Cli-Fi" as a subgenre of SF gains traction Down Under : A guest post by Dan Bloom

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Dan Bloom is a 1971 graduate of Tufts University in Boston where he majored in post-modern European literature. He also attended Oregon State University where he worked on a masters degree in the Speech and Communications Department and was a graduate teaching assistant. Dan worked as a journalist in Alaska for 12 years in the 1970s and 1980s, and later worked as a newspaper editor and reporter at English-language newspapers in Japan and Taiwan in the 1990s.

This arrived in my email inbox a couple of weeks ago. Dan Bloom has set up a web site called The Cli-Fi Report from which I pinched the bio above and the photo of the author. He asked if I would publish this piece on cli-fi in Australia. Cli-fi is a sub genre of SF in which we are invited to speculate on what might happen if the current climate change situation continues. As this is a science fiction blog as well as one on children's and YA fiction, I felt the offered guest post was appropriate - especially now, when the conservative governments of the world, including our own, are insisting that climate change is rubbish, or, if it isn't, that it has nothing to do with human activity. I think you'll enjoy it as much as I did, and if you follow the link to his web site, you'll find a lot more links. 

To the Aussie authors mentioned below, I'd like to add the fiction of Alex Isle(originally Sue Isle) and the wonderful YA trilogy The Tribe, by indigenous author Ambelin Kwaymullina. These are set in a distant future in which people have vowed never to allow the world to go through that abuse again, take lots of precautions to ensure it doesn't - and the social situation still stinks! I've interviewed the author elsewhere on this blog, if you're interested. 

Meanwhile - take it away, Dan! 

While it's true that Australia, unlike the U.S. and Europe, has not had a long history in the genre of science fiction,  Australia in 2017 has a thriving SF/Fantasy genre with names recognised around the world. In 2013 a trilogy by Ben Peek fantasy novel and two sequels were acquired by a major SF publisher in Britain, Tor UK.  His first novel in the series, titled Immolation, was published in spring 2014. The trilogy was called "Children" and books two and three were titled Innocence and Incarnation. By the 1950s, just as the SF genre was taking off in dozens of countries in Europe and North America, it took off across Australia in 1952 with the first of many Australian SF conventions.

Today there's James Bradley and Cat Sparks writing SF, with other writers, including Ian Irvine, Alice Robinson. Joanthan Strahan, Peter Carey and dozens of otthers following in George Turner's footsteps.

There is now a new subgenre of SF that's becoming popular in Australia, and it's been dubbed Cli-Fi (for ''climate fiction''. It's not so much as a literary subgenre to compete with other literary genres,  but rather a PR tool,  a media term,  a way for newspapers and websites to signal to readers and book reviewers that climate themes in modern novels deserve a special mention.  The cli-fi expression ws created as a way for literary critics and journalists to talk about novels of the Anthropocene. 

Cli-fi was not created for novelists.  They don't need categories or labels for their works.  Even SF novelists don't need the SF label.  Genre expressions are just marketing terms, good for selling books. Cli-fi was created for literary critics,  book reviewers,  book editors,  publicity departments,  advertising directors.  It is a "key word,"  a media attention-getter,  to attract eyeballs (and readers).

SF novelists tell stories.  They've been doing this for over 100 years and will continue telling stories for another 500 years.

So Cli-Fi novelists in Australia and overseas have now joined the literary circus. Their stories focus  on the possible repercussions of unchecked runaway global warming. It's a good subgenre of SF and will be for the next 500 years, too. 

​

The short term modelled on the rhyming sounds of sci-fi, has now caught on worldwide, first in English-speaking nations, beginning in  2013 when American radio network NPR aired a five-minute radio segment about ''cli-fi''  novels, interviewing Nathaniel Rich who wrote "Odds Against Tomorrow" and Barbara Kingsolver who wrote "Flight Behavior" .

That radio broadcast was the beginning of this new subgenre term's global outreach and popularity among academics, literary critics, journalists and headline writers in over a dozen nations, including non-English-speaking nations France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Spain and Brazil as well.

To learn more about how ​SF writers were looking at the popularity of the cli-fi term in literary circles, a few years ago I asked David Brin and Kim Stanley Robinson how they felt about the term. They both told me that they liked the expression but felt that it was best to treat it as a subgenre of ​SF and not as a separate genre.

By promoting the cli-fi term as a subgengre of ​SF, I was able to locate ​SF writers who were already using climate themes in their short stories and novels. From them I learned that cli-fi in SF novels actually had a long history, going back to Jules Verne, Arthur Herzog, J.G. Ballard and George Turner in Australia.

Kim Stanley Robinson's new novel "New York 2140" (set to be published in March) is a good example of the cli-fi subgenre catching on among writers peering into the future of a global warming world.

What's the purpose of cli-fi?

We are a world now divided bitterly over climate change issues.

Novels and movies can serve to wake people up in ways that politics and ideology cannot.

And I believe that if the world does not wake up soon about the pressing climate change issues we face now, future generations of humans will be 'doomed, doomed' — within 500 years. I can ​''​see​''​ that far ahead. Will 'cli-fi' save the planet? No. But at least it might help prepare us for what's coming in future centuries, just as SF novels have done and will continue to do.

The idea for a subgenre for speculative climate fiction ​as a subgenre of SF ​found some traction ​in 2011 when it was endorsed ​in a tweet ​on Twitter by ​Margaret Atwood, the ​Canadian ​novelist whose ​SF trilogy, ​ending w​ith ​''MaddAddam'' dealt with a corrupt anti-environmentalist.

​There ​are examples ​of cli-fi ​in France as far back as Jules Verne, who imagined​ ​—​ ​in the 1860s​ ​—​ ​a future Paris struggling with a ​big drop in temperature​s​. That was a plot point in Verne's "lost" novel ''Paris in the Twentieth Century,'' which actually went unpublished until 1994.

Given the speed with which the phrase "climate change" (which actually dates back at least 50 years) has overtaken the global ​environmental discussion in recent years, it's perhaps not surprising that there's been a surge in books in the SF subgenre of cli-fi. Among them are Marcel Theroux's ''Far North,'' which the Washington Post called "the first great cautionary fable of climate change" and Ian McEwan's  ''Solar,''which won a UK literary award for comic fiction.

These are all examples of quality fiction that happen to take climate change as a shared theme.

​A good cli-fi ​story​ ​will have the potential to attract not only climate activists, but also some of the ​climate ​deniers: The whole point is to reach people with emotions, not just preach to the choir.

​The new novel from the Hugo Award-winning ​SF l​egend Robinson submerges Manhattan under the water of globally-rising ​sea ​l​evels​. ​Robinson's PR team puts it this way:​“Every street became a canal​. ​Every skyscraper an island​. ​How will the city's residents -- the lower and upper classes, quite literally -- cope?​''​

So just as SF has helped several generations in the past 100 years cope with technological change and space exploration (and climate change), so too can cli-fi help future generations cope with what's coming down the road as well.

A Guest Post By ... Anthony Panegyres! - "Where Are They Now?" #4

I discovered Anthony's second story, 'The Wine Endures' in my ASIM slush pile and knew it was the perfect story for me to edit for #50, the special issue of ASIM, to which we all contributed. In a small Greek village in the present day lives the god Pan, who is mostly a loopy old Greek Dad, with a beautiful daughter.  He's perfectly okay, unless you let him get hold of wine...

It was such a sweet, gentle, funny story that I had to have it. 

Anthony has gone from strength to strength since then, selling so many short stories that I've lost track of them all. As for his day job, it's one that doesn't give you a lot of time for doing something creative, so I really must dip me lid to him. 

I'll let him tell you about it in his own words. Take it away, Anthony!

The story ‘The Wine Endures’ was published in the 50th Edition of ASIM in 2011. The story was my second publication, the first was just a couple of months earlier. If it’s any consolation, the two stories were written simultaneously. And they were also the first I’d written after my late teen years at uni – a very long hiatus.

At the time I felt drawn to both folk tale and legends, and I wanted to gently blur the two. I had heard of a village in Thessaly, where a friend of mine came from, where they officially had the Orthodox Church, yet my friend and his family claimed that they still prayed to Gods of the Classical world, not only the Olympians, but also other ancient deities like Pan. The story semi-wrote itself from there.

As for genre, not all of my stories fall into the speculative fiction category. My passion for reading has never been limited by genre boundaries – I read as much realism as spec-fic. A lot of my work though, for reasons I can’t completely fathom, gently drifts towards the fantastic or speculative.

 I’ve a job that requires a lot of time, which I’m passionate about. So I’ve learnt to become disciplined in my holiday time, whereby I put aside most mornings for writing or editing.

I’ve been fortunate in my brief writing career. It’s been better than I ever envisioned or imagined. My third story, also published in 2011, was published in Overland Literary Journal 204 and was short listed for the Aurealis Award. It went on to be published in The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror, 2011. Since then I’ve had stories published in the literary journals: Overland again (214) and Meanjin; as well as numerous anthologies, including The Best Australian Stories, and also the latest volume of The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror (2015). I’ve also had the pleasure of being in five Ticonderoga Publication anthologies. My most recent story found a home in the trans-Tasman anthology At the Edge ed Lee Murray & Dan Rabarts.

The two Overland stories ‘Reading Coffee’ and ‘Submerging’ are also being studied at both senior high school and tertiary level, which has been a pleasant surprise.

A Guest Post From .... Michelle Goldsmith! - "Where Are They Now?" #3

Today we hear from Michelle Goldsmith. When I was collecting stories for my issue, I was having trouble finding horror fiction to balance the SF and fantasy. I knew Michelle was reading for a horror magazine and it was her area of interest, so I asked if she had anything I could look at. At the time, she had only made one sale. 

I was absolutely thrilled when her story, "Of Gold And Dust", made it into Best Australian Fantasy And Horror. 

Well, it was certainly Australian! Very much so, with the Ballarat gold fields and the bush. The creature in the story was never identified - that would have been appropriation. But it felt Australian. Was the story horror? Perhaps darkish fantasy, but too gentle to be called horror in the usual sense. And that was fine with me. It was too good to miss out on.

Since then, Michelle's short story writing career has been impressive. I am delighted to have been one of her first publishers.

I'll let her tell you all about it!

For this story I wanted to write something distinctly Australian and that covered an aspect of our history I thought was underexplored. I was also hoping to write something that captured a real sense of the time and place in which it was set, and which had resonance with readers.

In "Of Gold and Dust" I also attempted to create a unique speculative element that felt like it legitimately belonged within the Australian landscape, but without appropriating particular Indigenous spirits or monsters or importing a common speculative trope (like a werewolf or vampire) into the setting. (Not because I don’t think an Australian werewolf or vampire story can work, but because it just wasn’t what I wanted to do).

The first time I tried to draft this story I was aiming for something quite a bit shorter and it didn’t work out so I put it aside to percolate for a while. About six months later I came back to it for another attempt and it came together a lot more smoothly.

I live in Melbourne, Australia, where I work as an editor and journalist (specialising in technical topics) for my day job. Before that I was a bookseller for over five years.

I have a BSc (majoring in Zoology/Evolutionary Biology) and a Masters degree in Publishing and Communications. This year I’m starting my PhD, which will look at cross-genre literary/speculative works and also involves a creative component.

I’ve had short fiction published in various places both within Australia and overseas, and been short-listed for both the Aurealis Award and the Ditmar Award.

I think I prefer to write speculative fiction because it isn’t as confined by the limits of realism, and therefore has the potential for a lot of interesting experimentation. My preference is usually for something just a little removed from our reality.

To be honest, I usually don’t think about what genre I’m writing in until I have to submit a story, but my stories almost always end up speculative to some degree.

I haven’t been the most prolific author over the last few years, mostly due to a range of chronic health problems making it difficult to balance work, study and time to write. (Hopefully that will change now that study and fiction have been combined!) However, the stories I have had published seem to have been well received.

My ASIM story was republished in The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2014, which was exciting!

"The Jellyfish Collector", a story which was originally published in Review of Australian Fiction, was shortlisted for an Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story. It was also republished at PodCastle in 2016.

My first pro-paying sale of original fiction was "Love Story, an Exorcism", which was published at Gamut in January this year.  That one is probably my most confronting story so far, but people seem to have really responded well to it.

I always seem to have a lot on the go! First and foremost I’m working on developing the shape of my PhD short story collection and starting the first stories for that. It should end up as a linked short story collection consisting mainly of what you might call ‘weird fiction’ and working in a kind of liminal space between ‘genre’ and ‘literary’ categories. It will likely focus a fair bit on ecological themes.

I also have some unrelated short stories that are calling to me and a science fiction novel (plotted and about a quarter written) that I plan to finish when I get the time.

Thanks, Michelle! 

If you want to see what Michelle is up to, you can find her at http://michellegoldsmith.net and she is on Twitter with the handle @Vilutheril.

                            

A Guest Post From ... Paul Hughan! "Where Are They Now?" #2

When I was finding stories for ASIM #60, I wanted to have a good balance of SF, fantasy and dark fiction(to be honest, I never really found anything scary enough to be called horror fiction) and Paul's story intrigued me because it was a bit of both - fantasy and SF. 

In it, the dragon is the good gal and the would-be dragonslaying team are idiots. And the weapons are technologically advanced. Fortunately our heroine has brains and an ability to morph into human shape...

I'll let Paul, whose day job is in music, tell you all about it in his guest post. 

My story 'Soar' in issue 60 of ASIM was my first sale. I set it in the same universe as my first (as yet unpublished) novel, and took as a starting point something that came up in my novel--what would happen if dragons were faced with hi-tech weapons (specifically heat-seeking ground-to-air missiles)? I took the dragon as the protagonist and the hero. How would a dragon outwit a heavily-armed party of humans?

I teach guitar for a living. Music is always either a work in progress or a work of the moment. Writing, in contrast, is a constructed thing, something you can go back over again and again and perfect (more or less). Speculative fiction allows you to create the ground you are working on, and set up the conditions for the subject you want to tackle.

I'm currently in the final stages of editing my second novel, which again is set in the same universe, or at least follows the same rules. As a story, it's many things, but it is principally concerned with whether someone who has been conditioned as a kind of tool or weapon can transform themselves. I also have two other books going--one on the backburner, one that is progressing well.

An Interview With Traci Harding!

Today's interview is with Traci Harding, bestselling author of twenty novels. I received this one just after its publication and finished it very quickly. As you'll see from the interview, it is the author's twentieth book, but was the story that started the entire series of books. 

How fascinating to learn that the chairs of this novel are kind of inspired by Enid Blyton's Wishing Chair! Well, why not? The shaggy Shetland unicorn that appears in my own novel, Wolfborn, started off in an episode of Lost In Space! 

Immortal Bind is a reincarnation story with chairs in it. Two young people, an English artist called Jon and an Australian fashion designer, Sara, each receive an antique chair with a gem in it from the same shop in London, one of those fantasy fiction shops that have disappeared when you try to find them again. Falling asleep in these chairs takes each of them back to previous lives in which they were lovers, but made mistakes that meant they had to come back for another go. There is a villain who is there every time; as a result time is running out even in the present day, and they must fix things before disaster. Only problem is, in this lifetime they haven't met and live on opposite sides of the world...

Let's start with the simplest question - how did you get the idea for The Immortal Bind? 

As I wrote this book as a script twenty-five years ago, it’s a little hard to recall what actually sparked the idea, but it was most likely my friends discussing how much they loved reading The Magic Wishing Chair as children, and how they wished there was an adult version.  I hadn’t read the book.  But the concept of a wishing chair or two, mixed with my passion for history and all things esoteric, merged to create this enchanting tale.  I always felt it an honour to have been mused with this story, and it was a delight to revisit and explore in more depth after so many years.  

For somebody like me, who has never read any of your books before, is this anything like previous books you have written? 

The Immortal Bind was the precursor to all my published works - it became the template upon which all my future tales would be moulded.  It was the first story in which my unique fusion of history, fantasy, mythology and all things metaphysical, came together to create an epic scenario spanning time and space.  

Just after I wrote this tale, I read a book called The Education of Oversoul Seven by Jane Roberts.  Through that story I came to understand the concept of ‘simultaneous time’, and once time-travel was introduced into my style repertoire, my first published novel The Ancient Future was born.  This book spawned four trilogies and a soon-to-be prequel.  I have also written another stand alone series, but my readers can always expect to be whisked away to join a great bunch of characters on an adventure beyond imagining.  So, in short, yes.  If you love this tale, there are nineteen other novels filled with adventures that span from the most ancient of cultures, into the future, other universes, dimensions and altered states of consciousness.

I see it started off as a film script - can you give us a few details of what sounds like a fascinating story about the writing of it?

I was working for a film studio in North Sydney when I first penned this tale - I was actually  working for the studio manager, but I got that job as he’d optioned a previous script I’d written.  I formed a production company with a group of friends all working in the industry at that time and we had huge expectations of making this movie.  At that time the script had a couple of different time periods to those featured in the story now.  Working with another producer many years later, the tale was redrafted, some of the time periods changed and the story deepened, yet I still felt the ending of the script was never quite right.  

What changes in the story did you have to make to turn this from a film script into a novel? 

The thing with writing a script is that many of the details of the story are explained with visuals and performances.  But when it came to writing this tale as a book I realised, one of the main aspects of the story - The Chairs - had never been fully explored.  They had been but a visual tool for the film, but to the book they are integral characters, with a history and karma of their own.  Where had they come from? What was the source of their amazing power?  Once I began to explore these questions, many more layers of plot - in all the different time periods - unravelled and I was finally able to uncover and achieve the conclusion that these characters so richly deserve.  

You seem to have a passion for India and things Indian - is this right? If so, how did you become interested in it?

My passion is time-travel and all ancient cultures.  India was my mother’s passion and her final resting place.  This particular story had always been my mother’s favourite and I feel it was her spiritual influence that guided this tale towards India, where I did finally discover the answers to the questions now driving this story.   

India does have a truly illustrious spiritual history., that is what drew Helena Blavatsky (one of my spiritual heroines) to set up a branch of the Theosophical Society there.  As the motherland of Hinduism and Buddhism, India is the birthplace of some of the most enlightened philosophies of our age.  

In the original script the Indian past-life sequence had been set in 1940’s Chicago, which, although it was a fun romp for the characters, wasn’t really advancing the story.  In the end I realised, how could I possibly write a book about reincarnation and karma and not have it lead back to the origins of that belief? 

This is a novel about reincarnation. I liked Sara and Jon very much, but I couldn't help feeling that their historic selves were a bit different in personality. What did you have in mind here? 

The whole point of karma and reincarnation, is to aid a soul through the life and death cycles of Samara, to develop and walk the path of dharma towards enlightenment.  The advantage Jon and Sara have over their past life incarnations, is the ability to learn from past life mistakes and avoid the pitfalls of self delusion and destruction.

You covered a few historical eras in this novel. How much research did you have to do for these - and can you share some of your favourite resources with us? 

Massive, massive amounts!  LOL

I actually took a picture of some the books I used to research this one - please insert here :-)

The Middle Ages Unlocked, which is a more recent release by Gillian Polack and Katrin Kania, I found particularly helpful for researching customs and laws in eleventh century England.**

The witch hunts in Scotland, I got to research while I was there and if you ever get the chance to do the midnight ‘Witchery Tour’ in Edinburgh, I highly recommend it. 

A paper I referenced from ACADEMIA - "Story of First “Jyotirlinga” of India - Shrine of Shiva at Somnath and Mahmud Ghazni’s failure to loot the treasure of Somnath" and "Stratagem of Gujarat’s Jainminister of Bhim Deva-Vimal Shah", by Bipin Shah, was very helpful when it came to the ancient history of the Temple of Somnath at exactly time period I was looking at.

Other research for this novel covered lilac diamonds, the ancient Devi-dasa dancers, pirates and the slave trade, Hindu mythology, Vikings and their customs, history and dress of four different time periods - my list of references is endless! 

If someone did decide to film this after all, no expenses spared, who would be your ideal cast? 

I had this story all cast in my head many years ago and I’ll always see those actors as the characters.  Still, it was our intension to have at least the four main characters - Sara, Jon, Simon and Liz as a young Australian ensemble cast, and I’d still like to see that happen.  To my mind it was the Old Woman who’d be the big international star like Maggie Smith or Shirley MacLaine.  

It seems rather ironic to me that this tale that formed my writing foundation, should finally find its way into print as my twentieth novel.  The Mayans believed in twenty year cycles and this certainly feels like a huge full circle moment for me.  Perhaps now, in these days of big budget, super effects films, the time is ripe for this epic tale to finally make it to the big screen.

Thank you for visiting The Great Raven! 

My pleasure entirely.  Thank you for the invite :-)

** The Middle Ages Unlocked is available on iBooks and on Amazon, in both print and ebook, here. https://www.amazon.com/Middle-Ages-Unlocked-Medieval-1050-1300-ebook/dp/B00ZPFE6BY 

You can find The Immortal Bind in ebook or in print, at the HarperCollins web site or in all good bookstores. 

An Interview With...Stephanie Herman! "Where Are They Now?" #1

This first interview is with Stephanie Herman, author of "First Strike". I bought that story because it intrigued me. In it, the aliens arrive and they're nice and are made welcome and feted, but... some music can kill. It does. And when you want to stop their families and friends from coming after Earth, you send an orchestra... Sounds humorous, but it isn't. It's chilling. Get ASIM 60 and read it!

Steph's self published fantasy novel King's Mark is available here.

And now for the interview! Take it away, Steph! 

You made your first sale to ASIM. Your story "First Strike" was published in issue 60. What did you have in mind when you wrote it? 

I wrote the first draft of this story while I was still in high school, at a time when I was spending nearly every waking hour either at school or in some musical endeavor. While I love playing (I’m an oboist), I didn’t intend to pursue music as my career. Still, I let my involvement grow beyond what was reasonable—I think I played in six or seven ensembles that year, plus private lessons and weekend events. My schedule was so overloaded that at one point I played two back-to-back concerts. So the idea of playing compulsively, of hurting yourself with too much of something beloved, was definitely on my mind. 

This was in 2002–2003ish, and at that time it felt like war was everywhere: news reports, debates, protests... My classmates and I were making decisions about our futures, and many were specifically considering or rejecting military service. While I didn’t recognize it at the time, and it certainly isn’t by any means a direct parallel, I can look back and say that climate contributed to elements of this little story: conscription, retribution, and the tragedy of so many lives and resources diverted toward violence. To me, First Strike is really a question about the costs of conflict; and it’s one that was subconsciously very present in my graduating class.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself—day job, where you live, and why you love/write SF/F?

I live in California, and work for the state’s oiled wildlife response program as a care specialist. When there is an oil spill that affects wildlife in the state, I’m on the response team helping to minimize wildlife impacts and rescue the affected animals. When there isn’t an active spill response, I work to make sure we’re ready for the next one; training people, managing supplies, and researching methods to improve the services we offer.

I’ve been writing since I learned to hold a crayon (although I hope I’ve improved since then), but it’s taken on a more important role in my life since I got out of school and started working with hurt and orphaned animals full time. While I get to do a lot of good in my job (and make a bunch of people jealous because of my contact with adorable and amazing animals), it can be quite challenging because it does mean I am reminded of and exposed to the suffering of animals quite frequently. I don’t know if I’d write as much if that weren’t the case. 

Writing SF/F means I get to take a break and view the world through a different lens for a while. I don’t view it as escapism—I like to deal with difficult choices, painful emotions, and broken societies in my work, so I’m not escaping. But I am exploring. Externalizing the challenges I care about and making a fictional character or society deal with them lets me step back and reframe things so I can see them more clearly.

Plus, SF/F is fun and in my genes! My dad is a huge SF fan and did a good job inoculating me when I was young. You know you done good when the only doll your daughter loves is a knock-off Star Trek Barbie with a transporter.

Have you had anything else published since then? Or is something of yours about to be published? 

I had another story, "The Long, Slow War", published right around the same time as "First Strike", in the September 2014 issue of Bastion Science Fiction Magazine. It’s a story about a human colony caught between two much more powerful alien societies. Although the humans live in uneasy peace, they struggle to hold onto control and self-determination despite their precarious position and dependence on their alien benefactors. 

I hope to have more stories out in the near future! But I am more of a novelist than a short story writer, so I’ve done a lot more in that arena. In 2014 and 2015, I was revising and querying a fantasy novel featuring an inventor who falls in with criminals in her attempt to keep her family fed. When the law catches up with her, they give her a choice: double-cross her friends or face exile in the jungle of carnivorous plants surrounding the city. Of course there’s more going on than anyone realizes! Magic! Intrigue! Danger!

That book won me a chance to participate in Pitch Wars, a contest where published and agented writers mentor newer writers and help them pitch their work to agents. Although I didn’t secure representation through the contest, it was very helpful and I did end up signing with Leon Husock of the L. Perkins Agency after about a year of querying. The book Leon signed me for is currently out on submission, so keep your fingers crossed that we find the right editor! 

What are you working on right now? 

I’m working on a few things at the moment, but I’m most excited about my new book, which is about a girl who follows her exiled brother through a portal to an unknown world in order to bring him back home. Things get complicated because not only is there a whole new world on the other side, the portal also scrambles the memories of anyone who goes through it.

I’m also really thrilled to have joined the ASIM first reader team. It’s a lot of fun to see the work of so many writers, and to give back to the magazine that gave me my own first sale.

"Where Are They Now?" Coming Soon To The Great Raven!

In the next few days I will be posting some interviews I did with four ASIM writers whose work I edited. They are special to me because I bought their work for ASIM - and because that was their first or second sale. Stephanie Herman, a U.S. writer, had self published a novel - I will include a link from her post - but ASIM 60 was the first time anyone had paid her for writing. She made another sale soon after and now - well, I'll let her tell you.

Paul Hughan, a Melbourne musician, also made his first sale to us. I read his submission on the recommendation of Simon Petrie, a writer, editor and scientist whose opinion I respect. 

Michelle Goldsmith and Anthony Panegyres have both zoomed ahead in their writing careers since selling me their second stories. 

I admit I got the idea for this series when discovering, quite by accident, that another first sale person had recently had a story in Analog! We're talking about the world's top hard SF magazine. It is good to hear about because the ASIM story needed just a touch of correction in the physics, but that was a first sale, after all. Unfortunately I didn't hear from him when I invited him to do a post here, but no matter. I'm proud anyway, and feel just a bit smug - I can choose them! 

I will be starting tomorrow with Stephanie Herman, author of "First Strike".

I Remember... Saturday Arvo At The Pictures...

This is where I spent my Saturday afternoons during my childhood in St Kilda, a Melbourne beachside suburb.The photo was found on a Yahoo discussion group on trams, hope they don't mind. It's just that all the other photos I could find were of the current building, which is now the National Theatre. So, imagine this by daylight. In those days it was a Hoyt's cinema called the Victory. The actual building, though not the Hoyt's, goes back to about the 1930s and is gorgeous. The place had a dress circle and stalls. Now they have built over the stalls, which have become workshops and schools for the  National Theatre and the former dress circle is the auditorium, where you can see anything from ballet to amateur musicals. I've seen live theatre there - Camelot, Showboat, The Lion In Winter, even a performance of Jon English's Trojan War rock opera Paris, with the composer in the foyer beaming from ear to ear; it had been written only for recording and who would have thought a small theatre company would turn it into a live show? 

So, wonderful, yes, but ... not the same. 

I used to meet my friend Denise and her sisters Irene and Angela on time for the two p.m matinee. There were only two sessions a day, for good reason. You could see a double feature, a newsreel and a cartoon back then, and those took a while to show. I remember that when I was a bit late for a film, I'd say, "Oh, well, I'll just miss the news." These days, of course, I say, "Oh, well, I'll just miss the ads and maybe a trailer." You can, of course, still see a double feature at special cinemas like the Astor Theatre in Windsor. But that's something else.

The other cinema in the area was The Palais. Well, the Palais is still there - I remember going to see Mary Poppins with my parents there - but only does live shows now, mostly concerts. It was doing live theatre then too. Musicals, operettas, the Australian Opera, ballet. But it no longer does movies. 

The Palais auditorium in the old days. 

Still, most of our Saturdays were spent at the Victory. The Victory had a candy bar, where we mostly bought ice cream and popcorn. I loved the popcorn, which had, if you were lucky, a plastic figure of a cowboy or Indian on horseback. I didn't care about the riders, just the horses. I wish I knew where I put my collection. Across the road was a milk bar, where we sometimes went at intermission to buy more goodies, including a White Knight nougat bar. There is still a food shop there, more takeaway, though, than milk bar. 

I saw some classic films there. Planet Of The Apes. A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. An odd little film called The Magic Sword, which I've since acquired on DVD. It has some big name actors for a film most people haven't heard of. We're talking here about Basil Rathbone, as the villain. The young knight George was Gary Lockwood, whom you may have seen as Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Gary Mitchell in the Star Trek episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before".  His guardian, an elderly sorceress, was played by comedienne Estelle Winwood, who had a tendency to play duenna roles in old movies, but you may have seen her chasing Zero Mostel around his office in The Producers, as a character known only as "Hold me, touch me." I think I went to see that by myself one Saturday when Denise and her sisters couldn't make it. For a child, it was scary, though it had a happy ending. 

I remember in my teens going there to see Gone With The Wind. I'd read the book which I considered  a thousand page Mills and Boon, but Denise wanted to go. I even ended up seeing it twice. I did appreciate the casting, which showed the characters the way I had imagined them. And a young George Reeves appeared briefly as one of the Tarleton twins, Scarlett's suitors. I had seen him as Superman. Spectacle or not, classic or not, I haven't been able to watch it since. Sorry!

Eventually the cinema was closed down but fortunately replaced by a theatre which is still there. No more stalls, but the foyer still has the same 1930s glamour I remember, and the upstairs foyer even more beautiful. 

Somehow today's cineplexes are just not the same. And when they're finally replaced by streaming and downloads they won't be likely to survive as something equally delightful. 

I'm glad I have those memories!

Coming Soon To The Great Raven - Traci Harding Interview!

I finished reading The Immortal Bind yesterday and decided an interview with the author might work better than yet another book review. My questions have gone to Kimberley Allsopp, the HC publicist, and hopefully Traci Harding will be able to spare some time for us fairly soon.

As I mentioned in my last post, this is the first Traci Harding novel I have ever read, so my questions are those of a new reader, not a veteran fan. If you have any questions to ask the author, place them in the comments and I'll see if I can add them.

See you back here for another fascinating author interview! 

Just Picked Up From The PO: The New Traci Harding Novel!

And here it is. I had to leave my Mum, with whom I spend Friday night and Saturdays, to get it from the post office, because they close well before I can get there after work. So I took the tram, picked up my parcel from Voyager(the spec fic arm of HarperCollins) and took it to the cafe next door to open over a pot of tea. Unusual, because it has been years since HC sent me anything. I think the last one was the HHGG novel written by Eoin Colfer. 

Still, I'm not going to say no to a brand new spec fic book by an Aussie writer. I admit I have never read any of her work, mainly because I'm just not a fan of fat fantasy trilogies, which comprises a large chunk of her work. But this one seems to be a standalone. According to her foreword, it's her twentieth novel but was her first work, as a film script which was never produced. There must be an interesting story there. Perhaps I can get an interview and ask. 

The author is a lot more popular than I am, a huge bestseller whose work has been translated into several languages. 

Mine has been translated into Chinese and Korean, but that's it unless you count an article in a language I have forgotten, but which I have a copy of somewhere on my computer. I vaguely recall the translator writing to ask my permission. "Sure!" I said. "Can I have a copy?" I can't read it, but nice to know. 

Oh, and American. Before you say, "But that doesn't count!" I would like to point out that there are quite a few differences in language usage and I actually met my "translator" at an Allen and Unwin party. She thought our metric measurements were "quaint!" 

Anyway, I've made a start and I don't think this one will take me too long to get through. Very easy reading!

Victorian Premier's Literary Award 2017: This Year's Winners!

I pinched the short list from the Wheeler Centre web site, after reading on the Age web site that the winner of the Fiction award had died and the prize was posthumous. The awards were only handed out this evening.

So much for my going on Twitter to find out these things in time. Sigh!

The only two judges I've heard of are the lovely Alice Pung and Marlee Jane Ward, though I've only heard of the latter because we were both on a panel at last year's Continuum. I did download her YA novel, but haven't got around to reading more than a page or two. I am such a greedy reader, I just can't read it all!

Of the books, I have The Bone Sparrow, which I really must read, because it's bound to be on this year's CBCA shortlist, and The Fighter, which is a wonderful book that deserves an award. But then, I haven't read the others on the list. To be honest I don't read much in the way of adult books.  Non fiction, yes, if it's about a subject that interests me. Genre fiction, yes. But not mainstream and certainly not a book about a woman who gets brain cancer. (The winner) Mind you, teenagers love to sob their hearts out over novels with dying protagonists. So maybe that one will have a new market in a few years, the theme is just not my cup of tea. Sad about the author, though! 

Anyway, here it is, in case you want to follow it up. Enjoy!

The Judges

Fiction: Stella Charls, Alice Pung, Jo Case (convener)

Non-fiction: Bruce Pascoe, Sami Shah, Jordy Silverstein, Michaela McGuire, Sharon Mullins (convener)

Drama: Jane Harrison, Emilie Collyer, John Bailey (convener)

Poetry: Samah Sabawi, Emilie Zoey Baker, Alicia Sometimes (convener)

Writing for Young Adults: Marlee Jane Ward, Davina Bell, Jess Tran (convener)

The shortlist

I've put the winners in bold.

Fiction

• Between a Wolf and a Dog by Georgia Blain (Scribe Publications)
• The Healing Party by Micheline Lee (Black Inc.)
• Wood Green by Sean Rabin (Giramondo)
• Waiting by Philip Salom (Puncher and Wattmann)
• The Rules of Backyard Cricket by Jock Serong (Text Publishing)
• The Love of a Bad Man by Laura Elizabeth Woollett (Scribe Publications)

Non-fiction

• Songs of a War Boy by Deng Adut with Ben Mckelvey (Hachette Australia)
• The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clarke (Hachette Australia)
• The Killing Season Uncut by Sarah Ferguson with Patricia Drum (Melbourne University Publishing)
• Offshore: Behind the wire on Manus and Nauru by Madeline Gleeson (NewSouth Publishing)
• Position Doubtful by Kim Mahood (Scribe Publications)
• The Fighter by Arnold Zable (Text Publishing)

Drama

• Girl Shut Your Mouth by Gita Bezard (Black Swan State Theatre Company)
• Trigger Warning by Zoë Coombs Marr (Melbourne International Comedy Festival)
• The Drover’s Wife by Leah Purcell (Currency Press)

Poetry

• Carrying the World by Maxine Beneba Clarke (Hachette Australia)
• Painting Red Orchids by Eileen Chong (Pitt Street Poetry)
• Bull Days by Tina Giannoukos (Australian Scholarly Publishing)

Writing for Young Adults

• When Michael Met Mina by Randa Abdel-Fattah (Pan Macmillan Australia). Also won the People's Choice Award. 
• The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon (Hachette Australia)
• The Other Side of Summer by Emily Gale (Penguin Random House Australia)

Highly commended

Fiction
· An Isolated Incident by Emily McGuire (Pan Macmillan)
· Our Magic Hour by Jennifer Down (Text Publishing)
· After the Carnage by Tara June Winch (University of Queensland Press)

Writing for Young Adults
· Freedom Swimmer by Wai Chim (Allen and Unwin)
· Frankie by Shivaun Plozza (Penguin Books Australia)

Drum Roll, Please! Australia's Top Authors 2017

Again, I'm sticking to those who have written for kids, and there are several between 10 and 1.

#10: Marcus Zusak. Best known, these days, for The Book Thief, which has been translated into forty languages and been turned into a very good movie. But he has been on the CBCA shortlist for other books and that one works fine as a YA novel. I remember hearing him speak at a school library conference once, years ago, before he became an international bestselling author. He'd written his first novel and I swear, he looked about sixteen! He was young, though not quite that young, and I bought he book to support a new local author. He's come a long way since then. I doubt a local library conference could afford him these days. 

#9 Andy Griffiths. When I started my school library career, the big name in funny children's books was Paul Jennings. Paul was our Roald Dahl, but nicer. Nowadays, he has been more or less replaced by Andy Griffiths, who writes the Treehouse books, the Schooling Around series, the Just series and the series that began with The Day My Bum Went Psycho. (In the U.S., that's "Butt", as "bum" has a different meaning in American slang). He understands what makes kids laugh out loud and is rewarded every year when kids vote him their favourite in the Young Australian Best Book Awards. A delightful writer - and such a nice man! I have been lucky enough to meet him a couple of times. Once, when I mentioned my disadvantaged school, he gave me a signed set of the new edition of Schooling Around for the library, which was great, because the individual novels were always going missing.

#6. Anh Do. We have several of his  funny WeirDo novels for children. His autobiography,  The Happiest Refugee, is the class text for Year 9, and the kids actually like it. Given how many refugees we have at my school, I think they can relate. But in general, they enjoy it, even the EAL kids. 

#5. John Marsden. Best known for the YA series, Tomorrow When The War Began, but has written quite a lot more. There was a film made of the first one and one of the cast later went on to play the role of Phryne Fisher's maid Dot. It's a powerful series and at one time it was hardly ever on the shelves. Not as popular now, but a few years ago, when I took some students to the local launch of the National Year Of Reasing, he was the guest speaker and there were plenty of kids there. The author actually gave away copies of his books and signed them. Nice!

#3. This one is for my American librarian friend Pamela, who is a fan - Mem Fox! Mem is the author of the classic Possum Magic, about a little possum who has been turned invisible and who has to eat his way through Australian foods in various states to recover his visibility. 

#2. Tim Winton. Best known for his adult books, but also the author of the classic Lockie Leonard YA novels, set in Western Australia, with a surfing theme. The first was on our Year 8 list at one stage. A mother objected, because there is a scene where the hero has a wet dream. She withdrew her objection after one of our staff had a chat with her, explaining about the book. It is funny and sad and sweet and the sea is almost a character. 

#1. Matthew Reilly. I probably don't need to explain him. He is tremendously well known and popular for all those extremely violent books. I must admit, I'm no fan of his; I managed to get through about 250 pages of Temple. People were getting killed and things blown up on every page - and no one cared. When a character sacrificed himself for another character and she didn't even blink let alone mourn him, I threw my copy against the wall and never read anything else of his again. But teenage boys enjoy his work. The ones at my school who want to read his books tend to have their own copies, though I'd buy them on request. I am in a minority here, I confess. But this year, he is Australia's most popular author. Congratulations, Matthew! 

Australia's Favourite Authors 2017 - #50-11!

I've been following Booktopia's reader-voted "Australia's favourite authors." This week we have seen the finalists from #50 onwards. Each year, there are new authors and old favourites. People who were closer to the top last time may be a bit lower this year, depending on who voted - or maybe who wanted to give someone else a go this time. We all have our favourites and as we read we acquire new ones. 

Anyway, here are those who have come up so far. I have mostly stuck either to children's and YA authors or those I know have written for kids at some stage. They're all authors whose work I have read, including the two writers for adults I stuck in at the bottom. If you want to check out the rest, why not head over to the Booktopia web site? 

#46 - John Flanagan - the author of the wonderful Ranger's Apprentice series. Go read them NOW!

#44 - Garth Nix - author of the fabulous Old Kingdom series(Sabriel, etc.) and the children's series Keys To The Kingdom. 

#41 - Melina Marchetta - these days best known for Jellicoe Road, but her first, Looking For Alibrandi,  is my favourite. Also the author of the fantasy Lumatere series beginning with Finnikin Of The Rock.

#40 - Tara Moss - I admit I don't read the crime fiction for which she is best known, but her YA fantasy novels are a hoot! 

#37 - Kate Forsyth - the author of a lot of adult novels based on fairy tales, such as Bitter Greens, but also quite a few children's books, such as The Puzzle Ring. 

#34 - Shaun Tan - my favourite of his books is The Arrival, which is straight art, telling the story of a refugee's arrival in an unnamed country. Not a single bit of text, but utterly powerful! 

#30 - Isobelle Carmody - probably best known for her Obernewtyn books, but also the author of several stand-alone books. Personally, I am STILL waiting for the final volume of Legendsong, which stopped on a cliffhanger around sixteen years ago. Sigh! 

#26 - Ruth Park - mostly an author for adults, she also wrote two wonderful YA fantasy novels, My Sister Sif and the amazing Playing Beattie Bow, which was made into a delightful film. 

#22 - Morris Gleitzman - author of a LOT of amazing children's books. The most popular, for good reason, are the series that began with Once and most recently Soon. The hero is Felix, a boy who has a lot of adventures while on the run from the Nazis. He loses a lot of people he cares for. He is such a great kid! And in the third book, halfway through the series, the author flies into the present day and tells the story from the viewpoint of his Australian granddaughter. Lovely stuff! 

#20 - Emily Rodda - most famous for the Deltora series for children, but also writes mysteries for adults under her own name, Jennifer Rowe. At one time she was editor of the Australian Women's Weekly.

#17 - Jackie French - author of a huge number of historical novels for children, former Australian Children's Laureate, several CBCA shortlistings under her belt. Amazingly popular in my school, considering how hard it is to get our kids to read historical fiction! 

#16 - Graeme Base - fantastic artist and picture storybook author. One of his first books was Animalia, a wonderfully clever alphabet books with detailed paintings that invite the young reader to find all the pictures starting with the letter of that page. For example, "Diabolical Dragons Daintily Devouring Delicacies" has a background window through which you can see the Doctor and a Dalek. And a donkey. There's a background picture of a dagger hanging over someone. "Dagger" might be okay for kids, but as in the Asterix comics, there's a bit more for the adults reading with them - Damocles, right? It had a CBCA shortlisting, but didn't win. The book that did win is long forgotten. While Animalia has become a classic - I have the app on my iPad.  The kids at my school used to have it out every lunchtime, by the way. 

#15 - May Gibbs - author of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, classic Aussie picture storybook. Her home has become a museum. 

#12 - Paul Jennings - the predecessor of Andy Griffiths. His books are hilarious and some of the short stories were used in the TV series Round The Twist. He hasn't written much in recent years, alas. I think he's done one or two picture books, which I must check out. 

And adult writers I like are historical novelist Geraldine Brooks at #19 and national treasure poet Banjo Patterson at #11. He wrote all those bush poems, such as"Clancy Of The Overflow" and "The Man From Snowy River" and guess what? "Waltzing Matilda" is his too! 

Tomorrow we will know who are the top ten - stand by!

Halfway Through John Glenn: A Memoir...

I can't help feeling I'm learning a lot about John Glenn the person rather than what he did. I'm reading this side by side with The Astronaut Wives Club and it makes for an interesting comparison.

He spends a lot of time describing the various planes he flew - in great detail, what they could do, what the problems were, what happened with his next plane. I had a hard time focusing on all that and admit to sliding over some of the plane descriptions. 

But there's no question that he was a passionate flyer, that a lot of the stuff he volunteered for was because it was the only way he could keep flying instead of being stuck behind a desk. After World War II, seeing friends be killed, admitting that napalm was horrible and that maybe the bombs over Japan were not nice, he goes to Korea. The patriotism? Definitely, but mainly because it will keep him flying. He doesn't have the particular skills needed for commercial flight and anyway, people who do are applying for all the jobs available. In Korea he hopes he can do the Snoopy-Red Baron type of combat flying he wants so desperately, and he does, three times(five would have made him champion). 

I've just reached the bit where he has finally been accepted for the Mercury program. He admits to all the awful stuff the astronaut candidates had to go through in their medical tests. I read about that in The Right Stuff and other books on the subject. It was not only difficult, it was downright embarrassing!

Interestingly, that line about "sleeping under a Communist moon", which I have read elsewhere was spoken by LBJ, he attributes to Khruschev, as a sneer. You do have to wonder about this man...

But I'm finding that there was good reason for the fact that the astronauts were able to participate in the design of their spacecraft. They were all test pilots at this stage and it was something test pilots did. Even then, you really needed to have science and maths skills to be able to do the job. Glenn admits he had a hard time with the maths, though he eventually managed it, though he never quite got the hang of calculus.

Okay, on with the book and further comments when I've finished it. 

Australia's Favourite Author 2017: Final List

Once more, Booktopia is inviting readers to vote for their favourite local authors. You don't even have to stick to one person, as they recognise you have more than one favourite. I'm pleased to say there are several children's and YA authors on this short list. I've given them my preferences, though I've also voted for one or two writers for adults, who overlap. Do vote! Whoever ends up winning will not only be happy, they will have something to add to their resume and that's important when publishers make decisions(admittedly there are some "classic" writers on the list, such as May Gibbs and Banjo Patterson, who won't care if you vote for them. I stuck to live ones). You don't, I think, have to be living in Australia to vote, at least it doesn't say so, but there is a prize of $1000 worth of books if you give them your details - I certainly did! Why not wander over and see if your favourite Aussie author is there? (There is even a Kiwi, Juliet Marillier, but she lives here)

And here is the link.You have until January 20 to vote.
http://blog.booktopia.com.au/2017/01/16/vote-finals-favourite-australian-author-2017/

Now Reading...John Glenn: A Memoir and Simon Schama's French Revolution book!

Sometimes you just have to have it in print. I had to order the John Glenn book because it wasn't on iBooks and it wasn't at Dymock's in Melbourne despite being on the web site. The staff member explained that the web site had a different warehouse; I'd be better off ordering on line and having it in ten days than waiting for the shop to get it from overseas. So I ordered on line and had the fascination of tracking it on the Australia Post web site. At one point it was actually in West Sunshine, where I work. If I hadn't been on holiday I could have had it that day! 

As it was, it arrived yesterday. My neighbour made sure it was on my doormat for me when I opened the door yesterday. I was utterly excited and delighted and, of course, started reading it right away. Only a chapter in, but interesting so far. He was of a working class family on his Dad's side(Mum was a primary teacher). His father started off working on the railroads, then became a plumber. 

And he started his passion for flying one day when his Dad was driving along and there was this man in a field offering rides in a biplane(this was only a couple of years after Lindbergh's flight). His Dad said he could come up with him or wait, but he was going to have that ride. The rest is history. 

I bought the Simon Schama book at Dymock's on Thursday. I'd gone there to meet my friend Bart, who had a birthday on Tuesday. We were going to have afternoon tea afterwards. He had hoped to do that at the elegant Hopetoun Tearooms, but the queue outside put us off. Amazing. The place is around 100 years old - you'd think by now it would be taken for granted! I'd never seen that before, either. So we crossed the road instead and had our tea and chocolates at Ganache. But the thing is, when I enter a bookshop I almost invariably leave with a book. Citizens actually is available in ebook, but... I just love anything by Simon Schama and, well, I couldn't leave without it. 

Anyone else like that about bookshops?

Two Troll Tales From Norway Retold by Margrete Lamond, Ill. by Ingrid Kallick. Armidale NSW: Christmas Press, 2016

Here's another delightful, beautifully-illustrated folktale volume from the amazing Christmas Press.

This time the theme is that Norwegian creature of mischief, the troll. Forget about the Tolkien variety which is a huge, not-too-bright peasant and turns into stone at sunrise. Forget even the Terry Pratchett variety, which has a silicon brain, can live in the city, work in the police force and needs the cold to be smart. 

The trolls in these stories can change shape if they wish and are closer to the Faerie folk than to the big, thick-as-two-planks version in fantasy fiction. They don't even live under bridges. 

The first story, "The Little Old Lady From Around The Bend", is about something that happened in  the old lady's youth. The girl in the story suffers the same fate as those folk in other stories who are silly enough to help out the ungrateful Faerie and then admit to having seen them afterwards. As if that's not bad enough, she doesn't even get to enjoy her official reward for having helped the trolls. 

In the second story, "The Golden Ball Of Yarn", yet again we are made aware of the problems of helping or even being involved with the Faerie. A young woodcutter hands back a ball of golden yarn to  a huldra girl and finds himself controlled by her for some time, till he finally manages to escape to the other side of the world. 

The huldra are Scandinavian critters that can help or punish mortals. The women are beautiful, except they have tails, the men are ugly. 

There is humour in both tales, which are lively and cheerful, though the second story could have been tragic. The author links them to her own family - the girl in the first story was a crazy old lady remembered by her great grandmother from her childhood, while the woodcutter is someone met on the ship  to the other side of the world(presumably Australia) by her grandfather. 

Both give the traditional warning to children: "Don't trust the Faerie folk!"

The artwork is stunningly beautiful and appropriate to the stories told. I especialły liked the first story's frontispiece which shows a young girl going down the hill from her cottage, which sits on top of a pile of rocks shaped like a sleeping old woman.

You can buy this book from the publisher's web site, from Booktopia and the Book Depository, or, if you live in Australia, you can just ask for it at your local bookshop! 

Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World by Kate Pankhurst. Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2016.

From Coco Chanel to Rosa Parks, Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World is bursting full of astounding facts and incredible artwork on some of the most brilliant women who helped shape the world we live in.

Kate Pankhurst, descendent of Emmeline Pankhurst, has created this wildy wonderful and accessible book about women who really changed the world.

Discover fascinating facts about some of the most amazing women who changed the world we live in. Fly through the sky with the incredible explorer Amelia Earhart, and read all about the Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole with this fantastic full colour book.  (Publisher's blurb from Allen and Unwin website.)

I did wonder when I read this book if the author-illustrator was any relation to the suffragette Pankhursts. Nice to know that their descendant is now able to do stuff like writing about women's achievements. Her other children's books are fiction.

The author has chosen a good variety of women who did different things. Of course, her ancestor is in there, but she is only one entry in a variety. There is also swimmer Gertrude Ederle, who swam the English Channel at a time when women just didn't do that. There's Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, with an easy-to-follow explanation of what was behind those colourful paintings. There's Mary Anning, a young girl who grew up in the Regency era, finding and collecting fossils. The family did it for a living, in their home at Lyme Regis, to sell to tourists, but when she made some major finds, they called in the scientists. It was fourteen year old Mary who discovered the ichthyosaur. As a young woman she discovered the plesiosaur. I had heard of her, but only briefly on a radio show on the ABC. I must look up more. 

Mary Seacole gets a page too. This nurse set up her own hospital in the Crimea during the Crimean War, because as a black woman she had been turned down as an official nurse(Florence Nightingale - remember? Although as I recall, she did say Florence Nightingale was quite helpful to her once she got there). Probably just as well, because she treated the wounded men of both sides of the conflict.

It's a charming book which can set children off in all directions, to find out more, and might make little girls feel better about themselves. The artwork is delightfully whimsical and suits the text perfectly.

Should suit girls from about seven upwards, or can be read to younger ones. There is a useful glossary at the back, to explain hard words. Not enough books have that these days!

Buy it at any good bookshop or online retailer!

Odd And The Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman. Ill. by Chris Riddelll. Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2016

Odd, a young Viking boy, is left fatherless following a raid and in his icy, ancient world there is no mercy for an unlucky soul with a crushed foot and no one to protect him. Fleeing to the woods, Odd stumbles upon and releases a trapped bear … and then Odd's destiny begins to change. The eagle, bear and fox Odd encounters are Norse gods, trapped in animal form by the evil frost giants who have conquered Asgard, the city of the gods. Now our hero must reclaim Thor's hammer, outwit the frost giants and release the gods …  (Publisher's blurb)

When you see a new children's book that combines the talents of the amazing Neil Gaiman and Children's Laureate, artist Chris Riddell, you know you're in for something special. I have been lucky enough to read and review previous collaborations by these two, Fortunately, The Milk...  and The Sleeper And The Spindle and there is no question in my mind that as creators they belong together. Each of them is excellent alone, but together? Something very special, strengthening the work of both.

Neil Gaiman has shown that he can write both for adults and children. And this is one you can confidently hand to the eight or nine year old in your life, or read to them.  It has just a little bit of information about Norse society at the start, without making the young readers feel they're in the classroom - perhaps just enough for them to go and look up more. Odd's late father is only a part-time warrior, as are all the other Vikings; his day job is a woodcutter. In fact, Odd becomes crippled due to trying to use an axe that's too heavy for him. And his father didn't die in battle, he died on the way back, of cold and wet, after rescuing a packhorse fallen overboard. That adds a touch of reality to the fantasy world, in which you might wake up and hear animals talking without wondering, What the heck! and then find a way to Asgard, without thinking, Hey, I'm talking to Thor and Loki! There's humour, too, with the quarrelling gods, a bit of genuine Norse myth and Odd using his brains to solve the problem, not suddenly picking up an axe and wielding it. (Well, the ice giant is just a bit too big for that, even if he wasn't crippled).

Chris Riddell's artwork is breathtakingly beautiful, as always. He could make a living just from illustrating fairytale re-tellings, and be counted among the great fairytale illustrators.

Another book you will need to buy two copies of, if you are to part with one. My young nephew is getting this one when this review is up.

Buy it from the publisher's web site here. Or from Booktopia, here.  In fact, you can buy it pretty much anywhere, including your local good bookshop, which will order it in for you if they don't have it. Why not try there first and keep bricks and mortar stores in business?

Dear "Head Of Library" Reposted From My Livejournal

Dear "Head Of Library",

I read your article in a school library journal. It was about improving schools' perceptions of teacher-librarians.

Which is absolutely fine, I'm all in favour of getting some respect from the administration. It's when you spent your entire article giving advice to "library teams" to remind everyone that they are teachers as well as librarians that I started to wonder what kind of schools you've been working in lately. I looked you up and found you'd been "head of library" at a couple of private schools and were now working part time at another private school and enjoying the break from being in charge. You did say you'd worked at some state schools, though not which ones, and I suspect they were nice middle-class ones in areas where the parents can afford private education but have chosen to send their kids to a state school. They're the kind of schools where you can put a laptop computer on the book list and know parents will buy it.

Well, I'm head of library too, as I'm the only teacher-librarian on my campus. My team consists of me and a two-day-a-week library technician and I'm lucky to have her. If she retired or left, I would be alone. It saves money. They don't cover her any more when she has to take time off. They used to.

And I don't have to remind anyone that I'm a teacher, because, despite being the sole TL, I also have to teach classes. For that matter, so does a friend of mine who is now working at a private girls' school, who is only a little better off than me in staffing, though I bet her budget is better.

What I really want is to have my job as a librarian recognised, stuff the teaching side of it! I'd like to have a support team like yours, Head Of Library, to be able to get together and do great things that cost money, then pat ourselves on the back for being terrific librarians and also teachers(don't forget!)

But you do what you can. I haven't had time to do things like Readers' Cup, though I probably should invite kids to do the Premier's Reading Challenge. It's better if you have support from the English staff, but it can be done informally. You do need to have the books in the library to be borrowed, though, and I'm not sure I have everything on the list. 

I have been able to do book launches and get in the newspapers for those events. I'm running a student book club, which helps choose books for the library and goes on excursions when I can arrange something cheap for them. I write a book blog and occasionally invite students to interview authors, said interviews going on to my blog.

I've been lucky, as a writer, to have some fellow writers offer us a freebie(they get fed and gifted and newspapers are called, the best I can do, since I can't pay them). We're members of YABBA, which offers the occasional freebie too.

I've done virtual readouts with the kids for Banned Books Week. Hey, it's free and they love it!

My colleagues and the kids know what I do. I wish the admin did.

But please, Head Of Library, stop giving advice to people who have had greater challenges than you.

Thank you.
Sue

Now Reading...The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel

And thoroughly enjoying so far! 

When you do the whole "sensawunda" thing about the early space program, you think about the magnificent men in their flying machines zooming off into space. You don't think immediately about the women who had already spent years as the wives of test pilots, more or less bringing up the kids alone, wondering every day if their men would ever come home. The women who often worked at low-paying jobs to help their husbands finish their degrees while giving up their own education. 

And suddenly they were in the spotlight, with journalists and photographers camping out in their gardens or out in the street, and there was a deal with Life Magazine, so you had to be available for family shots and interviews. It wasn't all bad, of course. The pay was a lot better. They could afford stuff they hadn't been able to afford before, maybe even go out for a night on the town and to pay a babysitter! 

What I hadn't realised was that they were important to NASA too. The astronauts were not just chosen for themselves. This was going to be huge publicity. They had to be married - happily married. The wives had to be respectable - and patriotic. A man's chance of getting the astronaut gig actually depended on his wife. In one case, that of Gordo Cooper of the Mercury Seven, his wife had left him, taking the kids, and he had to go after her and beg her to return. Trudy Cooper was a strong woman, herself a qualified pilot who flew a lot. She was persuaded to return.The whole space thing was irresistible. 

I haven't read far, but I think this is going to be a fascinating book!