5 Minutes With…
We’ve asked some Australian authors of children and young adult books about themselves. Get some insight into your favourite authors. Find out who their favourite authors are; what gives them inspiration and any hobbies they may have.
Why not answer the questions yourself? Ask family and friends the questions to see what their answers would be.
Cath Crowley
Hilary Badger
John Marsden
Steph Bowe
Pamela Rushby
Steph Bowe
http://heyteenager.blogspot.com
Steph Bowe is a seventeen-year-old YA author. Her debut novel, Girl Saves Boy (a tale of life, death, love… and garden gnomes), was published by Text Publishing in September 2010. Steph writes a blog called Hey! Teenager of the Year about her adventures as a teenager, author & reader.
1. Describe yourself in 4 words?
Curious sleepwalker awkwardly charming.
2. Who, or what, inspires you to write?
Everything! Wondrous authors and books I read, new experiences, interesting conversations overheard – everything is a potential story, and there are ideas everywhere. I’m inspired to write most of all by the brilliant stories I read and the desire to create stories other people can enjoy.
3. Did you always want to be an author? If you weren’t, what job would you do?
I’ve loved stories and writing for as long as I can remember, and have wanted to be an author since I was seven. If I wasn’t an author, I’d still want to have something to do with words – be a journalist or an editor.
4. What are you reading right now?
I’m re-reading Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley and it is terribly brilliant.
5. What is your favourite thing to do during the summer holidays?
Lie in the sun and read all afternoon.
Cath Crowley
Cath Crowley studied professional writing and editing at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and has taught creative writing for over ten years. She writes books for young adults and children, and is published in Australia and internationally.
Her latest novel, Graffiti Moon, won the 2011 Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature and the prize for Young Adult Fiction in the 2011 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. It has been shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. It was named an honour book in the 2011 CBCA Book of the Year, Older Readers.
She is currently working on her new novel, The Howling Boy.
1. Describe yourself in 4 words?
Shy. Curious. Word-lover.
2. Who, or what, inspires you to write?
Other writers inspire me. (John Green, Simmone Howell, Fiona Wood, Gabrielle Wang, Gabrielle Williams.) Art inspires me too. I see a painting or a picture and I want to capture the mood.
3. Did you always want to be an author? If you weren’t, what job would you do?
I didn’t always know that I wanted to be an author. (But I always loved telling stories.) Until I started writing (when I was thirty) I still didn’t know what I wanted to be for the rest of my life. Now I know.
4. What are you reading right now?
The Mouse and his Child by Russell Hoban
5. What is your favourite thing to do during the summer holidays?
Dream and write.
Hilary Badger
http://www.spacescoutportal.com
Hilary Badger is actually the name of the real author who wrote the very first Zac Power book, Poison Island. Hilary wrote the book with help from her editor, Hilary Rogers. Because they both share the same first name they decided to create the pseudonym author name of H.I. Larry.
Hilary has been writing Zac Power books since 2006. She is also the author of the Space Scout series and is about to embark on a new project for older readers. She hates driving and bananas. Of course, she loves reading and writing…especially writing about herself in the third person!
1. Describe yourself in 4 words?
Enthusiastic, busy, literate, hungry.
2. Who, or what, inspires you to write?
All my family, but especially my son. He’s mainly into eating books at the moment, but one day I hope he’ll love to read.
3. Did you always want to be an author? If you weren’t, what job would you do?
I’ve always loved words. If I didn’t write books, I’d be in advertising (which is where I started). Or maybe journalism.
4. What are you reading right now?
A book about parenting.
5. What is your favourite thing to do during the summer holidays?
Eat peaches in the shade.
John Marsden
http://www.johnmarsden.com.au/home.html
John Marsden was born in 1950, and grew up in Victoria, Tasmania and Sydney (but not all at once). He spent seven years at The King’s School, Parramatta, a strict military school, which he survived with difficulty. Later he became an English teacher, and in 1987 wrote a short book which he hoped the reluctant readers (and that was everyone) in his year nine English class might enjoy. The book, So Much to Tell You, won the Australian children’s book of the year award.
John continued to teach, but also to write, and has now had more than 40 books published. The best known are the seven books of the Tomorrow, When the War Began series, but among his other titles are Creep Street, Looking for Trouble, Checkers, Winter, Hamlet and Letters from the Inside.
In 2006 John founded Candlebark school, in Victoria. The school has the largest campus in the world, and encourages its 100 students to be adventurous and creative. John is Principal of the school, and teaches English and maths.
1. Describe yourself in 4 words?
Sceptical, laughing, despondent, diffident.
2. Who, or what, inspires you to write?
I love to slip into worlds that seem real, that are almost real, but are their own self enclosed places. Call it escapism if you like, but these worlds help me survive real-life.
3. Did you always want to be an author? If you weren’t, what job would you do?
I did, but I’d probably be equally happy to be captaining the Australian Wallabies rugby union team.
4. What are you reading right now?
Yet another Captain Underpants book to our seven-year-old. Scot Gardner’s The Dead I Know to myself.
5. What is your favourite thing to do during the summer holidays?
Is reading the correct answer? It’s the one I would have given anyway! But I must admit I’m a sucker for computer games, although I’m a bit sick of Plants Versus Zombies, after wasting hundreds of hours on it! I love playing backyard cricket with our kids.
Pamela Rushby
Pamela Rushby was born in Queensland more years ago than she cares to divulge. She has worked in advertising; as a pre-school teacher; and as a writer and producer of educational television, audio and multimedia.
Pam has written children’s books and television scripts; hundreds of radio and TV commercials; documentaries on Queensland dinosaurs, Australian ecosystems, bilbies, the Crown of Thorns starfish and buried Chinese terracotta warriors; short stories; and freelance journalism. She has won several awards, including a Literature Board of the Australia Council grant to work on archaeological excavations in Egypt and Jordan; a Churchill Fellowship to study educational television in Canada; the Ethel Turner Prize in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards; and a bag of gold coins at a film festival in Iran.
Pam lives in Brisbane with her husband, son, on-loan Devon Rex cat and six visiting scrub turkeys. She has two children (plus son-in-law and two gorgeous grandchildren).
She is passionately interested in children’s books and television, ancient history and Middle Eastern food.
1. Describe yourself in 4 words?
Beautiful. Witty. Talented. Skinny. (But remember, I write fiction …)
2. Who, or what, inspires you to write?
I have lots of ideas. But what makes me actually write? Well, a deadline is a great help. It concentrates the mind wonderfully.
3. Did you always want to be an author? If you weren’t, what job would you do?
Yes, I always wanted to be an author. (Enid Blyton was an early inspiration.) The other job I’d do? Educational television producer (which I have done, and it was great fun).
4. What are you reading right now?
Adult: The Birth House by Ami McKay. Young adult: Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper.
5. What is your favourite thing to do during the summer holidays?
Fight my cat for the coolest spot in the house. Lie there and read.
