#LoveOzYAbookclub: Title Suggestions Masterlist and How This All Works

Hi all, this is the introductory post for the #LoveOzYAbookclub – welcome!  If you enjoy reading YA books, and specifically Australian YA, then this is the club for you.  I'm not going to make stupid references to Fight Club, cos that is passe, and the only rule of #LoveOzYAbookclub is talk all you want about bookclub.  Oh, and invite whoever you want - young readers, older readers, readers of all shapes and sizes and persuasions.  The more the merrier. 

I’ll be updating with posts here on the blog, but running the discussion threads on the #LoveOzYAbookclub Facebook group page – feel free to run on over there and join to stay current.

This post is just to say hi, and thanks for coming along, and to show off the list of books from which we’ll likely select the books we’ll be reading.  We'll read a book a month - makes it nice and easy, huh?  I’ve made a big OzYA master list below, which will be added to from time to time, as new titles get suggested and old ones get crossed off.

If we’ve left out your fave, or you’d like to suggest a particular title to be read for #LoveOzYAbookclub, add a comment here or at the FB page, or you can always tweet me (just remember to tag me and #LoveOzYAbookclub).

This will be the process for #LoveOzYAbookclub (title selection and general procedure):

I’ll select the first book (because I'm bossy like that), which I’ll announce in early November.  Then I’ll ask the author of that book to choose the next title from the list (for December), and so on down the line (Janurary, February, etc...).  If the author of the current book doesn’t want to choose or is unavailable to do so, I’ll ask someone else to do it or do it myself.  I’ll ask someone who enjoyed the book to review it for the first discussion post, which I'll put up here/on FB in the last half of each month.  Then folks who'd like to comment about how they liked the book of the month can take it from there.  And so on, ad infinitum, until we run out of books, or the internet collapses, or the zombie apocalypse arrives, or whatever.

So, you got that?

*I'll pick the first book, then it will domino from there

*I'll make a Title post at the start of each month, letting you know which book we're reading

*I'll make a second Discussion post near the end of the month, after we've all had a chance to read

*Discussion and comments will be on the relevant thread over at the #LoveOzYAbookclub FB group page.

*If the author of the book is amenable, I’ll try to arrange an interview, or a Facebook author chat, during the relevant month.

*I’m also in the process of organising a way for those buying the book to get free shipping for online orders.

Masterlist of OzYA Books Suggested So Far (feel free to suggest more!):

InBetweenDays – Vikki Wakefield

TheFlywheel – Erin Gough

Risk – Fleur Ferris

Talk Under Water – Kathryn Lomer

Sidekicks – Will Kostakis 

Razorhurst– Justine Larbalestier

GoodOil – Laura Buzo

Zeroes– Margo Lanagan, Scott Westerfeld, Deborah Biancotti

The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl – Melissa Keil

The Book of Days – KA Barker

GreenValentine – Lili Wilkinson

A Little Wanting Song – Cath Crowley

The Intern – Gabrielle Tozer

Notes from the Teenage Underground – Simmone Howell
Burn Bright - Marianne dePierres

My Life as an Alphabet – Barry Jonsberg

Head of the River – Pip Harry

Atmospheric– Carole Wilkinson
Deucalion - Brian Caswell

Grace Beside Me – Sue McPherson

Steal My Sunshine – Emily Gale

Hate is Such A Strong Word – Sarah Ayoub

How to be Happy – Dave Burton

Undine– Penni Russon
The Last Girl - Michael Adams

90 Packets of Instant Noodles – Deb Fitzpatrick

Finding Grace – Alyssa Brugman

Clara in Washington – Penni Tangey
Living Hell - Catherine Jinks

Killing Darcy – Melissa Lucashenko

Jasper Jones – Craig Silvey

Into the River – Ted Dawe
The Extinction Gambit - Michael Pryor

Girl Saves Boy – Steph Bowe
First Person Shooter - Cameron Raynes

ThingsYou Either Hate or Love – Brigid Lowry

Laurinda _ Alice Pung

Cooper Bartholomew is Dead – Rebecca James

Spark – Rachael Craw
Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club - Alison Goodman

Thrive– Mary Borsellino

The Dead I Know – Scot Gardner

The Protected – Claire Zorn

Hating Alison Ashley – Robin Klein
Between The Lives - Jessica Shirvington

One True Thing – Nicole Hayes

48 Shades of Brown – Nick Earls

Twinmaker: Jump – Sean Williams

Whisper– Christine Keighery

Illuminae– Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff 

Finnikin of the Rock – Melina Marchetta

How to Make A Bird – Martine Murray

Rise of the Fallen – Teagan Chilcott

A Small Madness _ Dianne Touchell
Eon - Alison Goodman

Facing Up – Carolyn Gilpin

Fire in the Sea – Myke Bartlett

Little Paradise – Gabrielle Wang

Intruder– Christine Bongers
Black Glass - Meg Mundell

Crashing Down – Kate McCaffrey

Zac & Mia – AJ Betts

Cloudwish – Fiona Wood

The Gathering – Isobelle Carmody

Frankie– Shivaun Plozza

Nona and Me – Clare Atkins

Deadly,Unna? – Phillip Gwynne

Pieces of Sky – Trinity Doyle

The Guy, The Girl, The Artist and His Ex – Gabrielle Williams

Does My Head Look Big in this? – Randa Abdel-Fattah

A Single Stone – Meg McKinley

So Much To Tell You – John Marsden

Summer Skin – Kirsty Eagar 

The Cracks in the Kingdom – Jaclyn Moriarty

Sabriel – Garth Nix

You’re the Kind of Girl I Write Songs About – Daniel Herborn
Stay With Me - Maureen McCarthy

Shadows– Paula Weston

The Vanishing Moment – Margaret Wild

Footy Dreaming – Michael Hyde

This is Shyness – Leanne Hall

I Am the Messenger – Markus Zusak

Frankie and Joely – Nova Weetman
Preloved - Shirley Marr

Cry Blue Murder – Kim Kane, Marion Roberts

Calypso Summer – Jared Thomas

Freedom Ride – Sue Lawson

The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf – Ambelin Kwaymullina
The Pause - John Larkin

The Astrologer’s Daughter – Rebecca Lim

Five Parts Dead – Tim Pegler
Sky Legs - Irini Savvides

Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean – Kirsty Murray, ed.

Losing It – Julia Lawrinson

Fairytales for Wilde Girls – Allyse Near
The Big Dry - Tony Davis

The Tricksters – Margaret Mahy

Cracked – Clare Strahan
Oracle - Jackie French

Run – Tim Sinclair
Kill The Music - Nansi Kunze

The Minnow - Diane Sweeney
Snow White: This is No Fairy Tale - Keith Austin

*Many of the authors have multiple books, so I’ve only put up one book per author.  The decision on which book to include was either suggested, or made by me (because I wanted to read a certain book.  Soz.).  If you’d like to suggest a different book for the same author, that’s fine, but let’s make sure we spread the love around.

*Some books have collaborative authors – once their joint book is read and crossed out, I’m happy to include works they’ve penned as individuals.

*Yes, I’ve included some NZ authors (mainly because I want to read Into the River and Spark, and why not).

*No, I haven’t put my own books on the list, cos I didn’t want to feel like a der.  I’m getting plenty of love by facilitating this bookclub, which is good enough for me (and if you want to go read the Every series, thank you, and the link to Booktopia is on the sidebar at right! #officialplug).

* If you’re a blogger/reviewer and you’d like to have your reviews included in the bookclub, please get in touch.

And that’s it!  Hope you like the list and please feel welcome to join in the reading and discussion by joining the #LoveOzYA bookclub on Facebook.  Keep an eye out for the first book, coming up soon (first week of November) – I’ll post it here and cross-post to the group plus everywhere else.  I can’t wait to start reading!

xxEllie

Every Word overseas release! and making new ideas (is hard)

Every Word, the second book in the Every series, has been released this month in North America and the Philippines through Tundra Books/Penguin Random House – awesome J

I’m pretty happy about that.  Early reviews have been coming in, and that’s been keeping me happy too.  If you’d like to read what people are saying, peruse below…

Angieville @ Bibliocrack Reviews

Read.Sleep.Repeat

It's a Book Life

Forever Young Adult

Airy Reads

Ramblings of a Daydreamer

The Book Wars

Hiver et Cafe

YA Romantics

CM Magazine: University of Manitoba

Reading Bifrost

I’m also rapt to announce that Every Word has won the Best YA fiction award at this year’s Davitt Awards.  WOOT!

The Davitts, organised by Sisters in Crime (the Australian women crime writers association), has been running for 15 years, and this year, 96 books by female crime writers were up for consideration.  It’s a huge honour to be given the award, from a stellar line-up of shortlisted authors, and I’m incredibly grateful.   

What else has been happening?  Well, these last two weeks I’ve been working up ideas for a new book project.  You would think that just ‘coming up with ideas’ is not a very labour-intensive job – it doesn’t sound as difficult or time-consuming as actually sitting down and writing an entire book.  In fact, to some extent, this is true: the me who’s ‘coming up with ideas’ actually bears a strong resemblance to the me who’s ‘washing dishes’ or ‘working in the garden’ or ‘going for a walk’.  But concept-generation is hard work.  I’ve discovered that it’s much harder work than writing.

Creating a new book is always a process.  I get a inspired by lots of things, but not everything I find inspiring is enough to hang a book on. Developing every idea takes mental effort, and involves looking inside yourself for something you can use in the writing.

Certainly looking inside is part of my role, as a writer.  But in the act of writing, only half of my role is in self-examination for some kind of ‘emotional depth charge’ (thank you for that phrase, Cate Kennedy) that resonates, that you know you can use to make readers resonate too.  The other fifty percent of actual writing is usually about regurgitating my observations.  I spend a lot of time observing the way people look and behave, the conversations they have, how their ways of thinking are inscribed on the ways they interact.  Those are the details I borrow from life and cannibalise to make an imaginary person or situation real.

But when you’re thinking up ideas, the process is 100% internal.  You need to examine yourself for something you want to show, something you want to explain.  What is inside you is the Important Thing that informs your original idea.  It is the Something You Want to Say.

I find that kind of self-examination exhausting, but it generates ideas.  Quite often, these ideas are hard won – I have to wrest my idea out of a quagmire of ‘that’s too embarrassing to write about’, or ‘oh, that’s too personal! Too revealing!’, and so on.  And so I am invested in each idea, as it emerges – blinking, uncurling its damp wings – and I think each of them is beautiful. 

I would like to write ALL of them.  But I probably won’t.  Sure, I’d like to think that each of these ideas has promise, potential to be a whole book – like I said, you can make a book out of almost anything.  You can make a book about encyclopedia salesmen, or someone doing their laundry: it’s all in how the characters act, the hidden secrets and trauma inside every person, and where those secrets take them.  But I need to narrow down my options.  I want to write something that resonates both for me and for readers, something that other people will find interesting, something that has some broad appeal (broader than just an audience of one – me – at any rate).

So I think I’ve come up with something, something new and interesting – I mean, I hope it’s interesting – and I’m about to embark on the process of letting the characters take over.  I’ll be thinking, living and breathing the characters and concepts over the next few months, slowly giving in to them as they start to come alive and talk to each other, while I note everything down.  I’ll be filling up exercise books with scribbled research and scraps of dialogue, making boards on Pinterest, tearing out pictures and sticky-taping them up on my study wall, talking to people who might be able to help me out with the character development or the plotlines.

It’s an exciting time!  Also a strangely nervous time, as I wait to see if I can really make the concept come to life.  So…I guess I’m asking you to wish me luck?  And I hope you’re going well.  It’s school holiday time here, blowing in with the spring winds, which I s’pose is as good a time to start something new as any.  If it’s not spring where you are, I hope you’re finding some tiny blooming thing to keep you happy.

xxEllie

#LoveOzYA for authors: Your weakness makes you strong

*I wrote this piece recently for inclusion on the Wheeler Centre website, but we ended up turning it into a more general article to word up the general public on the #LoveOzYA movement.  So I've put this up here: an article on #LoveOzYA just for authors.  Thanks to Simmone Howell for proofing, and for reassuring me that it didn't sound too 'Voice of the People'.

The #LoveOzYA campaign has been a topic of conversation recently.  Much has been made, in the last few years, of the fact that Young Adult Lit is a growth area in the publishing market, and I suppose that may have lulled us into feeling as if we’re all doing okay.  But when the May 2015 Australian Library Information Association lists revealed that of the top ten most-borrowed YA titles in Australian libraries, only two titles were Australian-made, it was (as Emily Gale pointed out) a kick in the pants.  We realised that we needed to have a conversation about this.  That conversation flowered into a realisation that much work is yet to be done in the promotion of Australian YA stories for local teenage readers – and that the responsibility is on us to make it happen.

It’s not the situation that Australian YA books aren’t being read because they’re not good.  They are good – let me qualify that further and say, they’re excellent.  But other market issues are at work.  Blogger and emerging YA writer Danielle Binks has written articles in Kill Your Darlings and Kids Book Review that explain how local YA is ‘being underrated in its own market by global forces’, specifically how local voices in the market are often crowded out by the number of overseas buy-ins and blockbuster titles.  How Every Breath made it onto the ALIA list is still a mystery to me (not that I'm not happy!), but it's noteworthy that it was the only title without a movie tie-in or a big marketing budget.  Without that external big-budget push, more needs to happen to promote homegrown YA literature if we would like to see the industry continue to thrive, and our own work to be read and sold.  Not all that work can be done by already-stretched publishers, or literature organisations that have just been de-funded.  Clearly, we need to shoulder some of this responsibility ourselves.  That’s how the #LoveOzYA campaign came into being.

From an author’s standpoint, I guess I feel like we’re coming from a point of vulnerability.  We pour our hearts out into our work, in ways that leave us feeling shaky and exposed.  We’re often living ‘balancing-act’ lives, juggling day jobs, parenting, writing – and with that often comes financial instability, which can make us feel like we’re on a literal tightrope.  The recent disembowelling of the Australia Council has left us even more vulnerable.  We’re working without a safety net.

But in some ways, I suppose none of that is new.  Justine Larbalestier said it well: “Making a living as an artist of any kind is a long shot”.  But what can we do, as individuals, that can make a difference when we’re already strung so thin?  Well, we can sit back helplessly…or we can act.

The first thing we can do is be visible, and use that visibility talk about #LoveOzYA.  We’re in the middle of Book Week, the mad-busy time for writers all over.  It’s a great reminder of what we already know, as authors: that the time of writing and delivering a manuscript and then retiring quietly to our writing caves has long passed.  It’s necessary to come out into the light in person – to visit at schools and libraries, to attend festivals and speaking events, to communicate with a wider readership and support network online, and to engage with the larger community in general.  If we want to support an effort to promote and profile-raise for Aussie YA books, we need to continue to be visible, and to speak about #LoveOzYA when given the opportunity.

We can also get in touch with organisations.  We’re well-placed to contact organisations like the Australian Society of Authors, the Australasian Children’s Literature Association for Research, SCBWI and writer’s organisations in our own states, and let them know we’re on board with the campaign – and encourage them to get involved.  Other organisations who work in schools to promote Aussie literature, including the Centre for Youth Literature, IBBY, YABBA, the Australian Children’s Laureate Alliance, the CBCA and The Stella Prize, might also like to know we’re pitching in.

As authors, we also have support networks of other kinds – the large community of teachers, librarians and booksellers, who are always keen to be supportive, and the growing community of reviewers, book bloggers and book tubers out there who are actively seeking books to love and promote.  Heck, our publishers might like to know we’re supporting the campaign (which they will surely appreciate).  We also have our networks at home – local bookstores, local and high school libraries.  We can let them know we’re supporting the campaign, and suggest that they come aboard.

The best way to communicate the message is by being positive.  It can be dispiriting when we go into our local library or bookstore and see that they aren’t stocking our titles – or the titles of other Aussie authors.  But librarians, teachers and booksellers really want to help: having a healthy local publishing industry benefits them, too.  We’re all professionals, and our relationships are based on respect and friendship…and we all love books.  In our exchanges with people who work in the wider networks of reading and literature, it’s important to give positive encouragement.

Ultimately, this is an industry based on mutual support.  None of us would make it without a helping hand – we encourage each other, give suggestions and advice, share information, and help spread the buzz about new work at release time.  So the #LoveOzYA campaign is about more than just profile-raising for the industry: it’s about creating a close-knit community.  As individuals, we can do our bit, but united, we’re more than the sum of our parts.

And that’s another key thing we can do: support other authors and create community.  We all read widely in the category to stay up-to-date with what’s happening, and we’ve all read awesome books by other Aussie authors, books we would happily press into someone else’s hand.  Applaud and encourage each other, and talk about other Aussie YA authors when you have the chance – they will undoubtedly love you for it, and return the favour.  You will never hurt your own career by supporting other writers.  Giving other authors a leg-up is really a form of self-help.

But probably the most important thing we should be doing is: our job.  We need to keep writing.  Without the books, there’s nothing to promote – and nothing to nurture the steadily growing interest of readers.  We can find support, where and when we need it: from family, friends, writers’ networks and organisations, and the wider community of OzYA authors.  We can reach out for advice and information, and remember that we’re not struggling alone.

Please keep writing!  We need Australian stories, told in Australian voices, in which Australian kids can see themselves reflected.  We are the people who write those stories.  Keep writing, #LoveOzYA, and don’t lose heart.

xxEllie

Book Week 2015

Hullo again :)

So Book Week 2015 is nearly upon us.  The theme for this year's Book Week is 'Books Light Up Our World', and there is a wheelbarrow-load of stuff happening over the next week (well, ten days or so - Book Week does tend to kind of ooze out over the edges of August).  Here are some of the things I'm going to, if you'd like to come along:

Saturday 22 August
RWA conference
Park Hyatt Melbourne

I'll be presenting at the Romance Writers of Australia conference this year, which is a privilege - I don't think they've had a workshop on YA fiction before - so if you're around from 12-1pm you can catch me at "Going All the Way: Romance (and Sex) in YA"

ARRA Signing Event
Park Hyatt Melbourne

There will be a Massive Mega-signing Event for the RWA conference, as organised by the Australian Romance Reader's Association - come along from 5-6pm and say hulloo :)

Sunday 23 August
MWF
Signal

I'm not speaking on this, but I'm attending WITH BELLS ON - it's a Fanfiction Panel with Danielle Binks, Melissa Keil and Justine Larbalestier, talking fanfic.  There will even be an open mic for fic readings!  Following on from that is the YA Book Swap Event, which will be fantastic...except I don't know if I really want to give any of my YA books away...

Monday 24 August
Billanook College

I will be visiting here, giving talks and workshops on how I do this writery business, and how to write crime

Tuesday 25 August
Kardinia College

...And then the next day I'll be driving all the way to Geelong to say hi to Kardinia students!

Thursday 27 August
Loreto College

After a day at home (probably talking to the builder, because we need to put a room on our house, with all the GIANT BOYS now living here), I'll be dropping by to say hullo to folks at Loreto in Ballarat.

Friday 28 August
Our Lady of Mercy College

...then another exciting school visit at Our Lady of Mercy in Heidelberg!

Saturday 29 August
Davitt Awards
Thornbury Theatre

Now this is the one I'm hanging out for: the night of nights, the big knees-up bash to see who will win the One Ring to Rule Them All...  I mean, which books will win the Sisters in Crime Davitt Awards for the best writing by Australian female crime novelists in 2015, yay! I'm excited because, well, Every Word has been shortlisted for the Best YA category, which is exciting.  Holy crap.  I have asked my partner to come with me and hold my sweaty hand, and barring hiccups with the junior football finals, he should be able to come.  MY FINGERS AND TOES ARE CROSSED.

Now sorry, but that's truly all I have time to write today, because I'm packing for the week I've just outlined to you - yes, it's mega-week.  Wish me luck, and good luck to you for Book Week - may the Book Fairies bring you something wonderful :)

xxEllie

InsideADog links and event catch-up

Hi all!  This is a quick catch-up post, to give you all the InsideADog residence posts!

So here they are, in order of appearance (my introductory first post was included in my last update): 

Hot Characters of YA - in which I talk about, yes, hot characters, and how, when a character makes you love them, you're obliged to follow wherever they lead...

How to Make a Book - which is the post I where get my sillies on, and give a brief bullet-point list explaining the process of bringing a book into being;

How To Lead A Life of Crime - a basic primer on crime fiction and the crime books I love, as well as the kinds of whacky research you have to do to make it all sound real;

Fannish Author Love - is the post where BOB MORLEY TWEETED ME, holy crap, and all the ways there are to express some fan love (legally);

I Open At the Close - and you see what I did there, huh?  Showing off my HP-nerd cred?  Well, I really hope that some of what JK Rowling has will rub off on me, because this is the post where I talk about writing endings and why it's so damn hard;

and the final post in the residency series -

Farewell my lovelies, and #LoveOzYA - which was my grand finale, where I answered all the thorny questions I forgot to answer previously, and talked about how #LoveOzYA is awesome.

And that was it!  I had a wonderful time on InsideADog, and I hope you get a chance to go check the site out sometime, especially in the lead up to the Inky Awards (where ACTUAL TEENAGERS get to vote for the best YA books in the country).

I haven't written a post telling you about all the cool things I got up to at Reading Matters 2015, because that will soon be covered in a post on the Centre for Youth Lit site (I'll let you know when it goes up).  BUT...something else really cool happened since then, and it was this:

IT'S SO SHINY!!
and actually  it's not shiny, more of a matte finish, but you'll understand that by this I mean IT'S BEAUTIFUL, cos it is beautiful.  And I can't believe Every Word will be out in North America so soon! September!  Eep!

I'll also be doing a few things this month of August...well, I'll be doing more than a few things, I'l be doing lots of things, but here's the ones coming up fast:

Wednesday 5 and Thursday 6 August - Scotch College Literary festival, I'll be giving crime fiction workshops here for students

Thursday 6 August - Green Valentine by Lili Wilkinson, launching at Readings, Lygon St Carlton at 6pm (I'll defs be there, cos I'm launching the book)

Saturday 8 August - Bendigo Writers Festival, I'll be appearing on a panel with Geraldine Wooller and Peter Timms, and hosted by John Charambalous, where we'll all be talking about plotting.

I'll post up a few more dates and events soon.  August is a busy time for writers in Victoria, because the Melbourne Writers Festival is on (I've already booked two panels!), as well as Book Week (hi schools!), the Davitt Awards (in which Every Word has been awesomely shortlisted), the Inky Awards (who will win??), the Romance Writers of Australia conference (I'm giving a workshop), a bunch of excellent book launches (yaass), and the Ned Kelly Awards shortlist announcement.  If I'm not on top of the blog updates, please forgive me!

Hope you're well, I'll update again next week, and stay wordy!

xxEllie

Stirring the crazy on InsideADog

My very first blog post as writer in residence at InsideADog!  Hope you like it :)

YA Crime Writer stirs the crazy on InsideADog!! Run for your life!!

xx Ellie

Can you feel the #LoveOzYA tonight?

Something exciting happened.

Every Breath was listed as one of Australia’s most-borrowed YA library books.  YAY!  I’m incredibly honoured to be included on the ALIA list – thank you to everyone who borrowed Every Breath, you’re all awesome!

One thing that stood out, though, was that Every Breath and The Book Thief (by Markus Zusak) were the only two YA titles in the Top Ten list.  The other eight spots were taken by blockbuster American titles, almost all of them with movie tie-ins.

My first question is: wow, what made my book so attractive to readers, and how can I duplicate it?? Because I would totally bottle that, in a heartbeat. I mean, I just write the books mainly to entertain myself (or my 15 year old self, anyway) – the kind of books I would love to curl up with in a hammock at the beach, or on a couch by the fire on a rainy holiday afternoon, the kind of books that transport me into something exciting and moving, full of thrills and feels and adventure.  I guess it seems that other people like those books as well, so…yay!

My second question is: why are there so few Aussie authors on the list?  To answer this question, I did what I often do – I asked the hive-mind (mainly other authors and booksellers, and library and publishing peeps).  And the answers that I agreed with were things like – a) because the market here is smaller, we don’t have the budget to push local voices as much as they deserve; b) the North American market is bigger, in every way, including budgets – that means that overseas books have a larger market/distribution/promotion capacity, which impacts on us Aussies a lot; c) when the market is saturated – so when a book is promoted online, on screens, in films, in print ads and bookstores and toy stores and fast-food outlets and etc etc etc ad infinitum – it’s kinda hard to ignore, and more people buy it.

Here’s another important point – if you want to see local content, you need to invest in local cultural capital.  The Australian government has just ripped $100 million bucks out of the Australia Council, which directly supports local artists and art producers (including authors) to create new work.  A lot of those arts grants go towards supporting and developing small individual writers – me included.  I mean, I was gonna apply for a grant in June, to support myself while I wrote a new book – but in the wake of the budget cuts, that funding round has been cancelled.

So how exactly can you publish and promote local authors if they haven’t been given the opportunity to write new books and get signed by publishers? Good question.  Maybe we should be thinking a bit more about investing in our cultural and arts sector, in the same way we invest in the business and mining sectors.

Anyway, in the light of the lack of Aussie YA on the lists, and in the interests of promoting AusYA, a new hashtag has been born!  To show support and help spread the love for Australian YA, I encourage you to use the #LoveOzYA tag in your tweets, FB updates, Instagram and other social media posts about Aussie YA books – and if you follow the tag, it’ll lead you down a wonderful rabbit hole filled with awesome OzYA recs.  A lot of folks out there are already doing it, so I urge you to go for it! 

And this weekend in particular is a great weekend for following #LoveOzYA – because it’s Reading Matters weekend!!  If you love YA, and you happen to be in Melbourne, this AMAZING conference is being run by the State Library and the Centre for Youth Lit, right in the heart of town at the Arts Centre.  Here’s the link – go check it out.  I will most definitely be there from Friday to Saturday, not as a panellist but in the audience (which is just as good, because I can dress daggy down and drink wine at lunchtime).  Use the #YAMatters tag to follow along.  And if you’re a reader, a teacher, a librarian, a bookseller, a publishing friend, a friendly author, or you’re just around the traps at Reading Matters and you spy me from across a crowded room, please come and say hi :)

Some other good news - I’m going to be the InsideADog writer-in-residence blogger for the month of June, which is awesome!  So if you’re a regular lurker at InsideADog (the Centre for Youth Lit book blog), or even if you’re a regular reader/commenter, please make sure you give me a wave and say hi next month.

On top of that, I’m going to be visiting a bunch of libraries soon, and my first visit will be at Ashburton Library on Monday 1 June at 7pm.  If that’s your local and you’re free, come on down and listen to me ramble on, and grab me for some questions or to have a chat afterwards. Here's the link!

And I have some exciting news about Continuum soon too…so keep your ears to the ground about that.

Okay, I’m not going to write much more, because June will be a mega-blog period at InsideADog – my blog updates will be posted there, although I’ll still check back in here if anything noteworthy comes up, or there’s an event on.  Hope you’re going well, a quick shout-out to the girls from Presentation College, who did a workshop with me last week (Hi girls!  You were awesome!) and catch you again soon!

Xx Ellie