sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Poetry Friday: Roses are Blue

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It’s Poetry Friday and I am far from home – on tour talking to children, teachers, librarians, booksellers and more about my verse novel, Roses are Blue.Roses are Blue

So, for something different this week, I thought I would share a radio interview I did earlier this week for ABC Radio in Brisbane, chatting about Roses are Blue, verse novels and poetry, myself and more.

If you’d like to hear the interview, you can find it here . (I tried to embed it here in the post to make things easier, but just couldn’t get it to post.)

Enjoy – and for more poetry goodness, the Poetry Friday roundup is hosted this week at The Poem Farm. Head over there and see what is happening around the Kidlitoshpere.

Just Quickly

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Some time ago I was asked to answer ten terrifying questions for the Booktopia Blog. I only just realised that the post was published back in December. You can see what the questions were that were so terrifying – and how I answered them here.

I’m Back!

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Roses are Blue Blog Tour Wrap-Up

Wow! What an eight days! I’ve been all around the blogosphere chatting about Roses are Blue, reading lovely reviews, being quizzed and generally having fun. Today is the last official day of the tour, and time for me to reflect on the week.

The tour started last Tuesday, when  Karen Tyrell’s reviewed Roses on her blog, describing the book as:

“…a heart-warming story dealing with grief, tragedy, and change.”

She is also offering the chance to win a free copy. All you have to do is read the blog post and comment – but you’d best be quick, because this closes on July 31.

On Wednesday the tour moved on to the Alphabet Soup blog, where Roses are Blue was reviewed by a talented 8 year old reviewer, Matilda. She said:

“I would recommend Roses are Blue to my friends because it’s a change from the other sorts of books we read and it could be a true story.”

There is also a give away of a copy of the book on this site. the instructions on how to enter are nice and clear, and you get to check out Rebecca and my other blog, Poetry Tag and see the fun we have playing with words.

Day three I was off to the Kids Book review site, where there was another lovely review, by Tania McCartney who said:

“The depth of her characters, the emotional responses and fears, the gentle hope, is heart-wrenching in all manner of ways.”

I was also there to chat about poetry in all its forms, with a post titled Poetry is Perfect. I managed to limit myself to just eight reasons that poetry is perfect for children – though I could have gone on for days.

Day four arrived and I was up bright and early to chat with Dale Harcombe about Roses are Blue, which she described as:

” a gem of a book”.

She also asked me about some of the aspects no one else has asked me yet – including the naming of Amber and her friend, who all have names that are colours. You can read what I had to say here.

The weekend was here, but no rest for me – though of course one of the great things about a Blog Tour is that you don’t leave home to do it. SO, while I sat in my pyjamas at home I was also being grilled by the DivaBookNerd about all manner of things including my inspirations, diversity, and work-life balance (hah!). You can read the interview here. While there, I was delightedsally murphy and megan daley to find Roses had also been reviewed on the site a few days earlier.

Day six (Sunday) I dropped in to see the lovely Megan at Children’s Books Daily, She asked me ten questions as part of her Book People feature. I talked about my workspace, my routines (double hah!), favourite books and more.  (You can see Megan and I together, on the left, at the launch of Roses in Canberra earlier this year).

Day seven brought tears to my eyes as I read Dimity Powell’s review at the Boomerang Books Blog, where she said:

“Murphy is simply master at massaging sensitive issues into refined, understated yet terrifically moving poetic verse. Her words whisper across the pages with the soft intensity of a mountain breeze.”

Wow. Apparently I’d made Dimity  cry, too, so we had tears together, across the miles.  Dimity also interviewed me, and  got to choose a new name for myself: Aquamarine! If you want to find out more, you’ll have to read the interview.

Yesterday was my final stop but one, and I was delighted to visit the new Australian Children’s Site, where Di Bates wrote a lovely review, saying Roses is:

“…sure to tug at heartstrings.”

I also dropped in to Di’s own blog where I spoke about why and how I write verse novels.

Whew! And so we come to today, where  we are here, wrapping up the week (and a bit) that was, and saying thank you to the awesome ladies who hosted me, and/or my book, and to all the readers who stopped by and read the posts. Part of the purpose for a blog tour is to promote the book – but, to me, it’s also something much more important: a celebration!

S0 thank you for celebrating with me!

big hug sue and claire

Celebrating with my lovely friends Sue and Claire at the launch.

My capers

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I’m delighted to be visiting my friend, and talented author, Dee White, over at Kids’ Book Capers today, talking about my books and the highs and lows of the writing life.

And, if that isn’t enough for you, you can also hear a podcast I recorded with Sydney Writers Centre a month or two ago here. When I heard I was going to be interviewed (and recorded) for half an hour, I wondered what I would say to fill in that time, but I needn’t have worried because the time flew by and the final interview was actually 43 minutes long!

the more I am interviewed like this, the more I am surprised at how different every interview is. Each interviewer brings their own experience, their own take on the world, to the interview, giving it that difference. Wonderful!

My Interview With Katie Hines

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In anticipation of the release of Pearl Verses the World on May 1, yesterday I was interviewed on Katie Hines’ blog. You can read the interview here.

Seven Answers to Seven Questions: Bren MacDibble

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Today we are joined by children’s and SF author, Bren MacDibble, who has kindly dropped by to answer seven questions. Welcome Bren!

1. Tell us a little about your publication credits. If you have none, tell us about the genres you prefer to write, and your current projects.

I started out in 2000 with a nice illustrated educational fiction book for Nelson ITP (now Cengage). This contained two fun stories for nine year olds back to back. “Honestly Ernest” on one side then the child flips the book over for a whole new story called “Ernest’s Mice Mischief”.

Three slightly younger books with full colour illustrations followed for Blake Education, in 2002 “Take Me to Your Leader”, 2003 “A Red Hot Pet” and in 2004 “The Beast of Moogill” for a fun series called Gigglers.

There were also a lot of publications with Hullabaloo magazine at this time which was a US geographical kids magazine which won an award shortly before running out of funding.

I also had a lot of short stories published in SF magazines and ezines for adults and was accepted to participate in the first Clarion South workshop which improved my writing incredibly.

Lately, Shiny, a SFF mag for YA, has taken two stories called “Blurred Horizons” and “Being Bella Wang”. Funding will run out for Shiny eventually too but I am keen to pursue writing YA SF novels so I thought this was a nice entry into the genre. I do have a few completed YA novels I’m shopping about at the moment.

I adore short story and am also keen to provide written content for graphic novels/comics/and other forms. Currently exploring my options there and shopping an illustrated SF free-verse poem story for upper primary.

2. How long have you been writing for children?

Since about 1999. Almost a decade and I’m not famous yet. What’s going on?

3. How much time do you spend each week writing and/or revising? And how much time on other writing-related tasks such as promotion, researching markets and so on?

I spend a lot of time trying to make money at part time jobs with the idea that I’ll have more time to write. I revise a lot since I have these large novels to sell and with a novel there’s always something to improve. I critique for friends every week in the hope that they will critique for me when required. Because I write for children as well as adult SF, I have two groups of writerly friends to keep happy.

I have partial novels and wacky short stories on the go. I work on them in fits and starts and generally I don’t get inspired to finish them until someone calls for something or I find a guideline to match it and then I tend to immerse myself in it for days on end. I’d say I spend around 16-20 hours on writing related endeavours each week. I don’t spend enough time marketing or promoting and I get to less than a third of the networking opportunities offered so I feel pretty bad about that, thank you for asking.

4. How much time do you spend reading children’s books? And what are you
reading right now?

I try to read all the popular children’s books and I buy a lot of bizarre YA books that are similar to the novels I write.

At the moment I’m reading Un Lun Dun by China Mieville which is set under London and has child protags as opposed to Neil Gaiman’s book under London (Neverwhere) which has an adult male protag and which, I think, is still appealing to YA. I probably spend an hour a day with my nose in a YA novel.

5. What advice would you give other would-be children’s writers, or share with other professional children’s writers?

Run away! Run away! Actually, I have a how-to-guide for new children’s writers. It’s very Australian-focussed if anyone is interested. But basically, read your favourites, figure out what makes them tick, then refine your style and content to something that you really love.

There’s three reasons to write what you really love. One is that you’ll basically be working for love since most things won’t sell. Two is that editors may put out guidelines etc, etc, but they’re all secretly hoping that the next amazing new thing will cross their desk and they don’t really know what that looks like until they see it. So what you love may turn out to be what other people love too. Three is that there is little point in creating works identical to those already created. Other better established authors are already doing their thing. New fresh stuff, that’s what’s needed.

6. What is your favourite online resource for children’s writers? Why?

Verla Kay’s forum is quite good for keeping tabs on the US market. My favourite, of course, is all the lovely Aussie children’s writers at KidsWritersDownunder. It’s casual and friendly and they’re all very talented.

7. Do you have a website or blog? What else do you do to promote your published works and/or your writing skills?

My website is at www.macdibble.com soon to be updated… and I have a blog at http://macdibble.livejournal.com/ . Other writers can “friend” me there. I’ve joined loads of networking sites and Google seems to be pretty keen on the name MacDibble as a result. I don’t really do enough promoting of myself or my work otherwise. I certainly know a lot of writers but only a few publishers.

Thanks for dropping in Bren. If YOU would like to answer seven questions and be featured here on this blog, drop me a line at sally @ sallymurphy.net (remove the spaces).

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