Lian Tanner's Blog, page 3

Book launch

We had a book launch for A Clue for Clara two weeks ago, at the Hobart Bookshop in Salamanca Square. It was supposed to be deadly serious – well, except for the bit where Les Winspear and I were trying to explain what it was like to suddenly get a really good idea for a story.

Everything after that was meant to be sensible and dignified. But it’s hard to be dignified when a chook turns up in the middle of the speeches, making wild accusations about a stolen diary, and disrupting all the sensible stuff.

To make matters even worse, we had to break the book itself out of a giant egg.

And the chook just kept hanging round …

In the end, everyone agreed that it was the best launch ever. Huge thanks to Les Winspear and Claire Dawson for their help in planning and executing the fun.

 

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‘A Clue for Clara’ is out in the world!

So Clara is out in the world at last, and I’m waiting anxiously to hear what people think of her. I hope they love this scruffy little chook as much as I do, and enjoy her adventures.

Like pretty much every other author in Australia and overseas, my plans for promoting my new book have been turned upside down. I was supposed to be going to Sydney in August for Book Week, visiting schools and bookshops to talk about chooks and detective stories, and introducing Clara to hundreds of kids.

Now Book Week has been moved to mid-October, and I don’t think anyone knows if the schools in Sydney are going to be open or not. Turns out it’s almost impossible to make plans in the middle of a pandemic.

But in Tasmania we’re doing okay, with our border still closed and no community transmission. So I’ve got bookings for a couple of schools in September, as well as an in-person launch at the Hobart Bookshop on Sunday, September 20. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll keep doing okay and that those events will happen.

I hope you’re doing well, wherever you are. I know that some places are really struggling, so when I had a couple of spare copies of Clara, I asked on Twitter for the names of kids in stage 4 lockdown in Melbourne who might like them.

I sent the books the week before last, and last week I got this photo in return. Her mum said she is really into detective stories at the moment, so she was thrilled.

Unexpected books in the post are the best thing!

Meanwhile, if you’d like to read a bit about how I came to write A Clue for Clara (which is so different from my previous books), check out my article for the CBCA’s blog. https://cbcatas.blogspot.com/2020/08/from-brizzlehounds-to-chooks.html

Stay well, my dears.

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A Clue for Clara giveaway!

With everything else that’s been going on, I’ve only just realised that it’s a week and a day until A Clue for Clara is released. Eeek, I need to do a giveaway!

So here’s the blurb:

“‘GREETINGS. I AM LOOKING FOR A MAJOR CRIME TO SOLVE. PLEASE INFORM ME OF ANY RECENT MURDERS, KIDNAPPINGS OR JEWEL HEISTS IN THIS AREA.’

Clara wants to be a famous detective with her own TV show. She can read claw marks, find missing feathers and knows morse code and semaphore. There’s just one problem. She’s a small scruffy chook, and no one takes her seriously.”

A puzzling and hilarious mystery from bestselling author, Lian Tanner. For 8-12 y.o. and anyone else who loves humour (and chooks.)

If you’d like to read more about Clara, and how she teams up with the local policeman’s daughter to investigate a crime that’s tearing apart the town of Little Dismal, leave a comment below (making it clear that you’re entering the giveaway) and share this post with your friends.

This one is only for Australia/New Zealand – apologies to those in other countries.

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A book needs a great antagonist

I’ve been thinking these last couple of weeks about how a book needs a great antagonist. And how sometimes it takes a while to find the right one.

For the last couple of months, I’ve been working on a new book. And it’s been a slog. I loved the main character, but somehow I just couldn’t get excited about the story. It was hard to get started every morning and hard to keep going.

For a while, I thought that was because world events were so overwhelming and distracting that I couldn’t focus. And that if I could only find more self-discipline, I’d be okay. So I pressed on, even though I was feeling pretty bored with the whole thing. And that’s always a bad sign.

Then, at the beginning of last week, I found myself staring at my laptop, unable to summon the energy to write another word. Which is not how this is supposed to go. Every writer has bad days – even bad weeks, sometimes. But if it’s consistently a struggle, there’s something wrong.

So instead of pressing on, I flipped back through my notebook. I was looking for something, though I didn’t know what. Something that would light a fire under the story. Something that would make me want to write it.

And there, almost right back at the beginning of the notebook, when the story was just starting to take shape in my head, I found it. A different antagonist.

And I remembered that this was the original antagonist I’d thought of, the one who’d made me want to write the story in the first place. But for various reasons, I’d changed my mind and gone with someone else.

Usually, when I make major changes that take a story in a completely different direction, I spend a long time thinking about it first, trying to work out if it’s a good idea. Not this time. I grabbed that different antagonist and started writing.

She lit a fire under the story. She made me want to write it. Instead of limp, wishy-washy scenes that never seemed to go anywhere, ideas sprang from my fingertips, so fast that I could hardly keep up.

So now I’m having fun again. Will it turn into a good book? I don’t know. But it’s got way more chance than it did before.

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Turned my wi-fi off

Back on April 5 I mentioned that I wasn’t getting much work done because the daily news was so overwhelming. Over the course of the month, that situation grew even worse because of the amazing secret I was keeping. But last Monday night, I’d had enough. In desperation, I turned my wi-fi off before I went to bed, and promised myself that I wouldn’t turn it on the next day until I’d done a solid morning’s work.

To my relief, that did the trick. I remembered how nice it was to have a clear head and not be always thinking about the news, or email, or Facebook. I remembered that it probably didn’t matter if I missed something. I remembered the joy of quiet mornings, with the world shut out, and nothing to do but write.

For the first time in ages, I did a good week’s work, which is the most satisfying thing I know. I collected pictures and made a collage. I thought about questions and plans, and a stray dog with a big heart, and ghosts and cities and pigeons and mysteries. I wrote a scene where a chef cried into the soup, and another one where a dog tried very hard not to wag his tail.

I’m still not entirely sure where I’m going with this story, but I’m having fun with it, which is always a good sign. And I’ve done another writing challenge, and am putting it up early. You can find it here. It’s #8 Research challenge.

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Winner of the 2020 NSW Premier’s Award for Children’s Literature!

Have you ever had a secret that you absolutely couldn’t tell anybody until a certain date? And you couldn’t wait to tell people about it, but at the same time it was really delicious holding it to yourself, and knowing that hardly anybody else knew about it?

At the beginning of April, illustrator Jonathan Bentley and I each got an email to say that our picture book Ella and the Ocean had won the Patricia Wrightson Prize, which is the New South Wales Premier’s Award For Children’s Literature. And that we weren’t allowed to tell anybody. In fact, we had to sign a very serious document, saying that we wouldn’t breathe a word about it until the winners were announced on April 26th. Almost four weeks away!

I was bursting with the news. But the only person I could talk to about it was Jonathan. So I sent him an email that said, ‘Did you get the email from NSW Premier’s awards???? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

Jonathan is in England, so it was several hours before I heard from him. His email said, ‘WHAT!!! WE WON!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!’

We ended up talking on the phone, because we were both bursting, and couldn’t tell anyone else. And that was the first time we had ever spoken to each other.

Since then, I haven’t told anyone, because I knew that if I told a single soul, it would be almost impossible not to tell someone else, and someone else, and someone else. So I just pretended that I had no idea who had won it.

But every now and again I would take my secret out like a hidden treasure, and cup it in my hands so no one else could see it, and laugh with the sheer joy of it.

I am very happy.

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Shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s literary awards

The nicest thing that has happened recently is that Ella and the Ocean has been shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s literary awards – specifically, the Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature.

This was such a glorious surprise to come in the middle of the whole pandemic thing, and the two weeks until they announce the winner feels like a really long time. (You can see the rest of the shortlist here. https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/awards/patricia-wrightson-prize-childrens-literature)

Part of the joy of writing Ella was that I got to work with illustrator Jonathan Bentley.

When I say I worked with him, what I actually mean is, my publishers gave him the manuscript, he did the artwork, and we didn’t even speak to each other by email until the whole thing was finished. And yet he captured everything that was in my heart, and went far beyond it.

If you’ve read Ella, you might notice a toy boat. That was Jonathan’s idea, and it’s in almost every picture. I didn’t know it was going to be there, but as soon as I saw it, I loved it.

 

What’s more, the farmhouse he drew for Ella and her family looks very like the farmhouse my grandparents lived in, in South Australia.

This is the wonder of illustrators – they create magic. They bring their own dreaming to a story; they make it their own, as well as yours.

BTW, I’ll be putting up a new writing challenge for kids on Tuesday, based around the Festival of Lies. Watch out for it here. https://liantanner.com.au/free-stuff/

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When you write to an author

When you write to an author, do you know how much we treasure your letters and emails? An email from someone who has read my books and loved them always makes me smile. It can change a grim day into a brilliant one. It can make me feel as if I’m connected to people all over the world.

I’m telling you this because I had a number of such messages last week, and it was the nicest thing. I’m sure I’m not the only writer who feels like this. So if you love a book or a series, make sure you let the author know.

Now, how are you surviving the shutdown of pretty much everything? I’m used to being a hermit and spending a huge amount of time alone (apart from Harry, of course).

But still I’m struggling. I find myself wasting days and getting very little done, when really this should be a brilliant opportunity to do lots of writing. But I write best when my head is clear and there’s not too much going on – and that’s just not the case right now.

So instead, I’m trying to figure out how to do talks and workshops online, and how I’m going to launch A Clue for Clara online, if we’re all still locked away in August. I’m also thinking of doing some readings of the first few chapters of my books, for Instagram or YouTube. And like a lot of other authors, I’m putting up free creative writing challenges and games, for kids and adults.

I’m going to add to them once a week – probably on a Tuesday. You can find them here. https://liantanner.com.au/free-stuff/

Here are some other great resources for kids interested in writing. Littlescribe has a series of workshops on YouTube, with wonderful authors like Deborah Abela and Oliver Phommavanh. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZxkzgsWG0VYY6QdIGR13hg

Hazel Edwards has a whole bunch of stuff. https://hazeledwards.com/aspiring-writers-backup.html

So does Sophie Masson, who has collected links from other writers as well as her own. https://firebirdfeathers.com/directory-of-free-online-creative-writing-and-illustration-resources-and-activities/

So does Gabrielle Wang, who is putting up an illustration every week, for you to bounce ideas off. https://spark.gabriellewang.com/

There’s a ton more. If you have any favourites that aren’t listed here, please share them in the comments.

And stay safe and well!

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What an illustrator has made of my words

Writing books is, on the whole, a solitary thing. For me, that’s one of the pleasures of it, the days with no company except Harry, my cat, and the various shy beasties that have made a home in my garden. But towards the end of the process, another delightful thing happens – I get to see what an illustrator has made of my words.

Usually this comes in the form of cover roughs – in other words, a couple of rough sketches of what the illustrator thinks the final book cover might look like.

I’ve just seen the cover roughs for A Clue for Clara, which is coming out in August, and they’re funny and cute and totally different from any of my previous covers. Which makes sense, given that Clara is funny, cute and totally different from any of my previous books.

I can’t show you the Clara roughs, but I can show you some from previous books, so you get the idea. (These are the Australian editions.)

This was the first rough I saw for what became the stunning final cover of Museum of Thieves, from artist Sebastian Ciaffaglione. Even in black and white, you already get that important sense of mystery and magic. (See more of Sebastian’s work here.)

As well as the actual artwork, there were a couple of different design possibilities.

The Hidden series went through three different sets of covers, with three great illustrators. I don’t know how much the situation has changed in the last four years, but in 2016 fantasy illustration in Australia was still often the province of men, so my publishers were really pleased to find Arden Beckwith doing such gorgeous work. They asked her to come up with some action covers, and these are her roughs for Sunker’s Deep. (You can see more of her work here.) I really liked them both, and we ended up going with the second one.

For The Rogues trilogy, Allen & Unwin found another young illustrator they hadn’t worked with before, Sher Rill Ng. I loved all her covers, but there was a rough for the third book, Haunted Warriors, that I particularly want to show you.

In the end, we went with a different cover, but I have kept this one because it captures the scariness and brutality of the Harshman so beautifully. You can see more of Sher Rill’s work here.

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Things slip away

When I was a kid, we lived in Launceston and my grandmother and aunts lived in Hobart. So every school holidays we hopped in the car and drove south.

It was a 200 km drive, though we knew it as 120 miles. And in that distance, my father had to stop at least twice to clean the dead insects off the windscreen and radiator grill.

Now you could do the same journey four times over without the same result. Not because windscreen wipers and radiators have become more efficient, but because the insects just aren’t there. And yet kids growing up now don’t see this as at all strange, and it’s only when I remember those long drives that I realise what we’ve lost.

Things slip away and we hardly notice they’re gone.

I’m currently reading an inspiring book called Wilding by Isabella Tree. It’s the story of how she and her husband stopped intensive farming on their 3,500 acres in West Sussex, introduced free-roaming cattle, ponies, pigs and deer as proxies of the large animals like aurochs and elk that once roamed Britain, and let nature do the rest.

One of the things Tree points out is that even if we do realise there has been some sort of ecological loss, we tend to go only as far back as our childhood memories, or the memories of our parents or grandparents. So there’s a moving baseline, and each generation expects less than the one before.

Which reminds me that in 1807 in Hobart, the Reverend Knopwood wrote in his diary, “At 8:00am, I see many whales opposite my house making a great noise … 17 whales counted at the same time.”

According to legend, there were so many whales back then that you could just about walk across the River Derwent on their backs without getting your feet wet. And at night, their songs kept people awake. Nowadays we get excited if we see one or two.

So these rewilding projects are of huge importance, all around the world, to give other species a chance of survival.

According to Tris Allison from BirdLife International, ‘We could easily feed the world’s population and leave room for birds and other wildlife if we were more sensible and reduced our food waste and pesticide use and put the right crops in the right areas.’

The only question is, are humans willing to share?

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