The CYL Comes To Sunshine College

A couple of weeks ago, I got a call from Adele Walsh, the new head honcho at the State Library's Centre for Youth Literature. For a number of reasons she explained to me, she was offering to bring the Teenage Booktalkers to us. Would we be interested?

Would we?!? I've taken my book club to the CYL for one Teen Booktalkers last year and to the youth day at Reading Matters this year, but this way ALL our kids could have the treat and no excursion forms to fill in or collect and no transport issues, just set up the library and welcome the guests. When I went to the evening session the night before, Paula Kelly, the head librarian, told me they were thinking of regionalising the youth days, taking the show to schools and letting other schools in the area come over instead of into town and this was going to be an experiment to see how it would work.

I chased up copies of the books The Comet Box, All I Ever Wanted and Five Parts Dead by the visiting authors and read them in a weekend - yes, all three of them! I got them processed and promoted, although by last Wednesday only one student was reading any of them (and loving it - the book was Five Parts Dead, the student Dylan). It didn't matter - after the talk, every last copy of all the books was checked out!

Wednesday morning, the first visitor, Adrian Stirling, arrived about 10.15 am as I was finishing my setup. We had a lot of students missing - an ESL excursion, that included half my tiny literacy class, the netball team, the Bridge-Building science team that included two of my book club members who would have loved to be there. So I'd invited a bunch of students from our Ardeer campus. I would also have invited students from another local school, but the teacher-librarian doesn't work on Wednesday and in the end, it was just as well, because we had a big audience for each of the two sessions and only just enough chairs for them all.

I got Adrian to use the remote control to bring the screen down - the computer was set up ready for the presentations, as it had been used the night before for a year 10 info evening and the principal kindly left it set up for me. Meanwhile I did the finishing touches elsewhere. I knew there would be an autograph session and thought it might work well to print out some book covers. Some of my book clubbers not on an excursion turned up offering to help. There wasn't much to do, it was all set up, but I introduced them and asked Dylan to set out the book covers on the autographing table, which he did.

The rest of our guests arrived soon after. Tim Pegler was last. Adele was there, with Christine - a lady I knew well from her time at The Little Bookroom - and a lady whose name I didn't know but who helped the speakers with their presentations and later booked a cab for Vikki Wakefield.

We started with the Year 9 and 10 students. Adele did the intros and the bribery that helped move the sessions along. She has been a teacher and is quite comfortable talking to kids - and bribing them to answer questions. :-) She'd brought along books left over from the conference and bits of CYL stuff, such as "Insideadog" tags, which she gave out for a good response from the audience. At one stage she was running low on the tags and I gave her some chocolate frogs, which were plenty good enough.

Adrian is also a teacher - he'd had to negotiate a day off work to come - so he had a good clear voice ands knew how to speak to teens. He explained where he'd got many of the ideas for his novel The Comet Box and his memories of the excitement people felt last time Halley's Comet came around. This is his second book; the earlier one, Broken Glass, had won a Notable. He spoke about that too.

Vikki Wakefield has a background in graphic art and had done character sheets before writing anything. She showed these in her presentation I did mean to ask her if the publisher might, perhaps, do a reprint with the illoes, which were very nice indeed, but the students had plenty of questions and they took priority, of course. She showed a picture of the street where she had lived as a child, if briefly, and of the huge dog that was the inspiration for Gargoyle, the scary mutt in All I Ever Wanted. There were quite a few elements that she'd based on her own memories.

Tim Pegler is a journalist who has turned to writing YA fiction. I really enjoyed Five Parts Dead and have bought my own copy of Game As Ned to read when I have five minutes off from teaching, library, review books, etc. He showed some photos from Kangaroo Island and the graveyard which had a rather sad grave set apart from the others that had given him his idea for Five Parts Dead. He also showed some of the articles he'd written as a journalist, including the one which he'd used as part of his inspiration, about a woman who had killed someone in an attempt to do an exorcism.

The students were highly entertained and there were plenty who went up to get autographs done in the middle of the session.

I'd ordered lunch from the canteen and we had it in the staffroom. After lunch came the Year 7 and 8 students, who also enjoyed the event. Adele very kindly left us a whole box of leftover books from the conference and Adrian donated copies of both his books to our library. The books are being processed and will be out in the library next week.

All in all, a successful event and I am most grateful to Adele for arranging it and the speakers for entertaining our students.

Hobbit movie excitement

Anyone excited about the Hobbit movie? I am! They are gradually releasing pictures of the cast in costume and make-up and I have to say that Thorin Oakenshield is going to get more drooling female fans than Bard the bowman, that proto-Aragorn! I would have imagined Richard Armitage as Bard rather than Thorin, but I guess we have to trust Peter Jackson. Some of the cast of LOTR are going to be there - well, Gandalf, obviously, so yes, Ian McKellan, and Elrond. I would have thought they could give Orlando Bloom the role of Thranduil, Legolas's dad, but it seems they're slipping in Legolas himself. Of course, Andy Serkis doing Gollum again. I think Martin Freeman will be a good Bilbo. Having seen him as Arthur Dent in Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, it suddenly occurred to me that there were some similarities between Bilbo and Arthur - both are dragged kicking and screaming from their comfort zone - but Bilbo matures and develops leadership qualities, where Arthur doesn't - although the movie Arthur did, to some extent. So yes, I can see him in the role (and have seen photos of him as Bilbo).

I discovered The Hobbit as an adult. It charmed and delighted me even after reading Lord of The Rings. It was funny and sad, exciting and over-the-top. Anyone who doesn't sniffle just a bit at that last scene between Thorin and Bilbo has no heart, IMO.

And if anyone can make a movie in the spirit of the novel, it's Peter Jackson.

Happy Birthday, J.K.Rowlng!

And Harry too, of course. It's weird, you know, I'd forgotten and yet last night I was googling various facts about religion in the Harry Potter novels. And what a variety of articles there was, too! Some argued for the Christian elements, others that Christianity had nothing to do with the various decisions Harry and his friends made and then there were the anti-HP ones, but I didn't bother with those, because I was after symbols in the books.

I discovered this series when I picked up a copy of Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone on the book stall at the Children's Book Week Fair, back in the days when they HAD a book stall as a regular part of the fair. I'd heard about it from Alison Goodman, author of Singing The Dogstar Blues (her only book at the time)as we sat in the back of a car going to a meeting of the Aussiecon 3 committee. It sounded interesting and I bought the book when I saw it. I enjoyed it enough to buy the next, Chamber of Secrets, thinking at the time that it reminded me of Roald Dahl, but even more of Diana Wynne Jones' Lives Of Christopher Chant (and so, it seems to me, did DWJ's publishers, who happily brought out a new edition of all the Christopher Chant books) which I'd loved.


By Prisoner of Azkaban, I was hooked. The universe was becoming more complex, as were the characters. I was getting review copies now - that one was for Festivale On-Line, the ones after for January Magazine.

I'm remembering the day I picked up Deathly Hallows and went down to the food court at the Australia Hotel to read over coffee and cake. I looked around and at every other table was someone doing the same! There were brass bands and at Dymock's a choir was singing songs from the books. All this to celebrate a book... As a librarian, I was thrilled. I know kids have never stopped reading, but in this day and age, with people spending so much time on-line and playing computer games, it was nice to have it confirmed. I remember spotting a small girl with a huge Harry Potter book tucked under her little arm.

I had to finish the book and hand in my review within the next twenty-four hours, but I don't think I missed anything in my reading. I just promised myself that I'd read it again at my own pace when I could.

I'm now reading Philosopher's Stone to my Literacy class, which is willing to listen because the last movie has just come out.

If you want a really good summation of the phenomenon, google the article by Stephen King, who is a big fan of the series and has done a very good job of discussing it. I won't get the URL here, it's too fiddly, but trust me, it's worth reading. Google J.K.Rowling's Ministry Of Magic Stephen King.

More egoboo!

After several months out in the world, my novel is still getting some reviews and some of them are nice! The following is by Virginia Lowe, in her "Create A Kids' Book" e-newsletter. She does have a web site, and a good one, but is not currently posting her newsletters there, so has given me permission to post this. For those of you who don't know about Virginia, she is a big name in the Australian children's/YA book community and does a very useful newsletter, good for writers, teachers and librarians.

Here it is, my latest egoboo:

Wolfborn by Sue Bursztynski (Woolshed Press)

I have only, to now, read Sue’s non-fiction titles (her Crime Time: Australians behaving badly I reviewed some years ago) but this is the first fiction I have read. I must admit my heart dropped a bit at yet another werewolf title, but instead it is a wonder.

She has based it on medieval legends, while bringing the characters very much to life. It is another world, not just ours hundreds of years ago – the three moons are a giveaway – but everything else seems just like a feudal Europe, which is still heavily forested and still has packs of wild wolves.

Etienne has come as a page to Sire Geraint’s castle, to finish his education. Geraint is a kindly, gentle lord, much loved by the peasants, other pages, and his household. But he also has a secret – even from his beautiful young wife. Etienne is suspicious, and looking for him one day, comes upon Jeanne and her mother Sylvia, who live together in the forest. Of course he falls in love – but it is not an easy relationship.

There is feuding between the local barons, and some passing between worlds, with a faerie hunt prominent – as in many Celtic tales.

His dog and one of his horses are also not entirely of this world – but are brilliant characters, as are the ones in human form, whether gods, faeries, bisclavret (born a werewolf) or loup-garou (made a werewolf through a pact with the Dark One) or just as human as they appear.

A tangled tale told brilliantly, with a strong feeling of the ancient legend coming through as well

Writing With A Day Job

I wrote this, originally, for the SCBWI newsletter, after reading articles about how you can make the best of your working day as a writer and others about how the education industry was still pretty good (not for me, or for some others I know, not for some time now). I never got around to sending it, so decided to pop it up here instead.

* * *

In Australia most writers have day jobs. The population is too small to buy a lot of books. The few who don’t have other jobs are usually married to someone who can support them as they work from home, at least until they earn enough to help pay the bills.

There are, of course, a few bestsellers, some more who have grants and the lucky few who are still selling education books; the market for that has slowed down here in recent years. One artist who had depended on the education industry for his bread and butter told me he was getting less and less work. I have had no luck in this area myself lately, despite having written several books for an education publisher, books that have done well. I did finally manage to score some literacy cards, after a lot of nagging, and that paid very well, but I don't think I have the energy to go back and nag again.

I work full-time as a teacher-librarian. That has some advantages, but mostly means I can forget about school visits, because I can’t get time off for visiting other schools! When my publisher invited all his authors to attend a writers’ festival at a rich private school last year, I was teaching English while everyone else got to promote and sign their books.

So how do you write let alone promote when you leave for work at 6.30 a.m. and get home at 6.30 p.m., to eat quickly and prepare classes?

If you have a car, leave it at home. Write on the train. I write late at night and listen to radio talk shows. Then I write some more on Sundays. If I’m having trouble focusing, I go out to a cafe and write there - but only on weekends and holidays. As a writer of mostly non-fiction, I can break up the work - research each individual chapter, draft, edit, then do the next one. It does, of course, take a lot longer to write a novel than if you don’t have to prepare classes and mark work. Try thinking of what’s happening with your hero when you have to mark Year 8 assignments, attend meetings and jump through hoops for the Education Department’s latest bright idea!

But I do have advantages when it comes to promotion. As a librarian and writer of genre fiction, I can get on panels at science fiction conventions, where sessions on children’s and YA fiction are the most popular. Everyone has an opinion on children’s books and would like to hear others talk about it. At last year’s World Science Fiction Convention in Melbourne, where I live, I didn’t have my new novel, Wolfborn, which only came out in December, so I asked my publishers for some goodies and they came through with bookmarks, posters and sample chapters. I asked to do a reading and a signing and when everyone was in a long queue at the next signer’s table, I smiled sweetly and said to those at the end, “As long as you’re waiting, would you like a sample chapter? A signed bookmark?” Quite a few people happily came over for the freebies.

At school, I can arrange a launch for the students and call in the local press. I don’t have to get the librarian on-side - I am the librarian! The Principal loves it because the school is promoted when I do this. Before the launch, I run a themed trivia quiz - spies or crime or, in the case of my novel, werewolves and folklore. The winner gets a signed copy of the book. Some others get signed posters or bookmarks.

Because Wolfborn is a medieval paranormal novel, I had the chance to get the history teachers involved. Year 8 studies the Middle Ages. I invited the kids to check bits of the manuscript for historical accuracy (I’d done my own research, but it was a fun activity for them). Those who responded got extra credit, a certificate, a signed copy and a mention on the thank you page.

I do feel jealous when I read chirpy little articles about overcoming writers’ block and arranging your writing day; it must be so nice to be able to concentrate on the writing!

But I work with my readers. And they’re proud of me. They borrow my books - I rarely have to shelve them before the year is over - and sometimes buy them. One girl said, “I’m going to borrow it from the public library during the holidays, Miss, and I’m going to say, ‘My teacher wrote this and I am so proud!’ ”

How many people who write all day and go jogging between chapters to overcome the writers’ block can boast of that?

Currently Reading...

There's a pile of review books in my living-room and some others I have to read for school, with the authors coming to visit or because they're CBCA short-listed books. I've finished Sonya Hartnett's Midnight Zoo. I'll wait to see what my student Selena has to say about it. She is busy preparing an interview with the delightful Cath Crowley. I'm still reading About A Girl, which Selena liked in the end though she was uneasy with the lesbian angle when she started. I'd like to have her comments about these two and Six Impossible Things and will post them when she does. After About A Girl I just have to read Melina Marchetta's The Piper's Son and I'm done with this year's Older Readers shortlist.

I'm halfway through Michael Pryor's Hour Of Need, last of The Laws of Magic steampunk series, nearly finished Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld, a little way into A Clash of Kings, reading Adrian Stirling's The Comet Box (he's coming to visit my school week after next) and about to start All I ever Wanted (Vikki Wakefield - also visiting) and Tim Pegler's Five Parts Dead. Starting the latest HIVE novel, Zero Hour, which I should have read and reviewed some time ago. I have a copy of George Ivanoff's Gamers' Challenge and a couple more Ford Street titles, just received, plus a couple of adult (as opposed to YA) novels sent me for reviewing, will read and review them as soon as I get through the YA, which is what my blog specialises in. I also got some more titles from Allen and Unwin to review. I have the latest Kate Forsyth book, yum! And there are all those small-press titles I bought at Swancon and Continuum. I'll get through them all eventually! :-)

But this is why I'm being rather slow with my reviews, plus wanting to get on with my own writing.

HAUNTING VIOLET By Alyxandra Harvey. London:Bloomsbury, 2011

Alyxandra Harvey is best known for her popular Drake Chronicles series, about the likeable family of vampires, the Drakes, with all those truly hot sons and an ass-kicking martial arts mother. They’re among the few vampire books I enjoy, mainly because they have a sense of humour and aren’t really about vampires biting people but about fights between various vampire clans, ranging from those who think humans are cattle to those who, like the Drakes, are happy to get their blood without harming anyone.

In Haunting Violet, Ms Harvey moves from present-day rural America to Victorian England, when séances were a regular part of middle-class entertainment and there was an entire spiritualist movement.

Violet Willoughby's mother is a phoney medium, making her living from convincing grieving families that she can communicate with the late Horace or Amelia. Violet has been helping out in the business since childhood, unhappy but knowing there isn’t a lot she can do about it. It’s a living –and her domineering mother is scary! While at a house party where her mother is expecting a triumphant performance, Violet is horrified to find that there really are ghosts – and she can see them. Even worse, the most persistent ghost is the murdered twin sister of one of the other guests. If Violet doesn’t find the murderer, the killer may strike again.

It’s either solve the mystery or end up an old woman with the carpet still dripping with the water in which the body was dumped - that's if she isn't murdered herself!

Despite the gloomy cover, there is plenty of the over-the-top humour that makes the Drake Chronicles books such fun to read. The image of Violet turning up at a society ball in her soggy, muddy underwear after fleeing the murderer is unforgettable. The class structure of the time as seen through Violet’s eyes is bizarre but funny. It's wise to set this in Victorian times, when it might be possible to get away with a murder of this kind. If it had happened in the present day, the forensics team and detectives would be all over the crime scene before coming to the conclusion that it was an accident - especially with the victim having bruises at throat and wrists.


Definitely recommended!

New link added - Rhiannon Hart

If you look over to the list of links on the right, you will see the latest - the blog of fellow Melbourne writer, Rhiannon Hart, whose first YA novel is being published by Random House Australia in September. I discovered Rhiannon's blog while net-surfing and found some enjoyable posts. There are book reviews and travel reports and trivia and all sorts of good stuff.

Welcome to The Great Raven, Rhiannon! Nice to have encountered you!

Changing Yesterday By Sean McMullen. Melbourne: Ford Street Publishing 2011.

In Before The Storm, Liore and Fox, two young cadets from a dystopian future travelled back in time to 1901 Melbourne, to prevent a terrorist group, the Lionhearts, from blowing up the first Australian Parliament. The disaster will start a century-long war which the British Empire loses, resulting in a militaristic society and six billion deaths.

The time travellers were helped by four local teenagers – siblings Daniel and Emily, artist Muriel and petty crook Barry. They succeeded in preventing the explosion, but as this book starts, the Lionhearts are trying again. It is clear that whatever happens, history is going to try mending itself.

The situation is not helped by some personal disasters. Muriel and Fox run off together to Paris, breaking Daniel’s heart, and Barry runs off with Liore’s advanced weapon, with plans to make money on it. When Daniel’s parents send him off to England and Barry must flee Australia one step ahead of both the murderous Lionhearts and an enraged Liore, the action starts all over again, this time moving out of Australia.

Changing Yesterday , like Before The Storm, is a deliciously entertaining romp with a steampunk flavour. Despite the seriousness of the situation – the world could come to an end, for heaven’s sake! - there’s plenty of humour here. Emily is replaced as a protagonist by a young woman from Ballarat, Madeline, who has a yearning to become a private detective and just might make it. Liore may be a spectacularly good warrior, but she has no idea how to relate to others. She badly needs a local ally and Madeline is perfect for the role. Characters need to learn some life lessons – Liore comes to regret having had affection cut out of her genetic make-up while Daniel needs to become stronger.

Sean McMullen is well known for his bestselling adult speculative fiction, but his last few YA novels suggest to me, at least, that this is a promising new direction for this author. Here’s hoping he will continue to write for teens!

I’m inserting here a guest post Sean did at From Hook to Book, Christine Maree Bell’s blog. It will give you a fascinating insight into the research he did for this novel.

MOLE HUNT (The Maximus Black Files #1) by Paul Collins. Melbourne, Ford Street Publishing, 2011.

The “mole” of the title, Maximus Black, isn’t the blind, digging creature but the spy kind. Only in his teens, Maximus Black is a brilliant cadet in RIM, a galactic spy agency. - that is, until he commits a murder or two and plays with some advanced technology as part of his plan to dominate the galaxy. But Maximus is not without opposition. Anneke Longshadow, another star recruit whose guardian he’s wiped out, knows he has to be stopped before he finds some frightening information left over from the old Empire, information that will allow him access to battleships of a kind no one is able to do any more.

Mind you, the technology in the universe of this space opera is pretty advanced in its own right. Even death doesn’t have to be permanent if you know how to make the right arrangements.

There's some fascinating world-building here. This universe has an elaborate system of law and order - or should that be disorder? While the heroes/anti-heroes are running around breaking into bases, exploding things, nearly killing each other, whatever world they're on gets on with its own daily life, generally a pretty grubby one. Big corporations run things and send out assassins against each other. Even the CEO of one of them isn't safe from the others. If the board don't like what you're doing, you can expect a lot worse than a large dismissal payout. If you're an ordinary person on the street, you're probably safe enough unless Maximus Black gets to you.

The action, which alternates between the two main characters, is non-stop. Another review of this book I have come across says the pace would give Matthew Reilly a nosebleed and I can see why. Nobody seems to eats or sleep, except Anneke, and every time she stops for a rest, something disastrous happens. I’d describe it as Matthew Reilly on steroids. I can see this as a graphic novel, complete with explosions and crashes every other page. It reminds me, in some ways, of those Mad Magazine cartoons, Spy vs Spy.

One thing this author does that Matthew Reilly didn’t, in the one novel I managed to read, is create at least one sympathetic character, Anneke. Anneke isn’t wishy washy. She’s just as good at sneaking into bases and stealing as he is – and surviving afterwards. It’s just that she has a conscience – he doesn’t.

Oddly enough, dreadful as Maximus is – and at this stage, at least, he has no redeeming qualities whatsoever – you still want to see him escape whatever fix he has gotten himself into. Anneke does manage to outwit him a number of times, but she isn’t actively trying to kill him.

For kids who like action, action, action.

Here's a link to the YouTube book trailer, if anyone's interested:

Mole Hunt Book Trailer

Some more favourite reviews - egoboo rules!

About time I gave some publicity to the lovely folk who enjoyed my novel and said so. There are more, for another day, but here are a few.

One of my earliest reviews was right after the book came out in December. It was on the Burnbright web site run by Marianne De Pierres, written by a lady called Belinda Hamilton. The same web site did an interview with me as well, which you'll see in the Big 4 Interviews on the left of the page.

I did an interview on 3RRR with Rob Jan, whom I've known forever and who said he'd been relieved to find the book was better than some of the other stuff he had to read as a radio reviewer. Rob actually created a world with me for our fan fiction and the rather silly shaggy unicorn in the novel comes from that universe. His media spec fic program, Zero-G, has been on for years.

The review on Buzzwords was written by Oliver Phomavanh, who is a very funny man and a delightful children's writer in his own right - several of our Year 7 boys are loving his books.

George Ivanoff, who is a children's writer and the only person I know who actually manages to make a living out of his writing, reviewed my book on the blog Literary Clutter, as well as interviewing me on the same site.

Katherine Peterson reviewed the book on Specusphere, the same wonderful web site fellow blogger Satima writes for.

These are some of my egoboo reviews. There are some that are quite good, but hate this or that sentence. There are others that hate the book for one reason or another, including one that said it was badly-written but he couldn't put it down!

As long as he contributes to my royalties. ;-)

New stat counter

Today I decided it was about time to let you all see how many hits I'm getting. There are other web sites getting more, but I'd say I have a respectable number. Thing is, I don't have 695 public followers like some other bloggers and those I do have don't comment very often, so I thought I'd like to reassure anyone I review on this web site that yes, people WILL be reading about your book here, whether they comment or not. There are writers out there who are aware of this site and like it very much - and others who don't put links up from their own sites even when I've given them a very good review.

I had a chat about this issue with Paul Collins, who suggested it might be because I seem to have so few followers, so I thought it might be a good time to show the hits. These don't count my own checks of my site after I've published; you can select this as an option on Blogger.

Speaking of putting links up, here's one to Anthony Panegyres' site - he's on my blog roll, but has recently given Wolfborn a nice review, go take a look. And thank you, Anthony!:

A Brief Look At Wolfborn

There have been plenty more, by others, I just haven't got around to putting in links, but really must put in some of my favourites in the next day or two instead of complaining others don't do links to my reviews!

SheKilda preparation

Now I'm on term holidays I have started to rustle up the stuff for the SheKilda web site. It's very exciting to be doing this. The pics, to start with. I've downloaded some of the bio blurbs. I'd assumed I only had one thing to offer to the field of crime writing, Crime Time: Australians behaving badly, but after I had a look at the web site of my co-panellist, Goldie Alexander, I realised that her children's crime book looked like a chapter book and I suddenly remembered I did a chapter book mystery called "The Sea's Secret" for Pearson. And a short story in Paul and Meredith's Thrillogy series, "The Egyptian Figurines Mystery". And an article on forensic science for the NSW School Magazine. An article that required at least as much research as for any of my education titles, because before they commissioned me to do it, I hadn't known anything about forensics. I had some help from Dr Shelley Robertson, who will also be at the con. She checked my article for accuracy and answered some questions. I can meet her, finally, and maybe see if we can add another person to the panel, to make it a proper panel. It's kind of hard to do anything with two people, though I have done it in emergencies at cons when someone got sick or forgot to turn up. I do hope there will be one more person!

Welcome Kevin Lee!

If you read my post about the Reading Matters conference - and I know from my stats that a lot of you did read it, you just didn't comment - you'll have seen the picture of Kevin Lee. I've known Kevin for some years; we meet regularly at Booktalkers, where he comes for one reason and one only: he loves children's and YA books. Now he's been rewarded for his love of this fiction with a job as one of this year's Inkys judges - and he's set up a blog, Someone To Write With, which I've popped up on the links at the side. I hope he'll use it fore reviewing, though not the Inkys books, because judges can't do that. We can always use another YA review site.

Go check out Kevin's site!

Things I Learned In Research

I'm doing research on the year 1964, specifically the visit of the Beatles to Melbourne in June of that year, for a potential story. I have been invited to submit something and was asked for historical fiction. I've already had a look on-line and downloaded some personal reminiscences and had a quick look at the Beatles interview and clips from the concert.

There isn't more than the slight beginnings of a tale as yet and who knows, maybe it won't work out, but I decided to immerse myself in 1964 anyway, and hoped to find a human interest story or two that might help. So I took advantage of term break to visit the State Library today, using the wonderful microfilm collection.

Here are some things I learned from the Sun, June 1964:

Women weren't allowed to serve on juries in Victoria. They also didn't get equal pay in teaching. Probably my nice old teacher that year, Mrs Jamieson, didn't care particularly; she was already in her 70s at the time. Most of my other teachers in those days were male anyway.

The movies playing in Melbourne cinemas included Lawrence of Arabia, 40 Pounds of Trouble and Cleopatra.

Big stage musicals starting that month: Carousel at the Princess, Camelot at Her Majesty's. Star of that one was Paul Daneman, who'd played the lead in London - and if you're a Blake's Seven fan you may remember him in an episode of that show.

There was a new opera singer called Robert Allman - I remember him in his later years, singing for Opera Australia, as Rigoletto and other baritone roles. A wonderful singer, and here he was in his youth, just starting out.

If you put in more than 30 shillings worth of orders at Spotless Dry Cleaners you got a free Beatles beaker (suitable for hot drinks!)

The Vietnam War was hovering. Oh, we weren't involved yet, except for a few military advisers over there, but it was coming. There were several chilling articles about it - chilling if, like me, you knew what was going to happen! I printed out some of those articles.

Human interest stories; a teenage schoolgirl called Susette Belle, President of the local fan club who desperately wanted to meet the Beatles and was granted her wish. A slightly older girl, Carol, who wanted to come to their concert, but lived in Tasmania and couldn't afford the trip over. After writing a 70,000 word letter to the Beatles - 814 pages! - she too got her wish, courtesy of the Sun. Cripes, 70,000 words! The length of a novel!

There was a lot of detail about the crowds outside the hotel. I have had a chat with my brother-in-law Gary, who was there. He didn't get to the concert - the tickets were sold out. He did remember standing in that crowd of 10,000 outside the Southern Cross and outside Festival Hall.

Another thing I learned was that you can save these pages on to a USB stick, so tomorrow I'm going back and take one with me!

A POCKETFUL OF EYES By Lili Wilkinson. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2011

Bee is spending her summer holidays working in the taxidermy department of the Melbourne Museum of Natural History before beginning Year 12. She has enough problems on her plate, what with her best friend running off with her boyfriend and her geeky mother bringing home a new boyfriend of her own from the Dungeons and Dragons group, when her grumpy boss is found dead in the Museum’s Red Rotunda one morning. The police say it’s suicide, but Bee hasn’t been reading lots of crime fiction from Trixie Belden to PD James for nothing. Can she and the cute but exasperating Toby solve the mystery with nothing but their logic, a few clues and asking “WWPD?” (what would Poirot do?)?

You do need to suspend disbelief before you can enjoy the usual over-the-top Wilkinson humour in this one. How likely is it that the police would declare suicide before so much as moving the body from the museum? What about forensic samples? Why are there no police officers asking questions? Also, Bee and Toby seem to get away with an awful lot of nicking important clues from suspects’ offices without anyone wondering where the documents have disappeared, let alone saying, “Hang on, weren’t those pesky kids here five minutes ago?”. But belief is worth suspending.

I think it’s a bit premature to be comparing this author to Agatha Christie, as the back cover blurb does, but it’s still a very entertaining romp through the halls of crime fiction, with red herrings, winks and nods to various writers and I have to admit that, while there were a lot of clues – or, rather, Clues – leaping around yelling, “Hey! Hey! Clue! Look!” at the reader, I didn’t see the rather Poirot-ish conclusion coming.

It was worth reading for the heroine’s personal life alone. With a house full of D and D, a mother who’s on the Playstation duelling Darth Vader and a Celestial Badger in her mother’s life, who can blame her for fleeing into the world of logic and reality? At the same time, her mother is quite lovable and there is no doubt of her affection for Bee. There are definite coming-of-age elements in the novel.

Girls will get a chuckle out of this. I did.

The Web and historical research

Isn't the Internet WONDERFUL? Not only do I get to keep this blog and not have to rely on someone else publishing my reviews, but I can look up stuff. Lots of stuff! I'm beginning to research the year 1964 and when I went on Google Videos, there were all these videos of the Beatles performing in Melbourne in 1964! The Beatles interviewed! There wasn't as much of what I wanted about the 1967 Referendum, just a couple of reminiscences and one bit of silent footage of Gough Whitlam making a speech, with text telling you what he'd said. But it's very exciting being able to just go on-line and find stuff. There are newspaper archives on-line, but I'll be going to the State Library for that part of the research, because they take ages to load and I'm not quite sure, yet, what I want to find. I'll be looking up prices and what was on at the movies and on TV and what was on the letters pages and the headlines. The Web is great if there's something specific you want, but if you just want to wander around the year 1964 - or 1967 - the good old-fashioned microfilm and the State Library is best.

Roll on the holidays!

Selena Wang's thoughts on Graffiti Moon

Guest blogger Selena has been helping me to read the books on this year's CBCA short list. Here are her thoughts on Cath Crowley's Graffiti Moon:

The best thing about this book is how the author put this amazing story in one night.
Graffiti Moon is a lovely and interesting book, and I enjoyed every page of it. I never thought I would enjoy a romance story, but I loved this one very much. When the author talks about Shadow’s painting, it’s as if I can see it with own eyes; the author made Lucy’s glass work so interesting, now I just want to try them myself.

Getting hooked on small press

I've just come back from another con with another small press collection - this time, Ticonderoga Press's More Scary Kisses. I bought several small-press books at Swancon, others at Aussiecon 4 - locally published volumes of short stories by some terrific writers. I've been getting hooked on these anthologies. There's something wonderful about opening a crisp new collection of stories which are a mix of big-name writers and others I have either just discovered or have read only in other small-press books and magazines. I'm becoming a big fan of, among others, Thoraiya Dyer, whose beautiful stories have appeared in our own Andromeda Spaceways (one in the new issue, which I've just received) and Stephen Dedman, whose collection Never Seen By Waking Eyes has a lot of my favourite stories and some I missed when they first came out. I've delighted over the collection of New Ceres stories, New Ceres Nights, and Dirk Flinthart's New Ceres novella Angel Rising (Ninja! Nuns!) and those delightful Agog collections. I have a stack of them by my bed, waiting their turn to be opened and loved.

One of the stories in More Scary Kisses, "The Sword Of Darcy", was submitted to ASIM. I got it in slush and thought it was a hoot. It got as far as the slushpool, but alas, nobody took it before it dropped off the list. It's just not possible to take every delightful story in the pool - there are only so many we can publish and each issue has to have balance. So i was glad to see it had found a home and enjoyed the re-read as much as I did the first time around.

The big publishers don't do a lot of anthologies and, with some exceptions, the few they do tend to be either re-prints or stuff by big-name writers. It's possible to experiment more in small press and those people published in it can eventually put together a collection of their own and - who knows? - sell something book-length to a big publisher.

Meanwhile, we can all enjoy. I'm off to curl up with More Scary Kisses.

In the midst of the con - Continuum 7

I missed the Friday night, because I spend Friday evenings with my family, but turned up bright and early on Saturday. One of my Sunday panels had been brought forward to Saturday, so I was doing my reading at 2.20 and panels on trilogies and YA fiction back to back at 5.00 and 6.00 pm. This meant that some folk who had expected to hear about "Dark Disney" found they were in the room where a panel was discussing the oddities of the trilogy/series - and, I believe, some turned up for trilogies this morning only to find it was about Dark Disney. It meant I could sleep in a bit this morning.

I met some friends and made the acquaintance of some people I hadn't met. There was the very nice Crisetta MacLeod, who was running the trilogies panel and said she'd read and reviewed my novel for Aurealis Express (still can't find the review and might have to ask her to send me a link). Richard Harland was with us and George Ivanoff. I was probably the only writer on the panel who hadn't yet been asked for a sequel to my novel. We discussed some of the difficulties of the series novel, not only because of the problems they make for readers and librarians, but the problems they make for writers who might already have planned them out and then not get to write them. After this, Richard and I whisked across to a smaller room to do a panel on YA fiction in Australia, with two eastern suburbs secondary teachers. A bunch of us went out to dinner, one of the pleasures of going to conventions.

This morning I got in on time for an event at 11.00 am, the launch of Lucy Sussex's reprint anthology, which of course I bought, because although I've probably read many of the stories over the year, I haven't read them all and it's handy to have them together. Emily, one of the con committee who sings, dressed up as a sort of Dolly Parton character to sing a country and western version of Waltzing Matilda. She's a member of a band and is looking up stuff about a certain female bushranger. I told her about Mary Anne Bugg,, of whom she hadn't heard, and showed her the chapter in my book.

At noon, Dave Freer gave his GoH speech. Such a nice man and I really think his books sound worth reading - haven't read anything yet, but will pursue it. He and his wife live on Flinders Island, which sounds a peaceful place if you can make a iving without having to go to the mainland daily, because there's one ferry a week.

Five of us went to lunch together and again, the company was good, though I'm afraid I have rather lost my taste for Asian cuisine in the last few years and two days in a row is a bit much. I do still go once a month with Nova Mob to a quite nice place in Chinatown, where they have some vegetarian options and of course, everyone eats sushi. Still - tomorrow I'm taking my lunch with me and maybe just going somewhere, perhaps a food court, where I can get a smoothie to drink with it.

More when it's over.

What I'm Reading: The Billionaire's Curse by Richard Newsome

It's fast-moving and funny and a clear case of a writer wanting modern kids to be able to enjoy the kind of adventure he got to read as a child. There are a lot of them now. There's plenty to be said for those old adventure stories, so if current writers can do them too, good on them.

I'm still two-thirds of the way through, so I'll keep the main comments for the review, but so far - what a hoot! Villains, kids running around trying to find a stolen diamond, the boy who's suddenly the richest kid in the world and finding himself a target for murder. Can he and his friends find the missing treasure? Can he solve the mystery before the villains succeed in killing him?

I'm betting the answer to those questions is yes! It always was in Enid Blyton. But then, Julian, Ann, Dick, George and Timmy the dog were never in any real danger, were they? Not in the books I remember reading.

I can't wait to read the sequel, which is waiting on my to-be-read pile.

CBCA short list 2011: GRAFFITI MOON By Cath Crowley. Pan Macmillan, 2010

I'm making my way through the short-listed books as I can get hold of them. My own opinions are just those: my own. You needn't agree with them. If you've been following this blog, you'll know that I have already reviewed Six Impossible Things by Fiona Wood. My opinion on that one hasn't changed: it was an enjoyable book with a lot going for it, but a number of things that made me say, "Ouch!" such as the notion that a real-life school would, a. give the important job of organising the school dance as a punishment and, b. more importantly, in case someone writes to tell me that their school did it, so there, that a real school would then allow this dance to be unsupervised by teachers, putting itself at great risk of being sued if anything went wrong, as it does in this novel.

Now, on to my comments on the lovely Graffiti Moon.

I really should have read this some time ago, as I got it for reviewing, but was distracted by this and that and suddenly I had a million more review copies piling up. Now I've finished, I wish I had read it immediately! It's a lovely, gentle romantic comedy with coming-of-age elements. The whole thing takes place over one magical night in Melbourne, as glassblowing artist heroine Lucy spends the last night of Year 12 searching for her hero, graffiti artist Shadow, not knowing he's closer than she thought - and has his own problems. Like the fact that she broke his nose on their first date?

The teens in this are teens, with all the troubles teens have -it does help that the author has been a teacher herself and worked with teenagers - and there are so many times in the story when the characters are near disaster!

I loved the wacky relationships - Lucy's parents who have split with her father going into the shed to write while Mum finishes her novel, but not having the decency to want a divorce, and her friends Dylan and Daisy who adore each other but may also split after he threw eggs at her on Muckup Day. Or maybe not.

It's deservedly on this year's CBCA short list for Older Readers and I hope it does well. Fingers crossed!

THE SHATTERING By Karen Healey. Melbourne: Allen and Unwin, 2011

This is the second novel by Kiwi author Karen Healey, who lives in Australia. It’s not a sequel to Guardian Of The Dead, but a fine cracking mystery in its own right.

Keri, a teen living in the West Coast town of Summerton in New Zealand’s South Island, has recently lost her brother to suicide and is still grieving, as are her parents. In fact, the funeral is barely over. Nobody can understand why Jake killed himself. There was no warning, no suicide note. He simply shot himself – and Keri found the bleeding body.

And Jake is only one of a bunch of teenage boys who have killed themselves over the last several years. Two friends, Janna and Sione, have also lost brothers. When Janna suggests there are connections, Keri and Sione are willing to consider it.

Something must be going on. The town has been beautiful one day, perfect the next, for years now, since the boys started killing themselves. Summerton is the only town in this area that seems to have survived the financial crisis with weather and tourism intact. Janna is a witch, one of a number in Summerton. She believes magic is involved – could she be right? Are there really supernatural elements? Read it and decide for yourself. No spoilers here!

This is not only a thriller, but explores teen issues. Each of the characters must learn a lesson to help him or her grow. The nerdy Sione is not really sure how his brother felt about him and often can’t see what is under his nose. Keri has her own issues, apart from the grief, but to tell you would spoil it. Janna has some hard decisions to make about her life.

The book takes you into the heart of a small town in which everyone knows everyone else and any secrets will spread like wildfire.

If you like adventure and folklore and mystery, you should get a lot out of this one. Recommended.

SheKilda Again!

A few years ago I went to SheKilda, ("No she didn't!" people cried out) a convention on women's crime fiction run by Sisters In Crime, held at the St Kilda Town Hall. It was great fun - and you couldn't throw a stone without knocking over a science fiction fan! There's this overlap, which I understand because I'm a part of it.

Well, there's another one coming up in October, though at a different venue, and this time I have been invited to do a panel on writing crime for children. Hopefully, I can use the opportunity to promote Crime Time: Australians Behaving Badly, and you never know - people might ask for it in bookshops before then once they see the program. It's my only crime-themed book, but it's a good one, if I do say so myself, and I need to let people know it's there.

It will be a good con, if it's anything like last time and I hope all my Aussie blog readers will come.

More later.

Reading Matters - Back From the Con!

I had to get up almost as early for this event as to go to work. I was taking some things to show around and some bookmarks to hand out and needed a good breakfast before leaving home. At least I didn't have to make lunch! I made sure I was wearing my Wolfborn t-shirt, of course. It was a good event for me as a teacher-librarian, but I also meant to make sure I promoted my books.

When I reached the venue, RMIT's Storey Hall, which is a strange building with some decorative green lumps on the roof, I found that the booksellers had ten copies of Wolfborn. They took three of my Notable stickers in case they had to send back the rest. In the end, they sold nearly all the books! :-)

The first presentation was Markus Zusak's, including a performance from his novel The Book Thief. I remember coming across a book trailer for that, which won the Random House teen competition a few years back. It was terribly elaborate and sophisticated, with live action. Never mind, it doesn't have to be live action to be wonderful!

Markus Zusak spoke and read from his newest book, that he's still working on, warning that he's the worst reader ever (he was okay!). I haven't ever been able to get into his books, but I might have a go now. He looked about sixteen at the first SLAV/Viewpoint conference I saw him at, and still looks pretty young.

This was followed by some panels by other guests such as Lucy Christopher, Karen Healey, Kirsty Eagar and Brenton McKenna, whose graphic novel Ubby's Underdogs. is set in Broome in the 1940s and whose heroine, Ubby, is based on his own grandmother.

We were all given free copies of Karen Healey's new book, The Shattering, which I'm enjoying so far, and will review before donating it to my library.

After lunch, we had another panel, which included Markus and Cassandra Clare and Melina Marchetta, who is apparently writing a sequel to Finnikin of the Rock, her fantasy novel about the refugee experience - damn. I'd always thought it was a perfectly good stand-alone novel that had made its point first time around and had a happy ending. Possibly, she'll throw her heroes into more angst. Oh, well.

There were a lot of good offerings over the weekend, but so many I'll just mention some that were highlights for me.

Cassandra Clare was a jolly American lady who did a very entertaining talk that made me want to read at least her first book in the angel series. It was interesting to hear Rebecca Stead, who told us all the autobiographical elements that went into her time travel novel When You Reach Me, which was set in New York City during her own childhood.

I ran into Kirsty Eagar during the morning tea and she asked me if we knew each other, she'd swear she had met me. I said I hadn't met her, but had loved Saltwater Vampires, with its nasty vamps and its Batavia incident background. I gave her my card so she could look up my review.

There was an enjoyable panel on the subject of book design, with a panel of artists who had been given a brief to design a cover for a new book. When they had shown their own designs, explaining their thoughts on the matter, there was a panel of "experts" to comment on them - a librarian, a bookseller and a boy from Melbourne High, who was apparently "Captain of the Book Club", whatever that is. Hmm, wonder if any of my book clubbers would like to be captain? I thought perhaps it might have been better to get an ordinary student who didn't go to a selective high school, because his thoughts on the matter didn't mesh with what I know from our students that they like. Still, it was good to see some of the work behind book design.

There was a very fine panel by Cath Crowley (Graffiti Moon, her latest) and Leanne Hall, talking about how they researched the urban bits behind their new novels, complete with breathtaking photos they took of night time Melbourne, to go with their night-themed novels.

My favourite was the panel with Richard Newsome and the delightful Oliver Phomavanh, a double comic act, with Oliver zooming around on his scooter and making his soft toys "speak". Oliver said that his over-the-top teacher in Thai-Riffic! was based on himself - he'd also mentioned this on the student day and showed pictures of himself with his class and some of his bizarre class competitions mentioned in the novel.

Argh, I have a LOT of reading to do! Just as soon as I've prepared classes and cleaned the house and ...

I met several CBCA judges who told me how much they'd enjoyed my novel (even if not enough to short-list it, but you never know, apparently to get on the Notables six judges have to think it should be short-listed and I may have met those judges). One even complimented me on Crime Time, which she thought had been a Notable. I said it hadn't, because I would have known from my publisher, but I checked the list this morning just in case and sure enough it wasn't there. Oh, well. She'd also been on the committee when Potions To Pulsars got a Notable and loved it. A little egoboo now and then is nice and even nicer, though only one person I know personally from Booktalkers asked for a signed copy, they sold pretty much all of the copies of Wolfborn they had at the table. There was only one left of ten copies at the last afternoon tea and for all I know they may have sold that too. They didn't have Crime Time, I'm afraid, but yesterday I was wearing my CT t-shirt and made sure I had bookmarks for both books to hand out. And when I was at the MSFC mini-con the other week, I made sure that every copy of Wolfborn I sold had a CT bookmark in it. ;-)

It was nice that they had at least my latest book; I spoke to Pam Saunders the other day, who said that they'd asked the booksellers to bring books by about six writers, including me, who weren't on the program. I had sent my emails to request it, but you can never be sure whether they'll do it or ignore you.

Afterwards, I had a lovely chat with one of the CBCA judges and she, like me, loves reading over-the-top non-fiction and adores Geoffrey Trease and Rosemary Sutcliff. We hoped that the movie of Eagle Of The Ninth, which still hasn't turned up here, will get more children and teens into reading her books - some at my school are already re-discovering her.

I'm just going to add a photo of myself with Kevin Lee, a gentleman who works in a bank, but is passionate about YA literature, whom I know from many a Booktalkers event, and then go off to breakfast. My smoke alarm has warned me that the egg i put on to poach has started to burn! Looks like it's fried now.

Off to the conference!

Today and tomorrow I'm going ti be at Reading Matters. It's a conference that happens every two years, organised by the Centre for Youth Literature at the State Library in Melbourne, held at RMIT's Storey Hall. I have been to all of them. It's a great opportunity to find out what's new, see writers I otherwise might never see or hear speak, mingle with fellow teacher-librarians - and, okay, promote my latest book!

I shall wear my Wolfborn T-shirt today and take along bookmarks for both Wolfborn and Crime Time. I'll wear the crime Time T-shirt tomorrow. And I'll be taking along some "Notable" stickers in case the bookseller actually does have copies of my book. One of the organisers told me last night that they had asked the booksellers to bring copies of books by about six writers coming to the con but not on the panels, so that's nice. I did email the lady from Reading's some time ago and hopefully, between us the CYL and I have persuaded them.

Time for breakfast and printing out the program! More tomorrow night, when I hope I have time to write a con report and maybe put up some pics.

EXILE By Rebecca Lim. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2011

In Mercy, we met the fallen angel of that name. At least, that’s what she calls herself for convenience, because she doesn’t remember what her actual name is. All she knows is that she was once big in heaven and somehow stuffed it up, hanging out with her beloved Luc (Lucifer?), who led the rebellion. For thousands of years she has been thrown into different human bodies and lives, leaving when the time was right – or necessary!

I saw the first book as Quantum Leap with angels, with Mercy as a sort of female Sam Beckett who didn’t have the benefit of the friendly hologram Al to help her work out what she was there to do.

Mercy was a mystery-adventure in which the heroine helped both Carmen, the young soprano whose body she was inhabiting and Ryan, a boy whose sister disappeared a couple of years ago, before “leaping” from Carmen’s body into another life.

Now Mercy is inhabiting Lela, a Melbourne waitress whose mother is dying of cancer. And Luc is back in Mercy’s dreams, urging her to return to Paradise, the town in which she met Ryan, and find him again. Only this way, he tells her, can she and Luc be re-united. Because Ryan had seen and cared for her even when she was in Carmen’s body, Mercy finds the idea rather appealing. After all, Lela will soon be alone and free to run off with Ryan, if she can find him. And there is this thing called the Internet, which can be used to find just about anyone.

Why, she thinks, shouldn’t she consider herself for once?

But things are not that simple in the human world or in angelic warfare. Is Luc quite as wonderful as he seems? Are the group of angels known as “The Eight” quite as dreadful as Luc would have her believe?

And who is going to die on the same day as Lela’s mother?

Despite her tendency, in this novel, to stuff up, Mercy still manages to help some of the characters whose lives cross Lela’s, including an ageing stripper escaping an abusive ex.

I like this series so far, for its difference from other novels of the genre. The fallen angel is female and it’s implied that she did something very stupid way back when, rather than evil. I’m sure we’ll eventually find out what. Meanwhile, the idea of having her occupy human bodies and lives makes it possible to keep the series going and perhaps try something different in each.

Will it work for teenage girls? Well, there are enough hot males in it to keep them interested and meanwhile, I have to take this book back to my school, because there’s a teenage girl who’s waiting for it.

Recommended for girls from about fifteen upwards.

The MSFC mini-con

Yesterday I went along to the Melbourne Science Fiction Club mini-con as the invited GoH. Very nice, my first time as a guest speaker at a con!

It was a freezing day when people would rather stay at home and the audience was not very big although it was bigger by the time I began than when I arrived. I forgot to take my camera, but thank heavens, that indefatigable photographer Helena Binns was along, snapping pics, and here is one of them.

I arrived at just after 11.00 a.m. with my ten copies of Wolfborn and, seeing how few folk were there, wondered if I'd have more copies than audience! However, I found a table and set up, popping Crime Time bookmarks into them, with a special con price; I'd bought the books from Random House at author's price and could sell them cheaper than RRP and still get the equivalent of my royalties out of them.

(I've had my first lot of royalties for Wolfborn, by the way, much to my delight! It's been YEARS since my advance was earned back that quickly - since the GST, in fact. At this stage, however, the only book that hasn't yet earned back its advance is Crime Time, and that's because of the messiness of putting children's non-fiction anywhere kids will actually find it. Bookshops never seem to know what to do with them. One book store manager told me that when he put the books facing outwards, he sold them right away. It's done well in school libraries, though, and I'm going to wear my Crime Time t-shirt to Reading Matters conference and see how many can sell that way. Not that the booksellers will bring any with them. But it might remind people).

To my delight, I actually sold three copies before I even started my talk. People stopped to chat, whether I knew them or not. The first talk was by a teenage boy called Duncan, who was keen to discuss computer games, which have really become elaborate since the first few games like Space Invaders and Pacman. I can remember when Prince of Persia was a basic animated figure jumping across chasms.

I hadn't thought I should have the cheek to ask for equipment to show my very silly crude book trailer, but as they had the equipment set up I asked if they could keep it that way and they saved the thing on to the desktop so I could put away my USB stick.

I explained that I'd prepared it for my students, who will be making their own book trailers later this term. It won't be going up on YouTube, even if it was good, because I've used copyright material, but it makes a good example that they can have a laugh at and do much better. I was pleased when the audience had a laugh over my "big soppy dog" slide - you know, "Faerie! The Lord of Animals! Ruthless Villains! And a big soppy dog."

That made a good start to the talk. I talked about the background to the novel and the research and the editing done on it. One lady asked if there was anything I'd rather had not been edited out, i.e. "will there be a director's cut?" and I admitted the book looks much better for the editing, because you can't always see things when you've been so close to it, and the editors were pretty good; when I said, "I don't think this should change and here's why" they said, "Fair enough." I told them about the Year 8 students who had read bits of the novel because I wanted them to be involved, and how supportive my students were of all my writing.

I spoke of the long time it took to get the thing published and the problems with publishers who moved from one company to another and then rejected your book again! In the end, it was lucky for me that one particular publisher did move, because she was finally able to accept my book that she'd had to reject last time even though she'd liked it.

After the talk, I sold some more books. Altogether, seven copies out of my ten left the hall with new owners, which was nice. Believe me, there are ALWAYS people who just want to browse and keep you talking and have no intention of buying. Always. So you're lucky to sell everything and there were not a lot of people there.

I gave the last few Crime Time bookmarks to Sue Ann Barber, a fellow teacher-librarian who was on another stall, and left around 3.00 pm. I was lucky enough to get a lift all the way home from Bruce Barnes, a gentleman I've known for years.

I appreciate having been invited and maybe it's the first of many such invitations by conventions. I can only hope.

LIBERATOR By Richard Harland. Allen and Unwin, Melbourne, 2011

This is the sequel to the YA steampunk novel Worldshaker, which was set in a world dominated by the huge dreadnoughts, which roam the planet bearing the descendants of the various monarchies of nineteenth century Europe.The dreadnought Worldshaker was ruled by Queen Victoria III and her husband, Albert, in a perpetual Victorian era, not much changed from the original Victorian era.

At the end of Worldshaker, the oppressed slave class, the Filthies, had rebelled against their rulers, assisted by some of the upper class who supported their right to justice. Col, whose family were high up in the rulership, has fallen for Filthy Riff and the last book implied that there was a future for them, when he stayed on board while other ruling class members left.

Two months later, the Worldshaker, now the Liberator, is ruled by a committee of Flithies. Like many revolutions, this one has started to turn against those who helped it to happen and Col finds himself and his family in an uncomfortable position. Does Riff, now a ruler, still care about him? Does she understand that he is sincere in his support for the rebels? And who is the saboteur who has been destroying the fragile relationship between "Swanks" and Filthies along with the equipment? Does any of it matter with other dreadnoughts on their way to put down the rebellion?

Read and find out!

Richard Harland's tale is non-stop action while carefully making sure the characterisation doesn't suffer. At the same time, there's still the sly humour that made Worldshaker such an entertaining read. The last novel was pretty much all set on the ship; in this book, we get to see a lot of the world outside, including the convict colony of New South Wales, and learn more about how this world diverged from our own. The author refers to actual events in our own history and then asks, "What if this had happened just a little differently?"


It's a fine addition to the recent spate of Australian-written steampunk.

Selena Wang Interviews Charlie Higson

Charlie Higson, the author of the Young James Bond and The Enemy series was kind enough to agree to an interview with The Great Raven. I'd also like to welcome special guest blogger Selena Wang, a former student and current member of my lunchtime book club. Selena is a huge fan of Mr Higson's books for young adults.

The Young James Bond books are fast-moving and delightful, set in the 1930s, when the future spy is still at school at Eton. Somehow he always ends up having an adventure worthy of his future self.

The Enemy series - two books so far - is set after a horrible disease strikes people over fourteen, leaving the children to fend for themselves and cope with flesh-eating zombies who may once have been parents and other loved ones. It's one of the scariest things I have ever read - but it is also about friendship, courage and trust.


Selena: Where did you get inspiration for the Young James Bond series?

Well, obviously the James Bond books were inspired by James Bond himself! I grew up in the 1960s when James Bond was the biggest thing on the planet and I was hooked. First by the films, from when I was about six years old, and later on by the books. So, I guess Ian Fleming, who created James Bond and wrote the original books, was also a huge inspiration to me. I had no idea when I was younger that I would ever be asked to write my own James Bond books, but when I was approached the first thing I did was to go back and reread all the books to really get me in the mood for writing my own young Bond adventures.

As I say, writing the Young Bond books wasn’t my idea. I was approached completely out of the blue by someone from Ian Fleming Publications, the company that looks after James Bond. They had an idea to do a series of books about Bond before he became a secret agent. All I had to do was think up the ideas for the stories.

People always ask writers where they get their ideas from. Personally I find the Internet is very useful. There’s an online site called Ideas ‘R’ Us. You simply fill in a questionnaire with things like ‘what type of characters would you like in the story?’, ‘where would you like to set it?’, what genre - thriller, horror, fantasy, comedy - etc. Do you want it to be about secret agents/vampires/zombies/pirates/aliens/school kids/talking animals etc. How long do you want it to be? Do you want it based on real life events? Do you want to use parts of your own life or make it all up…? And so on, and so forth, and it sends you back ideas for books. Actually that’s a lie, of course there’s no such site, although perhaps there should be. But if you think of the online site as your brain it works in exactly the same way - you go through the whole process - of sending all those questions to your brain - and it all starts swilling around in there and with any luck your brain thinks up ideas for stories. As a writer you're always storing these ideas away, everything that happens to you, everything you read about, see on the TV, hear about, dream about, it all goes in there in case it might be of some use. Sometimes ideas for stories, and these are always the best ideas, come to you very quickly, almost fully formed. This happened when I was offered the job of writing the Young Bond books. Even as I was talking to the person who was explaining the idea to me I had an idea of how the whole first book would work and so I agreed to do the series straightaway. Also, writing is the same as any other skill - the more you do it the easier it becomes. The very act of writing one book will give you an idea for three or four other books. Often when you're hard at work you’ll hit on something and think “that’s a great idea but I can’t fit it in this book.” And you put it aside in that great big computer you call your brain and keep it for later.

Sue: LOL! There was one American SF writer who, on being asked where he got his ideas, said that he sent five dollars to a PO Box in the US city of Schenectady where a little old lady made ideas available. It sounds like your real source of ideas is much better!



Selena: Are there any aspects of your personality in either series?

It’s impossible to write a novel without putting quite a lot of your own personality into it. I think many writers would agree that nearly all the characters in their books are based on aspects of their own personality. In the end it is all that any of us really know. Ourselves. Our books also reflect our personalities in that we write about things that interest or excite us. The places I send James Bond, the adventures he gets into, are all things that I am interested in. The new series, the Enemy, is very much based where I live in London. The kids in it are based on the friends of my own boys. But some of the characters, even the girls, have aspects of my own personality. If I was to be honest, I would say that my own character is probably something of a mix of Arran, Ollie and Ed.

Selena: Are any characters in the Young Bond and The Enemy series based on real people?

I take aspects of people from real life, but have never based a character entirely on one person.

Sue and Selena: At the end of By Royal Command, James Bond goes to a new school in Scotland. Are you planning on writing any more about him there?

Not in the near future. I did have some stories about him worked out for his new life and his new school, but I am too busy working on my new series now, and I don't think that Ian Fleming Publications will hang on and wait for me for ever. Maybe they will get someone else in to write his new adventures.


Selena: Are you planning a new series? If so, can you tell us about it?

I wrote a long fantasy novel when I was a teenager and have been rereading it recently, with quite a lot of work it just might be publishable…


Selena: Each book so far in The Enemy series is about a different group, although some characters from The Enemy are in The Dead. Are you planning to combine them in the next book?

Yes, The Fear (book 3) carries on the process of joining up the two main groups of characters.

Selena: Will there be any more Young Bond graphic novels?

Not in the near future, they take a long time to make and don’t sell as many copies as normal novels, so Puffin have no plans for any more.

Sue: Pity! Our students simply love graphic novels and those are doing well in my library. :-(

When in 2011 will the next book in The Enemy series come out? (SB: We live in Australia, Mr Higson, so do you have an Australian release date?)

Assuming that Penguin Australia publish at the same time, it will be out in September.

Selena: How much research did you have to do for Young Bond, because it was set a long time ago?

I had to do lots. Luckily the 1930s were a fascinating time with a lot going on so I found it all quite interesting. I also had to research a lot about Eton school, to make those parts realistic. Doing research gives you good ideas for storylines.

I went to Sardinia to research bits of Blood Fever. Then I went to the Austrian Alps and learnt to ski to help with my research for By Royal Command. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to travel to Mexico to research Hurricane Gold, which I would have loved to do, but I was too busy writing the book! The thing with kids’ books is that the readers need the next book right now! And you all grow up so quickly, so I had to write the books quite fast to keep you satisfied, which meant less time for travel. Lots of my books are set in London because I live in London. I like writing about the city, so I don’t have to travel far to do my research but it is good fun poking around some interesting and obscure areas.

Selena: I really enjoyed all the riddles and puzzles in Double or Die. Did you think of them all yourself or did someone help you?

I did most of them myself, though I did have some help from a couple of guys who make up cryptic crosswords for newspapers. Maybe in the end the clues were too hard, I don’t think any kids solved any of them!

Selena: The Enemy series is based in London, I want to ask if all the streets and place you mention in the series are real? (Such as: the museum, the schools……) - and did you go there for research?

It’s all real. If you wanted you could come over and retrace all the kids’ footsteps. The only ‘made up’ part was Rowhurst school, which is based on my old school, Sevenoaks.

Selena: I’ve also been reading the Alex Rider series. What do you think are some differences between James Bond and Alex Rider?

I think Anthony Horowitz is a brilliant author. I think his books are very exciting with a cliffhanger in every chapter. I probably wouldn’t have started writing kids’ books if it wasn’t for Anthony. Before his Alex Rider series they weren’t really a lot of action adventure stories for boys out there and publishers didn’t think boys liked to read, but of course they do like to read if they’re given the right books, and Anthony’s books - full of action and gadgets and heroism - work really well (for girls as well!), which is why Ian Fleming Publications thought it might be good to try some young James Bond books. So I will always be a huge fan of Anthony.

The main difference is that Anthony’s books are set in the modern world, and are based on the James Bond we see in the new films, and my books are set in the past and are more based on the James Bond we find in the original Ian Fleming books.

Selena: It’s unusual, for the time, that James Bond has friends who are Indian and Chinese. Why did you give him these friends?

Actually I’m not sure it was completely unusual for the time. The mix at Eton was not wide in terms of class, but other countries have upper classes as well! Eton has always had a lot of foreign pupils studying there. There has been a tradition of rich foreigners, and foreign aristocracy, sending their children to the school, as it was considered to be the best in the world. There have been some quite exotic boys at the school, like the future King of Siam. I wanted to show that Bond was able to make friends with all types of people and also that he was an unusual boy, almost something of an outsider, and so had a group of multi-cultural friends. He does also befriend some posh English boys, of course. I wanted to show that perhaps James Bond was more at home mixing with the more unconventional boys at the school

Questions by Sue, Selena’s teacher

I see you’ve been writing for adults till now, but you seem to have settled nicely into writing for children and young adults. Was the change hard?

I wrote several unpublished books in my younger days in a variety of different styles - I was a fan of fantasy, then sci-fi, then Gothic fiction and post-modernist writers like William Burroughs… while I was at university I wrote a couple of very long and complex arty student type of novels. I was then turned on to crime writing by a friend, particularly hard-boiled American crime fiction. I fell in love with that direct stripped down style of writing. There aren’t pages and pages of flowery descriptions, there’s a lot of dialogue, the writers grab you on the first page and don’t let you go. I decided to try writing some crime books in this style found that I enjoyed it. The first one I wrote, King of the Ants, was published. This coincided with my burgeoning career writing comedy for television. But, after four novels, the TV work took over. It took up all my time and, let’s face it, paid a lot better than writing books. Cut to 10 years later I now have three boys of my own and want to write something for them. I was looking around for ideas when I was approached by my old editor from when I’d been writing the adult books, she was now working for Ian Fleming Publications and thought that I might be right for the new Young Bond series. She knew I had three boys, she knew I was a big James Bond fan, and most importantly she felt that my writing style would work very well for children. I obviously couldn’t use so much bad language and had to remove any sexual content but otherwise I didn’t really change my approach when writing for children. The interesting thing, though, is that you cannot take for granted what they will know about the world. The 1930s were a fascinating time politically and I wanted to get a lot of this into my books but I would be writing away and suddenly realize that the average ten year old doesn’t know the difference between a Communist and Fascist, so my job was to explain often quite complex ideas to children in a way that they wouldn’t feel as if they were being given some kind of history lesson. I found this a challenge but, of course, by having my central character, James Bond, a boy himself it meant that other people could explain things to him. I’ve always liked books that tell you stuff, Fleming was very good at telling us stuff, and I think if you get it right kids quite like being told stuff. I was slightly worried when I started SilverFin that they might not like my style so I read it out to my own boys as a bedtime story as I finished each chapter - which is why the books are so violent. To keep up their interest I soon realized I would have to kill someone on nearly every page.

In another Q and A you said you were inspired by I Am Legend for The Enemy, but the premise of that book (which I’ve read) is that everyone turns into a vampire except the hero. Is your zombie disease based on a real one?
This is what it says on Wikipedia about the book…

I Am Legend is a 1954 horror fiction novel by American writer Richard Matheson. It was influential in the development of the zombie genre and in popularizing the concept of a worldwide apocalypse due to disease. The novel was a success and was adapted to film as The Last Man on Earth in 1964, as The Omega Man in 1971, and as I Am Legend in 2007, along with an unofficial direct to video production capitalizing on that film, I Am Omega. It was also the inspiration behind the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.

I Am Legend inspired many and varied horror films and books. The idea of one lone figure in a changed world trying to fight against unhuman foes is very potent. It’s interesting how they treat the monsters in each the different film versions of the book. In the Charlton Heston version, the vampires are given many of the characteristics of the Manson family. And in the Will Smith version they are sort of alien zombie figures. Richard Matheson was very good at trying to bring a level of reality to his fantasy scenarios, he always worked in some kind of scientific and medical background to the supernatural goings-on and rooted his stories in everyday reality. I’ve tried to do the same in my books. The disease in The Enemy is not based on a real disease, no, but I’m in the process now talking to various doctors and scientists trying to find out how it might actually work. I wanted my monsters to have elements of the classic cannibal zombie as well as the vampire. The ultraviolet rays of the sun increase the effects of the disease and so, like vampires, the grown-ups don’t like going out in daylight. The zombie and the vampire are very similar anyway, they’re both undead, they both feast off the living.

In each Young Bond novel there’s a brave and beautiful girl, i.e. a sort of “Bond Girl”. Is this deliberate or did you just want to include female characters? Either way, do you think the girls fit into their time, the 1930s?
The girls are very much Bond girls. You can’t have a James Bond story without a strong female element. Fleming has been criticised for the depiction of his female characters and of male-female relationships and female desires. But he did at least put some memorable and entertaining girls into his books. He was attracted to strong healthy no-nonsense outdoorsy types and most of his Bond girls fit this mould. I wanted my girls to be similar. Wilder Lawless in the first book very much stands up to James Bond and saves his skin on one important occasion. I wanted to get across to boys read that girls could be fun and have a sense of adventure too. I probably had the most fun writing the character of Precious Stone in Hurricane Gold. She starts out a spoiled pampered rich brat and ends up a lean mean fighting machine navigating the terrors of the rat-run alongside James.

The 1930s were a very interesting time, there was a big growth in female equality and a big growth in vigorous outdoor pursuits like cycling, hiking, skiing, whatever. Women started wearing trousers in more ways than one. I think girls and boys did mix pretty well and particularly in England there grew up a strong breed of tough female adventurers who came to the fore in the 20s and 30s and of course fully came into their own in the Second World War, which gave a great boost to female equality.

Thanks very much for your wonderful interview, Mr Higson! We're looking forward to your next book ... and the one after that... :-)

My First Book Trailer - ouch!

It started when I was with the Random House folk at Supanova. They told me about a book trailer competition they're running for teenagers. It wasn't yet up - and when it is up, they will be giving some firm conditions, which are necessary because they'll be putting it up on-line. It has to be copyright-free material. Obviously, I suspect, there will be limitations even on such things as filming your young brother or sister, because of regulations about that (I saw the ladies taking a photo of a costumed con attendee for the RH blog, but not her small daughter). The copyright-free web site they gave me turned out to be copyright-free but not money-free. You have to pay for use of images from the site. While trying to work out if I could maybe put in a school subscription for the purpose, and because the information is STILL not up on the web site (something on YouTube, but not all the information), I surfed for genuinely free sites, but the few I found were limited in what they had.

I realised that I could use some public domain images and music, although the students might not find that of much interest, but I did have to have a sample - and I thought that perhaps we could have a book trailer competition for Children's Book Week, with a lunchtime festival. The trailers wouldn't go on-line, but we could show them at lunchtime and maybe burn a DVD for the library, to show next year's students. That way, we could use what we want and have fun.

As I haven't yet worked out the mysteries of iMovie, apart from dumping existing films on it, and I go back to work tomorrow, I have spent most of my post-Swancon time today putting together a basic PowerPoint book trailer for Wolfborn. It's very crude, but I've learned some things by experimenting and will learn more as soon as I can get someone to sit with me and explain.

Meanwhile, my class can have a huge laugh at my expense and go do something much better, once they work out which book they'd like to use. It's a nice way of making them think about a book they like - and one girl in my class was asking if she could do an animated piece for her assignment last time (too late, alas, or I'd know just how good she is).

I actually found a picture of a wolf howling under TWO moons (there are three in my world, but maybe the third isn't up yet), a Breton castle, some Arthur Rackham fairies (public domain), a dark forest, a bas-relief of Cernunnos, a wolfhound and a - hopefully - public domain portrait of Attila the Hun to go with the "Ruthless villains!" slide.

I'd like to come up with something a bit speedier than the score I used in the end, but I managed to get the right timing for the second half of "The Ring Goes South" from the FOTR score and it kind of worked. There was a nice dramatic flourish during the "Wild Hunt" slide.

Awful as it is, I'm kind of proud at having given it a go. It's an achievement, doing something I haven't tried before (well, PowerPoints, yes, but not with a story, music and theme).

Because of copyright I can't put it up on-line, but if anyone wants to have a look and a giggle, ask me privately and I'll see if i can share the file with you.

Vale Sarah Jane!

I couldn't sleep this morning, so I got up and went on-line to check out the Swancon program - I'm heading off tomorrow very early and have to finish preparing. I turned on the radio and just now I have heard the sad news. At only sixty-three, Elisabeth Sladen, Sarah Jane Smith to those of us who love Dr Who, has died of cancer.

I liked Sarah Jane from the moment she turned up, pretending to be someone else, to get a good news story. She didn't take nonsense from the Doctor, which is saying something for Tom Baker's version, and when she was ready, she left, even if she didn't get the dramatic exit she'd hoped for. I was so pleased when the character returned and the Doctor had time to explain himself and reconcile with her. And that scene where she and Rose are sharing jokes about him and laughing their heads off!

Elisabeth Sladen was a wonderful companion, one of my favourites, and it was clear she enjoyed what she was doing.

RIP, Elisabeth!

Today I am Going To...

Okay, this entry belongs more in Livejournal than in my literary blog, but Livejournal keeps giving me trouble opening, so here goes.

It's only three days till I head for my adventure in Perth, where I hope to promote my book and have fun.

So today I am going to:

finish the house cleaning after breakfast.

have a go at making some Kosher le Pesach chocolate truffles because my oven is still bung and I can't do my usual contribution of orange and walnut cake or macaroons (I have been doing macaroons the last few years because nobody has any room left for a proper dessert after the seder meal.)

go into town, where I will buy a printer cartridge so I can finish printing out the covers for the CDs I;m taking to the convention. George Ivanoff, who has a much better reading voice than I do, has kindly read a sample from each of our books into Garage Band and I've burned some on to CD. I'm not much good at design, but I really can't ask George to do that as well (needless to say, as a professional web page designer he's better at that too!).

meet a teacher-librarian colleague from another school, Lyndi Chapman, in Lygon Street (better take some Wolfborn and Crime Time bookmarks along for her). It will be nice to have a chat with her; she has a nice new school after her old one treated her badly.

go to my mother's place for the first night of Passover. Only Mum, my sister and brother-in-law tonight, so we'll keep it simple. Tomorrow is the big family night and I've promised my nephew Max a Crime Time mug, as he asked. Have to get it done tomorrow afternoon.

do some planning for the paranormal romance panel at Swancon. Nicole Murphy suggests we keep it light because they've put it on at 10.30 pm!

Big day! Better have brekky and get on with it.