Lian Tanner's Blog, page 18

New biography

I usually try and update this blog on a Sunday (Harry does his on Saturday), but yesterday I was at a marketing workshop and didn’t get the chance. However, as a result of the workshop I’ve been rethinking the writer’s biography that I put up on websites like Goodreads (and which goes into the back of my books). I usually put up stuff about which books I’ve written and what prizes they’ve won or been shortlisted for. Not any more! That stuff is still important for some occasions, but at the workshop we were encouraged to come up with biogs that tied in to the books we were writing in some way.

Hmm, I thought. I’m writing an adventure fantasy. So I probably need to have an adventurous biog. It all has to be true, of course, but that’s not a problem. I have led a pretty interesting life.

Here’s what I came up with. Let me know what you think:

Lian Tanner has been dynamited while scuba diving and arrested while busking. She once spent a week in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, hunting for a Japanese soldier left over from the Second World War. She likes secrets, old bones, and animals that are not what they seem. She has always been contrary. Nowadays she lives by the beach in southern Tasmania with her cat, Harry-le-beau, who has his own blog at vampiremice.wordpress.com.

Much more interesting than a boring list of books, yes?

And speaking of Harry, he put up his second post two days ago. You can read it here. And yes, he’s pleased with himself.

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Harry’s blog is live

Well, the heading says it all really. Harry loaded his first post yesterday, and has been strutting around the house with his tail high, ever since. He is quite unbearably smug, and every now and again I hear him mutter to himself: ‘I’ll show all those other cats on the internet how it should be done!’

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The three chooks are dead jealous, of course, and I dread the day when they start blogging as well.

You can find Harry’s blog (and first post) at vampiremice.wordpress.com. He swears every word of it is true, and assures me he will be adding to this ‘true story’ once a week, probably at the weekend.

Harry’s blog

I’m still on holiday, waiting to get comments back from my editors so I can launch into the next draft of Fetcher. They’re taking a while to get back to me, but please don’t think I’m complaining! It’s so nice not to have a deadline, and to be able to potter around without worrying about getting back to writing.

Of course I still like to have some sort of writing on the go, just to keep me entertained. Something with no deadline attached to it. Something just for fun.

Which ties in very nicely with the fact that Harry (my cat) has been pleading for his own blog for some weeks now. And I have given in at last! I’ve set up the wordpress page and handed over the computer. Now Harry is busy tapping away at something that he insists will make him famous.

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Harry takes a moment to think about what comes next

Unfortunately he won’t let me read it, so I’ve got no idea what it’s about. He says it is the story of one of his past lives, but he has never been a particularly trustworthy cat. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

He assures me that his first post will be up soon.

On holiday … sort of

I am sort of on holiday. I handed in the manuscript of Fetcher just a couple of days before the Sunker’s Deep launch, then went to Melbourne for a week of visiting bookshops and schools. Now I’m back at home, reading manuscripts for the Erica Bell Prize, writing a couple of speeches that I have to give the week after next, and wondering whether my cat Harry might like his own blog.

So I’m moderately busy, but don’t feel it, because I’m not beavering away towards a deadline. The speeches are short, the manuscripts are almost read, and Harry is nodding vigorously in the background (he really wants his own blog). This morning I went for a long walk, then spent a while tying up the bottoms of the nets that go over the fruit trees, so the blue tongue lizards won’t get stuck in them.

This sort-of holiday will end fairly soon, of course. My editors at Allen & Unwin will read the m/s of Fetcher and email me with lots of suggestions as to how to make it work better. And I’ll be back to writing. But for now I am feeling relaxed and contented.

One of the things I did in Melbourne was at Bookworld, for a giveaway of Ice Breaker.

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My ‘bookfession’ at Bookworld

I also went to a number of schools including Marri Creek Primary in North Fitzroy, It’s always tricky putting up pics of school visits, because most schools have a policy of not allowing children’s faces in public photos unless you have permission from their parents. So there’s actually quite a lot more to the photo below, but all the faces were showing so I cropped them out.

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And finally, here are some more photos from the wonderful Sunker launch, courtesy of my other official photographer, Maisie Teniswood.

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The dolphin porthole

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The winner of the lucky door prize walks the plank.

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A giant squid passes by.

The launch of ‘Sunker’s Deep’

‘Sunker’s Deep’ (The Hidden #2) was launched in Hobart last Sunday – and what a launch it was! We turned the Founder’s Room into a submarine, with portholes instead of windows. We had shadow puppets, games, reviews from readers, and a most unwelcome visitor in the form of Chief Engineer Albie.

To start with, here’s what people saw as they came in:

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One of the portholes

And then this:

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Another porthole

Mistress of Ceremonies Mel King had people answering questions and doing actions such as ‘Raise the periscope!’ and ‘Dive!’ which got very chaotic and enjoyable:

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Playing the ‘Claw’ game

About halfway through we had a reading with shadow puppets – I’m kicking myself for not having got someone to video it:

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And then of course Chief Engineer Albie arrived (despite the guards I had on the doors) and disrupted the lucky door prize by making the winner walk the plank. (He apparently thought he was in Pirates of the Caribbean.)

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Albie drags Emma Lee away to walk the plank. Note her distress – and my completely genuine horror :)

Finally, we had the countdown – which we do every year – and then I signed books.

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Signing books

I’m pretty sure that everyone who was there had a lot of fun, and left clutching their copies of ‘Sunker’s Deep’. I hope you are also clutching yours. If you’ve read it, go to the Sunker Goodreads page and give us a review. And THEN, if you liked it, go to the KZone Awards, click on ‘Boy Books’, and vote for Sunker’s Deep.

Oops, nearly forgot: all these photos were taken by one of our official launch photographers, Jacinta Chandler. I’ve still got some more photos to come from our second photographer, Maisie. I’ll put them up when I get them.

And the day after tomorrow, I’m off to Melbourne to talk at schools and visit bookshops. The schools are Marri Creek Primary and Clifton Hill Primary (Wednesday 12th November), and Sandringham East Primary, Sandringham Primary and Haileybury College (Thursday 13th November). On the Wednesday, I’ll also be talking at the Little Bookroom (Carlton North store) at 4 pm. If you’re in Melbourne, I hope to see you at one of those places!

One week till the Sunker launch …

Only a week to go, and I am almost too busy to scratch  myself. There are copies of the new book to be sent off, school groups to be talked to, fish to be made, reviewers to be chased and presents to be bought. There are disability ramps and lifts to be organised for people who can’t walk up all those stairs, portholes to be transported, fish to be collected from the local primary school, invitations to be handed out, more books to give out, little signs to be made and large quantities of gaffer tape to be bought (you can NEVER have enough gaffer tape). There are small things, like should I get a haircut, and what am I going to wear, and WHAT IF NO ONE COMES?

And then of course there’s the third book, which is due to be handed in this coming Friday – and I STILL DON’T HAVE A FINAL SCENE.

Not that I’m panicking or anything …

I’ve heard from two people who’ve read Sunker so far – and both of them have loved it. What’s more, it has just been shortlisted for K-Zone and Total Girl’s Toy of the Year Award, in the Boy Book category. Now this seems fairly weird, because it’s not a toy and I wouldn’t have described it as a boy book, either. It’s an everyone book. But it’s very nice to be shortlisted all the same, and maybe it’ll get me some new readers.

If you’d like to help, go to http://toy-awards.com.au/, click on ‘Boy Books’, and vote for Sunker’s Deep. And ask your friends to vote. And your relatives. And their relatives. And total strangers in the street. And maybe your dog as well. Do you have a guinea pig? Or a white mouse? I’m sure they’d be eligible to vote too!

Now, back to book 3 …

Icebreaker: the US cover

One of the things I have always loved about working in the arts is that you get to collaborate with other artists, and see how they interpret your work. When I used to write for Terrapin Puppet Theatre, I worked with puppeteers, directors, designers, puppet makers and all sorts of other people. One of my favourite puppets, made by Greg Methe for a show called Corpus Nullius, was this bellydancer.

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Of course now I’m writing novels there’s not a lot of room for puppeteers etc, but there are illustrators and designers and art directors. In Australia I work with the very talented Sebastian Ciaffaglione, who has given us two gorgeous covers for the first two books in the Hidden series, as well as illustrating all of the Keepers trilogy.

I have loved Seb’s covers from the beginning, and didn’t think anyone could match what he did for Ice Breaker. But now I’ve seen the American cover (to be published next year by Feiwel & Friends/MacMillan), and it is beautiful, as well as being totally different from the Australian cover. What do you think?

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Planning the Sunker launch

What with the Book 3 deadline getting closer and closer, and the launch for Sunker’s Deep coming up round about the same time, I’ve been feeling as if the year was going FAR too quickly. That is, until I spent a couple of hours last week talking to my friend Julie Hunt (author of the award-winning Song for a Scarlet Runner) about the launch, and another couple of hours this morning sending out invitations and thinking about who might be able to help with various bits.

Now it’s starting to feel like fun. Here’s the first email invitation that went out just a few hours ago:

Dear friends, the last time we saw Petrel and Fin they were heading north on board the ancient icebreaker ‘Oyster’, to save the world from the Devouts (and to search for Fin’s lost mam). With them went the Sleeping Captain (no longer asleep), the mechanical rats Mister Smoke and Missus Slink, Third Officer Dolph, Head Cook Krill and his daughter Squid, Chief Engineer Albie, and all the rest of that hardbitten, determined crew.

Now at last they’ve reached the shores of West Norn, home to the Devouts and their Citadel. Here they’ll meet treachery and despair, mystery and hope. And they’ll discover that they’re not the only ones who’ve been hiding for the last three hundred years …

‘Sunker’s Deep’ will be launched at 11 am on Sunday November 2nd at the Founder’s Room, Salamanca Place, with the wonderful Mel King as MC. Come along, bring your friends – and expect the unexpected!

There’ll be another email in a few weeks when we’ve (a) decided what we want people to bring (at the moment we’re thinking fish and other underwater stuff) and (b) got the official invitation drawn up (you don’t need an invitation to come, but it’s nice to have one).

Are you wondering what the unexpected will be? Me too.

 

The US cover is coming soon

This has been an exciting fortnight. First, I saw the artwork for the US cover of Ice Breaker, and it is STUNNING. If you liked the Australian cover, and thought that nothing could equal it, you will have to think again. It’s completely different, but just as amazing. I’ll be able to show it to you soon!

Secondly, I received an email from long-time reader Lilli, who sent me a video of her English project. Now those of you who’ve been hanging around this blog for a while will know that I LOVE getting things like this. I’ve been trying to put it up all week but have just been too flat out busy finishing off Fetcher (no, it’s not finished yet) and preparing for my trip to Launceston next Friday.

But now at last I’ve got a breathing space. So here it is, Lilli’s English project, which she did on Ice Breaker.

This is what she had to do:

1. Make a new front cover and blurb for the book and stick it on a bag.

2. Draw a portrait and write a description of the main character (in this case Petrel).

3. Write about the themes and messages of the novel.

4. Find an object or picture that would help retelling the plot of the novel!

So Lilli did all those things. And then of course, being a kind soul, she made a video of it to send me!

Competition – the winners!

As I said in my last post, we didn’t have a lot of competition entries, which was a bit disappointing. But the high quality made up for it. People clearly put so much effort into their book trailers, and as a result I’ve been scratching my head, trying to work out the winner.

In the end, I decided to have one winner for people who did either a video or powerpoint, and one for those who drew a storyboard. And because that means we’ll have two winners (and not a lot of entries), I’m not going to award a second prize or a runner-up.

BUT – the first two people to leave a message on this post (as long as they’re not one of the winners) will receive an Ice Breaker poster!

Now for the winners. Storyboards first, and the winner is nine-year-old Oliver from Auckland, New Zealand! Here’s his entry – and what I liked about it was that it is REALLY like a movie trailer.

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As for the videos/powerpoints, the winner is Elena, who is twelve. And once again, her entry was like watching a real movie trailer.

I’ll be emailing the winners later today to ask them what they would like for their prize. Thanks to everyone who entered! And keep an eye on this blog for news of Sunker’s Deep, Book 2 in the Hidden series!