OZYA Interviews Archives - Page 5 of 8

#LoveOZYA Interview: Steph Bowe

Jun 17, 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 in saying that, I have decided to start a new feature on Angel Reads spotlighting Australian YA Authors. Each Friday for the next couple of months, I am going to interview an OZYA Author. I thought it would be a fun way to share my love for Australian Young Adult authors with not only fellow Aussies, but everyone around the world. I want more Australian YA books to be read, because they are amazing.

First week I interview Sarah Ayoub, then Fleur Ferris, followed by Will Kostakis, then Shivaun Plozza, and Gabrielle Tozer, followed by Jay Kristoff and Kylie Fornasier, A.J Betts, Megan Jacobson and last week Christopher Currie. This week we have Steph Bowe author of Girl Saves Boy (2010, Text) and All This Could End (2013, Text)

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

I’m Steph Bowe! I’m the author of contemporary YA novels All This Could End and Girl Saves Boy! My first novel was published when I was sixteen, and I’m twenty-two now. I live in Queensland with my family. I’ve blogged about YA fiction for seven years. I speak in schools and deliver creative writing workshops. I read a lot. I am a big fan of tea and cake.

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

When I was seven years old, I vowed that I would become an author and buy a house. I was a very serious seven-year-old. I’ve written for as long as I can remember – when I was a tiny kid, I would type stories out on the computer, then erase them as soon as I was finished. Obviously, I don’t do that now. My love of writing was born out of my love of reading – the first book I remember loving was The Very Hungry Caterpillar and I’ve loved escaping into stories ever since then. I think I started writing because I loved being able to create my own universes and having absolute control over what occurred – with limitless possibilities. I just kept writing, until the rambling, bizarre, always unresolved stories I wrote as a kid turned into the complete, resolved, still-a-bit-weird novels I wrote as a teenager.

What was the process of getting your first book published?

I finished writing GIRL SAVES BOY, completed a perfunctory edit (my skill as a self-editor is far better – and more in-depth – now!) and sent the manuscript to critique readers I had met through blogging. Based on recommendations from one of my critique readers, I sent queries to a few agents and entered into a first-page contest. I signed with my agent a few weeks later. After working on an edit with my agent, the manuscript was submitted to publishers here in Australia and I was fortunate enough to get a two-book deal. The process leading to publication involved several rounds of editing with an editor, input on the final title and cover design, and, at publication time, doing speaking appearances, attending festivals and being interviewed.

Was it different when getting your proceeding books published?

I got a two-book deal with my first novel, so the process of publishing my second novel was similar to the first – but without the uncertainty. It was easier in that I was familiar with the process (none of the mystery of the first time around!) and knew who I was working with. It was trickier in that once I’d had a novel published I had experienced criticism and perfected the voice of my inner critic, and the pressure to measure up to my first novel (even in my own head) made the process of writing the novel longer and more difficult than it might otherwise have been.

What was the difference between getting your books published here in Australia and internationally?

In publishing my novels here in Australia, I’ve gotten to work very intensively with an editor on the novels, as well as having some input on the cover, publicity, and so on. GIRL SAVES BOY was translated into Spanish (as LA CHICA DEL LAGO), Catalan (as LA NOIA DEL LLAC) and Dutch (as GERED DOOR EEN MEISJE). It’s very exciting to have my novel published in other languages and read internationally, and I get a lots of emails from readers overseas but I had very little involvement with getting the foreign editions ready for publication– each of the publishers employed a translator to translate the novel, and the deals were organised by foreign agents who work with my agent.

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

I especially love contemporary Australian YA fiction – I think it’s some of the best in the world. I love Melina Marchetta’s novels – On The Jellicoe Road is my absolute favourite. Fiona Wood’s work is amazing – Cloudwish, her latest, is (in my opinion) her best. Laurinda by Alice Pung is authentic and gorgeous. Simmone Howell’s novels are always honest and real and wonderful – I love Girl Defective. Kate Constable, Penni Russon, Vikki Wakefield and Cath Crowley are some more favourites. And I do love some more supernatural YA – Leanne Hall’s This is Shyness, Rebecca Lim’s The Astrologer’s Daughter and the Rephaim series by Paula Weston are all awesome.

I have yet to read Steph Bowe books, but I hope to soon. You can find Steph on twitter at @stephbowe, her website and you can add her books to your goodreads.

Girl Saves Boy by Steph Bowe

Pages: 288
Publish date: August 30 2010
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 192165659X
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon US – Amazon AU – Dymocks

The first time we met, Jewel Valentine saved my life.

Isn’t it enough having your very own terminal disease, without your mother dying? Or your father dating your Art teacher?

No wonder Sacha Thomas ends up in the lake that Saturday evening…

But the real question is: how does he end up in love with Jewel Valentine?

With the help of quirky teenage prodigies Little Al and True Grisham, Sacha and Jewel have a crazy adventure, with a little lobster emancipation along the way.

But Sacha’s running out of time, and Jewel has secrets of her own.

Girl Saves Boy is a hugely talented debut novel, funny and sad, silly and wise. It’s a story of life, death, love… and garden gnomes.

***

Thank you Steph for joining me at Angel Reads. That is it for this week’s #LoveOZYA Interview. What did you think of Steph and her books? Let’s Chat!

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.

#LoveOzYA Interview: Christopher Currie

Jun 10, 2016

First week I interview Sarah Ayoub, then Fleur Ferris, followed by Will Kostakis, then Shivaun Plozza, and Gabrielle Tozer, followed by Jay Kristoff and Kylie Fornasier. A.J Betts was next and then last week we had Megan Jacobson.

This week we have Christopher Currie author of young adult novel Clancy of the Undertow (2014, Text Publishing).

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

Hello, my name is Chris. I’m a 34 year-old writer from Brisbane. I grew up in a small country town called Warwick. I work at the wonderful Avid Reader Bookshop as its social media manager (and sell books to people as well!).

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

I’ve always enjoyed writing, but never gave it serious thought as a vocation until I left school. I completed a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Creative Writing at Queensland Institute of Technology (QUT) and have been plugging away ever since. My parents are both big readers, and they instilled in me the same love. In fact, I was just in a suburban library today to do some work, and remembered again how wonderful they are!

I don’t have much occasion to go to libraries these days (as I’m surrounded by books at work anyway!) but when I was little I feel like I checked out nearly every book from the Warwick Council Library. I was very lucky that my parents didn’t really tell me what I could and couldn’t read. This was so important in teaching me the pleasure of the written word in all its forms, I think.

What was the process of getting your first book published?

A long one! I submitted what would eventually become my first novel, The Ottoman Motel (an adult literary mystery story), to Text Publishing through an informal callout they sent out in 2009 (side note: be nice to everyone in the industry; this came about because I heard about it from a friend of a friend). The book went through three major rewrites and some rigorous editing before it was published in 2011. This process was a real eye-opener for me. It was painful, yes, but getting to work with a professional editor was an insanely useful experience.

Was it different when getting your subsequent books published?

Text Publishing are wonderful, because they really believe in developing a relationship with an author, one that (thankfully for me) doesn’t simply rely on a certain number of book sales to continue. Despite promising at least three other adult fiction manuscripts to my editor, I ended up writing the first draft of a YA novel, Clancy of the Undertow.

My editor, to her credit, took the project on (thankfully Text have a burgeoning YA arm of their business) and it went from there. I had to basically double the word count from the original version, but the whole process was much quicker the second time around!

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

I adored booked by Victor Kelleher when I was growing up, which perhaps betrays my age somewhat, and then when I got a little writers such as Sonya Hartnett (her novel Of a Boy was a huge inspiration to me when writing my first book). As I mentioned, I tended to read quite widely so I’m not sure all of what I read was “age appropriate”.

I’ve tried to read more contemporary Oz YA since my book has come out (Avid Reader recently moved its kids and YA books into a new shop so I am far less aware of that side of publishing now!) and I’ve been really pleased that so much of it is so good! I loved Fleur Ferris’ Risk and Trinity Doyle’s Pieces of Sky and am just about to start Dave Burton’s How to be Happy.

Thank you Christopher for joining me today. You can find Christopher at @furioushorses on twitter, his website and don’t forget to add his books to your goodreads.

Clancy of the Undertow by Christopher Currie

Pages: 282
Publish date: November 16th 2015
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1925240401
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU – Dymocks

In a dead-end town like Barwen a girl has only got to be a little different to feel like a freak. And Clancy, a typical sixteen-year-old misfit with a moderately dysfunctional family, a genuine interest in Nature Club and a major crush on the local hot girl, is packing a capital F.

As the summer begins, Clancy’s dad is involved in a road smash that kills two local teenagers. While the family is dealing with the reaction of a hostile town, Clancy meets someone who could possibly—at last—become a friend. Not only that, the unattainable Sasha starts to show what may be a romantic interest.

In short, this is the summer when Clancy has to figure out who the hell she is.

***

Thank you Chistopher for joining me at Angel Reads. That is it for this week’s #LoveOZYA Interview. What did you think of Christopher and his books? Let’s Chat!

#LoveOZYA Interview: Megan Jacobson

Jun 3, 2016

First week I interview Sarah Ayoub, then Fleur Ferris, followed by Will Kostakis, then Shivaun Plozza, and Gabrielle Tozer, followed by Jay Kristoff, then Kylie Fornasier and last week A.J Betts. This week we have none other than Megan Jacobson author of Yellow (2016, Penguin Australia).

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

Heya you lovely little starlings, my name is Megan Jacobson and I live at Bondi Beach, Sydney, but I’m originally from Darwin and then the far north coast of NSW in a place called Kingscliff. In Darwin they actually teach you crocodile safety when you first start school! It’s an apt name for the place – nearly every deadly creature in the world lives there, on top of the tropical cyclones that whip through pretty regularly, so if you survive it really is Darwinism in action! It’s a beautiful, wild place and I go back as much as I can.

Right now I work at the ABC in Sydney helping to put the TV news to air, but occasionally I write for TV shows too, I’ve worked in the script department of a couple of shows, including the Channel 7 soap Headland and the ABC children’s drama Dance Academy.

Oh, and I’m also an author. There’s that. My debut novel, Yellow, was released by Penguin early this year. It’s about a fourteen year old girl called Kirra who makes a pact with a teenage ghost who speaks to her through a broken phone booth – she’ll prove who killed him almost twenty years ago if he does three things for her – makes her popular, gets her parents back together, and doesn’t haunt her, but Kirra realises that people can be haunted in more ways than one.

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

I’ve always written stories since I was a little girl – I’ve always been drawn to telling stories and I can’t remember ever not doing it – even before I could spell I’d create elaborate dramas with my dolls.

After studying journalism at university I was lucky enough to be offered a job as a script assistant at the TV soap ‘Headland’. I’d been doing extras work on Home and Away and for about a year I’d pop into the script office after my shift and ask if they had a job for me yet.

Eventually a writer heard about a new Channel 7 show which was in production and they put me forward for the role. I worked my way up into a script storylining position from there. I’ve also written short stories in my spare time for most of my life. I began as a kid when I realised I could win small prizes in writing competitions, and I honed my craft from there, eventually winning the Sydney Morning Herald Young Writer of the Year when I was in year twelve.

I’d always wanted to write a book, and the characters from Yellow had been in my head for years and years, but I didn’t have the confidence to do it, and I was so busy with my day jobs that I put it on the backburner for over a decade.

What was the process of getting your first book published?

I began writing Yellow when I’d moved to New York in 2013, trying to find a TV writing or production job. That proved more difficult than I’d expected, and I had all this free time, and I’m not used to being idle, so I thought I’d write the story that had been knocking about in my head for so long. I plotted it like I would a TV show and began to write, and by the time my US visa had run out I’d had a third of a novel and I really loved it, so I used the rest of my meagre savings to move to Bali for the next three months to finish it. I chose Bali because I knew I could live cheaply, and I found a cheap, tiny little hut in the middle of the rice paddies in the outskirts of Ubud.

I finished the novel there and when I returned to Sydney I googled literary agents and decided upon Tara Wynne at Curtis Brown. Agents are extremely busy and it took months before I heard back from her, but I was lucky enough to have her accept me as a client. She then sent it off to all the big publishers and two were interested in publishing me. We decided to go with Penguin and I was so happy when I signed that contract that I had to step outside afterwards and breathe deeply because I wasn’t sure if I was going to hyperventilate or cry happy tears. It was a life’s dream come true.

What was your journey as a debut YA author in Australia? What was the hardest thing?

The process between signing a publishing deal and the book coming out on the shelf is quite a hard one. There are lots and lots of rounds of edits. My editor Amy Thomas is a genius – she knew exactly what the core of my story was and managed to help me draw out the strongest threads of the story and whittle away the bits that didn’t quite further the narrative. It was exhausting though – more exhausting than writing the actual book! It’s like playing jenga with words, you change some scenes or character motivations and that affects the rest of the book and the whole thing wobbles and then you’re frantically trying to fix it before the whole thing collapses! It was worth it in the end though. Totally worth it!

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

Oooh, there are so many great Australian voices, I love reading about my world in print! Obviously the queen of OZYA is Melina Marchetta and her beautiful book Looking for Alibrandi, and I adored Puberty Blues as a teenager – I loved the fact that the authors were young and female and Aussie and they wrote of their lived experiences and it wasn’t just old European men who could tell their stories. I love The Book Thief with a big messy love, and of course the books by my fellow Penguin Teen Australia YA Squaddies – The Sidekicks, Frankie and The Things I Didn’t Say. It’s a bumper year for Oz YA!

I have yet to read Yellow, but I plan to as soon as I can. You can find Megan on twitter at @jacobson_meg or check out her website for more information. Plus add Yellow to your goodreads.
Yellow by Megan Jacobson

Pages: 259
Publish date: 1st February 2016
Publisher: Penguin Teen Australia
ISBN: 9780143573333
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU – Dymocks

If fourteen-year-old Kirra is having a mid-life crisis now, then it doesn’t bode well for her life expectancy. Her so-called friends bully her, whatever semblance of a mother she had has been drowned at the bottom of a gin bottle ever since her dad left them for another woman, and now a teenage ghost is speaking to her through a broken phone booth. Kirra and the ghost make a pact. She’ll prove who murdered him almost twenty years ago if he does three things for her. He makes her popular, he gets her parents back together, and he doesn’t haunt her. Things aren’t so simple however, and Kirra realises that people can be haunted in more ways than one.

***

Thank you Megan for joining me at Angel Reads. That is it for this week’s #LoveOZYA Interview. What did you think of Megan and Yellow.