sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Making Plans for the New School Year

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Now that the Christmas/New Year break is over, and people start to return to work, I’m starting to get emails and phone calls enquiring about my author visits and writing workshops. Hooray! The only thing I love to do as much as write is talk.

I love the variety of sessions I get asked to run, the amazing schools I visit, the even more amazing students and teachers I get to meet and – importantly – I love the feeling when my visit makes a difference to a child (or a while school full of children) –making reading, writing or both just a bit more special. I also love helping teachers to find new ways to teach writing and to instil a love of reading.

The sessions I did in 2017 included:

  • Dozens of meet-the-author sessions in schools and at libraries
  • Poetry writing workshops in primary schools
  • Narrative writing workshops in primary and secondary schools
  • A whole day workshop using Do Not Forget Australia as an inspiration to write poetry- every year 5 student present had at least two poems drafted by the end of the day.
  • Writing workshops for school children and the public in Sharjah in the UAE
  • A visit to a school where year 6 students had spent a term reading my verse novels as an author study
  • Leading a Bookweek rap at Bookweek assemblies
  • Professional development workshops in teaching narrative and poetry writing
  • And more!

In 2018 I look forward to visiting even more schools and libraries, spreading the love of reading and writing. If you’re a teacher, librarian or festival organiser and you’d like me to visit you,  drop me a line.

Amazing Sharjah!

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I have just returned from eight days in Sharjah, one of the Emirates in the United Arab Emirates. As the guest of the Sharjah Book Authority, I attended the first six days of the Sharjah International Book Fair, where my mind was well and truly blown.

The Bookfair, one of the largest in the world, is like nothing I have ever experienced.  With a combination of rights fair, literary festival, bookshops, cooking show, library seminar, kids’ section and more, it is hard to explain the scale of this event.

The massive Sharjah Exhibition Centre is filled with row after row after row of booths and stalls, from publishers from around the world, to booksellers, government agencies, cultural organisations and more.  A Kids’ Activity area boasts smaller rooms where a wide range of activities from writing and illustration workshops, to science demonstrations and craft, an open area with lots of hands  on activities and a theatre with stage shows. Last year the fair was visited by over 2 million people over its eleven days, and, if the first six days are anything to go by, this year’s numbers will be just as high.  And not only do the people come, but they buy books (lots of books!) and participate enthusiastically in all of the events.

Twice each day I ran writing workshops in the kids’ area, with three different topics: Perfect Plotting, Writing A poem About YOU, and But I Don’t Know What to Write.  At times my room was packed, with parents or children who had missed a spot participating through the open ‘windows’ of the room.

When I wasn’t running workshops I was lucky enough to meet other presenters from around the world and also chatted to publishers, booksellers, academics, journalists and more as I browsed the trade fair.  It was fun, inspiring and, quite simply, amazing!  I was sad to leave it behind, but, of course, happy to get home to my family. And I’m sure this won’t be my last visit to the wonderful Sharjah.

Here’s a little glimpse of  some of what I managed to capture photographically.

What I’ve Been Up To – and What I’m About to Do

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Last week I spent five days working with the cream of the South West’s young writers, in Bunbury and Busselton. These young writers, aged between 11 and 18, were attending the Young Writers and Youth Literature Days, run by The Literature Centre. In this amazing programme, each participant comes once a term for a whole day of workshops with an author. This time round, their author was me.

What an amazing privilege it is to talk writing and the writing life with young people who love reading and writing as much as I do. When asked to write, they do. When asked to share their writing, they do. And the buzz in the room during sessions and during books is just fabulous.

The focus of my workshops was on building character through plot, using dark and light scenes. And, of course, I had them write a poem for one of the sessions – with some keen poets choosing to use poetry for every exercise.

By the end of the week I was exhausted – six hours a day, speaking and listening and sharing isn’t easy. But it was the kind of exhaustion which is deeply satisfying.

On Sunday, I headed to Narrogin where, as a part of the Spring Into Narrogin Festival, I ran a writing for children workshop for a small but enthusiastic group of local writers.

Tomorrow, I am heading off again – this time to The Literature Centre proper, where I’ll be taking part in the amazing Celebrate Reading Conference. I can’t believe I’ll be sharing the stage with some of my favourite Aussie writers and illustrators – Isobelle  Carmody, Bruce Whatley, Allison Lester, Peter Carnavas, James Foley, Anna Walker and Catherine Bateson – and hanging out with so many teachers and lovers of children’s books for two days.

I love my job.

A Visit to Joondalup

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What a week I had last week!

I spent four days as writer in residence at Lake Joondalup Baptist College, where I was treated like a star and had an amazing time speaking to students in years 7, 8, 9 and 11.

I talked about all kinds of things, including:

1. My life as an author, including how and why I became one.

2. Why I  write about tough topics including war, death and illness.

3. How to get started with building a story.

4. Ensuring that there is enough conflict in a plot – and countering that conflict with plenty of light.

5. War poetry and why poetry was (and continues to be) written in dark times.

6. Science fiction and how it isn’t all that different from historical fiction in that at its heart should lie strong characters, a strong conflict and believable scenarios.

On Thursday I had lunch with the school Bookclub, with a lively discussion about topics including the importance of good covers and diverse characters, and on Friday I signed a stack of books for keen readers. I was pretty chuffed to find a year 12 student in the line – I hadn’t spken to any year 12 classes. She was buying a copy of Pearl Verses the World, because she feel in love with it several years ago.  Awwwww.

Being in residence is fun, enlightening, inspirational and also slightly exhausting. I love my job! this week I’m back at my desk working on two articles about poetry for my doctoral studies and revising my work in progress, a new verse novel.

 

 

 

 

Jail Bird

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So I’ve been quiet the past few weeks because I’ve been in prison.

No, in spite of the date, that’s not an April Fool’s joke – I really was prison. Or, to be more precise, I was in an ex-prison. The Literature Centre is an amazing children’s literature centre, situated in the old prison hospital at the Fremantle prison, which was decommissioned in 1991. How wonderful to have such a vibrant, exciting organisation hosted within such historic environs.

I was there to run full day workshops for talented young writers as part of the centre’s Young Writers programme, which sees keen readers and writers visit the centre four times a year (one day each term) to learn from authors from around Australia.

Last week I worked with students from years 7 and 8 from across the metropolitan area, and on Monday and Tuesday of this week I worked with year 6 students. Every day was different, with the interests of each group shaping the way the day unfolded. What was common was my delight in sharing a little of my own work with such keen readers, and then me being blown away by their keenness to write – and the quality of the work they produced in the activities we worked through.

Some highlights:

  1. Young people coming from such a wide variety of schools, all keen to get the most out of th experience.
  2. Reading and listening to the writing they produced – shared willingly and received appreciatively by the other participants.
  3. The amazing teachers and parents who managed to get their students there, recognising the value of the experience.
  4. The amazing Lit Centre staff, who looked after me, making me feel like a star – all the while keeping each day running smoothly.
  5. Signing lots of books for participants eager to read more of my work.
  6. Sleeping in a cell (fortunately not locked!) and getting to experience the amazing surrounds. Although the history is fairly sad, Fremantle Prison is an important piece of Western Australia’s history. And the old hospital is now a vibrant energetic place, which is a great way of perhaps shooing any negative energy away.

I’m back home now and back to work – writing, reading, and catching up on lots of things, as well as looking forward to a family Easter weekend. I’ll be back at the Lit Centre later in the year for the Celebrate Reading Conference.

Learning at the Library

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Yesterday I attended an awesome marketing workshop hosted by Writing WA and sponsored by the Australia Council for the Arts.

Fifteen fabulous authors (or fourteen, plus myself) were treated to a huge day of learning presented by Jaki Arthur, who is the  Publicity Manager at  Hachette Australia.  By the end of the day my head was exploding from all the new knowledge and the reminders about how to market myself and my books, and how to focus my efforts on achieving my goals.

Take-aways for the day:

1. If you don’t know what you want to achieve, you won’t achieve it – and you should make the goals big. Yes, I knew this, but it always helps to hear it again and again and again. At the start of the day we all wrote down two of our writer’s goals on stickynotes. Stuck on a white board, most of the goals could have belonged to me.

2. Have an answer ready for the questions: who are you, what do you write, what’s your book  about and so on. And make sure the answer is consistent, so that you’re not confusing yourself or others. Have an answer ready, because you will be asked, but you’ll probably only be asked once by any one enquirer.

3.  Be proactive. Don’t sell yourself short and know how and when to do it. Use platforms you are comfortable with but be prepared to try new things.

4. Be pleasant. Say yes whenever you can, and be grateful and gracious. Knowing the industry helps, so that you know who  does what, how and when, and what your role is there.

5. Above all, the thing I think I needed the most to be reminded of is that as an author you need to really know what’s unique about you and about your work. Why should a festival programmer, media scheduler, librarian etc book you, and why should a buyer choose your book?

There was lots of thinking on the day, lots more on the drive home, and lots more to come, as I use what I learned.

Oh, and of course, the other wonderful thing was the chance to hang out with fellow authors, many of whom were old friends, but others who had I hadn’t met. A wonderful part of any such opportunity is the exchange of experiences during the breaks.

 

 

sallymurphy.com.au