sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Five Cool Things About Writing for Children

by

One of my students at my teaching dayjob asked me recently why I needed a day job if I am a ‘real’ author (as opposed, I guess, to being an unreal one). I explained that , like most authors, I need a day job to supplement my income. She was a bit puzzled by this, and went on to ask why I bother with writing if it doesn’t make me enough money. 
Although I answered her with several reasons, I’ve been thinking about this conversation – and all the wonderful things I love about being an author – and have decided  to kick off a new semi-regular series of posts (semi-regular meaning I’m not sure how often I’ll do it) celebrating the good stuff in my life by talking about the good parts of being an author.
So, here goes – five cool things about being a children’s book author:
1.      1.   Holding a book in your hands with your name on the cover and knowing that you wrote it. You.
2.     2.   Holding that same book and knowing that kids (and maybe adults too) are going to read it – and picturing that happening.
3.     3.  Getting to go into schools, and to festivals, or online venues such as blogs and forums, and talking to kids about your books and the sheer joy of reading and writing.
4.     4.  Getting to do silly things and pretending it’s research for your next book.
5.     5.   Fan mail! Young readers say the nicest things – sometimes through snail mail, sometimes by email, and other times in person. I have had notes scrawled on the back of festival programs, or corners torn from notebooks, which have become prized possessions.
These are not the only five cool things about what I do – and not even necessarily the top five things, but they are the first five things that came to me when I started to write.
I’ll be using the five cool things format again to talk about different topics. Stay tuned! In the meantime, I’d love to hear what YOU think is cool about writing for children.

Puzzles and Stuff

by

Have just spent a fun half an hour doing virtual jigsaw puzzles of the covers of Toppling and Pearl Verses the World, after fellow shortlisted author, Chris Bongers pointed out that Mrs B has a great interactive website which has puzzles and  other activities for shortlisted titles in the CBCA Childrens Book of the Year Awards for the past three years. How very cool.

The Toppling page has links to teacher’s notes, a cloze passage, a domino topple and a domino game, while the Pearl Verses the World page has teacher’s notes, a cloze passage and poetry activities. And, of course, both pages have a 20 piece jigsaw of the book covers. There are similar pages for all the other shortlisted books in the Picture Book, Younger Readers and Early Childhood categories of the awards.

What a fun way to get kids interested in the shortlisted titles – and a great help for teachers and librarians  wanting to focus on the awards! Well done Mrs B for putting so much work into creating this resource – and thanks for challenging me with the Cloze passage. Was very relieved to get 100%

Foreign Editions

by

My beloved brought home some mail from our other house on the weekend, and I was delighted that one of the packages contained author copies of Snowy’s Christmas – in Korean.  It’s my  first ever foreign language edition – though there have been UK and US versions of some of my books – so it was a novel expereince seeing my story in a form I can’t actually read – in spite of looking almost the same as the Aussie version.

Here’s the Korean cover:

And here’s the Australian one:

 
You can see there’s only minor differences. The  gold star on the Korean version says ‘World picture book’ in English – with some Korean text which I presume says the same thing. And the publisher’s logo is on the top corner. Apart from that there’s a tiny difference in the shade of green used.  Internally, it’s hard to spot the differences, but I would love to know how the translated version reads.

It’s interesting to see how overseas editions are altered for different markets. Pearl Verses the World is coming out in the USA later this year, published there by Candlewick, and the cover seems the same. However, the UK version not only has a different cover, but also a different title. Here’s the Aussie version:

and the UK version:


I absolutely adored the first cover, but love the second one too – in fact, I think, equally.

What do you think?

by

There’s been lots of mirth at my house tonight as the Murphlets (my offspring) see me enact new control techniques I learnt today. See, in my day job I’m a teacher, and I have spent today (as well as a day last week and another set for next week) learning classroom management strategies. Some of these are things I’ve known and used for years, others are new, but either way I have come home full of these strategies and ready to try them out. So the Murphlets have been privy to the stare, the minimal verbal command, the gesture, and even the square-off. They’re on to me and know I’m trying out new techniques – so there has been lots of laughter – but at the same time every time I have tried one of these techniques I have reinforced the things I learnt today – and it’s been fun.
You see, whenever we are taught something, we are certain to retain only a portion of what we learn.  But research (and common sense) shows that the sooner we put that learning to use into practise, the more we will retain. So, home from a day of Professional Development (PD), I’ve been busily using those skills so that they stay with me.
Why am I telling you this? Because, if you’re a writer, or an aspiring writer, chances are you are regularly learning new skills – through reading blogs like this one, or attending writing workshops, or reading books on writing. But are you using those skills? All of them? Online especially it is really easy to click on links and read blogs and articles and writing advice. And when you read them you probably nod in agreement or have lightbulb moments when you think “ahhh – THAT is what I need to try.” But do you then sit down and put those things into action? Do you actually write after you read? I know I don’t always do it. Sometimes I think will use the skills  later, but other times, if I’m really honest, I am quite happy to just keep clicking and reading because I can pretend to myself that I’m learning when what I’m really doing is avoiding a deadline, or even avoiding facing the fact that I’m not writing.
Having admitted this so publicly, next time I learn a new writing skill, I’m going to attempt to use it straight away. Because I need to keep expanding my skills base in writing as much as in teaching – maybe more. What about you?

https://sallymurphy.com.au/2011/05/103/

Why I Write Sad Stories

by

I was asked recently why I only write sad books. I was quite taken aback by this question, because I don’t think of myself as someone who writes sad books. But at the same time I knew where the asker was coming from. After all, this person may have read some of my more lighthearted stories in the past, but most recently she had read both Pearl Verses the World and Toppling, both of which deal with some pretty weighty issues.

While perhaps this person’s question stopped me in my tracks a little bit, it really isn’t unusual for me to be asked why I write stories that make people cry. Whenever I visit a school and talk about Pearl or Toppling, a child will ask a similar question – especially if they have not actually read the books. And there’s the crunch for me. If you haven’t read the books, you could well hear about them and think they are going to be overwhelmingly sad. After all, Pearl Verses the World deals with issues of dementia, death, and loneliness, whilst Toppling focuses on childhood cancer. These are not light topics, and when I wrote both of these stories I was really confronted with my own emotions surrounding these issues.

But I hope, I really hope, that when young readers read these books the overarching feeling they are left with by the end of each story is not one of sorrow or helplessness, but one of hope. Without giving too much of either story away (I do try hard to avoid spoilers to my books), both stories focus not on easy solutions to these problems, but on young characters finding hope, finding ways to deal with the tough stuff that arises in their lives.

I really strongly believe that kids need books that allow them to cry (if they feel the need to), that allow them to relate to harsh life experiences, to empathise or sympathise with characters of their own age as they go through tough stuff. But I also believe that they need to see that no matter how hard life is, there is always some glimmer of hope.

Does every book need to be sad/serious? No. Whilst I’m really proud of these two books, I am equally proud of my books about frogs that float and bears that sing, and kangaroos that pull Santa’s sleigh. Kids need all kinds of stories, and I’m grateful that I’m able to write them.

Strange Dinners – and the Lessons they Contain

by

We had a bit of a strange dinner at our house tonight. My youngest had rugby training, so I didn’t get dinner started until 6.30, planning a simple meal of satay chicken and rice. I boiled the kettle, and got the rice on the stove, then went to dice the chicken. Blehhhhhhh. The chicken had a funny smell. It should have been fresh but it didn’t smell that way, and I don’t take chances with chicken. Straight into the bin went the chicken, and I was left with a pot of rice and no other meat in the fridge (it’s shopping day tomorrow).

I won’t bore with you the details of the umming and ahhing that ensued, but Murphlet 4 found two pizza bases in the freezer and offered to whip up pizzas. Meanwhile, I had enough ingredients to turn the rice into fried rice. Twenty minutes later and dinner was on the table – a choice of pizza, fried rice, or some of each. The Murphlets ate with gusto, and I must admit I quite enjoyed the rice, though I drew the line at combining it with pizza. But no one went hungry and I must admit that the kids didn’t seem to find the dinner as strange as I did. The team from MasterChef would have been horrified, but the Murphlets – teenage boys – were happy.

So, why am I sharing my story of culinary failure with you? Because, as I sipped a glass of red afterwards and wondered at the way a planned meal of satay chicken and rice, became the odd combination of fried rice and pizza – yet satisfied my audience of teenage boys. And I realised that this is just like writing. Sometimes you sit down to write a story, and you know what you want to write – the style, the twists and turns, the character development. It’s all there in your head, maybe even in your written plan, but as you write, something strange happens. The characters won’t behave, or the plot develops a mind of its own and heads off in direction you hadn’t foreseen. But, as you write, you see some hope, some new sense of direction. And, when you finish you realise you don’t have the story you set out to write, but in its place you have something equally satisfying – or even better. In effect you have turned satay chicken and rice into pizza and fried rice – and your young readers may well gobble it up.

So yes, satay chicken is delicious. But if your chicken smells funny, don’t risk salmonella poisoning. Throw the chicken out and try making fried rice. If your love story develops a vampire, go with it. If your feisty heroine develops a foible, explore it. You just might end up with something better – and if not, well, you can always go get some takeaways – or some fresh chicken.

sallymurphy.com.au