Tag Archives: shiny new book

Duck for a Day

1 Reply

Okay, I know I talk a lot of talk about ducks, about Duck the First and Duck the Second as if they are actual books, rather than just ideas quacking softly in a corner of my brain.

But over the last few months I have been watching quietly while Duck the First came into a1050-cvrduckforadaybeing. I have seen pencil sketches of a little girl working at her desk, of a slightly grotty boy hanging over her backyard from a branch. I have squeed over colour roughs of Abby and Noah and Mrs Melvino and most of all, Max – the difficult demanding different duck who takes up residence in Abby’s class.

I have been thrilled and delighted by the work of the wonderful Leila Rudge. It’s not that the characters are as I’d imagined them, that I feel satisfied seeing ‘my’ vision come to life. The truth is that I’m not much of a visual thinker and am not sure I had imagined them in any great detail at all. It’s rather that they are just so absolutely right for the book. Illustrators are wizards, I tell you.

Continue reading →

Welcome Home!

Leave a reply

When I got home from Rottnest, I found this:

It’s The Big Dig – my very first copy and it looks great! And oh yes, I know you’ve seen the cover on here before, but this is the book, the actual book, and there’s nothing like it, nothing like seeing that actual package with the little bear and knowing your book is inside and that it weighs exactly 230g.

Coming to a store near you from July 1st!

The Big Dig Is Dug!

Leave a reply

As you may know, The Big Dig is my next book in the Lightning Strikes series. I’ve been madly going back and forth with my editor trying to finalise the manuscript for the last month or so (it is more important than you can possibly imagine to make sure all the commas are in the right places!) and now it’s finally done. And even better than that, I have a cover, which is fantastic. By which I mean that it is fantastic that I have a cover, because the book would look naked without one, but more importantly that the cover itself is fantastic (see how important those commas are?). The real thing will be even more sparkly and fabulous, but for now, here is a taste:
BigDigcvrfinal
In other news, I have completed the manuscript of Duck the Second and sent it off to my editor. Cross your webbed digits for me!

The Big Dig Is Not About …

Leave a reply

* filling in a backyard pool with cement so you can have a bigger yard to play in.

* a boy who wins a backyard pool in the Westpac Maths Competition but has to pay for his own fence so he sells the cement his father has left in the shed which was supposed to be used for the driveway.

* a boy whose fence is too small for his pool so he has to put it down the middle but it all works out well because it means he has half the pool and his annoying sister has the other half.

* a boy who builds a solid cement wall around his pool, like a castle, with turrets.

* a boy who tries to dig his own pool but it’s too expensive and there are too many stupid rules so instead he decides to focus on studying maths.

Though I have to say, I like your style, all of you!

Continue reading →

Have You Been Struck Yet?

Leave a reply

My new book, Going for Broke, is part of a new series called Lightning Strikes, which has just been launched by Walker Books.

There are six books in the initial launch, with more to follow later this year. Along with Going for Broke, the first release includes Queasy Rider (James Roy), The Black Baron (Robyn Opie), Jinxed (Jill McDougall), Sucked In (John Parker), and The Great Shave (Clare Saxby). It’s a crazy crew of fast-paced stories about everything from racing cockroaches, bloodthirsty eyeballs and bad hair days to, of course, amazingly amazing world record attempts.

Go on, check them out!

Going For Broke

Leave a reply

Shhh! I saw a cover. It was a blue cover. It was a grey cover. It had skateboards, several. It had my name on it. It had the title Going for Broke in shiny foiled letters. It was very, very cool. And now I can post it, so here it is:
b537a-gfblarge
Going for Broke will be released in May this year as part of Walker Books’ new Lightning Strikes series. The series will kick off with six books and I’ll be in the fine company of authors such as Robyn Opie and James Roy. I have a feeling this is going to be fun!

Sadly, we have had to lose the subtitle “One World Record, Fifty-Two Tiny Bones”, but I suspected that would happen at some point.

Cleanskin Has Landed!

Leave a reply

My first volume of poetry is out, and it’s gorgeous! I just love what the designer has done with the image; I could sit and stare at it quite happily for hours. These are poems for adults, rather than children, although I do draw on some of this material in my poetry workshops. Cleanskincover

Copies have gone out to Westerly subscribers; non-subscribers can purchase copies either through me or the Westerly Centre. For $9.95, you receive 24 pages of poetry goodness and a CD of me reading and talking about some of the poems.

It’s an incredible thing to have a little book of poems to hold in my hand, and I can’t thank Westerly and ArtsWA (who funded the project) enough for the opportunity.

Cleanskin Has a Face

Leave a reply

Here’s the cover image I’ve chosen for my little book of poetry:
The artist is the marvellous Nevin Hirik. Her work is so richly evocative and I love the figurative interplay between the image and the title, Cleanskin. It was quite challenging coming up with a title, but when I sat down to look at the manuscript as a whole, I realised that many of the poems are about the body, identity, memory, the complex negotiations between the past and present. So when I came across the word ‘cleanskin’ buried in the middle of one of the pieces, it seemed apt.