sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Hello!

I'm Sally Murphy, an Australian author of over 40 children's books. I'm also the slightly crazy mother of six beautiful kids. You'll find bits of me buried somewhere in every one of my books. I love reading, writing, and speaking about reading and writing.

View my books or hire me to speak at your school, festival, or writers group.

Click here to view Sally Murphy's books

Hello from the Capital!

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Hello From Canberra!  Cold (freezing!) but beautiful Canberra – Australia’s capital city, on the other side of the country from my home in the West. I am here writing, and researching and, in between times, walking and exploring. Why? Because I have been given the gift of time to write by the very generous May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust, in the form of a Creative Time Fellowship. What this means is that for four weeks I have a little apartment at the Australian National University to write. How magical!

And, after a very busy first half of the year I am really delighted to have the time to write. While I’m here I’m hoping to complete two projects – the verse novel I began in Hanoi last year, and a chapter book I started earlier this year. After 8 days I can say I’m tracking pretty well on the first of those, which I’ve prioritised. Mornings are for this project. I won’t do much to the other until I get the verse novel done – because they both have ten year old girl protagonists and I want to be sure I keep their voices unique. But, I do have some other projects that I toy with later in the day. I have been researching two different historical stories on and off over the past year, and have made progress with both of these since I was here. I love the unexpectedness of research, which can take me on journeys I did not expect. Both of these ideas come from specific little known people – but the research has left me really determined to make them more known.

When I’m not writing or researching I’m walking. I really love exploring places by foot and  Canberra is perfect for walking. The amazing Lake Burley Girffin is very close to where I’m staying and is delightful to walk along and around. I’ve walked over kilometres a couple of days and, although I got myself a public transport card on my first day, so far I haven’t used it – I just point myself in the direction of where I want to go and walk. The weather has been kind for this – although it is very cold, it has been fine every day, bar one with a few showers.

Here are a few glimpses of what I’ve seen.

The little swimming critter is a rakali – a native water rat (though I think she is more otter like than rat like). I’d hoped to spot one but was lucky enough to see two in one day – and get this one on camera.  If you want to follow my adventures, you can follow me on Instagram.

I realised when I sat down to write this post that I’ve not updated here on the blog since March. Oops! I did say I’ve been busy this year. Will try to get time for an update soon. In the meantime, back to work for me.

 

NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge

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While I was in Sydney recently for the amazing SCBWI National Conference and subsequent PD Day for teachers at the State Library,  I heard something about me (and my books) which I had not realise. See, I knew some of my books were on the reading list for the NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge, an amazing challenge which sees students across the state reading a wide range of books from a curated list. What I hadn’t realised was that I have books on each of the four lists – for ages from Kindergarten to Year 9.

How exciting – and what an honour.

So if you, your students or children are taking part in the  Reading Challenge in 2019, you can include the following books in your reading:Looking Up

K-2:  Fly-in Fly-out Dad, Snowy’s Christmas 

Years 3-4:   Looking Up, Roses are Blue, the Sage Cookson series (8 titles)

Years 5-6: Toppling, Meet Mary MacKillop and Pearl Verses the World

Years 7-9:  1915, Toppling, Meet Mary MacKillop, and Pearl Verses the World

For more information about the NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge, visit the site here – and get reading!

Release Day: Bushfires

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It’s release day for My Australian Story: Bushfires  today. As always, I am delighted to have a new book out in the world. This time, however, my excitement is tempered somewhat by events happening in Tasmania. 

Bushfires, while fictional, is set amidst the very real events of  the Black Saturday fires which ravaged Victoria in 2009. Sad then, that on the day the book is released, another bushfire tragedy is unfolding in Tasmania. This time, fortunately, the impact in terms of human life is not as severe, but it is still heartbreaking to see the natural heritage of Tasmania’s ancient forest being destroyed, and to consider the impact on the wildlife, both in the immediate and long term.

So, while I raise a toast to my new book, I am also thinking  this week about the people, animals and gorgeous forests of Tasmania.

Happy Bookday Bushfires.

My Australian Story : Bushfire - Sally Murphy

 

In the Mail: Advance Copies of Bushfire

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My parcel lady was a little surprised when I raced out the door on Friday as soon as she pulled into the driveway. And even more surprised that I was delighted when she handed my the parcel I had hoped she would be carrying. After all, as a book reviewer, I receive lots of parcels of books, a lot like this one:

But I knew what the postie did not: that these were not review copies, but my complimentary author copies of my newest book-baby.  Here is what was nestled safe inside:

Twelve copies of Bushfire – part of Scholastic’s My Australia Story series.  Although I had seen the cover before, I got a brand new thrill seeing it on real life copies of the books. And, over the weekend, I sat down and reread the book and may have even got a little teary as I reacquainted myself with the tale.  I can’t wait to share it with the world.

Bushfire is due for release on February 1, 2019, and is available for preorder from Booktopia and other good bookstores.

Poetry Friday: A Lucky Home

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I am so lucky to be part of the Poetry Friday community – poets and poetry lovers from all around the world who post poetry goodness especially on Fridays. I am especially lucky that there are not rules in this community about the regularity of  postings. Every week since my return from Hanoi I  promised myself  this would be the week I finally posted something. But life has been busy – a wedding (my son’s), a new baby (different son), Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries, swimming training. And that’s just the personal stuff. Professionally, I have been busy teaching online, and preparing for a return to oncampus teaching in February, as well as preparing for a new book baby out February 1, running picturebook workshops, and trying to work on the things I drafted in Hanoi.  Phew.

This week, however, I have been espousing the wonders of poetry to my students (future teachers), so it seemed to be the week that I HAD to make the extra effort to get on here and post for Poetry Friday.  Then Friday rolled around and I still hadn’t written anything new and really didn’t know what I would post. Lucky for me, when I went out to water my plants this morning, I found the very inspiration I needed. There, nestled in the branches of my jade plant, was a wasp nest. I grabbed my camera, and took some snaps, and almost instantly had an idea – based on the very reason the jade bush is on my front verandah.  It’s supposed to be lucky!

So, here you have it – a little bit rough , because it’s hot off the press – my first Poetry Friday poem for 2019.

And, because the orange font is a little hard to read, here is the text version:

 

A Lucky Home

Ancient wisdom says

If you plant jade bushes

at your front door

and your back door

good luck will come your way.

But if you are a wasp

and you fix your home

right in the midst

of jadey treasure

all your doors

and all your windows

even your attic

and basement

have lucky views.

And if that jade bush

is on my front porch

you are doubly in luck

as I will let you stay.

(Poem and Image Copyright Sally Murphy 2019)

Now, lucky for me, I get to go and see what my fellow Poetry Fridayers have been up to. You can too, by starting at the round up on Tricia’s Blog, The Miss Rumphius Effect. Trica’s post is a lovely tribute to Mary Oliver, who will be sadly missed by poetry lovers everywhere.

Cover Reveal: Bushfire

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I am always super excited to see the cover of a new book, but even more excited to get to share that cover with the rest of the world. So, with the release of next book-baby getting scarily close, it is with great delight that I reveal the cover of My Australian Story: Bushfire:

I hope you’ll agree it is a stunning cover. I love it: I feel that it manages to capture the sheer ferocity and frightening reality of the fire.

Bushfire, part of the My Australian Story imprint from Scholastic, is a fictional story but is set amidst the very real, terrible fires of  February 2009.  It was an honour to be asked to write about these events for the series, and I hope I’ve done them justice.

Bushfire is due for release on February 1, 2019, and is available for preorder from Booktopia and other good bookstores.