author journal

Is it Time to Give Up Yet?

2012-01-27T15:49:00.000+11:00

Following last week's blog, a friend wrote to ask my advice – “I’vebeen writing for years, without success. Is it time to give up?”

Obviously that’s something no one else cananswer. And equally obviously I’m going to have a try – which could be adefinition of the difference between discussing and answering.

I believe that failure is one of the taboosof our society. One of the themes in Peeling the Onion, taken from my life, ishow the protagonist, Anna, deals with her ‘failure’ to fully recover after hercar accident.

And giving up is often equated withfailure. “Don’t give up!” weencourage our children when they are trying something difficult, but ultimatelywithin their grasps. “Never give up your dreams!” the self help books tell usas adults, when we are aiming at something that eludes us. No wonder so many ofus find feel ashamed to even think of giving up, chucking it in, throwing inthe towel…

A school counselor friend recentlycommented that pessimists had a bad rap. “The world wouldn’t function if it wasall left to the optimists,” she claimed (which made another friend and mesquirm, till we optimistically decided that we generally had enough pessimismto cope with life.) But it made me think: “What if we reframe the questionabout giving up? If something isn’t working, is it truly sensible or admirableto spend the rest of our lives being optimistically tenacious and determined(ie Never Giving Up!)

Because the problem is that time is finite.Okay, not in the Stephen Hawking sense of time and space, but the amount of timethat we each have in our productive lives. So if we keep hammering away at oneparticular thing, and feeling that we’ve failed by whatever measures we’ve setourselves – whether it’s friend & family feedback publication, or making aliving from our craft – as well as battering our self esteem into the ground,we limit the time we have to explore something new. Something that might enrichour lives, give us joy, or even success. Something that might bring newpossibilities we’ve never dreamed of, (including cycling back to the originaldream in a new way.)

Would a better question be, “Is it time togive my dream a holiday, and explore new possibilities?”

Or, “Is it time to broaden my horizons andchallenge myself in a totally new direction?” (I know I was facetious inanother post, and said ‘brain surgery or sky-diving,’ but this time I’m beingserious. Cooking, life drawing, pottery, music, singing

And the final question, “Is the pursuit ofmy dream is bringing me joy, or satisfaction in any way?”

If the answer is “No,” maybe it’s time togive it a rest. (I say ‘rest’ because taking a break from writing is notirrevocable, no matter how sincerely you mean it. You’re allowed to change yourmind.)

Because life is mysterious, and we neverknow what’s just around the corner. Taking a break from a dream might just meansucceeding at life.

Rejection Letters and Shattered Dreams

2012-01-19T14:57:00.000+11:00

To my discouraged writer friend

I don’t blame you for feeling down – rejection stinks. You’ve worked sohard on your novel; you love your characters so much, you know it’s better thansome of the trash you’ve seen on the shelves… so why hasn’t anyone published it?

The truth is, I don’t know the answer.

It might be that it’s brilliant, and hasn’tfound the right publisher yet.

It might be that it’s a work you had towrite as part of your writing apprenticeship, and although it’s helped you growin your craft, and brought you joy in its creation as well as despair in itsrejection, it is in some way too personally yours for a publisher to riskinvesting in.

It may be that you will never know which.

So while you wonder, the choices are:

1) Give up; take up sky diving orbrain surgery instead. Or, more seriously - take a holiday from writing, refresh yourself and then make your decisions.

2) Pour every atom of your energyinto having this work published. Some people do this, and it works. Others doit, and it comes close to destroying them. You need to decide whether doing so will move you forward or stunt your growth.

But this is my preference:

3) Recognise, acknowledge and honouryour legitimate grief for your hopes for this creation.

Meditate, do EFTtapping, talk it out, exercise it out… whatever works for you.

When you've dealt with it, you'll be able to put the loved work aside, and start a new one. Ideas areinfinite. You’re a writer: you will find more. You’re a human: your love willgrow to accommodate your new story and characters. Like any new relationship,you need to let go of the old love and throw everything you have into the newone.

In six months, in a year, in twenty, have another look at your firstlove. Maybe the time will be right for it – you’ll dust it off and someone willleap at it. Maybe you can use the setting and characters in another story. Theworst-case scenario is that it will show you how you’ve grown.

And while you're deciding, don't forget that nearly all of us whom you see as successful have been through this, and still go through it in varying degrees. Sometimes all we can tell ourselves is the mantra: it's never wasted.

Good luck!

Wendy

I never save rejection letters, but this is a pretty rejected looking page from Nim at Sea.

Nim's song for Selkie

2012-01-15T18:43:00.001+11:00

Since I've been busy with a new character today, Nim said I could put up the song she wrote for Selkie.

Selkie’s Song

Swimmingwith Selkie in the sea

from NIM'S ISLAND, illustration by Kerry Millard

Feelsso wild and feels so free

Dolphinsleap and fishes flee

WhenI'm swimming with Selkie in the sea.

Snugglingwith Selkie in the night

Whenshadows are dark

and the moon is bright

Selkiewhuffles that we're all right

When I'm snuggling with Selkie in the night.

From NIM AT SEA, illustration by Kerry Millard

From the Film Nim's Island, Walden Media 2008

Treasure Map

2012-01-12T14:52:00.000+11:00

Following the blog on story mapping, a mother sent me a map her daughter had drawn: it was to be a treasure map, but also became Nim's island.

One of the nicest things about being sent things like this is that it reminds me of exactly who I'm writing for: kids who can still throw themselves whole-heartedly into the game of make-believe that is part of reading. There's nothing better than the proof that someone has taken your story on board so completely that it becomes their own.

(And notice the 'aged' paper. Isn't that wonderful!)

The writer's curse: fear of the blank page

2012-01-10T18:42:00.001+11:00

I think every writer knows the paralysing fear of the blank page or screen. (Maybe paralysis is the wrong word: often this fear drives me to other scintillating and suddenly urgent tasks, like sorting out files or cleaning the oven.) But I was amused to find that even starting the drawing I talked about yesterday - the story map that was just for me, that would never be seen by anyone else - held this same fear.

Because I have to admit I lied. I said I was doing the drawing, and I had the paper out, and I was going to do it just as soon as I finished the post. That part was all honest.

But somehow I didn't. Somehow it was time to walk the dog, and then make dinner, and I couldn't possibly do it after that because it was too late, and I wasn't alone in the house, and, and, and...

So this morning I made it my priority. I put on meditative music, made my coffee, and started scribbling. I used scrap paper to remind myself that it was just scribbling, that I would be throwing out many pages before I worked out what I wanted.

And it worked. That's the amazing bit. I certainly don't have a beautiful map: I have several pages of scribbles, with different shapes, lines and arrows, East-West-North-South crossed out and replaced as I worked out where I wanted the sun to rise. But I now have a much better idea of what this landscape and its buildings are like, and therefore of the story. In the end I worked for about four hours, as the map details led me to questions, and so to reference books and google, where a picture or item started another question or chain of thought...

We don't all work the same way. But one thing always holds true: at some point you have to start. And it doesn't matter how small the start is, it'll never be so scary again.

Story Mapping

2012-01-09T20:35:00.000+11:00

Usually when people talk about story mapping, they mean mapping out the shape of your story: how the smaller chapter peaks and cliff hangers build up to the great climax. Personally, that's not something I can do before the first draft is done, and even then it's more something I'm aware of than a formal, written chart.

What I mean is literally drawing maps for each story. Anyone who knows me and my sense of direction might find this amusing – but actually it's even more important if you don't have that natural sense of where things are and how they fit together. The map I created of Nim's island was up on my wall the whole time I worked on the book, and later sent to Kerry Millard, the illustrator, to be prettied up for publication. (I love the antique puffy-faced winds she added! The "not to scale" was my husband's comment, which Kerry thought was so funny she added it too.

For Raven's Mountain (Australia)/ Facing the Mountain (coming in February in Canada), I had large scale maps of National Parks in British Columbia, then my own drawings of the mountain, her path down it, the camp site... if you've got a character out in the wild, you need to know which way the sun comes up over the lake, and remember that it's not going to set in the same place.

Today I'm drawing a temple-palace - I'm not quite sure yet which it'll be called, though I have a feeling that I'll know when I work out the drawing. It'll take a while - drawing is another of my not-so-gifted gifts – but I learn a lot about what I need to know as I do it. I get a better feeling of the materials; I know the colour of the stone now, and it's not what I thought it would be. It's all part of digging yourself into the character and the story.

I can't share these now, but here's one I made for Raven's mountain: a salt dough conception of the peak, to see if my idea of how it could have eroded would work.

It doesn't have to be just for fantasy kingdoms or eroded mountains: if you're not sure of some of the logic in your story, or your character isn't coming to life, pick up a pencil and start doodling ideas about their home, their street, their town. If you can picture their kitchen, their bedroom and garden, you'll know a lot more about them. You'll probably never use those details, but knowing them will give your character greater depth, and a better chance of coming to life on the page.

2011 - The year that was!

2011-12-31T18:41:00.004+11:00

It's been a year of new books: Raven's Mountain in Australia,

and the start of the Rainbow Street Shelter series in North America, with

LOST! A Dog Called Bear, and MISSING! A Cat Called Buster.

There were Writers Festivals in Perth and Brisbane, being a Premier's Reading Ambassador, school and bookshop talks around Melbourne and Victoria, and the honour of launching Song Of The Dove for Errol Broome & Sonia Kreutschmar, and Squish Rabbit for Katherine Battersby.

There was some wonderful travel and the start of new projects in Denmark and France.

And most importantly, there was good health, happy family reunions, good friends, and gratitude for a good life. What more could anyone ask!

Wishing everyone the best for the New Year, in life, reading and writing, and a 2012 to be grateful for, all over again.

Sneak Peek: Facing the Mountain

2011-12-29T16:26:00.000+11:00

What a thrill! Scholastic Canada Book Fair is featuring Facing the Mountain in their author spotlight, before its release in February. I love the cover - what a great Raven this girl is!

Q What inspires you to write?

A I love stories. I believe that the world is made up of stories, and writing them is the best way I know to find out what I believe about life.

Q What advice do you have for young writers?

A Read a lot, and write a lot. Write the stories you want to read, and the stories you love to live in. Remember that you learn something from everything you write, even if it doesn’t work out and you don’t want to finish it. Maybe you’ll come

back to it one day; maybe you’ll move on to something completely different. But the most important thing is to have fun with all parts of the writing: the words, the characters, and the story.

Q What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

A Read, walk on the beach with my dog, do tai chi, or have a coffee with a friend.

QWhat has been the biggest achievement of your career so far?

A I know that most people would think that it was having Nim’s Island become a Hollywood movie; the Red Carpet and the glamour was certainly an unbelievable thrill, but for me, my own achievement was that I had created a story that so many people believed in enough to spend years of their lives working with it. In some ways simply having my first book, Amanda’s Dinosaur, published, still feels like the greatest achievement. And in other ways, it’s getting a letter from a kid who says that one of my books started them reading, or helped them through a tough time in life. I feel incredibly grateful that my imaginary characters and I can do that.

Q What was your favourite book when you were growing up?

A I had so many different favourites! At Raven’s age I still loved Anne of Green Gables and Little Women, but also all of Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novels like The Eagle of the Ninth, The Yearling, Two Little Savages, The Incredible Journey, The Queen’s Music, the Narnia series... that’s probably enough!

Q In Facing the Mountain, your character Raven has to endure tremendous adversity and look within herself to find the strength to save her family. What was your inspiration for this gripping wilderness adventure?

A When I was Raven’s age and a bit older, I used to make up survival adventure stories for myself, wondering how I would manage if I had to do something like ride my horse back from Colorado to Red Deer, Alberta, where we’d moved from, or to Toronto, where we were moving next. I used that feeling when I was thinking of Raven’s story.

The inspiration for the plot came from climbing Pikes Peak in Colorado with my dad and younger sister when I was twelve. My sister and I both remember the huge thrill and pride we felt on reaching the top (even though we were very disappointed to see a gift shop with buses parked out front — we wanted to feel that we were in the wilderness!). However on the way up we had to shelter from a hailstorm under a big rock, just like my characters did, and I’ve always wondered, ‘What if you had to shelter under a rock for a long time, or you couldn’t get

o u t ?...’

Jonathan Bean interview and art

2011-12-23T10:07:00.000+11:00

Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast � Blog Archive � Seven Questions Over Breakfast with Jonathan Bean

A wonderful interview with the talented Jonathan Bean, who illustrated the US (Henry Holt/Macmillan) editions of Mokie and Bik, andMokie and Bik Go to Sea. He had a break for a while, and I'm so glad to hear that he's working again. His own One Night is another favourite on my shelf. Go have a look to see some of his amazingly varied work.

Title page spread from Mokie and Bik, and last page of Mokie an Bik go to Sea.

Translating Christmas

2011-12-22T14:30:00.000+11:00

Translating Christmas

My Christmas reflection this year is an excerpt from The House at Evelyn's Pond, (lightly edited to make sense on its own). Rereading, I'm not surprised people think I'm Jane; it sounds quite autobiographical, and I have to remind myself that I've never made a cassata. But my mother-in-law did ask if there was Christmas in Canada, and I guess that's how fiction works: you take that one line, and work forwards, or backwards, from it, till you start to believe your own lies.

Happy Holidays to everyone, whatever, however, and wherever you celebrate.

By Jane’s first Australian Christmas, ten months after stepping onto the hot tarmac of Tullamarine, the farm was starting to feel like home. It was very nearly true, as she said in her holiday cards, that she hadn't even had time to be homesick. She’d lost none of her Canadian longing for spring and sunshine; she felt herself thrive as the temperatures began to climb: 'Think of me sunbaking on Christmas Day,' she wrote to Patsy and Gail, 'while you shovel snow!'

It stayed true all the way to the day she went Christmas shopping. It was a hot day, nearly a hundred on the old thermometer. Maybe that's all it was. The Christmas lights were dim against the glare of the sun, the Santa Clauses sweltered in their fur-trimmed suits, and the canned carols of winter cold and evening dark sang surreal and alien.

She got home to find the red candles in her cleverly adapted bottlebrush arrangement on the windowsill melted into sad, recumbent curves, which was not supposed to happen at Christmas, because Christmas was supposed to be in the winter. Christmas was the butterfly anticipation of hanging stockings on the mantelpiece and the 4 a.m. waking to wiggle toes to the end of the bed and feel for that same stuffed stocking with the lumps and bumps all the way down to the tangerine in the toe, and going downstairs to the magic of the lit tree and the presents heaped under it, and only crumbs and a rimmed glass left from Santa's milk and cookies and the carrot for his reindeer gone too.

Continue reading:

The House at Evelyn's Pond is available as an ebook here

Introducing Bear and Buster

2011-12-08T10:14:00.001+11:00

As a slightly late celebration of Buster's arrival, I decided to do trailers for the first two books in the Rainbow Street Animal Shelter series: LOST! A Dog Called Bear, and MISSING! A Cat Called Buster. (I'll do one for WANTED! A Guinea Pig Called Henry when I've found the advance reading copy. That may mean cleaning the house first, so don't hold your breath.)

Young Australian Art and Writers' Awards

2011-11-27T14:13:00.001+11:00

There's something wonderful about watching people receive an award they've striven for, and especially when the recipients are kids and young adults. The recipients of last night's Children's Charity Network Awards were deservedly proud and excited: the standard of both writing and visual art was extremely high – it was incredible to realise just how young the winners were, after seeing the quality of their work.

Congratulations to Paul Collins and Meredith Costain, and all the other Ambassadors, for a night that was obviously the culmination of a great year of promoting literacy around the country.

The delightful Susannne Gervaise and me; Di Bates engrossed in one of the winning stories

Welcome to the world, Buster!

2011-11-23T14:02:00.001+11:00

Shame, shame, shame! Between deadlines and life, I missed celebrating my new baby's birthday: MISSING! A Cat Called Buster was published on November 8. Buster is the second in the Rainbow Street Animal Shelter series, for USA and Canada. Like LOST! A Dog Called Bear, it was illustrated by Susan Boase – and I'm happy to say that they have both been Junior Library Guild Selections.

He's rather gorgeous, isn't he? (Sorry, Buster, I know you'd hate to be called gorgeous - but your cover is.)

Buster isn’t fluffy or pretty like other cats—he’s a crazy orange cat with attitude. And Mr. Larsen is the exact right person for him. Every morning Buster and Mr. Larsen sit on their porch in the sun, and every morning Josh sees them when he walks to school.

When Mr. Larsen goes to the hospital and Buster goes missing, Josh and his family look for that crazy cat everywhere. But if Buster turns up, Rainbow Street Animal Shelter will have to help him find another home.

That’s when Josh and his family realize that—sometimes—life can choose a pet for you.

2011-11-22T15:40:00.001+11:00

For all secondary and primary teachers, librarians and those interested in promoting literacy: there's a professional development seminar this Saturday at the RACV club in Melbourne, designed to inform and inspire!

Maybe I'll see you at the cocktail party afterwards?

SCHEDULE

9.00 - 9.45 Registration, tea and coffee on arrival

9.45 - 10.00 Welcome and Introduction: Susan Halliday

10.00 - 10.45 Keynote Address, Reading Into the Future

Paul Collins, Ford Street Publishing

10.45 – 11.15 Susanne Gervay & Dianne Bates – Panel

Discussion issues-based novels

Moderator: Paul Collins

11.15 – 11.45 MORNING TEA BREAK

11.45 – 12.30 Michael Salmon: Illustration techniques for school

and library.

12.30 – 1.15 Meredith Costain: Creating picture books with

students

1.15 – 2.15 LUNCH BREAK

2.15 – 3.00 Tony Thompson: VCE Texts/Primary Texts

3.00 – 3.45 Panel Discussion – Sports Books for Boys

Phil Kettle and Michael Panckridge: Moderator

Michael Hyde

3.45 – 4.15 Gabrielle Wang: Discusses the experience of Race

and Culture

4.15 – 4.30 Summary, prizes and close

4.30 – 5.00 Book sales and signings

OPTIONAL – You will be invited as our Guest to us for:

5.00 -.600 Happy hour cocktails in the Gallery Room, also

Story-telling by Jackie Kerin

6.30 – 7.00 Canapés in the Grand Ballroom

7.00 – 9.30 Dinner and Presentation of the Young Australian

Art & Writers Awards

(Your table will be hosted by a leading children’s

Author/Illustrator)

Wendy Orr on How Writers Work | Gabrielle Wang

2011-11-15T12:14:00.001+11:00

Gabrielle Wang, as well as being a great writer for kids in her own right, is running a series of guest blogs on how different writers write. Go have a look !

Wendy Orr on How Writers Work | Gabrielle Wang

How did you got your first book published?
I made a decision to write seriously – for publication – at the beginning of 1986. I experimented with all sorts of things that year, including Mills & Boon, arrogantly supposing that they would be easy. After all, I’d read a chapter of one when I was babysitting, several years earlier After the rejection of my first 3 sample chapters, I did deign to read five complete romances, but still found it difficult to stick to their formula without irony, and their next rejection letter told me that I did not have ’the magic required for a Mills & Boon romance.” So I decided to stick to writing things I want to write – a resolve that has stood me in good stead.
In November that year I saw an Ashton Scholastic competition for a picture book text. I’d never realised that one could write a picture book text without doing, or organising, the art. My children were still picture book age, and I also used them at work, so as well as loving the genre, I was used to the rhythm and form. I wrote Amanda’s Dinosaur which shared first place and was published in 1988, after I’d rewritten the ending. I think it stayed in print till about 2005, here and in the USA and Canada.
However my Scholastic editor left shortly after takingAmanda’s Dinosaur, and I had about 18 months of rejection letters after that, as well as having a reading scheme accept about 10 books – and return them all when the managing editor was replaced. (In the end they requested and published three of the ten, but it was a very unpleasant experience.) Then I sent The Tin Can Puppy to HarperCollins, where it was read and accepted by my first Scholastic editor! I published eight books with them, including two CBC shortlisted titles:Leaving it to You, and Ark in the Park, which won in 1995.

Did you have a mentor?
The good part about the disastrous reading scheme was that I worked with a couple of excellent editors, who were extremely supportive as well as knowledgeable – I often felt it was a wonderful apprenticeship, and my grief over their being fired was even worse than having the books rejected.
I’ve been writing full time since 1991, and although that decision was forced on me because of catastrophic injuries from a car accident (the one on which I based Peeling the Onion) I was lucky that it was also the first year I’d made something approaching an income from my part time writing. I was also lucky that I’d started a new book the morning of the accident, so I had something to work on for the first two difficult years of recovery. Now I can’t imagine working outside as well as writing.
What is your writing routine?
I usually read my emails before breakfast, at about 7 am, and answer anything urgent from the east coast of the US or Canada before people leave offices for the night. I do a couple more after breakfast, check twitter & facebook, then walk the dog. Then I finish tidying up urgent emails, drag readers’ letters into a folder for the end of the week, have a stretch/put on a load of washing etc, and then start writing properly. I have quick break for lunch and write till about 4, when I walk the dog again, then work till 6.
Unless I have a deadline for line edits or proof reading, I don’t work in the evening – my creative juices are done for the day! On the weekends I answer readers letters and do admin tasks (that’s a new addition – I’ve been very bad at allocating time for the business side of writing.)

After many years of writing on odd desks in odd spaces, I now have a purpose-built desk and office – and I absolutely love them. They don’t improve my writing efficiency, but they make me happy.
What are your recent publications?
Raven’s Mountain came out in Australia in February this year, and will be released in Canada in February 2012.

LOST! A Dog Called Bear was published in the US in July. It is the first of six books in the Rainbow Street Animal Shelter series; MISSING! A Cat Called Buster will be out in November. In Australia, all six stories will be published in one volume:Rainbow Street Pets, next June.

Writing and Tears

2011-11-07T18:27:00.003+11:00

Book Review – Raven’s Mountain by Wendy Orr | Reading Upside Down

A very nice review by Susan Whelan, who confesses to shedding a tear near the end. I have to admit that I shed a tear about there too, when I was reading the proofs for the Canadian edition, which will be called Facing the Mountain. (I know I wrote it, I know what happens... but I do care about these people and emotion gets me every time!)

A Happy Hoppy Launch: Squish Rabbit

2011-10-27T10:28:00.001+11:00

Wendy Orr � the Well Read Rabbit || Katherine Battersby

I met the lovely and talented Katherine Battersby at the Brisbane Writers Festival last month, and bought her brand new first book Squish Rabbit for my 2 & 6 year old neighbours. It's passed the test of being a constant bedtime read ever since, so I was very excited when Katherine asked me if I would launch the book into the Melbourne market, at the Little Book Room at 11:00 on Saturday 5th November.

The link above will take you to Katherine's blog to learn a little more about this deceptively simple, original and very appealing picture book. Better yet, come and join us to see for yourself!

Children's fears, real and imaginary

2011-10-21T14:42:00.001+11:00

On a school visit yesterday, I read The Princess and her Panther to the youngest group before talking about the power of our imaginations and how we can combat our own imaginary fears.

One girl volunteers the perfect lead in, saying that sometimes her toys throw shadows that make her afraid in the night.

We discuss on what the real things were that the girls were afraid in the story: the snakes on the roof of the tent are leaves, the witch is an owl, the monster’s a frog... the wolf is the puppy next door.

'But the dog might really bite you,' says one boy.

I talk about dog safety: Never pat a dog without asking the owner's permission, etc. 'But most dogs are good, and if the owner says you can pat it, it should be okay.'

'But if it's a pit bull it still might bite you,' says another boy.

I agree that some dogs are vicious; we have to be careful. 'But we can see in the picture this is a friendly dog that lives next door.'

'The dog next door to my aunt came in to her yard and killed her dog,' says a girl. I can do nothing but sympathise, say that's a very sad story, and decide that's enough dog stories for one session.

The truth is that we can't dispel all children's fears, because some fears are valid and essential for safety. Children do need to know how to behave around dogs, and how to recognise a vicious or nervous dog that may snap. The child whose aunt's pet was killed will never forget the horror of that story.

But in general, I can't help wondering if we're overburdening very young children with fears of every aspect of life. We worry about them falling off swings or failing at music lessons, limiting the development of resilience, and yet often encourage them to worry about world disasters, present and future.

I don't have any answers. I'm just wondering.

iPads, iPods, Playaways & old fashioned books: What I'm reading and How

2011-10-15T14:05:00.002+11:00

I had some sort of stomach flu last week, and was a bit shocked to find that I didn't even feel well enough to read for a couple of days. I started listening to an audiobook, and finally had two days when I still didn't feel well enough to write, but could truly enjoy reading what someone else had written! So, combined with what I'd already been reading and wasn't in the mood for while recuperating, I realised that I had quite a variety of books on the go, in quite a variety of different media.

On the iPod: Some Sing and Some Cry, by Ntozake Shange and her sister Ifa Bayeza, narrated by Robin Miles - and what a magnificent voice she has to read, and sing, this wonderful novel. It's a multigenerational saga, which makes it very long as an audio book, but totally engrossing.

On the iPad: A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy. My daughter rates this as one of the best books she's ever read, so it seemed an appropriate choice as my first ebook, since she gave me the iPad. I started it at the Brisbane Writers Festival, and enjoyed reading it on solitary breakfasts; less convenient as we had visitors for a month on my return. The book is very funny, wry and sad, but I think it will take me a bit longer to feel completely the same about reading on screen as on paper.

In hard copy (normal!) books: Wise Children by Angela Carter, a great 20 c op shop find and fun, engaging read
Time Bites by Doris Lessing - a collection of essays, wise, wonderful and excellent for dipping into in odd moments and between novels

Du Coté de Chez Swann - I'm loving this, but it needs full concentration, good light, and a French dictionary on standby

The Proust Project - a selection of essays by 28 writers on their experience with Proust. Since it's in English, I read a selection as a bit of a reward in between sections of actual Proust

And on a Playaway for Book Club - I've just finished listening to the Naked Buddha. If you haven't seen a playaway, they're an individual mp3 player for one book, so ideal for libraries as they can't be pirated. I greatly approve them, although this one seemed to be faulty and kept fast forwarding when I tried to rewind after falling asleep listening....
(I've returned this to the library, so the photo is of the Playaway for Peeling the Onion.)

A Book and a Hug reviews The Princess & her Panther

2011-10-11T13:32:00.000+11:00

A Book and a Hug - The Princess and the Panther

Lovely review! It's always a good feeling when a reviewer understands what you're aiming at in a book (and better yet, likes the way you've done it.)

Ah, the adventure of putting up a tent and camping out overnight in your own backyard. You spend the day getting everything set up and then night comes and it gets awfully dark! ..... The joy of playing house and dressing up and letting your imagination take you afar is celebrated in this gorgeously illustrated story and the fear of the night plays second fiddle and is quickly vanquished

And I could hardly argue with her closing statement: "We could use a few more like this one to inspire the young imaginations around us."

For the full review at abookandahug.com: A Book and a Hug - The Princess and the Panther

Grateful to be alive

2011-09-24T18:01:00.002+10:00

Twenty years ago today I touched death. To be honest, I'm not terribly interested in different theories about near-death experiences; I know what I experienced, and what I believe: that sometimes, on the border between life and death, we're lucky enough to come back. For me, it was looking down from the tunnel to see my child being comforted by a stranger over the apparent death of his mother in the mangled car. I was filled with rage at the thought of dying and leaving my family, and I believe that's why I'm alive today.

I wrote about the injuries and the start of recovery, as well as the near-death experience, in Peeling the Onion. It's been a slow process, but there is now very little that I can't do. I've worked hard, but I've been exceptionally lucky too, with the therapists I've found along the way. Don't ever believe that physical recovery ceases after two years - I've improved steadily over twenty.

So, noting the date today, my first reaction was to feel sick. My second was gratitude. I've never subscribed to the theory that I need to be grateful for horrendous injuries and years of pain, because of what it 'taught' me. But I am very grateful for the life I've had around and since those traumas, and for the future that I still have.

Interview for Aus Lit Journal

2011-09-21T17:48:00.000+10:00

What kinds of fiction did you read as a child, and did you have some favourites?

I read widely; for birthdays and Christmas I was usually given classical British and Canadian children’s fiction or the US Newbery Award winners, but I read popular children’s fiction as well as adult historical biographies, poetry...I think I was quite omnivorous. (I remember reading and loving Four Years an Empress, the story of Napoleon’s second wife, when I was about nine. I’m not sure why this appealed so strongly.) Early favourites were Winnie the Pooh, then Swallows and Amazons, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, My Son in Law the Hippopotamus, The Queen’s Music, Coral Island, The Yearling, Two Little Savages… followed by everything of Rosemary Sutcliff and Mary Renault.

Would you say your childhood reading has had a distinct influence on how you write fiction now, and why?

I think it’s more of a feeling for story, and for rhythm and words, than a direct influence in terms of style. (Although at thirteen I invested a huge amount of energy researching and writing a sequel to Eagle of the Ninth, and that must all have been part of my apprenticeship. And occasionally I catch myself using a rhythm borrowed from Rumer Godden, whom I forgot to mention above.) I think all influences are pervasive; the stronger they are the less we may be aware of them.

What did you do before you became a published children's author, and how did you come to write your first children's book and get it published?

I was an occupational therapist specialising in paediatrics. Late in 1985, as we crossed the road to go out to lunch, another OT told me she’d written a book. I presumed it would be some weighty tome on hand function, though in fact it was a Mills & Boon, and sadly, although she was asked to submit her complete manuscript, in the end it was never published. However, I thought, ‘So when am I going to do that? I’ve always said I was going to write!’ I mailed the last assignment of a post graduate course that Christmas Eve, and started writing on January 2^nd, experimenting with all sorts of different genres. My friend and I shared a subscription to a now defunct writing magazine, which in November advertised an Ashton Scholastic competition for unpublished writers, for a picture book manuscript. My own children were tiny, so although I hadn’t attempted a picture book text before, I was immersed in the genre and loved it. The prize was publication, and my manuscript, Amanda’s Dinosaur, was one of the two winners. The book was published in 1988, with illustrations by Gillian Campbell.

How would you describe your style of children's fiction or your approach to writing children's fiction?

I’ve written across all ages, from picture book to YA, so the style varies, but what’s important to me is a core of truth in the characters and their reactions, no matter how unlikely the setting or the predicament they’re in. I don’t consciously set out to write something ‘empowering’, but I’ve realised that my own beliefs of resilience, hope and a sense of fun, seep into my books. I don’t see that as a problem: it’s much easier to make tragedy sound like good literature, but I believe it’s also possible to write well about joy.

Who is another author whose children's fiction you admire and why?

There are so many it’s hard to choose: but on the current Australian scene, I particularly admire Lian Tanner and Cassandra Golds, for highly original and beautifully written works.

How would you summarise one of your children's books in one paragraph.

Nim’s Island is the story of a girl who lives alone on an island with her scientist father Jack, a sea lion called Selkie, a marine iguana called Fred, a sea turtle called Chica, and a satellite dish for her email. Jack heads off to sea for three days, and Nim answers an email from Alex Rover, a famous novelist asking for research help. But when Jack is lost in a storm, Nim injures herself investigating the volcano, and the evil Troppo Tourists are coming, she has to ask Alex Rover for help. Unfortunately Alex Rover is not the great adventure hero Nim believes, but a timid, rather inept woman who never leaves her apartment.

How would you describe the appeal of this book to readers? People seem to love Nim’s courage, resourcefulness and relationship with animals. I often receive letters from children of both sexes saying either ‘I wish I was Nim’, or ‘I’m just like Nim!’ with a wide variety of reasons, such as living on an isolated farm, as well as the more obvious ones of loving the beach, swimming or animals.

How would you summarise a chapter or section from this book in one paragraph?

A tropical storm hits as Alex Rover attempts to sail to Nim’s island on a tiny sailboat. When Nim, sheltering in the Storm Cave, sees the boat heading for the rocks below her, she knows that Alex will drown without help. Riding her sea lion Selkie, with Fred riding Chica beside her, Nim heads out through the monstrous waves to save her.

How would you describe the contribution this chapter or section makes to the book? As well as being the adventure climax of the story, it epitomises the relationship between the two characters, the courage that they’re each able to find when they need it, and the relationship between Nim and her animal friends. If I had to choose one image to describe the book, it would be Nim riding Selkie through the waves.

How would you describe the integration of writing and illustrations in one of your illustrated children's books? If none of your children's books have been illustrated, how would you describe the integration of writing and illustrations in one of your favourite illustrated children's books by another author?

In the picture book The Princess and her Panther, I originally described a little girl camping in the back yard with her cat, and told both the imaginary and the ‘real’ story in the text. The editor suggested that I choose one strand and let the illustrator show the other; I chose the fantasy, but Lauren Stringer’s art subtly and beautifully depicts both the reality of a homemade tent in the backyard, and the rich fantasy life of the girls inside it. It became two girls, because after spending a year trying to paint the story with a girl and a cat and feeling dissatisfied with her results, Lauren remembered her own childhood: she always played at being a cat, with a rope tied around her waist – and her sister was always a princess. The change brings much greater depth to the story.

To what extent would you say fiction written primarily for child readers is different from fiction written primarily for teen readers?

I think it’s primarily in the sense of fun, fantasy and adventure – but there are many exceptions to all those.

Split Edition Syndrome - The Rainbow Street Animal Shelter

2011-09-16T17:56:00.000+10:00

For the last three years, on either side of working on Raven's Mountain, I've been working on a series for Henry Holt: The Rainbow Street Animal Shelter. Each book is just under 10,000 words long, following a different animal and child on their intersecting trajectories. You might guess that at some point they end up in an animal shelter, and over the six books we get to know the people who run it and the parrot, dog and cat who accompany them.

The first, LOST: A Dog Called Bear, was released in the US and Canada in August, and MISSING: A Cat Called Buster, also illustrated by Susan Boase, will follow in November.

As an animal lover, they've been a joy to write, but the work has been hotting up lately. I returned from holidays to deadlines for copyedits of Book 3, final edits of Book 4, and maybe-final edits of Book 5. At the same time, my Australian editor, Allen & Unwin, has decided to publish them all in one book, without illustrations, so I turned straight to that from all the US ones.

You really forget how many differences in nuance there are – as well as spelling, animals, and Christmas holidays – until you transpose your own manuscript from one country to another. Being originally Canadian, but having lived in Australia my whole adult life (after some schooling in the US and college in the UK) has made the whole process even more confusing. I can usually sort it out as I read aloud, but not always:

"We say kibble, not dry dog food, in the US," my Henry Holt editor corrected gently.
"We say dog food, not kibble," my Allen & Unwin editor reminded me.

And I do know that... it's just that they both sound familiar, and I'd reversed which country they were familiar to.

After all, I don't really talk about dog food a whole lot except with my dog, and because I've always called it kibble, he's quite happy to understand that!

For a chance to win a signed copy of LOST: A Dog Called Bear,

LIke the Rainbow Street Animal Shelter Facebook Page: http://tinyurl.com/3psrasx

and post a picture of a pet or other animal to the wall (or if you don't do Facebook, email the picture to me, and I'll post it for you.)

Burnside High School Library: Raven's mountain / Wendy Orr

2011-08-20T18:10:00.001+10:00

Burnside High School Library: Raven's mountain / Wendy Orr

Another young reader review, this one for Raven. And much as I love Nim, it's especially good to hear about readers enjoying my new baby.

I liked this book because I like tramping and climbing. There's a rockfall at the top of a mountain and Raven, though hurt, is the only one who can get help for the others who are trapped in a cave made by the rockfall. Her journey down the mountain is scary and dangerous. I thought that the author made Raven a real person, though a bit too perfect, maybe.

Who would enjoy this? If you like quick-read adventure stories which make you wonder if you would be able to do what the main character did, then you would probably like this book.

Reviewed by Katya

Star Readers from Glenmore Park Public School - Local News - News - General - Penrith Star

2011-08-17T15:41:00.001+10:00

Star Readers from Glenmore Park Public School - Local News - News - General - Penrith Star

I love reading what kids have to say about my books. Here's a very well written review from Georgia in Yr 6:

"Nim’s Island is a fresh change from the usual children stories.

After her mother dies, Nim and her Father Jack sail around the world twice and discover a small deserted island. They make their home under a dormant volcano and Nim’s best friends on the island are a seal lion name Selkie, a marine iguana called Fred and a turtle named Chica."

She ends the very informative review with words to make any author smile:

"From the moment I picked it up I didn’t want to put it down. Anyone from 10 to 100 with a sense of adventure would love this book. I highly recommend it.
10/10 from me. Keep an eye out for NIM AY SEA if you loved this story"

For the whole review: Star Readers from Glenmore Park Public School - Local News - News - General - Penrith Star

Book Giveaways - Competitions for LOST! A Dog Called Bear

2011-07-24T18:30:00.000+10:00

I've been working on the Rainbow Street series for so long I absolutely have to do something to celebrate the release of the first of the six books. And since the book is coming out in North America on August 2, and I'm going to be on a little island in Denmark that day, I decided the best thing to do was a couple of book giveaways. Both end August 31.

There are two: one on goodreads.com, which hasn't been listed yet - I'll try to post when it does, but as I'll be traveling, it's worth checking the Giveaway section of Goodreads in a couple of days. Because this is a more official giveaway, it's just for USA and Canada, as that is where this edition of the book is being released.

The other is on the Rainbow Street Shelter Series FaceBook page: http://tinyurl.com/3psrasx
Since I'm organising this one myself, anyone can enter. Just Like the page, and post a favourite animal picture on the wall. It doesn't have to be a traditional pet, doesn't have to be yours, doesn't have to be a photo. The winner will be chosen by a random number from the uploads - it's about enthusiasm, not artistic merit or cuteness of pet, because they're all beautiful to the people who live with them.

Defending our Libraries

2011-07-23T14:25:00.001+10:00

My local paper asked for my thoughts on funding cuts to public libraries (Wonder how they guessed I'd have a view on it?)

Libraries are not a book warehouse, though they are a lifeline for omnivorous readers. Our library holds regular book talks, where keen readers meet authors to hear the story behind the book. Holiday programs offer children writing workshops and other creative outlets. Adults can learn to use, or access computers.

And anyone can do their own research, asking for help when they need it – the library staff facilitates ongoing learning, whether formal or informal. The acquisition of new books is essential for a library to be relevant, but just as important is the interaction. When I needed a photo that I was sure I’d once seen, of a sea lion teasing a marine iguana, one of our local librarians helped me track it down. They advise on reading tastes, as well as factual information, in a non-threatening atmosphere. They’re a place where passionate children’s librarians help parents to match a child with the right book at the right time.

When I arrived in Australia as a 21 year-old migrant, I turned to my local library for insights into my new culture. I would hate to see new migrants today deprived of that benefit.

The budget cuts seem especially grave to me considering the March 2011, Softlink follow-up survey to the 2010 Australian School Library Survey, which found that four out of five school libraries have experienced a budget decrease, or no change, compared to the previous year.

It’s a grave outlook for the future, not just for our children, but for all of us, if public library services are cut back as well.

LOST! A Dog Called Bear

2011-07-22T18:28:00.000+10:00

I'm waiting anxiously for the advance copy of LOST! A Dog Called Bear. When I finally get it, I guess it will seem funny that it's been lost in the mail.

However, it'll be out, in the USA and Canada, on August 2 so readers there may see it before I do! (Australian readers, unless they win the Facebook competition, will have to wait for a compilation book to be published by Allen & Unwin next June. It will probably be called Rainbow Street Pets.)

This little book (10,000 words) has been a long time coming, as it's the first of a series of six in the Rainbow Street Shelter series, and we wanted to have them all well underway before the first came out.
It's published by Henry Holt and illustrated by Susan Boase.

This first story is based on the adventures of two dogs we owned at different times in our lives - both were Border Collie crosses and working dogs. Jack jumped the five foot fence when he came to live with us in Albury before we bought our first farm; he headed down the highway and jumped into the back of the first ute he saw, ending up in Yackandandah, about 25 km away. Many years later, when we moved into Rosebud for a while, Bear jumped out of the back of my husband's ute, raced across the highway, and ran up and down the beach for a few hours. People kept telling us they'd seen him, and pointing different directions, but we never saw him. (It's okay, we did get him back eventually!)

Here's the cover:

PeopleQuiz - Nim's Island - Trivia Quiz

2011-07-15T11:11:00.000+10:00

A Nim's Island Quiz! (No, I didn't make it - found it at PeopleQuiz through my google alert) Thanks to PeopleQuiz!

Interview at Screen Futures YouthFest

2011-07-13T18:06:00.000+10:00

Screen Futures YouthFest was a great event at Fed Square on Monday. I went to a panel discussion with Fiona Woods, Doug McLeod, Bernadette O'Mahony and Holly Tossi; a highly informative, great session - they were all very generous about sharing their experiences.

But in all the sessions, including my own, what really impressed me was the audience. They were so passionate, intelligent and reflective; some questions could have set up great topics for debates and further study.

I was interviewed by a couple of different groups afterwards; here's the interview with Tori from SynMedia.

From Screen Futures To BookGrove

2011-07-10T14:20:00.000+10:00

Busy week coming up, with a "Page to Screen" session tomorrow at the SCREEN FUTURES YOUTHFEST at BMW Edge at Federation Square. My session is 2:00 to 2:30; see the site for the full details. www.screenfutures.com/?page_id=285

There's no bookstore at the festival but I'm happy to sign books that people have bought elsewhere to bring.

Then, Thursday I'm at BookGrove bookshop in Ocean Grove:
1/73 The Terrace
Ocean Grove Vic 3226
p 03 5255 5973

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Book-grove/175105942522210

Reading, slow and savoury

2011-07-03T20:01:00.000+10:00

After procrastinating for years, I'm finally reading Proust in French: Du cote de chez Swann, (Swann's Way) the first book of Remembrance of Times Past - the one in which the famous madeleine is dipped into tea to bring back a flood of memories, almost reliving, of his childhood. It's not an action book, to put it mildly. It's a rich and sensuous book, about sensuous experiences - including reading. It swept me back into remembering the way I read as a child, with such total, visceral immersion that I still associate different smells or tastes, as well sounds or images, with different books.

And some of the reason that I'm identifying so profoundly, or stopping to smile and savor the beauty of a phrase (despite being occasionally overwhelmed by the length of a sentence) is because I'm reading slowly.

I learned to read and write in French before English, but that was a long time ago. Reading something as dense as Proust,with paragraphs that may extend for a couple of pages of small print,and occasional words that aren't in my dictionary,needs concentration. There's no point in bolting through it to find out what happens, because not very much does. The point is in the reading itself.

And that reminds me why I write, as well as why I read: the passion of totally immersing myself in another world, and being lost in the music of the words that take me there. I'll try to remember that when I start Caleb's Crossing for book group, instead of gulping it down in a couple of evenings,rushing to finish in time as I'm often guilty of doing.

Invitation to Screen Futures Youth Fest

2011-07-02T15:13:00.001+10:00

I'll be speaking on Book to Screen at this festival:

SCREEN FUTURES YOUTH FEST

BMW EDGE- FEDERATION SQUARE

Monday July 11 2011, 9.30am- 4pm.

Do you want to write/ direct/ produce movies or already do?
Do you like Facebook or want to create your own social networking space?
Love games – want to play better and maybe make some?
Could you be a DJ or digital music producer?
Want a future in media or want to find out more about it?
Do you think twitter, blogs and citizen journalism will change the world?
Do you want to change the world?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then the Screen Futures Youth Fest is for you. What kind of job will you have in your media future? Come and hear animators, music video directors, e publishers and bloggers talk about what they do and how you can do it too.

I am one of the presenters at this fantastic event. Come along to see:

Paul Verhoeven from 3JJ is the MC

Panels of senior TV and multimedia producers will discuss where TV and multimedia are going today and careers in media.

Wendy Orr, international award winning author of youth fiction will present the book and film versions of Nim’s island and her role as author and collaborator in the film.

Youth radio announcers will speak about radio and how to forge a career in it.

There will be a panel featuring animation artists and another focussing on games.

Award winning game producers will discuss the industry and how to become a game creator.

Production Workshops

The Digital Learning Hub at the Victorian Arts Centre will be conducting workshops to produce soundtracks for film and music video clips.

Matt Blackwood from the City of Melbourne Laneways Stories project will be working with groups on digital stories about Federation Square.

Class TV, Channel 31 will work with young people to video vox pops in the Square and then present them late afternoon on the screen.

Signal- Create an interactive video “toy”.

Go to this website to book or turn up at BMW Edge at 9.00am Monday July 11.

Tickets: Tickets are valid for the full day – $30 each or $100 for 5. Tertiary students $20
For bookings, click here. Bookings may only be paid for with Mastercard or Visa.

Like us on Facebook for updates, information and competitions as they arise.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Screen-Futures-Youth-Fest/146470228751734

For more info Conatct Augusta Zeeng Tel: 0405 432 866

Email: augusta@atomvic.org

Why I write

2011-06-30T18:00:00.000+10:00

Tristan Bancks | Australian Children's Author | Children's Books: Wendy Orr, Children's Author: The Writer's Studio

2011-06-25T15:15:00.000+10:00

Tristan Bancks | Australian Children's Author | Children's Books: Wendy Orr, Children's Author: The Writer's Studio

I'm in awe of Tristan's website and blog, and thrilled to do a guest post for him. Keep an eye out for his next interview - and his next book!

Wendy Orr is a fascinating character. She lived in many parts of the world as a child and survived a life-changing accident as an adult. She writes books about 'the resilience of the human spirit; finding the courage we need to face adversity'. Wendy is the legendary author of Nim's Island, turned into a feature film starring Jodie Foster, and the new book Raven's Mountain. Here, Wendy invites us into her writing space, giving an intimate portrait of her writing environment and process.

Where did you write your latest book?
Mostly at this desk, but also at my parents’ house on an island near Vancouver, hotel rooms in New York and Boston and waiting at the hairdressers.
How important to you is the space that you write in?
Having my office the way I want it is important to me – but the actual writing I can do anywhere, as long as it’s quiet and I can sit in some comfort.

Wendy Orr's Writing Space

Do you transform your space in any way for each book?
I put pictures and small objects etc. up on my windowsill and the desk, maps and larger pictures on the door and collect photos for a screensaver. So for Raven’s Mountain, I had pictures of mountains, waterfalls, bears etc.
Do you 'get into character' at all?
Mostly in an inner way, going inside myself to find what the character is feeling, but I also work out some things physically – like actually climbing in the kitchen window. It’s surprisingly awkward to get in and out of the sink!

Wendy Orr's memorabilia from life as a children's author.

How has the place that you write evolved or changed since you first began writing novels?
This is our fourth home since I started writing – so I started on an old laminex table that the previous owners of our farm had left behind, on a built-in verandah. Our next farmhouse had a strange, skinny office, where I had an IKEA desk and faced a brick wall, which I completely covered with pictures to set the scene for each book. So when we built this house, I put a lot of care into designing the office. And as I’ve now been writing for over 20 years, the office is now crammed with book and film souvenirs, awards, book covers etc – all things that make me happy.

Do you keep regular writing hours? What are they? If not, when do you write?
I read my emails before breakfast and answer the urgent overseas ones immediately, so I can catch people before they leave work for the day. Then I walk the dog and start work after that – I’ve got into the habit of checking twitter and facebook as well as emails before I actually start writing, but try to then switch those all off while I’m working. I try to make sure I stand up and stretch (or hang up washing etc) every half hour, and then walk the dog again around 4:00, then work through till about 6:00. In theory that’s when I do emails, but often I continue writing. On the weekends I try to catch up on emails and readers’ letters.

For more on Wendy, check out the her FAQ with lots of readers' questions at www.wendyorr.com or swing by Wendy's blog http://wendyorrjournal.blogspot.com. Another author in The Writer's Studio next Wednesday.

Loving your writing

2011-06-13T20:02:00.000+10:00

Young, and not so young new writers, often tell me that they’re determined to have a book published with their name on it.

Goals are great. We need goals – and getting published won’t happen without that determination.

But sometimes I worry that the drive to be published, to hold a book with your name on it, can start to overrule the drive to write a story you believe in. Let’s face it, being an author is a bizarre and uncertain way to make a living – probably slightly less reliable than professional gambling. The point of following it as a career is because you love the writing itself.

Because it’s the writing that’s fun: the losing yourself in a story; the getting to know your characters; the jigsaw-puzzle satisfaction of figuring out how the plot fits together; the pure joy of a new idea and the electrifying jolt of inspiration that starts it.

So keep your goal of getting published, but go on playing with your writing. Put the rejected story aside for a while; try a new one, or even try a different genre. You might be surprised at what turns out to suit you. You might discover a new insight into the way you work.

And you might have fun, and regain the love of what you do.

Raven's Mountain on Speech Pathology Australia Awards Shortlist

2011-06-04T15:50:00.000+10:00

I'm thrilled to hear and share that Raven's Mountain has been shortlisted for the 2011 Speech Pathology Australia Awards, in the Upper Primary section.

These awards "aim to promote literacy and the need for good literacy skills, while building a library of resources that speech pathologists, teachers and parents can use to help promote literacy and reading."

There are 12 books in the Upper Primary section, and reading the list, I can only feel flattered to have Raven in there with them - and especially nice to see her with my friend Lian Tanner's Museum of Thieves.

When you get right down to it, recognition and praise, which is exactly what an award shortlisting is, always feels good!

Interview in Soup Blog

2011-05-29T17:16:00.001+10:00

Soup Blog

I was interviewed a little while ago by Rebecca Newman for Alphabet Soup magazine; the full interview is on their blog, as it couldn't all be fitted into the print magazine. For an online look at this great magazine for kids 0f 6 to 12 who love reading and writing, go to: http://www.alphabetsoup.net.au/

Meanwhile, here's the interview:

1. Where do you live?
On a hill near the sea on the Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne.

2. What made you become a writer?
I love stories and books so much that I always knew I wanted to write them. My dad used to tell us crazy stories that he made up, and my mum read us wonderful books for bedtime stories, so wanting to write books never seemed like a strange thing to do.

3. What do you like to do when you are not writing?
Reading, going for walks (especially on the beach or in the bush, and especially with my dog), seeing my friends and family, doing tai chi, and travelling.

4. Was it easy to get your first book published?
I was quite lucky with my first book (Amanda’s Dinosaur) because it won a competition, and the prize was having it published. The next few were harder!

5. What was your favourite book as a child?
At different ages: Winnie the Pooh; My Son in Law the Hippopotamus; Anne of Green Gables; Swallows and Amazons; Little Women; The Eagle of the Ninth.

6. Where do you get your ideas?
I’m often not sure where an idea has come from until I’ve finished the first draft. Sometimes it’s from something that has happened in my life, and sometimes it’s a crazy sort of thought—which of course has still probably happened from something I’ve seen or heard or experienced in some way. Sometimes it might be by asking ‘What if?’ about something that’s happened. Of course you need a lot of ideas to make a whole book—one idea starts it, but then you need more for how a character looks or acts, or what happens in chapter 3, and what’s exciting in chapter 5, or how everything all comes together in the end … I sometimes think that there’s a little bit of magic in how all these different ideas come together.

7. Do you prefer to write with a pen in a notebook, or on the computer?
On the computer. I use a pen to make notes in a notebook with a pen; often one book will have its own notebook and I jot down my thoughts or try to work something out. But once I start writing the story, I always use the computer. (For one thing my handwriting is so messy that writing a whole story with a pen would be too tiring— and even worse, I often can’t read my writing!)

8. What do you love best about being a writer?
Living inside a story and playing with it till it comes out right.

9. Of your own books, do you have a favourite?
It’s very hard to choose a favourite, because they’re like friends or pets. I sometimes think Ark in the Park is my favourite, because when I read it there are still no words I want to change or lines I’d like to rewrite. But Nim has been my favourite character for a while—except that now Raven’s Mountain is out, in many ways that’s my favourite, because I always feel very protective about a new character about to face world. So that might be why Raven is my favourite character right now.

10. Are you working on a book at the moment? Can you tell us anything about it?
I’m always working on several books at a time. I’ve just finished Raven’s Mountain, which was out in February. The short blurb would be, ‘Three people go up a mountain; one comes down.’ It’s an adventure story about a girl named Raven who goes mountain climbing with her older sister and stepdad—but when there’s a rockfall and the others are trapped, Raven has to face the wilderness alone to try to save them, and herself.

I’m also working on a series of books set in The Rainbow Street Animal Shelter. I’m doing these with an American publisher; in Australia the stories will most likely be collected into one or two books. I’ve just finished editing the second book, MISSING: A Cat Called Buster, and now am waiting for my editor to work on the third book while I rewrite the fourth (FREE: A Lion Called Kiki).

There are also several other books at various stages on my computer and in my head!

11. You write picture books, books for primary school aged kids, and young adult books. Do you have a favourite age group to write for?
If I had to choose one age group, it would be primary school or middle grade readers. But I’m very glad that I can skip around and play with a picture book or plan an adult novel in between.

12. How do you know if an idea is best for a picture book, a middle grade book or a young adult book?

That’s part of the mystery of writing that I don’t understand. As an idea starts to grow into my mind, it shows me the shape the book will be, so that by the time I’m ready to write it, it’s obvious what sort of story it wants to be.

13. Do you have any advice for young writers?
Just keep on writing! Have fun with it; try writing different types of stories with different types of characters. Remember that the first person you’re writing for is yourself—you need to love what you’re doing. When you’ve finished, read it and see if there are any parts that are a bit boring, or don’t make sense—pretend you’re a teacher with a big red pen, be brave and mark everything that isn’t good. Ask yourself if that bit needs to be in the story. If it doesn’t—delete it. If it does—make it better. Does it make you laugh, or cry, or hold your breath? Keep on rereading and rewriting till you’re happy with everything in your story.

And don’t forget to read, and experiment with different types of books. Writers need to see how other writers work—but most of all, we need to love stories.

My Creative Space

2011-05-14T12:47:00.000+10:00

My friend Christopher Cheng has been doing a series on different authors' creative spaces:

http://chrischengauthor.blogspot.com/

Here's mine:

For the first time in my life, my creative space was designed especially to be my office when we built the house. I was actually quite happy in the odd spaces I had in houses before, but I love this.

I wrote my first books on an old kitchen table, then an IKEA desk my kids had finished with, but a few years ago I had this desk purpose built: lots of room for files, a keyboard drawer, a hole for that messy spiderweb of cords: perfect. Then I had these bookcases built from two blackwood trees that were knocked down in a storm – a long wait of milling, drying, and finally building, but absolutely worth it! The only problem is that they’re not elastic, so books are already being stacked in odd places.

Besides books, I’ve got teddy bears that belonged to each of my parents as well as my kids, a Folkmanis chameleon puppet that the Nim’s Island producer, sent me because it reminded her of Fred, the princess puppet that Red Balloon Books in Minneapolis gave me at the Princess and her Panther launch… the only rule is that everything on display has to make me feel good. The walls have awards, illustrations from my books, a portrait of the Alex Rover hero that was under the writer’s desk in the film and the freestanding movie poster jammed behind the couch. The back of the sliding door usually has maps for the work in progress (I’ve just taken Raven’s Mountain’s maps down).

And I’m lucky enough to have a beautifully peaceful green view out my windows… (and a massage table from when I’ve sat at the computer too long!)

********

and I thought it most important to add this photo too that Wendy sent to me ... with a few pieces from the MOVIE!

Mothers Day thoughts

2011-05-08T20:40:00.000+10:00

It's the evening of Mothers Day; I spent much of it helping my husband fix a fence, I have wire grass cuts and ant bites on my wrists – and I'm feeling contented. My son lives in Canberra, and my daughter in New York, but I talked to both of them on the phone - and tomorrow when it's Sunday in Canada, I'll talk to my mother there. I'm lucky. Lucky to have two children, lucky to have had them both grow up to be adults I'm proud to know, lucky that technology allows us easy contact in between visits. Lucky that I still have my own parents, who are active, healthy, and also people I'm proud to know.

But I can't help thinking of the women who aren't feeling so contented today; the women for whom a celebration of motherhood must feel like salt in a wound. Thinking of friends & family who still grieve their inability to have children; who had to give up babies or were not allowed to acknowledge them as their own; who live in fear of the future because their children's lives have gone inexplicably, horribly wrong, or whose children's lives have ended in a car accident or in Afghanistan. And those going through their first Mothers Day after their own mother's death. Some of these women are relatives I never met, some are close to me, but my heart goes out to them all.

If you're wondering what this has to do with writing... well, everything. The first step in writing is putting yourself into someone else's life for a while. But even if you don't want to write, it's a healthy thing to do once in a while.

Happy Mothers Day, to everyone who's ever nurtured another human being.

Raven's Mountain launch

2011-05-07T17:45:00.000+10:00

Better late than never... I promised I'd put up some pictures from the launch for Raven's Mountain, at Robinsons Books in Frankston - and I've added in my talk as well.

One lovely thing about being so slow to put up this post is that several kids who bought Raven on this day have written to tell me how much they love it. Good reviews are wonderful - but nothing beats the first reactions of the readers a book's intended for.

Being introduced by the lovely Susanne of Robinsons Books

Now some of you know that about 3 years ago, I was lucky enough to have a Hollywood Red Carpet launch with Jodie Foster for the film made from my book Nim’s Island. The end of the tour for Nim’s Island was visiting my parents near Vancouver in Canada. I love the mountains there, and maybe that’s why I started thinking about when I was about twelve, and my younger sister and I climbed a mountain in Colorado with my dad and some of his friends. It was called Pikes Peak, and was just over 4000 metres high, about twice as high as Mt Kosciusko. We climbed in the summer so it was warm when we started, but the higher we went the colder it got, and the harder it was to breathe. About half way it was too cold for trees to grow, and then it was too cold for any plants except lichens – so when all of a sudden there was a hail storm, the only place we could shelter was under a big rock. There wasn’t much room, it was cold and uncomfortable – and we didn’t know how long we were going to have to stay there. So all those years later, those feelings, and that fear, went into the ‘What if?” game that writers play. “What if you were sheltering under a really big rock? What if you got stuck there?” And then the other writer’s question: “Why & how did that happen?”

In the end I let the real rock into the story too, because it made a good warning for what happened next. It’s nice to have little warnings that the reader sees, even if the character doesn’t. It’s like the creepy music in a movie – as soon as you hear it you know that person is in trouble: you want to shout at them, “Stop, go back! Something bad’s going to happen!” But they can’t hear you or the music so they keep on going, and the bad thing happens.

Even though the idea started with climbing the real Pikes Peak, that’s not the mountain I used in the story. I wanted something further from civilization, so I moved it up north to the Canadian Rockies. And once you’re up there, you’ve got bears. You might hike for two days and never see a bear – but you never hike in those mountains and forget about bears. I remember going camping with my cousin and her boyfriend, lying out under the stars in our sleeping bags – so beautiful and peaceful… until the boyfriend mentioned that a grizzly bear had taken a camper right out of a tent a few weeks earlier.

So I set my little town, Jenkins Creek, about there, near the ranch where my cousin kept her horse, and put Raven’s mountain another couple of hours up the highway from there. There are lots of mountains and lakes up there – no one’s going to mind that I’ve stuck another one in.

Actually bears aren’t the only thing to be afraid of in the Canadian wilderness. There aren’t many snakes up that far north – rattle snakes live further south – but you’ve still got cougars, bobcats, coyotes and wolves. So apart from the hail shelter rock, the only other true story in the book is:

In the end we turned Coyote Girl into a game. All through July, the three of us walked around the block after dinner, as late as we were allowed, howling like coyotes. We imagined people running to lock their doors so the wild animals couldn’t get in. We felt wicked, and brave.

But one Sunday Jess’s family took us for a picnic at the river park. We wandered away from the flat greenness to explore the ravine: it was wild, steep and bushy. We crouch-ran through it, hiding and howling.

Somewhere down the river, a cougar screamed.

We didn’t play the howling game much after that.

And because people always wonder, especially once I’ve said that I’ve used these two ideas from my childhood, whether I’m Raven: no. If anyone in the book is me, it’s her friend Jess, the bossy one who wrote the Coyote Girl play and organizes the howling game. Raven’s actually a very normal kid, except for the bad luck of being named after a black bird when she’s got red hair – and that’s her mom’s fault, not hers. This is what Raven says about herself and her friends:

We’re all squished on together, Jess in front because she’s smallest, Amelia in back because she’s tallest, me in the middle because that’s the way we are. I’m not as smart as Jess or as good at sport as Amelia: I’m the middle bit that joins two long sides of a triangle, practicing handstands with Amelia and writing plays with Jess.

This is why Raven’s different from Nim. Nim was raised on her island; Nim is incredibly brave and resourceful, but she’s actually been raised to be that way. Raven’s grown up in a safe, small town; family picnics at the river are about as far into the wilderness as she’s ever been before. So I actually think Raven’s even braver, because everything she has to do is so entirely out of the world she’s lived in.

Nim's Island model with active volcano!

2011-04-30T19:56:00.001+10:00

This is one of the very best Nim's Island models I've seen - complete with active volcano! (Though I love the fact that the second grade creators decided to keep the volcano separate so it didn't damage their island. Smart girls.)

http://ateachr.blogspot.com/2011/04/nims-island-built-by-2nd-graders.html

Launch of Song of the Dove, by Errol Broome and Sonia Kretschar

2011-04-10T15:07:00.000+10:00

I know I still haven't got around to putting up the pictures of my own book launch for Raven's Mountain, but on Friday night I was lucky enough to launch Song of the Dove, by Errol Broome and illustrated by Sonia Kretschmar. It was a great night, and lovely to be able to stand back and enjoy friends' success.

Here's an edited version of my speech:

I first met Errol Broome at a joint book launch nearly 18 years ago, and ever since that first reading of her work, I’ve believed that, with her exceptional perception and delicacy of touch, Errol is one of Australia’s finest children’s writers –I was very happy when that was recognised in the CBC Shortlist a few years ago. She is also one of the most careful and painstaking.

However, eventually, the author has to finish polishing and hand her story over to an editor, with hope and faith – and this is where the magic begins. The editor’s skill is in matching two creators, who each bring their stories, beliefs and symbols, as well as their talent, to create a whole that’s more than a sum of its parts. I know that for myself, seeing the pictures that bring a story to life always feels like an extraordinary gift, as the artist brings out aspects that the author didn’t even know were there. It’s not just a matter of skill and style, because it’s much more than simply illustrating the author’s words.

The best picture books are those where the words let the artist find their own passion about the story. And this book is certainly one of those marriages between award winning creators – just have a look at this first page. As well as the dove motif, I love the mermaid, symbolising Bellini’s muse, and perhaps also echoing the Little Mermaid’s selfless love, and the restricted lives of women of this period. But of course she is imaginary – so if you look carefully, you can see that she’s translucent.

Although this is her first picture book, Sonia Kretschmar has illustrated covers for several notable books, as well as illustrating for Australian and international magazines as diverse as the Big Issue and the Law Society Journal. I first encountered her work on the cover of Cassandra Golds’ Museum of Mary Child. As well as feeling that it had beautifully captured the spirit of that weird and wonderful book, I loved the painting itself. And it seems that the Archibald Prize judges agree with me about Sonia’s talent.

Probably the only time in my life I'll be announcing anything to do with the Archibald Prize! (for portrait painting).

SURVIVING THE DIGITAL PUBLISHING AGE � DeeScribewriting Blog

2011-03-21T17:57:00.001+11:00

Thanks to Dee White who blogged on this ASA panel. I learned a lot researching my 5 minutes' worth, and of course, more on the night!
SURVIVING THE DIGITAL PUBLISHING AGE � DeeScribewriting Blog
On Friday night I attended a session on digital publishing run by the Australian Society of Authors at the State Library of Victoria.
It featured high profile speakers like author Wendy Orr, literary agent Jacinta di Mase, Emmett Stinson and David Day.
It was good to see a large contingent of children’s authors and illustrators in attendance because for us, the issue is even more complex than most.
Take picture books for example, a topic covered extensively by Wendy Orr. She talked about the fact that PDFs can’t handle the double-paged spread that is an essential feature of so many beautiful traditional picture books.
Wendy had spent many hours researching her subject and discovered that whilst many of the PBs designed for e-readers had interactive features, these were rarely produced in consultation with the author so that the meaning and essence of the book could be lost in translating the story into this medium.
For this reason, Wendy suggested that apps not be given the same name as the book but be called App based upon the book…etc.
Furthermore, as Jacinta di Mase pointed out, the interactive component (which can end up being like a short movie or book trailer) of the book is like a separate edition and consequently should attract additional royalties.
Angelo Loukakis, Executive Director of the ASA commented that one of the difficulties in the evolving world of e-books was the variation in interpretation of modern terminology like ‘apps’ or ‘interactive’. Currently, there are no standard industry definitions and this is clearly an issue that needs to be resolved. I’m hoping that eventually the ASA will have a ‘standard’ e-book contract available for members to refer to.
Technology is ever changing and so are the players and opportunities in this field so as Jacinta mentioned, it’s important for contracts to have a sunset clause in them, where after a period of say two years, you have the capacity to renegotiate royalties.
Piracy was also raised as an issue with e-books, but this happens in the traditional book market already. How often do we lend a book we like to a friend and the author receives no royalties, PLR or ELR in the exchange? Even if books are pirated, there is still some indirect benefit to the author in getting their work ‘out there’. As we know, ‘word of mouth’ is a very powerful tool.
As a children’s author and parent, what concerns me most is not the advent of e-books as such, but that e-book sellers don’t categorise books for children other than to separate them into children’s and young adults sections.
So the buying experience isn’t like walking into a traditional bookshop, picking up a book to read the blurb and the first few pages to ensure that the content is suitable for the child reader. And I’m not talking about censoring here. I’m referring to the fact that one child will have very different tastes in books to another of the same age and gender.
E-books have opened the floodgates to self-publishing and consequently, the marketplace is overflowing with choices. So unless a prospective buyer spends a great deal of time researching and relying on reader reviews, they can’t really gauge whether the book is suitable for their child. For example, some 7 year-old boys love crocodiles and others are terrified of them, but unless the world ‘crocodile’ is in the title of the book, potential readers won’t even know that a crocodile is featured unless it’s mentioned in a review or some other publicity.
Parents of young children don’t have the time to spend hours trawling through online catalogues and reviews, and after speaking to a number of them, I discovered that many are choosing not to buy e-books at all or to just buy e-book editions of works they know rather than risking that the book they buy might not be suitable.
To me, this is an issue that needs to be addressed, and we as professional authors and illustrators need to find a way to get our message across to buyers — to let them know what our books are about and why our stories will work for their particular child at that particular age. When I work out how to do this, I’ll be sure to let you know.
The e-book debate is a complex issue but what came out of the night was that there are positive opportunities for authors in the new marketplace. We have to accept that change is upon us and make it work for us in the best way we can.
I can certainly see the advantages of making my books easily available to readers on the other side of the world. Radio didn’t die out when television was invented and I can’t see it happening to traditional books either. The advent of e-books just means that our books will now be enjoyed by readers in more than one form.

gillpolack: Women's History Month: Wendy Orr

2011-03-13T20:29:00.001+11:00

Gillian Pollack had the great idea of celebrating Women's History Month on her blog. Some of her writers stuck to the topic a bit better than I did, so have a look at the series. There is actually a link to history in mine, but since I'm not ready to share the new idea, you won't see it... Anyway, this is what was in my heart as I wrote.

gillpolack: Women's History Month: Wendy Orr

My first guest I met through another Wendy - Wendy Dunn - when Wendy Dunn invited us both to be guests at an online writing festival for schoolchildren. Jodie Foster had just been signed to appear in the film of her book, so I was prepared to be intimidated. Wendy Orr is not intimidating, it turns out. She is, however, exceptionally interesting.

There ought to be a word for the time between finishing one manuscript and starting another. (I mean apart from ‘relief’ and ‘now I really do need to get around to all those other jobs I’ve been putting off for the last year’ – which may also be the best incentive for starting a new book.)

Of course each time is different, but this time sending off the fourth book in my upcoming Rainbow Street Animal Shelter series (for the in USA), coincided with the publication of Raven’s Mountain, my new middle grade novel in Australia. (By the way, I hate the term middle grade novel: it always makes the book sound as if it got a C grade. Must get over that.) But the timing means that I’m determined to take a couple of weeks off, not just for catching up on fan mail and accountant queries, and the perennial post-deadline task of trying to find my desk, but for reflection. And not just reflection for the purposes of interviews on the new book – because honestly, who doesn’t enjoy insightful questions that help trace our pathway through a newly completed work? This writing hiatus is a time for true reflection, on why I write, and why I write what I do, and then that sudden gift of inspiration which makes everything else fade into the background, as I get the first glimpse of what I want to write next.

Well, that’s the theory, but in the middle of my tai chi class last week, I suddenly felt the beginnings of a new book. Since finishing the last proofs for Raven, last October, I’ve been playing with the idea of returning to a world that I’d created twenty years ago, when I first started writing and was still searching for my voice. I have no desire to go back to the mammoth adult manuscript that I wrote then, but the world itself is still alive for me. Travelling to India in November, for the Bookaroo Children’s Literature Festival, somehow confirmed my desire to return to this world, although I didn’t think it had much in common with the India that I saw. And then, in that dreamy tai chi state, I heard new questions about the main character, suggesting that she is totally unlike anything I had expected, and had an image of the story idea floating in soap bubbles above my head, fragile and iridescent. The image moved me to tears. (Luckily everyone else in my tai chi group is equally vague in the beginning, familiar sequences, so no one noticed that I was crying.)

The next day I saw what I thought was a small dragonfly hovering above our pond. The wings were exactly the same iridescent blue as my story idea bubbles, and I felt I had to take it as a sign. When a twitter follower identified the insect as a damselfly, I knew that it was.

On the other hand, the fragile insect flying off into the distance could also be a sign that it’s time to let Raven go. I’ve lived with her for two and a half years, and it’s hard to remember that I created her as well as her mountain and all that happens to her. She is so real to me it feels as cruel as letting a flesh and blood eleven year old out into the world alone. But perhaps that damselfly was telling me that she’s strong enough to fly. Time to let her go free, and clear out the rooms for the new damsel to move in.

post-teen trauma: Anatomy of a Novel: Raven's Mountain

2011-03-10T12:05:00.001+11:00

The talented Simmone Howell is hosting a series appropriately titled: Anatomy of Novel on her blog:
post-teen trauma: Anatomy of a Novel: Raven's Mountain

Here's my contribution for Raven's Mountain, which I put together using Polyvore, as Simmone suggested - a fun concept.
And in the next couple of days I'll get up some pictures of the launch, and blog about the Perth Writers Festival, which was amazing. Meanwhile...

Anatomy of a Novel: Raven's Mountain

Raven's Mountain by Raven's Mountain on Polyvore.com

1). The Fox and the Child: I saw this film when I was on about the sixth draft of Raven's Mountain, and the little girl reminded me very much of Raven, although she's prettier and a bit younger. She was red-haired, and though she's wandering alone in the mountains by choice, unlike Raven, she still faces the challenges of being out in the wilderness and interacting with nature. The first influence on Raven being a redhead is probably Anne of Green Gables, but the film represents my visual idea of Raven.

2) The Bear: Growing up in Canada means that bears are a background to any mountain hiking or camping, deeply embedded into the subconscious in a combination of fear and fascination. Our family mythology contained a few stories of close encounters with bears, including a home movie of baby me on a picnic rug... cut short as my father spotted the approaching bear and raced me to the car. Later, as a teenager, I was chilled to hear that a grizzly had taken someone from a tent not far from where my cousin and I had camped out in just sleeping bags. And yet I love to see them - at a safe distance, or in a film or documentary.

3) Snow White and Rose Red: Unlike most fairy tales, this one doesn't have a good and bad sister: they're simply very different: Snow White is blond and gentle; Rose Red is dark and lively. Raven sees her older sister Lily as a golden girl, and herself as the opposite. The fairy tale girls' mother is a widow, and once again, there's a bear... but it was the difference between the sisters that I was drawing on as the girls grew in my mind.

4)Pikes Peak Country: Climbing Pikes Peak with our dad, when we were ten and twelve, was highly significant to both my younger sister and me; there was obviously a tremendous sense of achievement, but it was so outside normal life that there was also a kind of 'otherworld' appeal. I'm not surprised it finally made its way into a story.

5) Mean Girls: I loved this movie; I felt it really captured a lot of those adolescent feelings that Raven is confused by as she sees her sister Lily changing from a caring big sister into a 'mean girl.' It also touches on the dislocation that Raven feels as she moves across the country into a totally different environment.

6) The Algonquin Legends of New England: I chose this because I couldn't get a cover image of Glooskap's Country, the collection of Algonquin legends I grew up with, which started me on my passion for First Nation stories. Later I became fascinated with Raven, the trickster god, who seems an appropriate one for writers.

7) Make your own Inuksuk: About six years ago my sister and I were walking on the beach in Vancouver and spotted all sorts of Inuksuks that people had been building. (You've got to remember that 'beach' on Canada's west coast often means rocks.) Something about them wormed its way into my subconscious.

8) Glasses: When I was putting myself into Raven's skin, it struck me that the first thing that would have happened to me if I'd fallen off a cliff is that I would have lost my glasses and been unable to see. I was always breaking glasses when I was a kid, especially skiing, or just playing in the snow, and then I'd have to make my way home without them, which was quite a challenge. But glasses are also a symbol of different ways of seeing: on the trip up to the campsite, when Raven is threatened by the mountains she takes off her glasses to soften the view.

Invitation to Launch of Raven's Mountain

2011-02-25T15:04:00.001+11:00

Join Wendy Orr, author of NIM’S ISLAND, for the launch of her new adventure novel
RAVEN’S MOUNTAIN

2:00, Saturday 26th February
at Robinsons Books, 3/11 Station St, Frankston
9783 6488

“A wonderful read.” Michelle Hamer, The AGE

“Raven is a great strong character, who is certainly a lot more resilient at the end of her few days in the wild.” (4 stars) Australian Bookseller & Publisher

A great action-adventure piece with a wonderful protagonist who is immensely likable. … It is a lovely lovely read. Paula Mazur, producer Nim’s Island

www.wendyorr.com - Go to Books: Raven's Mountain to read an excerpt

My personal 2c worth on Borders and Angus & Robertson

2011-02-21T17:51:00.001+11:00

No matter how much I prefer the independent bookshops, it's still sad to see the demise of Borders and Angus& Robertson. A friend phoned from Queensland the other day to ask if I could send her Raven's Mountain directly, as A&R is the only bookshop she can access (she doesn't have internet) and they didn't know if their suppliers would deliver the book to them. Sometimes a bad bookshop is better than none. (And yes, the chains are quite likely the reason that there isn't an independent there!)

We don't need one more blog on the multi reasons for their failure, or their generally poor service and lack of knowledge about books. (Another friend, searching Melbourne Borders for a biography of Miles Franklin, was asked what 'he was famous for.') But I also remember the first buzz of being surrounded by so many books - and the buzz of seeing the beautiful poster they produced for Nim's Island.

Very exciting to see your book displayed in the front window of a huge chain store, you'd think! And it would have been - except if you look closely, the posters are all of the movie. The book doesn't actually seem to be in sight (the ones in the children's book department were equally well hidden). As this was taken a few weeks before the movie came out, the DVD's would be about six months off, so it seemed a bit early to be advertising them.

Of course from an author's point of view, promotion of the movie of the book is still a promotion of the book. It's just a highly inefficient way to do it, and from something that was supposed to be a bookstore, doesn't make much sense at all.

Writing and publishing books is a business. It shouldn't be a surprise that selling them is too. I don't think the end of these stores means that books are dead.

Home Schooling Mom with some Mokie & Bik love...

2011-02-20T13:53:00.001+11:00

My Mokie and Bik books have never really hit the mainstream (I'm guessing the problem starts with the title: no one is sure how to pronounce it - and the nonsense words inside get even scarier...) but the people who risk it seem to love it.

So you can see why this home schooling mom's blog made me smile!

My Story; Life with the Engelman Family: Mokie & Bik...

Mokie & Bik...

I have to say that reading to my kids is always a neat adventure! We learn so many things within the words of a book, we also visit magical places, and faraway lands! Sometimes its a train, a castle, an old lady, or in this case the decks of a boat called Bullfrog! Mokie and Bik by Wendy Orr Illustrated by Jonathon Bean; I would by far say this is the BEST book we have read this year! It so neat and the words within it are so funny...Mokie and Bik are twins who live on a boat named bullfrog, they have all these adventures upon this boat and the sea they are in. They call a fish a fisk, their dad a parrot, and the small emergency row boat Tadpole! Its the cutest book, and I am not going to tell you a lot about it because I believe that if you have a child or children that are oh 5-10 years old you should read it to them, with them or let them read it!

Nim's Island book group questions

2011-02-15T14:14:00.001+11:00

This post is for Megan from Singapore, who wrote to me last week about doing Nim's Island in her book club. My email to her has bounced back, so just in case she checks here:

Thanks very much for our letter. I'm very glad you enjoyed Nim's Island, and that you're enjoying your book club! And since it's Valentine's Day in the northern hemisphere, I've added a Nim's Island Valentine's Day card.

Why did you write the book Nim's Island?

Nim’s Island was inspired partly by two letters from girls asking me to write a book about them. I said that I couldn’t do that, but I started playing the writer’s game of “What if?” (two very important words in finding stories). “What if a girl wrote to an author and said “Could you please write a book about me?” and the author said, “No, because I’m a very famous writer who writes very exciting books, and since you’re just a little girl your life would be much too boring.” But what if the girl’s life was more exciting than the author’s?

I then decided that the girl’s life was more exciting because she lived on an island, and write the book all in letters between the girl and the author – which was very boring. Finally I remembered a story I’d written when I was 9, about a little girl running away from an orphanage to life alone on an island – and finally Nim’s Island came to life.

So the inspiration was partly those letters, but the deeper inspiration was seeing a tiny little island when I was 9 and thinking that I’d like to live on it, because that’s why I wrote that first story.

What inspires you for your writing?

I just love stories, and sometimes I see something, hear something, or just think of something that makes me start thinking - I wonder what else might happen, or what if something was just a little bit different....

Where did you get your Ideas?

From everything I see, hear, do and think!

I live in Singapore but do you think that I can get my Ideas the same way you do?

Of course. Where we live doesn't make any difference to how we get the ideas; we'll just see different things to start us thinking. (And even when two people see exactly the same thing, it will probably give them both slightly different ideas.)

Why did you make the story the way you did?

That's how it seemed logical to me. I always try a few ways in my head before I start writing to figure out the best way to tell the story; often I have to completely rewrite it because the first way I thought doesn't work after all. Eventually I find the way that I think the story needs to be.

Do you have any connections to this story?

Do you mean is it true at all? Not really; the connection to me is that I love islands, and stories...

In the ending of the book Nim's Island, does Alexandra Rover move to Nim's Island?

Yes.

Do Alexandra and Jack get married,

I think so.

or does Nim find the whale that her mom got eaten/trapped in and find her?

No; her mom really is dead and can't come back, so finding the whale wouldn't really solve anything.

Did you ever think about any of the questions that I just asked about the book?

Some of them but not all! They were good questions.

Fleur McDonald

2011-02-14T11:59:00.000+11:00

Fleur McDonald has a great guest series on her blog - I spent quite a while reading all the previous visiting writers!

But what I especially love about her hosting me is the description she gives of her daughter being caught up in my books. A child being too immersed to talk is the greatest compliment a writer can have!

As my daughter gets older, she seems to have an insatiable appetite for novels. To be very honest, I had heard of Nim’s Island, knew that Rochelle had adored, not only the book, but the Audio Book as well, but didn’t know who the author was.

It takes quite a bit, for an active ten year olds attention to be kept riveted, the way hers was, while listening to the CDs.

Wendy Orr, with her amazing book, was able to do this.

When Wendy so generously donated a copy of Raven’s Mountain, to the Authors for Queensland Flood Appeal, Rochelle noticed it there and begged me to buy it. Not being one for holding reading back, I did!

So now, Rochelle is holed up in her room, barely speaking to me or the dog (and definitely not to her brother, although that isn’t unusual!) reading. I love watching her been swept away into another world.

Thank you so much, Wendy.

Here’s a bit about how Raven’s Mountain was written – welcome, Wendy!

I started writing Raven’s Mountain soon after I got back from a trip back to the USA and Canada for the Nim’s Island film premiere. I was ready to jump into something new, and the more I thought about this story, the more it excited me – so that I may have started writing a month or so before I should have. Of course this meant even more redrafting than I normally do (something I didn’t think was possible!) Whatever the reason, it took nearly two and a half years of writing, rather than the eighteen months I’d hoped for.

Although I didn’t realise it at the time, the fact that I had just been visiting family in Canada must have influenced the story that was choosing to be born. One of the first things I knew about my protagonist was that she had to break into an empty ranch house (something I’ve never done, if you were wondering – or at least not till I was about to write the scene. Even then I decided to open the window rather than smash it. Probably just as well: the neighbour who drove up as I was sliding into the sink was shocked enough as it was.)

I also knew that she was climbing a mountain with her father (who by the time I started writing had become a stepfather) and so I began to tap into a significant event when I was 12: climbing Pikes Peak (14,115 feet (4,302 m) in Colorado, with my younger sister, my dad and a group of his friends. It was a safe climb, but somewhere above the tree line we’d run into a hail storm and sheltered under an overhanging rock. And so the writer’s mind begins to play ‘what if’…

One of the other preoccupations of my life around that time was another ‘what if’ – what if our horse went on refusing to get into the horse trailer, or float, when we moved from Colorado Springs to Toronto? (I don’t know how far it is – a long way. Several days’ drive.) The mare was actually my mother’s, and it would have broken her heart to sell it, but for a while it didn’t look as if there was going to be much choice. So I developed a cunning plan: I would run away on the horse, and ride to Toronto – just head northeast a few thousand km, how hard could it be? Luckily the horse agreed to get into the float before I had finished packing my backpack.

But what I see now is a child wanting to test herself, to pit herself against the odds; against nature; to become a hero. I doubt that I knew the word resilience at that age, but it obviously interested me. I wanted to know how far I could go to save myself or my family (or my horse, which for a twelve or thirteen year-old girl can be pretty much the same thing.) The narrative of the trek continued long after the drama of the trailer-refusing horse had been settled.

Raven, however, isn’t someone who’s ever really wanted to test herself in extremes. She’s the middle one in a triangular friendship; the calm one, the lynchpin – the one whose attention the other friends vie for. The one I sometimes wanted to be but never was, because I was too busy and bossy, writing plays and inventing games that I bullied the others into playing.

And why did I name her Raven? The simple answer is that I can’t remember when she wasn’t called that; it was her name right from the start. I chose her mother’s name by checking lists of the most common names for her age. I figured that Jenny had got such a shock when she went to school and met lots of other girls named Jenny, that she wanted to make sure her daughters didn’t suffer the same fate. But as usual, there’s something deeper. Years ago, when I was struggling to recover from a broken neck and assorted other injuries, having been given a long list of everyday things I would never do again – including going for a walk – and very little hope that I would ever be pain free, I went to Canada and started on a course of therapy that has led to my living a normal and productive life again. The therapist had rescued a raven nestling called Lola, who stared intently through the window at each treatment session. Even though I know her interest was simply a reminder that she wanted dinner, I’ve felt a secret bond with ravens ever since.

Inukshuks in Raven's Mountain

2011-02-11T14:43:00.001+11:00

My parents gave me this little jade Inukshuk to celebrate Raven's Mountain - isn't it a gorgeous gift!

The ones that Raven builds in the book aren't quite so neat and regular. I went out to build one by our pond while I was writing – I had a lovely mental image of how it would look there, quirky but still organic to our very different bushland – but soon realised that I couldn't lift the rocks I wanted. That's why it's a good idea to try things physically when your characters do them!

But after opening this gift, I went back to the photo albums for the Inukshuks that inspired Raven's efforts, seen while my sister and I were walking on a Vancouver beach a few years ago. Quite beautiful - and a bit more achievable. Maybe I'll try again...

Sunday Age review: A Wonderful Read

2011-02-07T17:56:00.000+11:00

I love the weekend morning feeling of sitting in the midst of the paper, coffee in hand, pondering whether I should read news or arts first... but it reaches another level of happiness on finding a review of my brand new book. And though I've heard of people who say they don't care about reviews... well, I won't say I don't believe them - but personally, I'm happy to admit to being very happy about glowing ones.
So here is part of what Michelle Hamer says in the "Under Age" section of Sunday Age's M magazine:

"Orr ... jumps right into the action, demonstrating her strong story writing skills and confident economy with words. ...

Raven, an encouragingly strong and resilient female protagonist, sporadically shares her long, difficult journey with a family of bears and a sleek black raven, and imagines her friends, her mum and her absent father encouraging her through the darkness and pain. Orr has interwoven a gentle sub-plot to the race-for-help scenario, with vignettes of memories and Raven’s internal monologue which show the young girl grappling with some big real-life issues. A wonderful read."

Wendy Orr’s RAVEN’S MOUNTAIN � Love That Book – Books for the Young

2011-02-05T11:28:00.001+11:00

Here's the first online review that I've seen for Raven's Mountain, on the "Love that Book" blog. I still haven't read 'Hatchet' - somehow I'd missed it before I wrote the book, and decided against reading it while I was writing. I finally bought it last week - and feel much happier about reading it now that the first comparison has been favourable. ( Always daunting to be halfway through working on a book when people start telling you about how similar it is to something they've loved...)

Wendy Orr’s RAVEN’S MOUNTAIN � Love That Book – Books for the Young

This reminded me so much of Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, that exciting survival story that so many have loved. A family has a weekend together hiking and camping in the mountains. It is supposed to be a time of bonding and healing but a freak accident has the young girl Raven trying to get help. She can speak to her sister through a crack in the rocks but has to leave her there. She has no compass, no food or water and there are bears around.
Very very exciting. Chris

Where ideas come from

2011-01-30T14:52:00.000+11:00

"So,where did you get the idea for that book?" That's so often the question, but the problem is there's rarely one answer. Whatever the spark that starts the train of thought, there are always hundreds, maybe thousands, of ideas, thought and memories that wiggle their way to form a book.

I've talked a bit about the story background for Raven's Mountain in the 10 Terrifying Questions Booktopia interview, but over the last couple of days I've been going over old photo albums and files, and pulling out a few pictures that represent a few of the ideas and memories that have been transposed into Raven's story. They're not necessarily the most important ones, just ones that a photo comes close to representing a story thought.

roots of a huge old tree, that could give a little shelter if you were lost in the woods

With my dad, sheltering from a hail storm half way up Pike's Peak

lower slopes of Pike's Peak

waterfall on Vancouver Island

young raven demanding to be fed

horse met while camping in the mountains near Lilloet, BC. (When I rode her, she turned out to be unbroken, backed into a woodpile and rolled on me, but that's another story...)

climbing behind a waterfall near Bendigo

my son 'door climbing' to the top of the kitchen doorway

Writers on Rafts

2011-01-27T14:54:00.000+11:00

Well, the Authors for Queensland auction is now over, after raising $20,000 – thanks to everyone who bid, bought or donated!

Now we're on to something a bit different: a lottery to win an author visit, lunch etc. I'm donating a visit within the Melbourne/Mornington Peninsula area, but there are lots of authors, lots of different types of prizes... the winner can choose from what's offered in that category.

And tickets are only $5!

About Writers on Rafts

Writers on Rafts is an initiative of Queensland Writers Centre and author Rebecca Sparrow to raise money for the Queensland Premier’s Flood Relief Appeal. More than 150 Australian authors, including you, have pledged prizes.

· To enter Writers on Rafts go to http://www.writersonrafts.com

· Purchase as many tickets as you like in as many categories as you want!

· Every ticket is one chance to win for a lucky person in every state and territory.

· very dollar goes directly to the Queensland Premier’s Flood Relief Appeal to help victims of the Queensland floods.

· QWC’s goal is to raise $10,000 through Writers On Rafts.

· We will be conducting the draw on Friday, 25 February.

Booktopia's 10 Terrifying Questions

2011-01-25T17:09:00.000+11:00

Okay, two interviews in two days? Strange but true! But the questions (and therefore the answers!) are a bit different.

The Booktopia Book Guru asks

Wendy Orr

author of Raven’s Mountain, Nim’s Island,Nim at Sea, Spook’s Shack, Mokie and Bik, and for teenagers, Peeling the Onion.

Ten Terrifying Questions

—————————-

1. To begin with why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled?

Born: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Raised: Pretty well from one side of Canada to the other, as well as two towns in Alsace-Lorraine, France, and Colorado Springs, USA.

Schooled: Between nursery school in France and Yr 12 in Nova Scotia, I went to 11 schools! Plus a year of college in Kingston, Ontario, 3 years in London, UK, and then did a degree through La Trobe University, Melbourne.

2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?

Twelve: writer and archaeologist. Eighteen: I had no idea except that it wasn’t the Animal Care Technologist I’d started training to be. Thirty: continuing as an occupational therapist, and writer.

Why? I think I’ve wanted to write ever since I learned to read in English. It was more like a deep belief than a desire (just temporarily lost in the confusion of teenhood and career searching!)

3. What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you do not have now?

I think all my beliefs at 18 were more strongly held! I can’t think of anything I believed then that I don’t now; it’s just that I’m more likely to see shades of grey and other people’s points of view.

4. What were three works of art – book or painting or piece of music, etc – you can now say, had a great effect on you and influenced your own development as a writer?

The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Coleridge’s epic poem: I must have been eight or nine the first time I read this, crouched on the couch with my parents’ huge volume of British poetry propped up on the arm. I read and reread it, and still know much of it by heart. I presume that it influenced my love of rhythm and poetic word use.

The Queen’s Music, a young novel by Margaret Miller, which I got for my ninth or tenth birthday: it drew me in completely, living and dreaming the story so absolutely that I can still hear and feel the aching sweetness of the music. That’s how I love to write too: being completely absorbed in my story’s world.

The Sunflowers painting by van Gogh – the first time I saw the original it produced such a visceral feeling of discomfort, almost disorientation, that I couldn’t stand in front of it for too long. And yet I loved it so much that as a student in London, I often stopped at Piccadilly Circus on the way home from college to pop in to the National Gallery and visit it. I have no idea if or how it’s influenced my writing, but I think anything that has a deep effect must influence one’s own art.

5. Considering the innumerable artistic avenues open to you, why did you choose to write a novel?

My talents, such as they are, lie in writing. As for the choice of genre: each story seems to form in such a way that it becomes clear how it wants to be written.

6. Please tell us about your latest novel, Raven’s Mountain…

There’s a very odd state of time between a manuscript leaving my hands for the last time, and actually being out in the stores and other people’s hands. So as long as you understand that I’m in that space right now: a muddle of paralysis, fear, hope, and a bit of nostalgic mourning for the characters who will soon no longer belong to me.

A logline for this story could be: Three people go up a mountain. One comes down.

The genesis for this story was climbing Pike’s Peak in Colorado (14,000 feet/4000 metres) with my dad and younger sister when I was twelve and again when I was thirteen. The sense of achievement was huge; my sister and I both remember this as a key experience in our lives. The mountain is an easy climb as far as technical skill, really just a hike, and you can actually drive to the top (my mother actually picked us up at the top the first time, though the second time, when it was just my dad and me, with a group of his friends, we hiked down as well, which was much more satisfying. However, it’s still a significant hike and very high, so that we went from summer in the foothills to snow at the peak. At around 10,000 feet I started struggling with the oxygen lack and remember my dad, who was a pilot, explaining that at that height pilots used oxygen. He talked me through it and I went on to the top without any trouble. Above the tree line we ran into a hail storm and sheltered under a rock – I presume my story teller’s imagination was already at work with the ‘what ifs’ - what if we had to stay there longer, what if the rock was a cave…

And so the story started taking shape in 2007. It’s set much further north, in the Canadian Rockies, an area I’ve always loved. As the characters grew it became clear that the dad was a stepdad: Scott’s a warm and caring man, but by marrying her mother, he’s dramatically changed Raven’s way of life.

Raven was always the younger sister, but originally I told the story alternately from hers and her sister Lily’s point of view. I think there were only a couple of drafts like that; I realised I needed to be completely in Raven’s skin, and that the tension was much greater that way.

One of the background themes for me, though I wouldn’t imagine anyone else would see it, was the fairy tale of Rose White and Rose Red. But despite the circumstances – the rock fall that pushes Raven far beyond what she believed were her limits – she’s really a very normal kid. She’s struggling with sibling rivalry, a new stepdad, moving to a new school and environment… and being saddled with a most inappropriate name for a redheaded child!

Obviously on an isolated mountain like this Raven would have seen lots of wild life, and have had lots of warnings about bears and cougars in particular. By using the spirit bears, I wanted to balance the reverence and fear we feel when we see dangerous animals in the wild. And I’ve always had a particular affinity with ravens…

7. What do you hope people take away with them after reading your work?

A sense of having been immersed in another world and lived a bit of another life.

8. Whom do you most admire in the realm of writing and why?

I don’t think I could choose one person – there are so many writers I admire, and so many aspects to the question. The people whose work ethic and management of their writing lives I admire are not always the same people whose writing I most love. However… this morning I finished reading Marion Halligan’s Valley of Grace. She’s always a beautiful writer, sensitive and insightful; this book is completely exquisite, leaving me bereft at having to leave these people when I reached the last page. So for today I’ll choose Marion Halligan.

9. Many artists set themselves very ambitious goals. What are yours?

I prefer to set myself goals that aren’t dependent on other people – so of course it would be lovely to win more awards, the bigger the better… but those are wishes, not goals. What I aim at is knowing that each book I write is the very best that it could possibly be. That mightn’t sound very ambitious, but believe me, when you face that printed book for the first time, it is.

10. What advice do you give aspiring writers?

Write, write, write. Just do it. Don’t be afraid to fail, or worry about doing it right: have fun, experiment. There’s time enough for criticism when you’ve finished a few drafts (and yes, there will be lots of drafts if you want to be any good.) When you think it’s good enough to share, listen to criticisms, but always make up your own mind.

Above all, have faith. Have faith in your characters and your story, and some in your own ability to do them justice.

When you’re not writing: read, read, read: lots of different genres, lots of different authors. Find out what you love, and what you don’t – you may not be able to write every genre you love, but you certainly shouldn’t be trying a genre you don’t like to read. Writing is hard work, there’s no need for it to be soul destroying as well.

But don’t forget to live too!

quicksand: Author Interview - Wendy Orr

2011-01-24T14:14:00.003+11:00

Thanks very much to Lisa at the Casey Cardinia Library Corporation for posting this interview on her blog!

quicksand: Author Interview - Wendy Orr

Wendy Orr's junior novel Raven’s Mountain, an adventure novel for middle grade readers, will be published by Allen & Unwin in February.

What authors/books did you read as a child? When did you first discover your love of books?

The love of stories, books and being read to goes back earlier than I can remember; the passion for reading books for myself – and perhaps the start of wanting to write them – wasn’t till I was nearly 7. We lived in France, so I’d learned to read and write with rather boring French readers. However one night before we moved back to Canada, my parents left three ‘Dick and Jane’ readers on my bedside table for me to find. I’ve never forgotten the thrill of reading real stories in my own language!

When did you first realise you were a writer?

When I sat at the coffee table and began writing, “Glossy the Horse or Shetland Pony,” when I was seven. However I didn’t believe I was an author till “Leaving it to You” was shortlisted, many years later!

What do you hope your readers will take away with them from reading your books?

I’m never sure about this question… I’d like them to take away a feeling of their lives being enriched in some way; depending on the genre, I think that means of having lived in someone else’s shoes or been captivated by the fun of word play and story.

Do you find it difficult to read purely for pleasure?

No; when I find a good book I am quickly immersed in it – but I can’t read something that I feel is sloppily written.

Does everything you read come under your ‘writer’ microscope?

I suppose my answer above means it does, but if the book’s good I am simply swept along with it and enjoy the fact that someone has written so well. If I don’t enjoy a book that has had rave reviews I do often spend a long time pondering why I can’t agree, and where I think it’s gone wrong.

Do you have to avoid reading certain types of fiction while writing your own?

Not any more; I used to be more easily swayed when I was still finding my own voice. However when I’m starting a new book I often can’t read any fiction for a week or two.
Does what you read while writing have an effect on what you write? In what way? I don’t think it affects what I’m writing at that moment, but every book one loves and gets involved with must bleed into the subconscious to some extent.

Name five authors or books that have influenced or inspired your own writing in some way?

Mary Renault; Rosemary Sutcliff; Rumer Godden; The Queen’s Music; Mary Poppins

If you were travelling and were told you could only take one book with you, what book would it be and why?

Possession by AS Byatt – because it’s very long, has three different story strands, and requires deep reading. Also I love it!

What makes a book ‘too good to put down’?

Involvement with the characters, and truly caring what happens to them.

What makes you put down a book without finishing it?

Sloppy writing; repetition that should have been edited out, or stereotypical characters that I don’t care about.

Do you have a favourite author? Who is it and what is it about their writing that draws you to them?

Probably AS Byatt, because of the depth of her stories and the beauty of her writing. However you can’t please all the people all the time: I felt that The Children’s Book had so many side stories and lectures that she could have edited it down by a third.

What was your 2010 ‘best read’? What was it that made it number one?

It’s between Cassandra Gold’s Museum of Mary Child, which was beautiful, engrossing, and highly original, and Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance (which is quite old but I hadn’t read till now) – I was totally engrossed by the characters, story, and writing, and felt that it prepared me for a visit to India far better than any non fiction every could have.

What do you think of the non-traditional publishing methods – eBooks etc? Do you think the new technology will encourage more people to read? Do you think there’s a future for print books?

I think there’s a future for print books, but maybe more in the way that there are still beautiful hardcovers around – maybe it will be just the books that we really care about and want to keep physically. My sample of one is my daughter, in her 20’s, who’s found she’s reading a lot more since she’s had an iPad, partly because she travels a great deal and so can take several books with her for any flight. As well as reading her way through the classics, if she sees a review of a book that sounds interesting, she purchases and downloads it immediately. (Whereas I’ve often forgotten the review by the next time I go to town and into a physical bookshop!)

Wendy started writing seriously in 1986, with her picture book Amanda's Dinosaur. In 1993 Leaving it to You was shortlisted for the CBCA awards, junior readers; Ark in the Park won the same award in 1995. Peeling the Onion, based on a serious car accident Wendy had in 1991, was widely published internationally, with awards including the CBCA Honour Book, older readers, in 1997, and an American Library Association Book for older readers. LOST: A Dog Called Bear, the first of the Rainbow Street Animal Shelter series, will be released by Henry Holt in the North American spring 2011. Find out more at http://www.wendyorr.com/

Raven's Mountain

2011-01-19T12:07:00.002+11:00

After two and a half years of writing,thinking, rewriting,editing.... my new baby is nearly here. Here's Allen and Unwin's page for her:

Raven's Mountain

Wendy Orr

Availability: Not Yet Published - But don't forget: you could win one of two hot off the press first editions (with all proceeds going to the Queensland flood victims) by bidding here:
http://authorsforqueensland.wordpress.com/

Format: Paperback - B format

Pages: 192

AUD $14.99 inc. GST

A gripping wilderness-adventure by the author of Nim's Island. Raven's sister and step-father are trapped under rocks on the mountain top, and their lives depend on Raven making it down the mountain to get help. But can she find the way?

Description

Raven is first to reach the mountain top. Her sister and step-dad are still climbing the trail below. She is alone on top of the world. So she dances - a crazy, jumping, spinning dance – because if you can climb a mountain you can do anything! But then there is a rumble and the earth shakes. Rocks are falling, and so is Raven, in a terrible tumble down the side of the mountain. When she comes to, no one answers her calls. The rockfall is covering the trail where she last saw Lily and Scott... Wendy Orr tells the dramatic story of a girl who goes beyond her limits to save her family - and on the way, discovers a mysterious bond with a family of bears and a raven.

About Wendy Orr

Wendy Orr was born in Edmonton, Canada, and spent her childhood in various places across Canada, France, and the USA, but wherever she lived, there were lots of stories, adventures and animals. Wendy fell in love with the mountains when she went to summer camp in the Rockies when she was eight. When she was twelve, she climbed Pike's Peak in Colorado with her father and sister, and will never forget the thrill of reaching the top! Raven's Mountain is set in the high mountain country of British Columbia in Canada. This area is the home of many wild animals, including grizzlies and black bears. And very occasionally, a rare white Spirit Bear from the central coast of British Columbia has also been spotted further inland... Wendy is the author of several award-winning books, includingNim's Island, Nim at Sea, Spook's Shack, Mokie and Bik, and for teenagers,Peeling the Onion.

ISBN:	9781742374659
Australian Pub.:	February 2011
Edition:	1
Publisher:	ALLEN & UNWIN
Imprint:	A & U CHILDREN
Subject:	Children's fiction
Edition Number:	1
Suitable for ages:	8-12

Authors for Queensland

2011-01-18T10:29:00.000+11:00

I've had lots of lovely emails since the floods started in Victoria as well as Queensland, asking if we were okay. Thanks everyone: we're completely safe here, high on a hill and feeling very lucky.

However since not everyone has been so lucky, a group of authors have organised an online auction. There's an amazing number of items: signed books, art, manuscript critiques... I've donated a one hour mentorship conversation, which can be held in person in a cafe on the Morninton Peninsula, or over the phone (or skype.) I've also donated two signed copies of Raven's Mountain, my new adventure novel for mid-upper primary (middle grade readers, in North America). It's not out till February but the winning bidders will be the first to get it! Also two signed copies of my latest picture book, The Princess and her Panther, illustrated by Lauren Stringer.

coffee with a canine: Wendy Orr & Harry

2010-12-29T17:37:00.001+11:00

coffee with a canine: Wendy Orr & Harry

My guest post on Marshal Zeringues's great and quirky blogs (Who'd have thought of interviewing people about coffee with their canine? Well, okay, Marshal obviously did...
Writers Read: Wendy Orry

Who is in the photo at right?

I'm Wendy Orr, author of children’s & teenage books, (including Nim’s Island, Peeling the Onion and The Princess and Her Panther) and Harry, a 3-year-old Poodle X Bichon Frisé.

What's the occasion for Coffee with a Canine?

Celebrating the first spring day warm enough to have coffee outside on our regular morning walk.

What's brewing?

Long Black Coffee – the Australian term; in the US it would be an Americano.

Any goodies to go with the coffee?

This café (Mocha My Day) always serves a tiny gingerbread star with the drink.

Any treat for Harry on this occasion?

He shared the gingerbread!

How were you and Harry united?

My son’s girlfriend’s mother had rescued him from The Lort Smith Animal Shelter. He’d visited our house, and been shown around the garden by our late Border Collie; I was struck by what a nice little dog he was. When I heard that she’d had to surrender him again, because of ill health, I was on the Shelter’s doorstep first thing next morning.

How did your dog get his name? Any aliases?

He was apparently named Harry in his first, abusive home, which he was removed from. When he was returned to the Shelter he had been renamed Petal… but we didn’t think that suited. His full name is now Harry Petl, which he thinks sounds like the soccer star he is.

Does Harry have any influence on your writing?

His story, transposed to a cat, has wiggled its way into Missing: A Cat Called Buster, the second book in the Rainbow Street Animal Shelter series, which will start being released in March 2011. He also makes a brief appearance as himself at the end of that book. And he makes up two dogs, in different ways, in a short story, "The Digging Detective and The Poodlenapping Perplexity," which Henry Holt will be publishing in an anthology of dog stories.

Cat, squirrel, postman...?

Cats, oh yes! (Or “Oh no!” I should say.)

Tennis ball, squeaky-toy, stick...?

He is fixated on tennis balls. He finds at least one a week on his walk.

Where is Harry's favorite place for an outing?

The beach.

Who is your dog's best pet-pal?

Pippa, the pugalier, who was adopted by neighbours the same week as we adopted him.

What is Harry's best quality?

His cheerfulness and resilience.

What is Harry's proudest moment?

Conquering his fear and walking past the house where a vicious dog had rushed out and attacked him a few days before.

His most embarrassing?

Coming home quite nude the first time I had him clipped. He hid for several days. He now goes to a different groomer and though he hates the experience, is always very proud of the haircut and wants to go immediately to show Pippa.

Hanuman puppet at the Khan Market

2010-12-17T18:58:00.000+11:00

Squatting by the doorstep of a dress shop in the Khan Market one evening, a little girl had her wares spread out: elephants in various sizes, and puppets. I was being taken shopping by Alison, who teaches at the German school, was volunteering at Bookaroo, and had just kindly added shepherding authors around the bazaar as part of her duties. "I really want to buy a puppet," I told her. The child, and her mother or grandmother squatting watchfully on another doorstep, were probably recent immigrants from Rajistan, and Alison thought the price was fair - we didn't bargain. (I'm not sure why people greet this statement with such horror. I didn't bargain, and the world didn't end.)

Later, showing my purchase to author buddies Lian Tanner and Robert Sabuda in our dinner time Show and Tell, we all started thinking about this child's future, and wished we could jump into a taxi and go and buy more; do something to help her. It was too late; she wasn't there the next day when Lian visited - and we wouldn't have solved her problems by buying up all her stock in one day. Perhaps the most useful thing we can do is support one of the charities that work towards education for poor children, especially girls. There was something so strong and vibrant about this little girl that I can't help believing a little bit of education could take her far.

So a bittersweet memory for this beautiful puppet, and a wish for its maker and vendor.

New friends and Sikh temples

2010-12-15T18:40:00.000+11:00

One of the main things people advise you about India, apart from, ‘Don’t drink the water!’ is not to trust anyone; the taxi drivers will rip you off and make you buy things from their cousin’s store, etc. And I’m sure this happens. We know we paid way too much for a taxi one day because the driver was very sour when we refused to go shopping. The next day Tom bargained much harder with an auto rickshaw driver, before starting the trip – as everyone advises you to do – and get thrown out in the middle of a roundabout, because the driver had felt cheated and worked himself into a rage. People are people wherever you are, but there are always more good people than bad. And sometimes trusting people gives you an experience guide books can’t quantify.

So when we tried to walk back to the hotel one afternoon and got confused on the giant Connaight Place roundabout, another auto rickshaw driver stopped and said, “You look lost!” He took us back to the hotel, accepted very little for it because it was on his way home, and arranged to meet us in front of the hotel on our last day in India. My session didn’t start till 2:45 and so I’d decided to take the morning off. I wanted to go to one of the government run markets to see the tribal handicrafts, especially embroidery, but when our driver asked if we’d like to see his temple on the way home, I said I’d sooner do that anyway. He is a Sikh, and we’d seen this beautiful temple with its great gold roof, from the outside, but hadn’t understood anything about it. Now we were being taken as guests – and when he read the message of the day on the board outside, he laughed as he translated, “When you are lost I will show you the way.”

I didn’t have my camera, but in some ways am glad, because sometimes a camera takes you out of the experience, and sitting in the temple, while our new friend went off for a moment of silent prayer, was one of the more moving experiences of my life. I’m not sure why; sometimes these moments just happen, and all we can do is be grateful. Now we’re home, and though we had to leave behind the sacred marigolds he had blessed for us, we’ve planted marigolds in the garden in front of our bedroom – and we’re both wearing the bangles he bought us.

Bookaroo: enthusiastic readers & amazing young authors

2010-12-11T19:15:00.002+11:00

Bookaroo is like no other festival I've ever been to. Nearly all sessions were in the open air: mine were all either in the shade of the huge old the Kahani Tree, (the storytelling tree) or in the amphitheatre. Colour, atmosphere.... the place was buzzing - and the buzz seemed to increase every day: a little girl from the Sanskriti school where I spoke on Wednesday dragged her parents along to my Sunday session; families came on the Saturday and returned on the Sunday to hear new authors or favourites again.

Opening ceremony with Favourite Book Tree

And who wouldn't love this description of my first event...

"The first day, that is, the school’s day saw 12 events taking place, 6 at a time. WendyOrr, author of “The Nim’s Island Journey” talked to children under the Kahani Tree, alarge tree with countless branches that looked like one of those ancient, wise old treesthat smiled down at you like a crinkly-eyed grandmother. As soon as I saw it, I felt as ifit turned to me and said something like- “Come, my child. Come sit under my branchesas I sway them to call the wind. Listen to stories that my bark has grown old on.” It’s agood thing I know I’m rather strange, have limitless imagination and am rather fond ofgrandmothers. I’m quite sure you’d have scampered off! xD

To come back to the event…the children were so engrossed in the event that duringquestion-answer time, hands shot up in seconds and stayed up for minutes till they wereacknowledged! The sensitivity of the children was admirable. They asked extremelythoughtful questions, considering that they were aged between 8-10! While one little boyasked Miss Orr when and why she started writing, another one asked her what inspirationmeant to her. There were so many hands that in the end, Miss Orr decided to close hereyes and pick a hand. The little girl her hand picked asked her, “Is there any book thatrelates most to your real life?Miss Orr closed her eyes for a few seconds, opened them, took a deep breath andsaid, “One about a car accident, yes…”Children are generally restless and fidgety. I know I was quite a hyper child and Iknow what it takes to captivate a child and hold his/her attention for an hour. Miss Orrpossesses in abundance the noble virtue that is patience. She heard each child. In fact,she let them do most of the talking! Like a wise man once said, “Knowledge speaks, but

wisdom listens…”

Storytelling in the amphitheatre

As well as three individual sessions, I did a panel called Acorns to Oaks, with Pancham Yadav (Thanks to his mum Yeena for the photo) who is now 13 but wrote his book The School Ghost at 12; Anshuman Mohan - now 16, and author of ‘Potato Chips’, and Samit Basu, whose funny, insightful (and incredibly fast-paced) sci-fi Turbulence I've just finished. Samit, who also chaired with wit and sensitivity, is positively ancient, possibly even 30. Needless to say, I was the oak. (I think the point was that I started writing at 7 or 8 - but I didn't go off and get published like these two talented boys! I'm trying to remember - I think I did send a manuscript to a publisher when I was 12, but if I did, it was returned. And if by some chance it had been published, I certainly wouldn't have had the poise and balance to do a panel like this. Very impressive - watch out for these names in the future.

Samit Basu, Wendy Orr, Anshuman Mohan, Pancham Yadav,
Behind: Venkatesh, Bookarooer Extraordinare

Atmospheres

2010-12-10T18:53:00.000+11:00

My favourite of the ancient sites in Delhi was Humayan's Tomb, which was beautiful and peaceful, with quite a different atmosphere to the Red Fort. However parts of it are still wonderfully creepy, and I could feel it seeping into my subconscious for a story that's been germinating for a while...

from the inside, peering out through the grill...

As everywhere in Delhi, there were dogs wandering around. When I've heard of stray dogs in India, I've pictured skinny, slinking curs. Wrong again. I only saw two dogs who were thin and possibly diseased; the rest were happy, healthy (occasionally fat, if they were near a food stall) and totally independent, just wandering around the town, sleeping where they liked, making their way through the traffic... just living their own dog lives in their own dog society, which just happens to share the same space as the human society. The little dog we met here, and the puppy who came to my Nim's Island session under the Kahalni tree, were the only ones I saw who wanted any human interaction.

Though I'm guessing that all the coat-wearing dogs wandering around or sleeping in the streets of the Khan Market, did have owners...

Delhi's Red Fort, and tiny elephants

2010-12-06T18:52:00.000+11:00

After a bit of confusion with a message taken the night before by hotel reception, which had left out the words “called off” in the message: “Your film screening at the Australian High Commission is tomorrow,” I spoke to someone and heard that the school coming in to see me had a conflict with Founders’ Day. It was very disappointing not be able to do this for them, but a free day wasn’t all bad!

So we headed off early to explore the Red Fort. It’s huge, imposing – more of a walled city than what I’d pictured as a fort - and much of it is beautiful, but its long and fascinating history is bloody. The next day, discussing it with a journalist, and hearing some of the more recent bloodshed there at the time of the Mutiny, I wondered if that was why, even when I was admiring the intricacy of the stone work and the beautiful marble flowers, I didn’t feel happy there. I think some places store the energies of the sadness and horror that has happened on their soil. (Or maybe I was still in just too much pain from the rickshaw ride)

One of the many interesting things about it is the covered bazaar street – how could I resist a belled chain of elephants to hang as a Christmas decoration somewhere? (Actually someone else thought I could have resisted, but I didn’t!)

Afternoon in Old Delhi

2010-12-05T20:12:00.000+11:00

After a morning in Sanskriti School, we took a taxi to Old Delhi, and a street crowded with cycle-rickshaws (as well as cars and people), where our driver transferred us to the care of a rickshaw driver. It was end of school time, and the other rickshaws were each crowded with children and toddlers - all beaming and waving. Police stopped us from going down the famous bazaar street - a political demonstration, we think - but our rickshaw took us on a terrifying ride through the traffic around the Red Fort. Not sure why it was so frightening: he drove perfectly safely through the honking chaos, but I felt precariously perched, and clung so tightly to the bar that my neck and shoulder ached.

The end of the rickshaw ride coincided with the entrance to what the taxi driver assured us was a very good store - and I think it was. Anyway, I ordered a silk kurta suit, which would be made up over night and delivered to the hotel first thing in the morning, and bought some silk for my friend Esther's wonderful felting projects.

Pratham Books: Bookaroo in the City (Day 7) : Enthusiastic Readers Meet an Equally Enthusiastic Author

2010-12-05T15:22:00.000+11:00

Up bright and early on my second day in Delhi for a visit to the Sanskriti School, organised by Pratham Books, an inspired and inspiring not-for-profit publishing company committed to "high quality, lost cost books for children in various Indian languages". The books are beautiful, too, as you can see in Sanjeev Saith's book "Ganga".

The school was lovely and welcoming; the kids were great - and their questions and comments reminded me that there's not much difference between kids around the world when they're enjoying a story!

Pratham Books: Bookaroo in the City (Day 7) : Enthusiastic Readers Meet an Equally Enthusiastic Author

Iswarya Subbiah says...

The students of Sanskriti School, Chanakyapuri had the absolute pleasure of starting the day by listening to Australian author Wendy Orr. Author of the beloved children's book 'Nim's Island' , which was later made into a major Hollywood motion picture, Wendy Orr spoke to the children about her own journey as an author. She regaled the children with stories of her own childhood, how she started writing and where she got her inspiration from. She also read out from her book, 'The Princess and The Panther'.

The session was an interactive one with children pitching in with opinions, comments and answers. How much the kids enjoyed the session was evident in the enthusiastic questioning of the author after she finished her talk. Almost every child had something to ask or say. Wendy Orr answered each question patiently and with much joy. The session was everything that Bookaroo is representative of : a fun event with much to learn from. The students at Sanskriti School loved the session and a few even had to be forcibly ushered out of the room at the end of the session. It was a pleasure to see the response Wendy Orr received, for it reflected the interest of the children in books, stories and the world of imagination.

View more images from all the 'Bookaroo in the City' events here.

Arriving in Delhi!

2010-12-04T12:55:00.000+11:00

I’m just back from six days in New Delhi for the amazing Bookaroo Festival. I’d never been to India before, and my head is still reeling from the mass of impressions, sensations and memories, as well as the usual conference buzz – not to mention jetlag.
Landing in New Delhi, my first impression was that there was something wrong with the aircraft windows, as they seemed to be stained yellow. Nope: that was the atmosphere.
But not in our scented-air hotel! A true oasis of comfort after braving the streets of Delhi (you’ve got to understand that I don’t even go to my Melbourne, my nearest city, very often.) However there is a downside (apart from unrealistic expectations next time I’m paying for myself): the pictures don’t show the intense security screening of each car entering the gates, and of ourselves, each time we entered the hotel. Sobering.

Figuring that with such a short time, we couldn’t waste any of it, we got a taxi to the Qutub Minar, an ancient tower and surrounding complex: a beautiful and surprisingly serene place. Unfortunately my camera, unimpressed by history, chose this moment to break down.
Resisting our driver’s enticements to go shopping, we then headed off to the home of one of Bookaroo’s co-ordinators: an interesting journey involving many phone calls, stops to ask directions, U turns, more requests for directions, and some angst from the embarrassed taxi driver. Finally, our host running into the middle of the road to wave us down was the clue that we were there; we went in, and our driver went to get his own dinner, and then wait till we were ready to go home. What a luxury!
Tom fell asleep in his chair before dinner, and I don’t think I was terribly coherent, but loved making new friends as we met Cindy Jefferies (author of the Fame School series), Wendy Cooling (having two Wendy’s confused many people over the next few days!) and Alice Burden, the lovely UK Walker Books Publicity manager.
“We landed at the same time!” she said suddenly, pointing to my crumpled but comfily flowing cotton skirt. “Your skirt was the first thing I noticed in India, even before the smog!”
As we were constantly advised, expect the unexpected: even being part of someone else's impression of India.

Cindy Jefferies, and me with a new 4-legged friend.

following autorickshaws in our taxi