Author Archives: Meg McKinlay

About Meg McKinlay

Children's Writer & Poet

On Being Exhausted

So this appears to be the fourth in the three-part blog-a-palooza I embarked on recently with Sally Murphy and Anna Branford.

Yes, I am aware that makes no sense.

I’m adding this coda simply to say that although it was fun, I doubt I’ll be doing something like that again. I have no idea how anyone keeps to a regular posting schedule and still manages to keep up with all the regular aspects of work and life and writing and all of that. Impossible.

I really enjoyed thinking about all those topics, and there’s a satisfying discipline in committing to setting my thoughts in order for public consumption. But when writing time is at a premium, I’d rather be chipping away at stories than composing blog posts.

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On Being Recognised

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So this is the third in a three-part series I’ve been working on with Anna Branford and Sally Murphy.

I’m not entirely sure what approach the others are going to take to this topic. There are, of course, all sorts of ways of defining ‘recognition’. There’s the formal recognition of awards and the informal recognition of people such as peers and readers and random strangers at the shops.

Very early on in the scheme of things, I remember being full of excitement because someone had found my website on purpose, by searching for my name, rather than accidentally, via some variation on “goldfish + ponds” or “hydrocodone”.

Once, I was doing laps at the local pool, complete with swimming cap and goggles, when I was stopped, mid-turn, by a lifeguard who wanted to know if I was “that writer-woman in the paper”.

More recently, after writing a letter of complaint to a local business, I was asked during a follow-up phone call whether I was “the” Meg McKinlay, putting me in the unlikely position of having to say, “Define the.”

These things are all recognition of a sort.

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On Being Edited

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So this is the second post in the three-way blogapalooza I’m sharing with Anna Branford and Sally Murphy. Because it’s part of a series, I’ve followed the same format for the title, but the first thing I should say is that I think it’s misleading.

You don’t ‘get edited’. I’ve never ‘been edited’. It’s not a passive process in which the writer sits back and waits for the editor to tell them what needs to be done. It’s a dialogue – a back-and-forth that begins with the text, moves to the editor, bounces back to the author, who returns to the text, then bounces it back to the editor, and so on thusly for the term of your natural life (or so it can seem).

When I show people the six-page editorial letter for Annabel, Again, or a marked up draft of Surface Tension, I get some interesting reactions. Some people actually draw back in horror. But isn’t it your story? How can you let them? From time to time I hear people – often aspiring writers – talking about the way publishers insist on ‘changing’ people’s work, to shape it to fit their own set of parameters.

But really, that’s not how it works. Or at least, it shouldn’t be. If a publisher were to take this approach, I too would walk very quickly in the opposite direction.

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On Being Reviewed

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I’ve been thinking lately about what it means to be reviewed. Partly in response to recent conversations with some other writers, and partly in response to, well, being reviewed.

The result is a three-way blogapalooza in which myself, Anna Branford, and Sally Murphy, decided we would gather, and post, our thoughts on this topic with a view to starting a conversation between ourselves, and perhaps others. So after you’ve read this, it might be interesting for you to head over to their blogs, too. I know I’m about to. I haven’t read their takes on the issue, and I’m sure we’ve all taken a very different approach to things.

To begin with, I suspect I’m not alone in having a somewhat ambivalent relationship to reviews. Writers need them, of course. We need people to notice our work – to read it, engage with it, hold it up to the light for others.

Maybe I should re-frame that: to pass judgement. Isn’t that what a review does, after all? Isn’t that what a review is for?

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The Truth Is Still Out There

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As many of you know, I have been working for some years to dispel the many myths that circulate about penguins. My picture book The Truth About Penguins was an important step in this process.

Since its publication, I have gone into schools, libraries, festivals – wherever they will have me – presenting the facts to children young and old. Some of my audience, I find, are more easily persuaded than others. Some are downright stubborn.

Earlier this week, to kick off the National Year of Reading, I went down to Kwinana Library. There I attempted, mostly in vain, to preach my penguin-y gospel.

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Career Highlights

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Last week I was interviewed over at Books for Little Hands. One of the questions asked what had been the highlight of my career so far and I found it a little difficult to answer, partly because of my maddening tendency to want to unpack the nuances of every word put before me.

I wanted to wrestle for a while with the word ‘career’ and what that really meant for me and whether it was the ‘right’ term for what I’m doing with this whole writing thing. And the highlights I arrived at had nothing to do with ‘career’ really and more to do with small creative satisfactions. So it may be that my response was a bit disingenuous. Possibly even pretentious.

And then the very next day something happened. I had a genuine career highlight, and it was this:

In April this year, my book Duck for a Day was adapted for musical theatre by Tony Bones Entertainment.

Since they only tour on the east coast, I didn’t get to see the show, but last week, the lovely Tony himself sent me a DVD of one of the performances. And I feel a little ridiculous, but watching it made me a bit teary.

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Everything Old Is New Again

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Or at least one thing. Specifically, this:

It’s my new book, The Truth About Penguins. And my old book, The Truth About Penguins.

Confused? Don’t be.

If you look closely, you can see differences in the two books – in size, font, and other small elements to do with presentation.*

I’m delighted to announce that The Truth About Penguins will be out in paperback in December, just in time for Christmas. It’s lovely to see my work getting a new lease on life like this, and I can only hope the new format helps it find its way into the hands of even more readers over the coming months.

* For the eagle-eyed reader, there is another crucial difference. If you have access to both copies, the last page of text will reveal all.

Out and About

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The last couple of months have been a busy time for me. As other writers will attest to, Book Week seems to have turned into Book Month somewhere along the line and I’ve only just finished a steady stream of school and library visits. I could give you a bunch of stats here but I’d rather sit down and get some writing done, so instead I’ll just say that I drove a lot, talked a lot, listened a lot, and laughed a lot. It was energising and exhausting, all at once. And bookings are coming in for 2012, which is lovely, but also a little alarming.

I am always amazed by the creative and insightful ideas kids come up with. There was a great wealth of these this year, but I have to say that my favourite comment from a student was: “Meg, you are the most expiring author I have ever met!” Coming at the end of a long day, this was at once motivating and accidentally apt.

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Duck Season

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Last week I posted about having submitted the draft of a follow-up to Duck for a Day.

Just after that, I experienced another of those curious alignments of which I am so fond.

It was about two years ago that I finished the revisions on the first Duck and the day after sending those off, I woke up to find a duck on my doorstep. At the time I wondered:

Is it a sign?

And if so, what does it mean?

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A Not-so-tiny Thing

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I’ve been sitting on this news for a while, waiting for an illustrator to be confirmed, but now that all is signed and sealed, I can announce that I have a new picture book forthcoming in 2012!

This one is with Fremantle Press, which is fitting as it’s a ‘very Freo’ book in many ways. It’s called Ten Tiny Things and it’s inspired by something my daughter and I often do when we go out walking, an activity we have cleverly named “Things We Would Never Have Seen If We Had Been Driving”. As you can see, I have a way with words …

I’ve seen early sketches and am very excited about what’s to come for this book. The illustrator is this guy. He’s a little creepy but there’s not much I can (or would) do about that. Click on the “Secrets” link on his site to see why he’s perfect for the book. You’ve probably seen his work in the city, possibly without even realising. You would probably have seen more of it had you been on foot …

Watch this space for more details. Watch the secret spaces all around you for random flashes of loveliness. Go out walking. See if you can spot ten tiny things.