How to use this Page

Editor, publisher, author, and all round busy guy, Paul Collins describes his latest anthology as ‘a sumptuous literary feast’ in which ‘no one will go away hungry, as the collection is a literary banquet with something for everyone.’ If that doesn’t whet your appetite for the collection of Australian stories, poetry and artwork that is, […]

There really is something for everyone in Ford Street Publishing’s latest collection of Australian stories, poetry and artwork for teens – Rich and Rare. With pieces from almost 50 fab authors and illustrators, including Shaun Tan, Judith Rossell, Susanne Gervay, Gary Crew, Justin D’Ath and Michael Gerard Bauer (to mention a few), the anthology delivers […]

By now, the last of those cleverly crafted Book Week costumes are washed and tucked away. Authors and illustrators all over Australia are reaching for mugs of hot lemon and honey tea to soothe raw throats, and children are undoubtedly curling up with pen and paper or else reading a brand new story, inspired by […]

Along with a staunch group of Australian literary professionals, Ellie Royce is a strong advocate for promoting encouragement for families to connect with older generations, share love and facilitate the power of memory. Her latest picture book is one in a line up, not only involved in initiatives to create awareness of ageing people and […]

Australian publishers Ford Street Publishing are running an international competition to mark the publication of the first three books in the new fantasy Warlock’s Child series (The Burning Sea, Dragonfall Mountain and The Iron Claw) written by Paul Collins and Continue reading ... →

Victoria Lane has made a successful career from writing; as an award-winning financial journalist for many years, editor and correspondent for many leading media publications, and of course, as a picture and chapter book writer for children. Today, we delve into Victoria’s writerly mind as she shares her inspirations behind her touching picture book, Celia […]

 Alison Lester Children’s Laureate and Sarah Davies award winning illustrator and friend were the keynotes at the Children’s Book Council Christmas dinner. Heaps of authors and illustrators celebrated with the community of book lovers.

Society of Women Writers (SWW)  in the Mitchell Library – with its heritage sandstone columns and magnificent rooms – addressed by Professor Yerbury – introduced by historian and author Maria Hill, who’s the President of the Society of Women Writers.

Wonderful event.

Unleased Festival with festival convenor Jodie Wells Slowgrove – who organised a weekend festival of authors and publishers. it was a buzz!  Linda Jaivin gave insight into her travels and life in  China – she was so entertaining. Read her books!

Tim ferguson comedian author who manages his MS with style and humour.  Publishers including Paul Collins Ford Street Publishing, Zoe Walton RandomHouse, Heather Curdie Penguin.

But BEST fun was being won by Maureen Johnson (author of Boofheads and many other books)  to give her a mini mentorship. Love doing it and watch out for her new series!

The post The start of the festive season with Children’s laureate Alison Lester! appeared first on Susanne Gervay's Blog.

You are a successful YA Science fiction author. What inspired you to change from YA to adult literature with The Beckoning?

A) Actually, it’s the other way around. I wrote The Beckoning over 30 years ago when I was writing for adults. I was having great success with selling short stories, but my novels were slow to take off. I sold a collection called The Government in Exile plus a YA crossover called Cyberskin, but that’s about it. I then wrote two novellas and sold them to Parteach. They promptly went broke and disappeared (don’t blame me – they hadn’t published my books!) so I figured perhaps I should be writing for a younger audience. The Wizards’ Torment sold to HarperCollins and The Earthborn sold to TOR in the US. So away I went.

Your YA trilogy, The Maximus Black Files http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S-eKDYqpEs has received great acclaim as edgy, powerful, violent. The brilliant hero, Maximus, a master of disguise and technology on the quest to uncover the weapon caches of the Old Empire, has a strong fan base.   Fans are waiting for The Only Game in the Galaxy, the third book in this science fiction trilogy.  Do you believe these fans will read your new entry into adult fiction with The Beckoning?

A)   I  somehow doubt you’ll find The Beckoning in schools, so if any young adults do want it, they’ll have to go to the effort of finding it on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/ny6urwy. Of course, young adults become adults, so if they really like my books for younger readers, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t seek out anything I’ve written for adults. Most writers of books for kids don’t venture into the adult market, so in this case I’m somewhat a rarity.

What is the difference between your YA science fiction trilogy and an adult horror story?

A) The genres are completely different, of course. One is contemporary, the other science fiction. My style has changed considerably since I wrote The Beckoning. Oddly enough, I think the adult book is an easier read than the young adult trilogy. Simply in terms of technology. The Maximus Black Files http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FDJXF0K is bursting with it, although I think in a self-explanatory way. In other words, you don’t need to be a geek to understand what’s going on. The trick when writing SF if you’re not a geek is to make it seem like it’s reality – in other words, suspend disbelief.

Are you tempted to move now totally into adult writing? If so why? If not, why?

A) To be honest, I’ve moved somewhere away from writing in recent years to concentrate on Ford Street Publishing www.fordstreetpublishing.com and Creative Net www.fordstreetpublishing.com/cnet. Having said that, I’ve just sold a six book series called Lucy Lee to Macmillan http://www.macmillan.com.au/primary31/site/libraries/Search+results?open&template=domPrimary&query=Paul%20Collins. Add another two chapter books and it’s been a busy year. So for now I’ll be taking a break from writing. Mind you, I do have another six book series out with a publisher right now, so I might be breaking my word on that if it gets accepted!

You are a recognised, award winning Science Fiction writer. What attracts you to Science Fiction?

A) I fell into science fiction quite by accident. I was working at the Breakfast Creek Hotel in Brisbane in the early 70s and a fellow waiter suggested I publish a science fiction magazine because there wasn’t one in the country. I only vaguely knew the name Asimov, so I enlisted the help of many well known SF writers of the day. These included A Bertram Chandler, David Lake, Jack Wodhams, Frank Bryning, Wynne Whiteford and others. Somehow I bluffed my way along. Then I published Australia’s first heroic/epic fantasy novels along with a series of science fiction books. The fun thing about SF is that you can predict things and have fun doing it. And let’s face it, most of today’s tech was written about by SF writers long before it became reality. Who knows, some of the tech I used in The Maximus Black Files might one day become commonplace.

Your books are known for high-level excitement and action in The Maximus Black trilogy. Is this the same driver as in The Beckoning? 

A) People who read my books do so because my writing is plot and action-driven. Characters I think find their own way. As a reader I get bored quickly is nothing happens in a book. Give me an action-packed book for relaxation any day. The last adult book I remember reading was Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda. I don’t think I finished it. It might’ve won a truckload of awards and garnered more critical praise than all of my books put together, but I don’t think a book is well-written if people don’t finish it. And I know a lot of people who couldn’t wade through the mire. Not as much action happens in The Beckoning, simply because it’s not that type of book, but for those who love horror, I’m sure they’ll enjoy the ride.

Where is your Science Fiction going?

A) Nowhere right now LOL. I’ve moved back into fantasy, if anything. The six book series I mentioned is a fantasy called Broken Magic. I also have a Jelindel novella waiting for a second draft, if I get some time to work on it. I have no immediate plans to write SF, not unless I get commissioned to write something.

 How would you describe the main characters of the trilogy versus The Beckoning?

A) As you can imagine the characters in a science fiction book can be shall we say superheroes, simply because they’re augmented with all sorts of tech wizardry. They scale walls, jump higher (Anneke was born on a high grav planet), are hyper knowledgeable due to being wired into mainframes, super-fast due to enhancements. Nothing is impossible so long as the writer suspends disbelief and shows how it’s all just every-day simple. With a contemporary novel such as The Beckoning, about the only suspension of disbelief is that the dead can rise and can be beckoned from another dimension. For those who believe in psychic phenomena, there’s not much in The Beckoning to disbelieve. So we’re talking everyday mortals who can die from stabs wounds, gunshot, and no augmentation is going to save them. Writing a contemporary book is way more limiting than writing within the realms of science fiction and fantasy.

The post Science Fiction author Paul Collins gets Scary! appeared first on Susanne Gervay's Blog.

What’s Melbourne mean to me?

The city of literature.

Brilliant creative friends

My welcoming publishers – Lisa Berryman from HarperCollins – thankyou for a great dinner

Paul Collins from Fort Street Publishing – thankyou for your hospitality

Hazel Edwards who gave such a beautiful launch speech for ‘Gracie and Josh’.

Thankyou to the fabulous authors and illustrators who came along to the launch on a long weekend

Special thanks to Meredith Costain and Niki Horin for the editorial inspiration for ‘Gracie and Josh’

Serena Geddes – what can I say? She captured the joy of Gracie and Josh who jump from the pages of the book.

VARIETY the children’s charity – I love VARIETY and Kathryn the marketing manager for Variety Victoria gave such a special speech about helping kids – ‘Gracie and Josh’ is helping them too.

Excited to catch up with the talented Jen McVeity -and hear her Highlighting Writing tours.

Corrine Fenton – the award winning picture book author who leads SCBWI Victoria – love what you are doing for kids writers and illustrators in Victoria – the retreat sounds amazing

…..  so many friends …. radio interviews especially loved being in the ABC Tardis ……and so much more!!!!!

The rain poured, Sydney was brooding, but the launch of Gracie and Josh was a total joy.

Paul MacDonld from The Children’s Bookshop, VARIETY the children’s charity, Meredith Costain from Ford Street Publishing and an enthusiastic crowd welcomed ‘Gracie and Josh’ into the world.

I couldn’t believe it when Jodie Wells Slowgrove and Vicki Stanton and others braved the weater to drive hours from Woollongong to this event.

People came from fare and wide:-

Sharon Rundle, Christie Lamb and one of my favourite fans – the wonderful girl Nina Lamb – came from the Central Coast.

Loved poet Beverely George , award winning illustrator Sarah Davis and Nikau – gosh I couldn’t believe that she already a teen. – also from the Central Coast.

The award winning Libby Gleeson, Sue Murray playwright from School Magazine, Rachel Greenwood editor of the CBCA magazine and so many people piled into the Children’s Bookshop.

Serena Geddes and I shared the very special journey of creating our picture book ‘Gracie and Josh’ -

where we celebrated children and families who faced illness through the joy of words and colour.

Deeply personal, ‘Gracie and Josh’ is our public testament to the resilience and courage and love of children.

 We were privileged to partner with Variety the children’s charity in ‘Gracie and Josh’ – www.variety.org.au

How cute is Tory, my daughter?  Here she is dressed as a spider – secretly she wanted to be a princess.

Tory climbed that spout when the sun dried up all the rain.

She is the sun!!!!

Like so many kids, who meet challenges, they find the gifts of every day life.

I wrote Gracie and Josh because my son and daughter played, supported each other, teased and loved when life was difficult.

Kids have an enormous capacity of hope.

Variety  support kids and families, especially those facing challenges.

Variety help so many schools providing wheelchairs, special equipment, bringing entertainment and joy to kids.

The cutest Gracie Spider will be available with the 1st print run coming out in March 2013 by Ford St Publishing Australia.

I LOVE Variety the children’s charity that embraces fun, kids and supports kids and families who face disadvantage and/or disability.

Luna Park was the ‘fun-est’ place to celebrate the Melbourne Cup in Sydney.

Serena illustrated for the kids and I played with them – they are so sweet. Loved them.

Serena Geddes and I are creating a beautiful picture book which is endorsed by VARIETY

-called ‘Gracie and Josh’ to be published by Ford Street Publishing celebrating kids who ‘seize the day’ despite sickness and challenges.

We got to see big people too like the fantastic VARIETY team including David Small the ED, Gracie Proust Marketing and Brooke Taylor.

…… and very big people like Sheila Blige – who wasn’t a drag!

…..and Glen Wheeler TV personality with the secret RED shoes.

Susanne Gervay, illustrated by Anna Pignataro,
Ships in the Field
Ford Street Publishing, 2012.

Ages: 8+

“Every night Brownie and I wait for Papa to come home.” – and when he arrives, “Round and round we whirl.”  This joyous ritual provides the opening sequence of Ships in the Field, a story whose essence is perhaps distilled into the notion of the transcendental power of love.  Acclaimed Australian author Susanne Gervay (I Am Jack, That’s Why I Wrote This Song) has based the story on her own childhood as the daughter of Hungarian refugees.  Told through the eyes, perception and narrative voice of a likeable, effervescent little girl, we learn that her beloved, funny Papa works in a car factory but used to be a farmer “in the old country, before it was broken”; and quiet, withdrawn Ma, who seems to have forgotten how to smile, was a teacher and now “sews dresses all day long”.  The girl’s confidante is her soft toy dog Brownie but she also longs for a real dog.

Every Sunday the family goes into the countryside and Papa says, “Look at the ships in the field.”  This makes the little girl giggle, for it conjures up a funny image, but it makes her sad too, because other people laugh at the way her father speaks – and so she staunchly joins him in his pronunciation of the word “sheep”.  One Sunday, near the “woolly ships”, she finds something very precious that signals a new chapter for all the family.

The undercurrents in the story are felt in the girl’s awareness of aspects of her family’s past.  It is never mentioned in her presence but it weighs on her nevertheless, and she confides in Brownie, “I don’t like war.”  Anna Pignataro’s beautiful watercolour illustrations perfectly capture the emotions – love, pain, joy – that emanate from the story.  As well as the ever-faithful Brownie, vignettes of a real dog appear throughout the story; and two notable sequences merge events from the past, depicting war and flight through the second-hand filter of the little girl’s knowledge and imagination.  The rough pencil outlines underlying the watercolours imbue the illustrations with energy and a sense of movement that is further emphasised in the variety of page layouts: the use of continuous narrative is particularly effective.

Ships in the Field is itself a multi-layered term, from straightforward mispronunciation to providing scope for metaphorical and poetic interpretation – or simply delight in its nonsense.  While offering a warm reading experience for young children, the book also poses questions for older readers and adults about how much young children can or should know about painful elements in a family’s past; and about the damage that can be caused by not bringing the past into the open, when children have already absorbed more than adults give them credit for.  Each rereading of this perfect synthesis between spoken and visual narrative offers something new, through the nuance of the writing or a dawning awareness of a visual motif.  Above all, Ships in the Field is a very special picture book of extraordinary depth, that carries a message of hope and reassurance that time does and will heal.

Marjorie Coughlan
October 2012

Beautiful Anna Pignataro dropped into The Hughenden on her visit to Sydney and we got to hang out.

I am in love with her evocative illustrations.

Anna has so many commissions by Scholastic, Little Hare and other publishers but we love working together and she’s committed to the companion book of ‘Ships in the Field’.

Do you want to guess the title?

‘Elephants Have Wings’  watch out for it in 2014.

Anna and I are proud to be SCBWI creators.

Parramatta High School’s hall was filled with students, teachers and kids from other schools, authors – Paul Collins, Meredith Costain, Oliver Phommavanh, Toni Brisland, Wendy Fitzgerald, Lindy Batchelor, Wendy Orr.

Judith Ridge, recognised as one of Australia’s leading authorities on youth literature, wrote the foreward for ‘Trust me Too’ – 58 reasons to celebrate reading by some of Australia’s best loved authors and illustrators.

Wendy Orr read from her moving story ‘The Snake Singer’

Meredith Costain read her wonderful poem ‘Shoefitti’ illustrated by Grant Gittus.

It includes an Obernewtyn novelette by the interntaional best selling fantasy author Isobelle Carmody.

Everyone can dip into this anthology and discover laughs, tears, meaning, fantasy, imagination and more.

A National Year of Reading 2012 event.

Louise Park author of STAR GIRL had me doubled over laughing as I saw a huge STARGIRL desperately trying to get through the barred front gates at the Ravenswood Festival.

STARGIRL (PanMacMillan) – made it inside with author Jeni Mawter and joined the other authors & illustrators enjoying cappuccino at the Ravenswood festival in Gordon Sydney.

Dianne Bates – Crossing the Line (Ford Street Publishing)

Aleesah Darlison – Unicorn Riders (Walker Books)

Richard Harland – World Shaker

Laurine Croasdale – IHarry (Aussie Chomps Penguin Books)

Moya Simons – Let Me Whisper You My Story (HarperCollins)

Jeni Mawter – So Gross series (HarperCollins)

Meredith Costain – A Year in Girl Hell (Hardie grant Egmont)

Deborah Abela – The Ghost Club series (RandomHouse)

Serena Geddes – Totally Twins (New Frontier )

Paul Collins – Quentaris series (Ford Street Publishing)

A Creative Net Speakers’ Agency event.

Hundreds of girls loved the day.

I loved catching up with my friends.

This latest publication from Ford Street Publishing is a picture book. Photos of Melbourne are mixed with delightful art by Kieron Pratt as the hero, accompanied by various critters, including a panda and a koala, flies his biplane around Melbourne's various landmarks in search of the Grumpy Wombat. Hmm, maybe this explains why I keep seeing biplanes flying overhead when I'm on St Kilda beach...


The idea of the picture book travelogue goes back a fair way, with such classics as Possum Magic, but it can never go stale.

It might be best suited to reading to younger children, so that you can do the gestures and have fun with the long words and silly gadgets Riley uses in his search.

I'll enjoy watching my nephew read it to his little boy.

Ford Street go where large publishers ‘fear to tread’ like:-

-F2M  transgender YA novel by Hazel Edwards & transgender author Ryan Kennedy

- young adult picture book ‘The Star’ by Felicity Marshall

-the ‘green’ picture book ‘The Gladdhouse’ by Paul Collins illustrated by Jo Thompson.  

I’m excited by Ford St publishing my ‘Ships in the Field’ - my first picture book.

‘Ships in the Field’ is a deeply personal story inspired by growing up from a post war refugee family. It’s funny, sad, warm dealing with loss, hope, finding a new home.

Award winning illustrator Anna Pignataro understands as we both are part of the immigrant experience.

I was moved by Anna’s beautiful illustrations & concepts in her storyboard, at our meeting in Melbourne with editors Niki Horin editor & Meredith Costain.

Thankyou Paul Collins and Medith Costain for the delicious ‘rustic’ dinner in the Victorian heritage garden home – loved the environmental water tanks, fragrant garden, porch & the Barbie dolls.

Never knew Meredith’s secret – she’s the secret author of the Barbie tales. See Barbies on the piano.

Having heard from Hazel Edwards about her part in her new novel ftm, today her co-author Ryan Kennedy drops by to share his experiences. Welcome Ryan. This book was challenging for me . Being my first novel, there was a lot to learn. Having a co-writer and mentor in Hazel was the best way to get through such a huge project. Collaborating online was nothing new for me – I regularly work with

When talented author Meredith Costain, said that she and Paul Collins publisher for the dynamic new publishing company Ford Street were coming to Sydney and wanted to catch up with some of the creative community at The Hughenden - it took only a couple of emails and everyone showed up.

Ford Street Publishing is dynamic, innovative and has some of Australia’s best authors - Alyssa Brugman, James Roy, David Miller, Dianne Bates and of course Paul who is a best selling fantasy author.

www.fordstreetpublishing.com

Cathie Tasker publisher Koala Books and Paul Collins publisher Ford Street

SCBWI Australia & NZ Logo created by Frane Lessac

I’m off to the LA SCBWI Conference in a few days and have to say good bye for August to my Oz mates, but I’ll be home soon.

Blond bombshells authors Meredith Costain, Felicity Pulman, Jeni Mawter, Vashti Farrer