sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Poetry Friday: Roses Are Blue

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It’s Poetry Friday, which is always good news, but this week I have some additional good news to share, because my verse novel Roses are Blue was named a Notable Book by the Children’s Book Council of Australia book of the year judges. Hooray!

Roses are Blue

To celebrate the notable listing  and Poetry Friday, in the one go, I thought I would share a short extract from the book. It is a little moment where my character, Amber, who is having a really hard time, finds solace in doing something she loves.

Have a wonderful Poetry Friday. I know I will. For the rest of the fun, head over to Life on the Deckle Edge where Robyn is hosting the round up.

 

Real Characters

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While Australia’s Great War: 1915 is a work of fiction, not all of the characters are made up. Several of them are based on real people who served in the Great War. By populating the story in part with fictionalised versions of these famous people, I hope to keep their memories and their parts in history alive. Of course, with my main characters being made up, the interactions they have with the ‘real’ characters must also be made up, but they are based on things which could have happened.

So, who are these real characters?

  • Charles Bean, Australia’s official war correspondent, who Stanley meets several times, eventually helping him compile the Anzac Book .
  • Simpson (John Simpson Kirkpatrick), the stretcher bearer famous for ferrying the wounded on his donkey, who Stanley meets just once, and later commemorates with a poem.
  • John Monash, who Stanley doesn’t meet, but whose tactics and actions he discusses with Bean.
  • Jim (James) Martin, the youngest known Australian to die in service, who was just fourteen when he died. Stanley meets Jim on board the stricken boat the Southland

Finally it’s time to let you in on a little secret. There are some much less famous real people embedded in the story. My own grandfather, Jim (James ) Adam, who served in the war, on the western front, is mentioned in one of Elizabeth’s letters. My husband’s grandmother, Audrey Chadd is also mentioned, playing the piano for a dance Elizabeth goes to. Though this couldn’t have happened – she was only a year old at the time – the Chadd family (her inlaws) were in business in Bunbury at the time, and Audrey, when she grew up, did play her piano for dances and events around Bunbury for many years. She even played at my wedding! There are a few other little hidden bits in the story that are my own little homage to family history.

Famous or not, it is important to remember that everyone who went away to war was a real person who did their bit, big or small. As such, retelling the stories of those terrible times commemorates them all.

Free Books??

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Want to read a book for free? Don’t we all! Twice in the past week I was reminded of this by young fans.

First, a young reader emailed me asking if I knew any websites where she could read 1915 for free.

A few days later, another young reader told me she had read Roses are Blue online. This lead me to Google and sure enough I found a site where people could read Roses are Blue for free. The gorgeous young girl who told me about it had no idea that the online version was pirated – and I’m really glad that she told me, and also that this gave me an opportunity to chat with her about why such sites are problematic.

It’s wonderful that kids want to read my books, and I get that often readers can’t afford to buy the books they are interested in reading. But I do wonder if readers, young and not-so-young realise that sites that offer free scans of books (whether in pdf or ebook formats) are illegal, and that this is a form of piracy.

The pirates who share books online think that they are doing the world a favour. After all, authors and publishers are rich, and books are too expensive, so why not just put the books online for free? And the readers who download them, as I’ve said, may not know that it is stealing, and, if they do, they may also feel that it’s okay because authors are rich.

So, here in simple terms is why you shouldn’t read books through pirate sites (or, for that matter, upload books to those sites):

  1. As a reader, you miss out on quality. Often the scans are not high quality, so illustrations are dull, text is fuzzy and overall, production is missing. A scanned copy is not the same as a legitimate ebook (ie one produced by the publisher, and that you pay for).
  2. Authors are, almost without exception, not rich. When you do buy a copy of a book through legitimate channels, the author gets only a dollar or two per book sold. That’s an awful lot of books that would need to be sold every year just to allow the author to pay rent, buy food and so on. When you deprive the author of that dollar, s/he gets poorer.
  3. When authors and publishers earn money from the books you buy, this enables them to go on writing and publishing more good books. So, if nobody buys books, then this threatens the supply of more well written books with high production quality.
  4. Books are already available to you for free. At the library. Libraries are free to use, and if they don’t have the book you want, will usually get it in for you. And while you are there borrowing the book you want, you have the chance to find out about a whole lot of other books.
  5. I’ve said it already but I’m going to say it again – authors are not rich. We are as generous as we can be with our time and our talents, but we do also have families to feed and mortgages to pay. When you steal our book it hurts. When you borrow it from a library, our heart sings because we still get income from the library purchasing the copy, and from a compensation scheme called Lending Rights.
  6. Lastly, books may seem expensive, but if you compare the cost of a book with the cost of a trip to the movies, or a new tshirt, or a takeaway meal, and consider the value of something which can last so much longer than any of these, then a book is a bargain.

I’m not attacking my two young readers. Neither realised that what they were doing was wrong, and I hope my responses to them educated them but didn’t make them feel ashamed. It’s a shame that this seems to be a growing issue, and one that so many people don’t understand. If you, or someone you know, uses pirate sites to steal books – please reconsider.

First Review for 1915

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There are lots of scary parts about being an author – coming up with ideas, making them work on paper, editing in a way that meets the publisher’s needs, finding a publisher in the first place… The list is long. But for me, I think the scariest part is after a book is released and you wait to hear what readers think.

So, it was a great relief for me yesterday when the first review of 1915 appeared – and it was a good one!

Opening with the words “Highly recommended.” and going on to give a really detailed run down of the book, Fran Knight from ReadPlus praises the “detailed background”, the characters “with whom students can engage”, concluding that the book is “eminently readable “.

What a heart-warming review! You can see the full review here.

Have a great day. I know I will!

(BTW I forgot to say that in amongst the scary bits there are lots of wonderful wonderful things about being an author. A review that gets what you were trying to do is one of them).

The Party Continues

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The virtual launch party for 1915 is over, and I’m delighted to announce that Ella Mickan is the winner of the signed copy, which  is on its way to her now. Congratulations, Ella! If you didn’t win, I’m sorry, but hopefully you enjoyed your free virtual refreshments, and the fun of celebrating with me.

The launch may be over, but the celebrations for the book continue. Today I am visiting the lovely Dee White’s blog, where I’m sharing some tips about researching and writing historical fiction. If you’ve ever thought about using real events as the basis of your writing, head over and see what worked for me. While you’re there, check out the rest of Dee’s posts – she always gives great advice!

Watch this space for more news about visits and events.

 

 

Happy Happy Day!

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Welcome to my website! You’ve arrived here just in time for  a party.

First things first, I always like to welcome my guests with a refreshment. Here’s a nice cold glass of virtual bubbles (alcohol-free of course, if you’re under 18) for you:

Keep an eye out for the wandering waiters who have a wonderful array of virtual nibbles, too. The best thing about virtual food is that it’s calorie free, so you can eat as many as you like and still have room for dinner.

Right, now that we’ve got that sorted, on to the formalities: the launch of my new book, 1915. Let me just mount the stage so you can see me a little better.

PWF12 gesticulating

(Excuse the happy dance, I find it hard to stand still when I’m excited).

Now, can everyone hear? Good! Let me get started then (clears throat nervously).

Thank you all so much for coming. 1915 isn’t just my newest book – it’s the product of two years of research, writing, crying, rewriting, crying some more, rewriting some more, worrying that I wouldn’t be able to do justice to Stanley’s story, lengthy phone calls with my editor, Claire, writing some more, and finally looking proudly at my author copies and wondering what all the stressing was about.

When I was asked to write this book, I said yes, even though I also knew it would be a big challenge. The story of Gallipoli has been told many times, by writers far more talented than I. How was I going to find a way to tell it that was fresh, that would appeal to young readers, but that also told a story which needs to keep being retold because it is an important part of our history?  I had never written a historical novel. I wasn’t even sure why Scholastic had asked me. Amidst all that doubt though, I was determined to have a red hot go. When the character of Stanley came to me as a teacher from Bunbury, where I currently live, he came as a very real young man. I found myself looking at the events of Gallipoli and asking myself, over and over, what would Stanley think? When I realised he had a twin sister, Elizabeth, back in Australia, worrying about her brother even as she carries on teaching his class, I asked the same questions from her perspective. Many times I had to remind msyelf that these two weren’t real – that I’d made them up. And many more times I reminded myself that even though that was the case, people like Stanley and Elizabeth were very very real, and I owed it to them to get the story right.

So, here it is: 1915, a book I’m proud of, and which I hope will play its own small part in sharing the story of Gallipoli.

1915

I’d like to thank Claire Hallifax and Scholastic for believing that I could write this book, and helping to take it from a very raw story to a finished novel. I’d also like to thank Tara, my agent, and my family, who have to put up with a lot of angst when I’m writing any book. I’ve talked a lot about this story with lots of friends and family – so thank you for listening, and for being interested. Thanks to you, too, attendees of this launch, for taking the time out of your busy day to attend my virtual celebration.  But mostly, thanks to Stanley and Elizabeth Moore, for letting me tell their story.

Thank you.

Phew. Well, that’s the speech out of the way. Now there’s just the celebrating to do. While you’re munching on those virtual sausage rolls the waiter is passing round, I’d love if you’d leave a comment to let me know you were here.  To celebrate the release of 1915, I’m going to give one  away a signed copy of the book to one lucky commenter who leaves a comment by  the end of Sunday. The winner will be chosen at random from all who leave a comment about the launch or the book.

1915 is available now from all good bookstores in Australia (if they haven’t got it, ask them!), or online here.

Want to know more about the book? I’m answering ten questions over at the Aussiereviews blog today and will be posting more on this blog, and on Twitter and my facebook page in the coming weeks.

Again, thank you for coming to my launch!