A Night With Our Stars: 20 West Australian authors and illustrators celebrate childrens books

See WA’s hottest writing talent for 2010, all in one place! As well as being a great childrens book store, Westbooks hosts the annual Night With Our Stars extravaganza, celebrating West Australian writing and illustrating talent in the childrens book arena. And guess what? This year some of that hot talent is me! Plus there’s [...]

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The new Booked Up site is live!

The new Booked Up site is live! Woo hoo! Over the next week three Booked Up arcade style games will be added to the website as well as e-cards and competitions. There will also be a message board for Year 7s to talk about Booked Up and the books on offer. Schools have until Friday [...]

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Interviews with shortlisted writers

Over the last few weeks Tom Avery, the winner of the 2010 Diverse Voices Childrens Book Award, has interviewed writers shortlisted for the prize. The interviews give a great insight into what goes on behind the scenes in a writer’s life, and include some great advice for anyone keen to break in to the childrens [...]

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Who made the shortlist? 2010 Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Children’s Book Award

Yesterday I was stoked to report that Tom Avery is the winner of this year’s Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Children’s Book Award. Today, we take a look at other writers recognised at the award ceremony: There was a shortlist of six titles discussed by the judges, and three other writers were invited to the Award [...]

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Witch doctors, crocodiles, magic and treachery: The Gift by Gemma Birss

Gemma Birss’ The Gift was Highly Commended in the 2009 Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices children’s book award. Gemma is a fabulously warm and energetic writer who has lived in Iran, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Japan, France, India and England. She says she has “millions of stories from different countries and cultures in my head, all [...]

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The Queen of Sheba’s feet: interview with Clare Reddaway

Today we publish an interview with Clare Reddaway, an accomplished writer of plays and short stories who earned a Special Mention for her book, The Queen of Sheba’s feet, in the 2009 Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices book award. The Queen of Sheba’s feet follows the adventures of Bilkis, the Queen of Sheba’s handmaiden. Bilkis is [...]

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Motley’s Got Talent : Halina Boniszewska

Today we interview Halina Boniszewska, a finalist in the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices book award, and her novel, Motley’s Got Talent. Motley’s Got Talent is about twelve-year-old Ola, who moves to England from her native Poland with her mum, her auntie and her fitness-obsessed cousin, Marek. With little English and less confidence, Ola is delighted [...]

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Penguin Australia picks up shortlisted book: Oliver Phommavanh and Thai-riffic!

Time has been getting away from me…suddenly I’m 38-weeks pregnant (how strange!) and the days are filled with washing baby socks and moving things into non-existent drawers and wondering how we’re going to function on fractional sleep. Oh well In terrific news, Oliver Phommavanh, one of the writers shortlisted for the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices [...]

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Steve Tasane and Fly Kids

I’ve been getting into performance poetry lately, so who better to feature next than Steve Tasane, an awesome poet specialising in fast and funky word-twisting for children. Steve is another of the writers shortlisted in the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices book award for his book Fly Kids. Steve’s website calls him “the master of tongue-twisting, [...]

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Rahala Begum: The Winning Ticket

Our next featured writer is Rahala Begum, with her shortlisted book The Winning Ticket. Rahala Begum was among ten writers shortlisted for the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices book award with her book The Winning Ticket, a story about 12-year-old Zaina who lives with her illiterate single mother and is deprived of her basic desires. When [...]

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