Wild Awake

It's the first day of summer, and I know three things: One, I am happy. Two, I am stoned. Three, if Lukas Malcywyck's T-shirt was any more red I would lean over and bite it like an apple.

And so opens Wild Awake by Hilary T Smith. This is one I have been waiting for for quite a little while - and it's out now in the US!

You, if you are like me, will adore this. Hilary's words surprise and delight; the prose so careful and deliberate and wondrous. The story pings and zings across the pages, and the voice of protagonist Kiri Byrd (Serious Piano Student) is beguiling. After an unexpected phone call, everything begins to unravel and Kiri pedals through her city and the night, night after night, trying to discover just what did happen to her sister Sukey those years ago and then afterwards she continues on, grasping and gasping at adventure.

Ahead of me, the glittering angles of downtown beckon dangerously, like a drawer full of knives.

Who knew this was out there, waiting for me? Who knew there was an entire midnight world out there while I was lying in bed?

I knew from the first paragraph that this book was for me, but the description of a boy she meets in the fourth chapter just confirmed it:

He's huge. Hagridesque.

Hilary used to be The (anonymous) Intern, you've probably read her blog. It's damn good. Once, we looked at each other's bookshelves. Now she posts not only about books and writing, but also all of her incredible travels and her artistic, nomadic life. She prefers to live for free or for cheap: read about it here at YA Highway, it's truly inspiring. Where can I get me a doom shack?

And the most wonderful thing is that, because I was too impatient to wait to read this book, I casually mentioned it at work and our managing and commissioning editor (also an Intern Spills fan, fortuitously) ran with it. Then everyone in the office read it and loved it and so our m&c ed asked 'please may we buy the rights?' and now we'll be bringing out an Australian/New Zealand edition later this year (not too much later).

I'll post more on Wild Awake in the next little while. It's one of those ones that not only had me reading all in a fluster of page flipping, sharp-intake-of-breath-taking, revelling and reckoning, but also one of those gems that I know will help to grow me as a writer, as well as a reader.

Congratulations, Hilary!

UPDATE: Wild Awake now has a special cover for its ANZ release - see here!

yes!

early harvest

New from the kooky and brilliant brains behind the Pigeons Project (the very talented and good looking Jenna and Lachlann) comes early harvest. It's a literary magazine written and edited by kids. Kids! With the help of harvest's Davina Bell and community development worker Emma Hewitt, as well as Jenna and Lachlann, these kids spent the last few months learning all about calling for submissions, editing, publishing, marketing...and just look at what they've done!

I went in to have a chat with the editorial board fairly early on and we discussed things from a broad bookselling point of view: what makes a book look good (ie. how to judge a book by its cover), the process of getting a book from publisher to store, starting to think about the blurb and a good sales pitch - and pricing. I think the pricing might have been the most exciting part of our session...


The final product is in stores now and it looks a.m.a.z.i.n.g. And it reads e.x.c.e.l.l.e.n.t.l.y. I am so impressed and pleased and excited!

Come along to the launch tomorrow at the Sun Bookshop in Yarraville. It's all on at 11am in the foyer of the Sun Theatre. Come and meet the gang and hear some reading from the mag. It's going to be a gas - launched by Sally Rippin!


Visit the Pigeons Project website.

vis ink...in stores now

it was quite remarkable to see this:

turn into this:


visible ink is a student-run literary anthology out of the RMIT professional writing and editing diploma. last year we received around 200 submissions for this edition. i wish i had a picture of the piles of submissions to show you, very unruly and wonderful. out of that 200 we had to select a tiny sample for the journal (there were only a few heated discussions). and with such a diverse bunch of editors and readers on the selection committee, we ended up with such a delightful mishmash of pieces: 16 stories. 11 poems. 12 images.

the editing process was probably my favourite part of being on the visible ink team. emailing and talking to the authors about their words and stories - perhaps seeing a little something that they could no longer see, knowing their piece as well as they did. learning a little something about inDesign (being thrown in the deep end a little) was horrible and fantastic at the same time. i felt just a touch proud of me when it was all over. i hope all 'our' authors are happy with the finished product - we are so grateful for their talent.

here's the first piece in the anthology (one of my absolute faves):


The Sniper on the State Library Dome
by Michael Crane

The man with madness
in his eye looked down
and aimed his high-powered rifle
at the many people on the street
below and fired and yelled
‘This is because I read Jewel's
a night without armour and she
did not love me.' He put another
bullet in the chamber and fired and said,
'I read Bukowski and I'm tougher
than him.' He moved his position
to the left of the dome, reloaded
and fired and hit a woman
on her way to work at the library
and he said, ‘This is for the Great Gatsby
because I loved Daisy.' He fired a few
more shots and hit a man reading Playboy
in a newsagency. He decided his killing spree
was too slow so he took out a submachine gun
and fired at the pedestrians on the street.
‘This is because of Hemingway,' he said,
'for running with the bulls and this one
is for James Joyce writing books
I could not understand and this
Is because Gertrude Stein was too fat
and this is because Truman Capote
was gay and take that Homer, Shakespeare
and Chaucer for rhyming with obscure words.'
He ran out of bullets and took out knives
and stared to hurl them down
as the policemen snuck up behind him
and wrestled him down to the ground
and a few weeks after his trial
he was led to the execution chamber
and the priest took out the Bible
and the man said, ‘Not another book!’
And he screamed all the way down
to the electric chair until the very end.

you can buy visible ink at readings bookstores, the sun bookshop in yarraville and by snail mail (contact the committee via the website). if you are of a writerly persuasion, submissions will surely open soon for this year's vis ink. keep your pens poised and your eyes peeled.

what excitement!

due to be published in june this year.
you can read steven's blog post about it here.

three recent young adult releases...

i am terrible for starting multiple books at once...and sometimes not finishing them. i will try to finish them, but i cannot say for sure. right now i am reading:

life, after - sarah darer littman (scholastic)

so far (48 pages in) i've met daniela and her family. a middle class jewish family from buenos aires, their lives have been made difficult as a result of the crisis in their country - a new government in argentina, the economy is in terrible shape and there are terror attacks and bombings. family upon family are fleeing the country, including dani's best friend (whose family have gone to israel) and her boyfriend (whose family are going to miami). we know from the blurb that dani's family will also emigrate to america. dani reminds me a little of sally j freedman (from the judy blume book) and it's quite brilliant. it's due for release in december.

beautiful darkness - kami garcia & margaret stohl (razor bill)

so i wasn't the biggest fan of beautiful creatures (see my review), but we have a reading copy of the sequel and i thought i'd have a bash. i did enjoy the deep south setting in the last book. i'm four pages in. and already cringing at sentences like this: "because the second i fell in love with a caster girl, no one i loved was safe. lena thought she was the only one cursed, but she was wrong. it was our curse now." let me know why i should continue!

six - karen tayleur (black dog books)

it's full of foreboding and narrated in the past tense and we already know what is going to happen, just not how. i'm only up to page 15. so far it feels a wee bit heavy-handed, but i have read many good reviews so i plan to keep going.


what is everyone else reading? anything amazing?

"while man has pores, mold has spores. it is one way to tell us apart"

Funny English Errors and Insights: Three-hundred-and-one humorous uses & misuses of written English, compiled by Troy Simpson (National Library of Australia)

this book is far too hilarious to have at work. i have been in hysterics and not doing any dusting.

the book is set out like an old-fashioned reader, with great black-and-white photos throughout.you must all go out and buy it, but i'm sure it's ok if i give you a couple of samples.

english:
"a metaphor is a thing you shout through"

law and government:
"the executor of a will kills the persons who are named therein"

vocabulary:
"nets: holes tied together with string"

miscellaneous:
"a sob is when a feller don't mean to cry and it bursts out all by itself"

three new favourites