Saturday, August 20, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
IPSWICH FESTIVAL OF CHILDREN'S LITERATURE blog - coming soon!
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| Paige Turner |
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| Tatty Rat |
(c) Illustrations remain the sole property of Lynn Priestley, Australia. 2011
Monday, December 28, 2009
I'm Not Scared ... book review
I'm Not Scared (Io non ho paura)
by Niccolo Ammaniti
translated by Jonathan Hunt
If you want to be a good writer you need to read great stories. That’s one of the universal truths. It’s also an excellent excuse as to why you’re not tacking that tottering pile of ironing.
One doesn’t need any excuses to read Niccolo Ammaniti’s brilliant novel I’m Not Scared.
The book is set in a tiny farming community in rural
When 9 year-old Michele Amitrano is dared to enter the darkness of a dilapidated and uninhabited farmhouse he discovers a secret that is so terrible, he dares tell no one. His journey towards the final confronting insights about injustice, betrayal and the loss of friendship will leave the reader breathless.
Ammaniti skilfully captures a child’s voice and viewpoint with devastating precision. His gripping narrative and descriptions of the landscape are uncluttered and utterly truthful, capturing the reader from the very first sentence. Nothing from the story has been lost either with Jonathan Hunt’s flawless translation in English.
I'm Not Scared won the 2001 Viareggio-Repaci Prize for Fiction and has been sold in 20 languages.
It's also been made into a movie that did it justice. It scored 91% on the Rotten Tomatoes.com score. Check it out.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY OF AUTHORS MENTORSHIP 2009-10
This year as one of the ASA Mentorship program's recipients I have a fantastic opportunity to work on my current work-in-progress, McAlpine & Macbeth.....
'The ASA has announced the twenty successful applicants for its mentorship program in 2009-10. The mentorship program is funded through a grant from the Cultural Fund of Copyright Agency Limited. The program’s judges, Delia Falconer, Kate Forsyth, Libby Gleeson, Martin Langford, Craig Smith and ASA executive director Dr Jeremy Fisher were impressed with the overall quality as well as the quantity of the entries.
Speaking on behalf the judges, Dr Fisher said: “With such an expert selection panel, it should be an easy process to select the best entries, but it was arduous because so much of what was offered was so good. In the end, though, this meant all the pieces fell together and we found we had selected an eclectic and refreshing mix.”
Selected from 268 entries, the 20 successful applicants will have the opportunity to work closely with a mentor of their choice for 30 hours over up to 12 months. At the completion of the mentorship, a number of participants will be invited to read their work, appear ‘in conversation with’ or participate in panel discussions at state and/or regional writers’ festivals.'
This novel has been a six years project for me. Like another of my stories, Mountain, it has a special place in my creative energy. The complete manuscript is 57,000 words.
I began working with my mentor, Australian author, illustrator and creative writing teacher, Sally Rippin in August this year.
Some of the things I had to sort out include rushing through action scenes without drawing out the suspense; or sometimes a character's distinctive voice dropped out.
The major flaw was ignoring my initial instincts that this was a junior fiction story - I'd changed it to Young Adult, and it wasn't working. Sally pointed that out to me and the mist of confusion lifted.
This major re-write pulled together some plot inconsistencies. I also used the opportunity to use the FIND 'button' to delete masses of 'saugage-words' (i.e. those clutter words that fill out the skin of writing ... like somehow, got, then, felt, seemed, somewhat etc)
The next task will be to recognise 'CLUNKS' and the 'ZINGS' - where words weigh down the story or where they ... well, zing! And that's the best part of editing. It won't be long before this story is ready for submission.
The ASA provided thirty hours of work with my experienced mentor - an amazing, valuable experience for me as a writer and for the novel. Thank you to that little band of excellent manuscript judges at the Australian Society of Authors. :)
A writing friend of mine, Kathleen Noud was awarded an ASA mentorship last year. If you'd like to read her article on the experience, click on this link to her blog.Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Watch out for 'frenzied authors'!
When Professor Allan Fels appeared on a panel at the Open Forum on PIs at the Melbourne Writers Festival on Saturday night and said, ‘Authors are being whipped up into frenzy by their publishers,’ I knew then this man (who is among the group calling for the abolition of Restrictions on PIs) has no real understanding of the issues at all. He appears to view it only from the perspective of a free-marketeer. I wonder if he’ll take notice of what an author says. An open letter to Professor Allan Fels:
Dear Allan Fels,
Your main claim to fame was your work with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission where you won approval as ‘Australia’s best-known cartel buster and the scourge of price-fixing business and anti-competitive behaviour’. So, being the reasonable person I am, I understand your reasoning behind this apparent enthusiasm for Parallel Imports. But that doesn’t mean you are correct.
You also stated recently that: ‘The claim about dumping (of imports) is just fanciful. The vast majority of Australian books are for the Australian market - they're not sold overseas. And if you were just saying there's going to be a substitution of American for UK cultural influences, so what?’
If you had only taken your argument a step further you'd have to admit that if Australian publishers end up cutting back on future publishing programs because of imported books, they’ll restrict their intake of new untried authors and their support of developing authors, and future Australian books, plus retrench Australian workers. Surely not something even you would condone in your relentless seeking of an open-market in everything.
As to your last sentence above? I’ll leave that for others to judge.
There’s another aspect I can’t get my brain around, Professor Fels - you're also a patron of Creativity Australia, a not-for-profit organization partnering with business, education, health, community and charity groups, government and philanthropists.
Their creed states:
"There has never been a more important time to develop those human attributes which set us apart from machines. We are entering a Creative/Conceptual Age and we require targeted creative programs and leadership engaging with the right side of the brain. By encouraging greater innovation and creativity, Creativity Australia will provide a new and exciting path to personal wellbeing, acceptance, social inclusion and happier and more productive members of our great Australian community."
The organisation quotes from the work of Lotte Darsø - researcher, consultant, lecturer and author. Her main areas of interest are creativity and innovation as well as Arts-in-Business. “A profound change is taking place in the organisations that are seriously concerned about the future of business and society as they are realising that ‘rational man’ is giving way to 'artful human'.”
Maybe someone should remind you that creating stories is linked to being ‘artful humans’ too. Ah, well, one should never give up hope.
But back to the ‘frenzied authors’ comment – let me assure you, Mr Fels, we are not being pushed by publishers to take our stand against Parallel Imports. We believe in, and are delighted by the quality books being produced in this country. We are immensely proud of what we can offer readers of every nation not just our own. We are authors who don’t give up on what we believe in.
Yours sincerely
Sheryl Gwyther
Writer of children’s books - www.sherylgwyther.net
Founding member of the SAVING AUSSIE BOOKS campaign