Deb Fitzpatrick's Blog, page 5

WordMothers interview

I was delighted to be interviewed by Nicole Melanson from WordMothers recently. WordMothers is dedicated to showcasing women’s work in the literary arts around the world. Many of my favourite writers are also published on the site.

If you have five minutes to spare, check it out:

http://wordmothers.com/2015/04/12/int...

Mandurah Readers & Writers Festival

I’m delighted to be taking part in the inaugural Mandurah Readers and Writers Festival next week. It’s a perfect event for everyone, and lovely for it to be held in the school hols. Hope to see you there!

Mandurah Readers & Writers Festival 15 – 17 April 2015

Featuring: 

Sean E. Avery • K. A. Bedford • Liz Byrski 

Deb Fitzpatrick • James Foley • Samantha Hughes 

Norman Jorgensen • Juliet Marillier • Elli Moody 

Sally Murphy • Glen Swift • Dianne Touchell • Kelsie White 

Storytime • Giant Book Sale • Cooking • Book Craft • Your Tutor Presentation

Cup Cakes • Scratch Programming • Literacy Planet • Busy Things

Minecraft • Story Box • Lizzie Bennet Diaries • Pop Up Shops

Mandurah Library

331 Pinjarra Road, Mandurah

manlib@mandurah.wa.gov.au

9550 3650

www.mandurah.wa.gov.au/Libraries.htm

 

Podcast on inspiration

Shannon Osrin of RTR FM interviewed me and other creatives for this radio segment on inspiration – check it out!

http://rtrfm.com.au/story/how-to-find...

Interview about editing & writing

I had heaps of fun talking with Margaret River Press about editing Charles Hall’s forthcoming debut novel, Summer’s Gone, and writing my first adult novel, set in Margaret River and Gracetown in the late 1990s, called The Break. Check it out!

What I’ll be up to in 2015

If I thought I was going to get a rest in 2015 after a crazy 2014, I was wrong! I’ll be working on my next adult title, thanks to crucial Department of Culture and the Arts funding. I’m about 7000 words into it so far. Slow going, but that’s just how I work.

And in between researching and writing, I’m thrilled to say I’ll be at Perth Writers Festival in February 2015 talking about The Break and my other books; at All Saints’ Literature Festival in March; down in Albany at the Great Southern Grammar Lit Festival in May; and travelling with The Literature Centre to Bunbury in September, Geraldton in October, and Albany also in October. I will also be doing an event in Dalwallinu in August, as well as running editing workshops at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre from May to August 2015. I have bookings for Children’s Book Week 2015, too.

Hope to see some of you out there! Meanwhile, get back to your writing. That’s what I should be doing, too.

The Break tour and 2014

It’s been a crazy year, with the release of my new book, The Break, a tour of the Eastern States of Australia, a US deal for The Amazing Spencer Gray, and a film option purchased for Spencer Gray  too. I also secured the services of Clive Newman, literary agent, this year.

I have a few more writing events on this year, before I collapse in a happy heap with my family and friends over Christmas.

I’m excited to be teaching a course for the Australian Writers’ Centre on October 18–19: Writing for Children and Young Adults. It’s going to be two days of discussion and learning about children’s writing and publishing, with plenty of time for actual writing.

I’m also thrilled to be spending an evening at Nedlands Library on 22 October 2014, from 6.30 to 7.30, to talk about The Break.

I was delighted to visit Tea House Books in Denmark with Brooke Davis, of Lost & Found fame, in November.

I’m sure I’ll squeeze in a few more things between those, but in a way I just want to hide and write. And isn’t that what we all want to do?

Deb

2014

You may know how much I love visiting schools and libraries, particularly in the regions. Well  you can imagine how much I enjoyed visiting these places in 2014:

• Tambellup and Broomehill (WA) primary school visits, 14–15 August 2014

• Children’s Book Week library visits to South Perth Library, Victoria Park Library and Maylands Library (WA), 18–21 August 2014

• Eastern States Book Tour, taking in Melbourne, Wangaratta, Canberra, Woonona, Wollongong, Leonay, Sydney, Bathurst, 21–30 August 2014.

Happy reading and writing, everyone. Hope to see you out there!

The Break has landed!

The Break, my first title for adults, has landed! It was launched in fine style at New Edition Bookshop in Fremantle on 1 September. It was an amazing night and the bookshop ran out of books. I’m hoping that’s a sign of things to come!

Here are some reviewers’ thoughts on The Break:

‘Fitzpatrick’s love and knowledge of her home state is evident. Her prose is fluid and evocative […] the sea is almost another character in the novel. The Break will resonate with fans of Tim Winton, as Fitzpatrick writes about the natural environment with similar texture and intensity.’ — Books+Publishing

‘There is some startlingly good, original and moving writing about landscape and place in this novel. It’s a brave writer who takes on landscape writing, in an area so close to the region that Tim Winton has over decades made so unforgettably his own. But Fitzpatrick’s best writing about the place and its ecology is almost mystical, with an attention to detail at once lyrical and microscopic.’ — Canberra Times

‘Quiet, refined, and captivating, The Break explores the emotional fissures that open up inside and between people, and, ultimately, how those rifts are healed.’ —Australian Book Review

‘The novel explores the experience of settling in and adapting to a rural lifestyle in contrast with the feeling of being trapped into living a parent’s expectations rather than following one’s own. Conflicts and doubts are often unspoken, and the boy’s awareness of his parents’ crumbling marriage is touching to read. […] The fragility of the environment is mirrored in the fragility of the human relationships under scrutiny.’ — ANZ LitLovers LitBlog