sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Guest Articles and Reprints

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I’m busy busy busy at present – working on new writing projects, reviewing books and surviving the chaos of the last two weeks of a school term.

So, to avoid this blog being neglected (it was starting to collect a few cobwebs), I’ve started posting some reprints of articles I’ve written over the past couple of years. I’m also posting some guest articles and/or guest blogs from other writers. The first little one appears below.

If you are a writer for children with an article you’d like to see reprinted, or would like to be a guest blogger and write something new, drop me a line. Of course, you’ll get full credit for your writing and a link back to your website or your own blog.

Cheers

Sally

Still Here

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My life has been hectic of late, and although I’ve thought often of updating my blog, two months have slipped past without me saying anything.

Am about to remedy that, not just with this post, but with an injection of some new stuff. Or new recycled stuff. I have lots of articles sitting here on my hard drive which have been published int he past but are now buried deep in cyberspace. So I figure it might be an idea to repost them here on my blog so that they can be more easily found. I’m also inviting fellow children’s authors who have similar to come over and be guest bloggers here.

So, keep an eye out for some new, more regular content. The first article will be up in just a few mos.

Postie’s Present

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My postie had a present for me this morning – my author copies of Frogs: Awesome Amphibians.

It doesn’t matter how many books I have published, the thrill of holding the first copy of a new ‘baby’ doesn’t diminish. I was home alone, so jumped into the car and raced around to work (the local school) where it was recess time, so I could share my news. Lots of enthusiastic responses, which is nice. The best bit was actually walking across the playground from the carpark, where I was surrounded by some year three and four students wanting to know if I was carrying my new book (I’d told them about it last week). Their excitement made my own all the sweeter.
So, the book. I’m really happy with the finished product. It’s A4 soft-cover format, which make sit easy to read, with good sized text and loads of beautiful colour photos and illustrations. And, of course, my name on the cover, which is always a thrill.
Hoppy day!

Awesome!

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Just checking some links and discovered that my new nonfiction book, Frogs: Awesome Amphibians, is now available. Take a look at the cover.


Great, isn’t it?

I’m a hoppy author tonight, though look forward to actually holding my author copies, which I’m still waiting for.

ANZAC Day

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ANZAC Day is coming up this Friday, April 25. This is the day that Australia pauses to remember both the first ANZAC Day, when Australian and New Zealand forces landed in Gallipoli, and all of Australia’s military involvement in international conflict.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about two new books coming out in time for ANZAC Day, but wanted to write about it again because this particular ANZAC Day is a special one for my family. Murphlet 3, you see, is overseas at present, on the Western Australian Premier’s ANZAC Student Tour. Along with eleven other high school students and their supervisors, he is touring the battle fields of France and Belgium, attending services and generally being steeped in this important part of Australian history. On the day itself he’ll be attending a big dawn service at Villiers-Bretoneaux along with about six thousand others, and laying a wreath alongside the Western Australian Premier.

So, yes, it’s an exciting time for Murphlet 3, and an experience he’ll never forget. To win a place on the trip, he had to firstly research the involvement of Western Australians in the creation of the ANZAC legend and present his findings as a six minute speech. This wasn’t an easy task, but it was a really rewarding one both for him and for the whole family. Both my beloved and myself knew something about our respective families being involved in both of the World Wars, but it was as Murphlet 3 went through this process that we began digging and discussing this history. We are now, as a family, much more aware of the role our forebears played – from both sides of the family, Murphlet 3 had one Great-Great Grandfather, three Great Grandfathers and several great uncles serve during one or both of the World Wars. Some of the sites he’ll be visiting are the very places those relatives fought.

The lesson for me in all this is an awareness of how important it is to ask questions of living relatives about family history, so that that history is not lost. As a writer, I should have already been aware of the importance of asking and recording some of this history, but with much of it not discussed, had lived in ignorance. I know now, and this ANZAC Day as I climb the hill behind my home to attend the local dawn service, I’ll be just that little more aware of the day’s significance.

Happy Easter – and a New Read

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Happy Easter. I’m celebrating this wonderful feast of new life and joy for all by spending time at home with my beautiful family. Lots of chocolate has been eaten, and everyone’s feeling good. What better way to celebrate ANYTHING than by eating chocolate.

In between chocolate and joy I’ve managed to read a book, which I started yesterday and finished today – Claiming the Courtesan, by Anna Campbell.Claiming the Courtesan

It’s a regency romance with lots of tempest and passion and dark brooding heroes and the like. Quite a departure form my usual reads, which focus mainly on children’s and young adult titles. And, though kids’ books are my favourites, I’ve really enjoyed the change. I don’t remember when I last read a historical romance, but it is a genre I confess to enjoying. I also find I read such books as a reader much more than I perhaps do when reading children’s books, where I often read as a writer or a parent or a teacher. So, reading Courtesan was a little like a holiday for me.

If you are a writer, do you only read in your chosen genre? Or do you take the time to read other genres from time to time? When was the last time you read a romance, a thriller, a detective novel? It’s a good thing to do, reading outside your area, even if only to remind you that you can read just for the pleasure of it. No need to be studying the market, no need to be wondering if you can use that technique, or if you would have treated that scene that way, or nay of the other writer questions we tend to ask ourselves as we read. At the same time, you might find you DO learn something from reading outside your area. It might be that you observe some cleverly constructed dialogue, some interesting use of viewpoint or similar, or even that you glean some useful information about a region, a time period or whatever.

Back to Courtesan. I enjoyed it, and am looking forward to reading Campbell’s next novel, which is further down my review pile. If you are a fan of romance at all, I can thoroughly recommend this one.

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