy birthday, Andy! Lots of cake and other delicious stuff for you.

I hadn't heard of most of the "famous people" with whom I share a birthday, or if I had, I hadn't read any of their work. The guy who invented the safety match was born On This Day, but he never made any money out if it because it was too damned expensive for most people. Interesting, really. I have always thought it was women who invented most of the ordinary everyday things which we take for granted but wouldn't consider doing without. A man invents this and can't sell it!

Apart from Andy G, most of the writers were people I was unfamiliar with, and the "famous birthdays" web site included some bloggers, for goodness' sake! Anyone on the list 25 years old or less was a blogger. And not even a book or political blogger, generally a lifestyle blogger! That seems to be how you get famous these days. ;-)

Not a lot of positive stuff happened on September 3 - battles, massacres and such for the most part. But Viking 2 reached Mars On This Day.

It was also the birthday of the world's first daily newspaper - September 3, 1833. That was the New York Sun, which operated until 1950. There is an on line paper of that name now. 

Here in Australia it is National Flag Day, commemorating the first time our flag flew, back in 1901,when Australia became a federation. They ran a flag competition and the one we have now is the design that won.

I see that in the U.S. it is National Welsh Rarebit Day, so enjoy your cheese toasties, my American friends! 

It's the birthday of San Marino, the world's oldest republic. The founder was St Marinus. Happy birthday, San Marino! 

My Students Meet Morris Gleitzman! At the MWF...

On Monday I took nineteen students to the Melbourne Writers' Festival, where they were going to hear Morris Gleitzman speak about his Once series. It would have been twenty, but young Kim, who is a huge fan of the series, suddenly had to go with her family to Vietnam. She had been so looking forward to it. There wasn't time to invite another student to go in her place. I ended up buying her a copy of the newest novel in the series - Maybe - and getting him to sign it for her.

We had been planning this since July. My original plan had been to take them to Reading Matters, but it sold out before we could get the numbers, so we went to the Festival instead.

The kids were wonderful. All of them who were going to be late rang me to let me know. One poor girl ended up having to walk all the way to the station because she didn't have a myki card. I gave her one of my spares, which I'd topped up, because there is always at least one student who either forgets to buy a card or to top up the one they have with money. That time there were three - and I had bought extra cards just in case.

And who should we meet on the train station platform but Natasha, one of my former book clubbers, now studying to be a teacher! Natasha ended up chatting to Taylor, a hugely book-loving student, so I left them to it, after a brief chat with Natasha.

Morris Gleitzman was a very good speaker, talking about his series in general and specifically about the new book, which I hadn't realised was out already. Kim will love this, I thought. one of my students, who hadn't read any of the books, admitted that "it was a bit boring" when I asked him how he had enjoyed the talk. But next day he told me that he had found Once in his literacy class's book box, started reading and was loving it. So in the end, he did get something out of it.

I had intended to text my friend George Ivanoff, who was going to be there, but there wasn't time. I stood near the book-signing queue and took photos for the school magazine. Morris was quite happy to have kids pose with him.

Not all the kids had money for a book and I ended up buying about three books for them, because I couldn't bear for them to miss out.  It was worth it to see those joyful looks as I handed them their copy. And then I thought, what the heck, I'll get a print copy for me, and I was the last to have a book signed that morning.

We went to lunch at the Melbourne Central food court and along the way to the court, I pointed out the Little Library. People donate books to it and you're supposed to take one and either return it or bring one. I will certainly be putting in some books soonish, but I doubt my students will. They pounced on the books with cries of joy - one of them even walked off happily with a Rick Riordan novel, one of the Magnus Chase ones rather than Percy Jackson.

They all returned to our meeting place on time and we returned to our station, where I dismissed them. 

It was a good day!

A Visit From The Local Member

Earlier this year, we had a phone call from the office of the local Member of State Parliament, Marsha Thomson,  asking if we were doing the Premier's Reading Challenge.

As it happens, we were. This is the first time I've ever done it and I must say, I regret not having done it before. It's not like Reader's Cup, which is a lot of work and requires a lot of support from the staff. And it doesn't cost anything, just a bit of the librarian's time to set it up, encourage kids to get into it and make sure to verify completed books. The kids get a certificate from the Education Department afterwards. Not a huge prize, but if they're reading anyway, why not? And if not, well, it might get them started, encourage them to challenge themselves. We don't have that many this year, but enough for now. 

Here's how it works: between two set dates, the kids are required to read a minimum of fifteen books. Of those, at least ten must be from the Reading Challenge list, but that's okay - there are plenty to choose from. In fact, two of my books, Wolfborn and Your Cat Could Be A Spy, are on the list. How good is that, eh? I was hoping that there would be more kids finishing the challenge, so far only two and a couple more are just about there, but haven't marked their books online as finished. If I had it to do again, I would make sure everyone chose their own passwords right at the start, so they didn't have  to have troubles logging in. And I'd urge the staff to get it going as part of our literacy program.

Anyway, on to the local member! 

Apparently she was a great enthusiast of the Challenge and of reading and was planning to visit schools doing the Challenge to get kids interested. Would we like a visit? Well, I thought, a writer would be nicer than a politician, but a writer costs money I don't have and it could do no harm to have someone promote the Challenge. So I discussed it with my Principal, who agreed it would be a good thing, and we said yes. 

The lady came this week, on Tuesday. We panicked a little when the whole school had assembled in the library and nobody had arrived yet. I was just hunting for a Challenge book when she arrived with one of her staff members.

And I must admit, she did very well. She began with talking about reading in general, about her own reading and the book club they have in Parliament House. The kids were intrigued by the idea of having a book club in Parliament and what the politicians do up there. She was impressed to learn that there were boys in my book club, and also asked who was doing the Challenge. I did suggest that perhaps not everybody knew what the Challenge was, so she explained to the kids that it started in Victoria in Premier Steve Bracks' time and told them what it involved.

Question time came and there were quite a few hands up to ask questions. One book she mentioned was To Kill A Mockingbird, which I lent to one of my book clubbers next day. She said she was not a great fan of fantasy and that she was never going to read Harry Potter! She pretty much only reads adult books and likes biographies best.

Since then I have signed up another Reading Challenge student. There were other requests, but nobody turned up at lunchtime to do it, so I can only assume it was a case of "it seemed like a good idea at the time, but lunchtime is when I go out and kick a footy around."

Marsha had another school to visit, so we said farewell to her and she had her photo taken with some of the students. I gave her some of my bookmarks, of Wolfborn and Crime Time, telling her she could give it to the kids at her next school or keep it to distribute at her Parliament book club.

It went for just the right length of time; another few minutes and kids would have been fidgeting, but as it was, they enjoyed it.

Thank you, Marsha!

Latest Brother Cadfael Re-Read: The Pilgrim Of Hate by Ellis Peters

Yet again I'm re-reading some of Ellis Peters' classic whodunnits. This one came off my shelves, but some of them are at Mum's place, including one I recently re-read, An Excellent Mystery. 

They are all set in twelfth century Shrewsbury, a sort of mediaeval Midsomer, where corpses turn up regularly and it's up to herbalist monk Brother Cadfael to use his forensic skills to find out how they died and who killed them. He does this with the help of his friend Hugh Beringar, the Sheriff of Shropshire. Has anyone noticed the trope of the amateur sleuth and his or her buddy the cop? Because really, that's what Hugh is. He may be in charge of the shire, which he holds and defends for King Stephen during the war between Stephen and Empress Maud, but in the end, he is also the local law enforcement officer, a kind of police chief, so it fits, really, doesn't it? Hugh is in this one.

Despite what I said about a mediaeval Midsomer, this author sometimes does something a little different. In one novel, there wasn't actually a murder at all, just a mystery, with a missing character everyone thinks must have been murdered. In The Pilgrim Of Hate, the murder took place offstage, before the story even begins. The victim was a knight of Empress Maud who was killed on the street in Winchester while defending a follower of King Stephen from attackers. Nobody knows who the killer was; he vanished into the dark streets. But Brother Cadfael works it out anyway, or this wouldn't be a mystery. 

Meanwhile, in Shrewsbury, the monks are preparing for a huge festival, the annual celebration of the arrival of the Welsh Saint Winifred, whose coffin was brought there four years ago from Wales during A Morbid Taste For Bones(but not her body, because Brother Cadfaeł did a switch to keep her in her home soil with the villagers who loved her). Pilgrims are flocking there for the party, some in hopes of miracles. Among them are a widow, her crippled nephew Rhun and his sister Melangell, and two young men who are on their way on foot to Wales. There is a mystery here(of course!) about the two men. As usual there is a sweet young couple whose love might not prosper. And Brother Cadfael's son, Olivier De Bretagne, whom we first met in The Virgin In The Ice turns up on a mission. And there's a miracle - actually, two, as far as Cadfael is concerned, the second being his chance to see his son again. 

I love this series! I love its gentleness and its worldbuilding. It brings mediaeval England to life, not to mention a small-town community. The Shrewsbury of the novels is real - I once found I could follow the old streets just by having read the author's descriptions. 

But in the end, people are people and learn from their mistakes - or don't...

If you haven't yet read any of these wonderful books, you've been missing out - go read! 

Just Finished Reading... The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Attwood

For some reason I thought I had read this before. Well, some of it was familiar, but I suspect I never finished it then. This time I did. Mainly, I decided to read it now because I have been unable to watch the TV series at this stage, even though it's available online at the SBS station web site. I think my OS and browser are out of date and I can't update either till I delete a lot more stuff on my computer. I will wait for the DVD.

My copy is an ebook, a new edition with an intro by the author. The intro alone is a fascinating read. For example, she says she made the decision that her story would have nothing in it that hasn't happened at one time or another in our world. She has simply put it all together in one dystopia. It was written back in the 1980s, before the Internet was more than a bit of an experiment, and even then it was possible to simply switch off credit cards. Imagine how easy it would be today. Even in Australia we are being asked to give up freedoms, give authorities extended rights, all in the name of security. The novel is scary exactly because it is so easy to believe!

The novel starts when the nameless heroine(we only ever know her as "Offred", i.e "Of Fred", her master's name) is already living as a walking womb in the Republic of Gilead. The author tells us in her introduction that it's Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the place where bodies are hung like the heads on London Bridge is the wall of Harvard University. As the novel goes on, we gradually learn in flashback about her earlier life with her husband and child and how one day she is a working woman with an income and the next day her credit/debit card is cancelled and her boss has to sack all his female employees.

Interestingly, the Wife whose baby she is supposed to bear is a woman who used to be a member of a choir on a TV televangelist program when "Offred" was a child. The woman was one of those who declared in public that women should be staying home, in the kitchen, and no doubt regrets it now.

The "history conference " documents at the end were interesting, throwing hints of what might have happened. You needed that, because there was a very abrupt ending to the main story.

I thought there was rather too much flashback and my goodness, didn't those characters smoke! 

Still, an interesting story, one which is unfortunately all too believable, and hopefully I will be able to get hold of the DVD at some stage, and see how much difference there is.

Of Doctors And Regeneration - Some Silly Thoughts!

So, we have a female Doctor, after months of speculation. Well, we have had a female version of the Master, everyone says, so why not a female Doctor? I think if they had given us a male Doctor after all that, there would have been howls of outrage from the fans. Especially after that scene where the Doctor tells Bill that Timelords don't worry about all that gender stuff. If that wasn't a powerful hint, then we needed a big marching band, preferably all female, to announce it. 

Me, I will wait for the stories before judging. All I can say is, if XX or XY Chromosomes don't count among Timelords, then that race is very, very different from ours, and it's a lot more than the two hearts, so it's highly unlikely that the Doctor is half human as suggested in the Paul McGann film. And I say this as a great Spock fan. 

Are all Gallifreyans Timelords? Do you get peasant Timelords like the peasant elves we meet in The Hobbit? There must be someone to grow the food and wash the dishes and so on. And as I recall, there was a barn in one episode. The Day Of The Doctor, I think. So yes, there probably are people on Gallifrey who don't go having adventures in time and space or playing politics on the Council of Timelords. Didn't Leela marry one? It's been a long time since I saw that episode, so don't complain if I got it wrong, just inform me. 

If there are ordinary people on that planet who don't regenerate, are they more like us, apart from the two hearts? With XX and XY chromosomes that don't allow them to change gender except by medical means? When you think about it, regeneration with the option of a new cycle of twelve for everyone could stuff up inheritance and you'd really have to keep the population down. 

Or it might just be those who graduate from the Academy who get that privilege... As I recall, the Master was offered a new round of regenerations in return for helping the Doctor in The Five Doctors, and it has since then been confirmed, so ability to regenerate can't be merely a genetic thing. And if it's not genetic, perhaps they can get around this whole chromosome issue. Problem solved! 

 Do the Timelords perhaps bring in children who have shown certain  abilities for training and give them the ability as part of the deal? 

Certainly, the Master has some amazing abilities. Think of the number of times he has come back from the dead, even in the Paul McGann movie, when the previous Doctor was bringing back his ashes, for heaven's sake! Maybe he/she will come back yet. In fact, I predict they will. Let's face it, we saw the last Dalek in New Who series 1 and we STILL have them! 

We know that there are children on Gallifrey - remember that episode where the Doctor is talking about how they are taken to stare into this abyss(he sensibly ran away)and we see a flashback in which a young boy who will become the Master is taken there and, it's implied, goes crazy as a result? (Talk about child abuse!) And yet, the first Doctor we saw was an old man with a granddaughter - seeing he was the first incarnation, not the first regeneration, surely he grew up and aged this first time. Hell, he must have been a child at some stage! 

There was an article in a fanzine I read years ago, speculating on what a Timelord family picnic might look like - the elderly man might be the youngest family member while the young girl is an aged Timelord on her final regeneration...that would be bizarre! 

One thing that I have always found mildly amusing is the matter of Susan. As far as we know, she is his granddaughter. That implies some sort of family life, or maybe a companion who managed to get into his pants. But as I recall, there was an early novel which told us that Susan was not actually related, she just called him "grandfather". See, someone worked out that having a granddaughter implied that at least once the Doctor must have fooled around - can't have that on a children's show! 

And with that particular silliness I will leave you. Feel free to comment, although if you have seen every last episode and remember the lot, I should explain that this is not the case with me and I would appreciate not being abused for having forgotten something. Let's keep this fun! 

An Interview With Vikki Wakefield

My guest today is Vikki Wakefield, award-winning Aussie YA novelist whose recent novel Ballad For A Mad Girl I discovered in my goody bag at Reading Matters and reviewed here. I first met Vikki when she visited my school along with authors Adrian Stirling and Tim Pegler, courtesy of the Centre For Youth Literature and Adele Walshe, the head honcho. She had only one novel under her belt at the time, All I Ever Wanted, but she impressed our students no end with her talk and computer images of the drawings she does while thinking about her stories. Every copy of All I Ever Wanted was checked out immediately after the talk! She tells me she hasn't done sketches for this one, but sent me a photo of her "mood board" , which I have posted below. It's nice to know that Vikki is a fellow "pantser" in her writing(a plotter is someone who plans out their story meticulously ahead of time, eg J.K Rowling and my friend Alison Goodman, a pantser does it "by the seat of the pants", eg Vikki and me!)

Ballad For A Mad Girl is a lovely piece of Gothic fiction which I have passed on to my Gothic fiction-loving niece Dezzy, and is Vikki's first speculative fiction. I hope her publishers will submit it for next year's Aurealis Award for speculative fiction, where it is likely to make the shortlist. 

Without further ado, here is Vikki! 

Let's start with an obvious question: where did the idea for Ballad For A Mad Girl come from?

It was a very different book in the beginning and it only started to come together when I found several boxes of old research papers. Many years ago I used to save stories based on urban legendsーI would try to trace more modern incarnations back to their origins to see how stories (passed through generations) had changed. I read through the entire box and got lost in them. That was when I first knew I wanted to include supernatural/horror elements and the story began to evolve from straight contemporary into something else.

Each of your books is different. For example, this one is Australian Gothic, the last one was about some characters who fix up an old drive-in cinema, your first one was humorous ... Will you be trying something different each time, or would you like to do a bit more of the same?

Someone once said most writers tell the same story, over and over, and to some extent I think that's trueーmy books are all similar in tone and underlying themes. On the other hand, they're quite separate from each other, too (in plot, character, language and structure). So, while I do attempt to write a unique book each time, when I'm rewriting there's a centrifugal force that pulls my stories in a similar direction regardless of my intentions. (It's probably a combination of instinct and fascination that makes this happen.) I can only promise I'll write many more YA books, but I never know what they are until they're finishedーthankfully, the YA readership is pretty open to writers who work this way.

You have mentioned in our chats on Twitter that the pipe in this novel was based on a real one not far from where you live - and that you had played on it as a child. Were there ever any "pipe challenges" or was that strictly fiction?

Yes, the pipe is real. There were no pipe challenges (as in time trials) but crossing the stormwater pipe was a rite of passage and it did sort the 'brave' from the 'scaredy cats'. I moved away from the suburb I grew up in but I've since moved backーnow I live very close to the old quarry where I used to play as a kid. When the area was developed the landscape changed dramatically and I assumed the pipe was no longer there. I only re-discovered it recently while I was walking my dog, and it reminded me of the foolish things I did to impress my friends (and enemies). I ended up rewriting the first chapter of Ballad for a Mad Girl to include the pipe crossingーit seemed like the perfect scene to begin a story about overcoming fear.

How much, if any, of this novel is inspired by where you grew up?

I grew up in the outer northern suburbs of Adelaide (the setting of All I Ever Wanted). Swanston and Möbius (from Inbetween Days) are inspired by the country towns I've lived in (places where everyone knows everybody's business and old feuds are generational), and my characters are loosely based on people I knew growing up. I have my setting in mind long before I understand my characters well enough to write about them and, because I write about teens on the verge of adulthood, I find my own teen experiences are the greatest source of inspiration.

Small town life is very different from city life. Do you think any of your characters would ever live somewhere else? (At one point, your heroine, Grace, says that her friend Kenzie is likely to succeed outside)

Kenzie is the most determined to succeed, but Grace is the restless oneーshe's more likely to move on than any of her friends. I think she would chase the original dream. I see her leaving Swanston while the others stay. 

This is a murder mystery as much as a supernatural story - did it take a lot of plotting before you got started?

Not so much before I got started (I tend to plan fairly loosely, leaving plenty of room for discovery), but once the first draft was complete it took a while to plug the plot holes I'd created. It meant cutting a few sub-plots and tightening the structure until the threads came together. As someone who doesn't rely heavily on plot, I found it challenging to allow plot to reveal character rather than the other way around. I was also aware there were two distinct reader perspectives in this storyーthat of the believer, and the non-believerーand I wanted to make sure both were validated. It was tough to find that balance; it taught me how to step away from the story and let go of my own convictions.

Actually, what is your writing process - plotter or pantser? Details, please!

I plot in my head (and that can take up to a year of doodling and daydreaming) but once I start writing I make it up as I go. Nothing ever goes to plan. I don't find the essence of a story until I'm well into my second or third draft (I edit as I write, so a draft takes forever), but I've learned to be patient. It comes when it comes. And by essence, I mean the premiseーI think the premise is for the writer, not the reader, because it's the underlying belief that holds the tension in a story. 

Grace has some very loyal friends, even though she scares them for a while. Who, if any, is your favourite? (I have to say, I'd like friends like Kenzie and Gummer!)

Gummer is lovely, and he's based on a real person, so he was easy (well, not easy, but true) to write. Kenzie is the friend who does the best she can, but when she falls in love she can't help but give a piece of herself to someone else. Grace doesn't handle that well (and she knows), but she tries to make up for it. She's a difficult friend to haveーGummer and Kenzie are the antidote, but they're both so grounded they were never potential main characters. They wouldn't have such a compelling story to tell. 

Is there an Australian book you've read recently that you have wished you had written? (Or just admired)

There are so many I admire! The most recent Australian YA book I wish I'd written is The Stars at Oktober Bend by Glenda Millard. I love all her work, but Alice's voice is particularly enchanting and Glenda's commitment to it is masterful. I also loved The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Lagunaーanother voice I found utterly compelling from start to finish.

Finally, are you working on anything right now?

I always have two or three projects on the go, whether they're in the daydreaming stages or slowly taking shape on the page. I tend to concentrate on whichever story calls loudestーI'm working solidly on a YA novel from the perspective of a sixteen-year-old boy right now, but I have a middle grade novel in the works too. Aside from writing novels, I recently spent a month working with illustrator Dan McGuiness and a group of SA primary school students on a progressive book. It's called 'The Carisbrooke Creek War' (theme: gender equality) and it'll be published in The Advertiser newspaper during  the last week of July.

Vikki's mood board

And here's where you can buy it on line! It is also available from Amazon.

Thanks for dropping in on The Great Raven, Vikki!