OZYA Archives - Page 10 of 20

#LoveOzYA Interview: Rose Foster

Jul 22, 2016

I love Aussie YA. I love reading books from authors that live in the same country as me, that know things that people out of Australia might be so confused about. I love how sometimes they can incorporate this into their book and it is fabulous.

So I decided to created a feature where I interview Australian Young Adult authors about their craft, journey and some interesting facts. I thought it was a fun way of everyone around the world to get to know these authors and maybe make them want to pick up their books. And that is what I am aiming to do, spread the word about #LoveOZYA and get everyone reading it.

So far on #LoveOzYA Interviews, I have had Sarah Ayoub, Fleur Ferris, followed by Will Kostakis, Shivaun Plozza and Gabrielle Tozer. Then Jay Kristoff and Kylie Fornasier, followed by A.J Betts, Megan Jacobson then Christopher Currie, Steph Bowe, Tim Sinclair and Meg Caddy. And the last two books on Angel Reads I had Lynette Noni and Sophie Hardcastle.

This week I have Rose Foster, author of The Industry (2012, Harper Collins) and The Estate (2016).

Hi Rose, and welcome to Angel Reads. First can you introduce yourself to everyone? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I was born in Brisbane though I’ve lived in Melbourne all my life. I enjoy writing a combination of long form fiction and screenplays. I love the Melbourne writer community; I’m extremely grateful to be part of it. If you intend to be a writer, make friends with them. You won’t regret it.

What has your writing journey been like? Where did you start? Why?

My writing journey has been pretty focused. Being a child is hard and being a teenager is harder. Nowadays, being in your twenties isn’t easy either. These are the times when stories and avenues of escape are essential, be it in the form of books, TV shows, movies, games, comics, music, anything. I took my strength and comfort from stories when I was younger. I took a lot from the writers and artists I loved and at some point felt like I wanted to give. I’m incredibly proud to write for young people; I think it’s an important job. For me, writing YA means endeavouring to create recognisable characters for readers to draw comfort and strength from, and unrecognisable settings and situations for readers to escape into. Whether I achieve that or not is something else but the intention is there.

What was the process of getting your first book published?

The first book began as a conversation without dialogue tags between two people imprisoned together in the same cell. The criminal underworld of The Industry was built bit-by-bit over the years. I worked on the story and plot for the series as a whole to ensure I knew where I wanted to go before drafting the first book. I took the manuscript to my high school and appealed to the year seven and eight students there.

Some of them were very kind in reading The Industry and offering very astute and valuable feedback. YA first and foremost must be about writing for the intended audience and I wanted to see how that audience received it. After adding in changes I found an agent and soon after I was talking with a wonderful publisher in Melbourne.

No matter how determined you might be to become a writer, you still feel very underprepared when publication comes around.

Was it different when getting your subsequent books published?

The two experiences couldn’t be more different. I became very unwell after The Industry was published. I’d managed to write The Estate but it wasn’t the book I’d planned it to be. My publishers knew that and released me from the contract to focus on my health. It was difficult to come to terms with losing my contract and I felt ashamed of disappointing those who had enjoyed The Industry.

I’d worked toward publishing the series for a very long time and it all fell away before the job was done. I didn’t think it would take so long to recover, but now that I have I’ve rewritten The Estate, hopefully to the standard the readers of The Industry expect. That being said, there’s a lot I would change about The Industry now too if I could, but there’s nothing to be done about that.

Without the might of a publisher behind it The Estate will be published as an ebook. The process is very self-driven this time around, just a few wonderful publicity/design helpers and me. I hope those who enjoyed The Industry forgive me for the long wait and enjoy The Estate.

You are an OZYA author, what are some of your favourite Aussie YA books?

I have many but there’s one I revisited a few weeks ago and it just killed me all over again in all the best ways. Hating Alison Ashley by Robin Klein. Hating Alison Ashley was my favourite Australian book as a kid and it’s my favourite Australian book as an adult. It’s slightly more middle grade than it is YA but it’s the Aussie book that has stayed with me most over the years. I adored the humour, the characters and the shambles of a school. I loved the age-appropriate insights on class and the geographical integrity Klein gave Baringa East. It felt like the realest of Aussie suburbs, one I could picture and navigate easily.

Erica Yurken lives her life terrified she’s not good enough and offsets that by pretending, with great conviction, that she’s better than everyone else. She has big dreams about becoming a beautiful, elegant actress and there’s a quiet desperation underpinning the story that she might not achieve those dreams. She realises at the end-of-term school camp — with such high-octane and heart-warming drama on Klein’s part —that she won’t ever be what she’s always believed she should be. Instead, she’s told she has talent as a writer, something reinforced brilliantly by her new friend Alison, and she realises very quickly that she’s actually thrilled with that, and thrilled with her family, her school, her whole life. Hating Alison Ashley made me laugh as a kid and it made me cry as an adult.

Thank you Rose for joining us here at Angel Reads. You can find Rose on twitter at @_rosefoster_ or at @industrybooks. You can also add her books to your goodreads. I also review The Industry, this week – I enjoyed it quite a bit.

The Industry by Rose Foster

Pages: 312
Publish date: March 20th 2012
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0732293308
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU – Dymocks

Kirra Hayward is an ordinary sixteen year old – smarter than most, but otherwise completely anonymous. When she stumbles across an unusual puzzle on the internet and manages to solve it, she has no idea of what she’s letting herself in for. Kidnapped by a shadowy organisation known only as The Industry, Kirra soon discovers how valuable her code-breaking skills are. And when she stubbornly refuses to help them, they decide to break her … by any means at their disposal. Kirra knows that to protect herself, she must trust no one, not even her fellow prisoner, Milo. But as time goes by she realises he might be the only person she can rely on …

***

Thank you Rose for joining me at Angel Reads and sharing your journey. Have you her books? Did you like them? Are you going to read them?

Come back next week for some more Aussie fun. If you want to know more about the #LoveOZYA movement check out the website for all the details. Also if you have any Australian YA authors that you would like to see me interview, just let me know and I can see what I can do.

Book Review: The Industry by Rose Foster

Jul 20, 2016

The Industry by Rose Foster

Pages: 312
Publish date: March 20th 2012
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0732293308
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU – Dymocks

The Industry:

I received of The Industry by Rose Foster from the author in exchange for an honest review, this has in no way influenced my thoughts and feelings about the book.

I hadn’t really heard about the The Industry before I started to look into #LoveOZYA authors. I saw the cover, but it never caught my eye and I don’t know why – as soon as I read the synopsis I knew that I had to pick it up. It sounded like there were things I liked, and overall I did enjoy it.

The Industry follows protagonist Kirra as she cracks a code, is taken captive, tortured and has to fight for her life. We are taken on a journey through pain, heartbreak, and the possibility of dying.

Kirra is an interesting protagonist; I never loved her but, at the same time I never hated her. I admired her for her determination, she wants to stay alive, she will go through pain, she won’t give in.

Kirra almost never wined and I loved that – she was put into a situation that is so horrible and she didn’t act like her life was ending, she stayed strong and tried to stay alive. My heart broke for her at times, I just wanted wrap her up in my arms and hug her.

However, I didn’t feel that she had enough character development; yes there was some, but I wanted more. I was craving more.

I enjoyed the world that Foster builds in The Industry, it’s quite intriguing. At times I was confused with all the names and organisations, but I just slipped over it and it was all good.

I liked this idea of an underground of sorts, but to do with coding and technology. It was quite different from something that I had read before, and to why Kirra is one of the few that can crack this code. I do wish there was some more world building – as I feel it lacked at times.

I truly enjoyed the writing style of Rose Foster in The Industry. The emotions that she evokes through Kirra was spot on. Pulling me into the novel even more because of this. I wanted to know how Kirra was going to survive and not just physically, but mentally as well. I hope that we see more of this in the following novel.

In The Industry we get to see how Kirra is feeling during her captivity, how she reacts, how she curls into herself and now I want more.

Milo…I cannot say too much about this because it will spoil the book, but I knew! I knew and I still let myself fall.

It kept me on my seat throughout the whole book, I had no idea what was going to happen next. Who was going to die, run, survive, and appear. I didn’t know what to expect and I loved that. Feeling like you are going on a ride with the protagonist was pretty awesome.

Overall, I enjoyed reading The Industry and cannot wait to read more. The world was intriguing, protagonist interesting and the story pulled me right in. The Industry shows us that we need to try and be strong in hard times, even when you think everything is impossible.

Have you read The Industry? Did you liked it? Are you going to read it? Do you know any books that are similar? Let’s Chat!

#LoveOzYA Interview: Sophie Hardcastle

Jul 15, 2016

So far on #LoveOzYA Interviews, I have had Sarah Ayoub, Fleur Ferris, followed by Will Kostakis and Shivaun Plozza. Then I had Gabrielle Tozer, Jay Kristoff and Kylie Fornasier, followed by A.J Betts, Megan Jacobson then Christopher Currie, Steph Bowe, Tim Sinclair and Meg Caddy. And last week on Angel Reads I had Lynette Noni.

Today I have Sophie Hardcastle author of Running Like China (2015, Hachette) and Breathing Under Water (2016, Hachette)

Hi Sophie, welcome to Angel Reads. First can you introduce yourself to everyone? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I’m Sophie Hardcastle (aka China) and I’m an author and artist based on the Northern Beaches in Sydney. I’ve been in the ocean my entire life. I don’t remember learning how to swim, just like I don’t remember learning how to breathe. When I make art, I end up covered in paint.

At the moment, my mum is lending me the spare bedroom as an art studio, (it’s the bee’s knees). When I paint, I listen to music. When I write, however, I lose myself in silence. I love writing more than anything in the world. It balances me.

What has your writing journey been like? When did you start? Why?

For as long as I have been able to talk, I have told stories. Before I learnt how to write, I used to dictate my stories to my mum and she’d type them up, print them out and staple the pages together.

In a way, they’re the first books I ever wrote. Later, I used to write stories and draw pictures to go with each page of text. By the time I was fourteen, I was filling up non-lined notebooks with my first (un-published) novel, Horizons.

Two years later, I became seriously ill and spent two years in and out of hospital. I made a lot of art, but I stopped writing stories. When I turned nineteen, I wrote a memoir, Running Like China about the ordeal. My mind and body were still healing but I had rediscovered my passion.

I decided to return to Horizons, and soon realised my fourteen-year-old self had known nothing about life, love or death, so I left it in the cupboard and wrote a novel based loosely on the original. The result was Breathing Under Water.

What was the process of getting your first book published?

I believe Running Like China was an important book because it lay bare the details of a mental illness in a way few authors ever had. There was little literature that addressed mental illnesses, in particular mental illnesses in young people, in such a brutally honest way. For this reason, it felt like people rallied around me because they thought it was a story that needed to get out there. Not only that, I wanted to get it out there and to open the conversation so badly that I was hellishly persistent and driven.

I had drowned under a sea of depression, and in returning to the surface to breathe once more, I knew what I wanted in life and what my purpose was. I knew I was going to be a storyteller and I knew I would stop at nothing. I wrote Running Like China in seven weeks. About half way through writing it, I met with a friend of a friend of my mum’s who worked in sales at Allen & Unwin. She agreed to meet with me to tell me a little bit about the publishing industry. By the time we’d finished lunch, I’d told her my story and she was intrigued. She had me send her a chapter and asked to see the manuscript when it was done.

A few weeks later, I sent it over and she had a publisher look at it. The publisher said it had great potential but needed a lot of work and put me in contact with a freelance editor. The editor worked with me over her Christmas break. She was amazing. When I sent the manuscript back to Allen & Unwin, they felt it was too close to something they had previously published. They didn’t take it on but luckily for me, they put me in contact with an agent who signed me. Selwa represented me during negotiations with Hachette and the rest is history!

Was it different when getting your subsequent books published?

The difference with publishing Breathing Under Water was that I had already established friendships with my publisher and the editors, sales staff, and executives at Hachette.
I put ‘friendships’ in bold because it is so important to have a genuine, heartfelt connection with the people you are working with. I lay bare my soul when I write, so it’s crucial that I work with people who respect my stories and me, people I can trust. Hachette have taken care of me in a way I never expected, and for that, I am eternally grateful.

When I finished the Breathing Under Water manuscript, my agent passed it to Vanessa, who was my publisher for Running Like China, and Vanessa took it on and pitched it to the house. It was a much a smoother and faster process because everyone at Hachette was already familiar with my character and my writing style. Thankfully for me, the house loved it and signed it.

You are an OZYA author, what are some of your favourite Aussie YA books?

Unfortunately this year, I have only had time for uni readings. I’m in my final year of a Bachelor of Visual Arts so I’ve been reading essays by art theorists and philosophers, including Freud, Jentsch, Lacan, Kristeva and Latour. I’ve also been editing Breathing Under Water and I try to keep a clear head when working on my own stories to make sure my voice stays authentic.
Thankfully, I’ve just started uni holidays and with Breathing Under Water now finished, I have some long-awaited reading time.
Today, I decided to revisit an old favourite, Looking for Alibrandi. Melina Marchetta has inspired me since I was a child. I have a stack of OZYA on my bedside table, including Summer Skin, by Kirsty Eagar and The Flywheel, by Erin Gough. I can’t wait to get stuck in. If you have a favourite from 2016, I’m open to suggestions!!

I read Breathing Under Water a couple of weeks ago and posted my review yesterday for it. Sophie deals with grief in an exceptional manner and shows that there are different ways to cope with someone dying. You can find Sophie on twitter at @Soph_Hardcastle, her website and don’t forget to add her books to your goodreads.

Breathing Under Water by Sophie Hardcastle

Pages: 320
Publish date: July 11 2016
Publisher: Hatchette Australia
ISBN: 9780733634857
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon AU

Ben and Grace Walker are twins. Growing up in a sleepy coastal town it was inevitable they’d surf. Always close, they hung out more than most brothers and sisters, surfing together for hours as the sun melted into the sea. At seventeen, Ben is a rising surf star, the golden son and the boy all the girls fall in love with. Beside him, Grace feels like she is a mere reflection of his light. In their last year of school, the world beckons, full of possibility. For Grace, finishing exams and kissing Harley Matthews is just the beginning.

Then, one day, the unthinkable. The sun sets at noon and suddenly everything that was safe and predictable is lost. And everything unravels

***

Thank you Sophie for joining me at Angel Reads and sharing your journey. Have you her books? Did you like them? Are you going to read them?