sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

A Found Poem: Mary MacKillop

by

Today is the feast day of Saint Mary MacKillop. I wanted to do a special post, but having blogged about her just recently, I was struggling a little for fresh words. Then I realised that the best words were those of Mary herself. She was a really inspirational lady and many of the things she said are still quoted today.

So, to mark the feast day, a found poem made from Mary’s words:

meet-mary-mackillopA Note for Fellow Travellers

Never see a need

without doing something about it.

Remember we are but travellers here,

We must teach more by example than by word.

Do all you can with the means at your disposal

and calmly leave the rest to God.

To mark this special day, the Mary MacKillop Foundation has a special ‘Give Five for Mary’ campaign. You can donate here.

Teacher Characters #4: Mary MacKillop

by

As my series of posts about my teacher characters continues, today I move to a teacher character who is from history.

Who is my teacher character? Mary MacKillopmeet-mary-mackillop

What book does she appear in? Meet Mary MacKillop, part of Random House Australia’s Meet… series.

Why is she there? The book attempts to tell Mary’s story – or at least part of it. I was approached by Random House Australia to contribute to the series, and delighted when they suggested Mary MacKillop as the subject, as she is such an important Australian.

What role does she play? She’s the main character and the topic of the book, which shows how and why she set up her first school in Penola, South Australia. Mary and her sisters had to overcome many obstacles to start their school and ensure children had access to education.

What did I learn writing about her? I thought she was significant because she was Australia’s first saint. What I realised was how amazing she was as a strong woman in a time when women were expected be seen and not heard. Her role in establishing schools throughout Australia was very significant.

Favourite Mary moment? In the book, it’s when she tells the rich lady that although her son is very welcome at the school, he will receive the same treatment as everybody else. In real life, I think my favourite Mary MacKillop moments are when she stood up to Bishops and Priests who tried to dictate to her and treated her very shabbily.

Meet Mary MacKillop, illustrated by Sonia Martinez, and published by Random House Australia is available in good bookstores and online.

 

Moments

by

There are many exciting moments in the months ( or years) between writing a book and finally seeing it in print.

There’s the moment when you write (literally or otherwise) the words ‘The End’ (And, of course, it should be said that this may happen multiple times for the one book, as each new draft and set of edits is completed)

There’s the moment when you are offered a contract, the moment you sign it, and the lovely moment when the advance appears in your bank account.

For a picture book,  there’s the wonderful moment when an illustrator agrees to illustrate the story and ‘my’ book becomes ‘our’ book. And, later, the moemnt when you see the illustration roughs, and, of course, the final illustrations.

The special moment I had this morning was, I guess, two special moments.
The moment a Google alert first finds your new book, leading to…
the moment you see your book actually listed on your publsiher’s website and it actually starts to feel like the book is a real live thing that’s actually going to happen.

So, yes, here it is, my next picture book coming out in May:

And here’s where you can see it on the Random House website.

Thank you for sharing my moment.

sallymurphy.com.au