Hardie Grant Egmont

Cinnamon Girl in the awards world…

Champaign was popped, happy dancing was jigged, and random friends and 2012-04-05aworkmates hugged to the point where uncomfortable side-eyes were given. It’s that week in Oz children’s publishing, and The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl has made the shortlist for the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year 2015, Older Readers! In a year of so many extraordinary, diverse and wickedly good books, I’m thrilled and humbled that Cinnamon Girl was selected for the shortlist. Now to run to the bookstore for yet more fab books to add to my must-read pile (the one that’s about to topple off my side table and crush me in my sleep. Can’t think of a better way to go, really).

A giant thank you again to the wonderful CBCA judges, and huge congratulations to all the notable and shortlisted authors in all categories. Australian children’s publishing is such an amazingly warm and inspiring community of folks, and I’m so incredibly lucky to be part of it.

*throws celebratory confetti at everyone*

CBCA 2015 covers

Advertisement

Welcome to the World, The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl

Happy first of September, and happy springtime to fellow southern-hemisphere dwellers! Today the skies over Melbourne may be gloomy and grey, but the mood in the Park Street household is totes buzzed** – because today, The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl is OFFICIALLY out in stores! I’ll be schlepping around Melbourne signing books at various stores – or click here to win one of five hot-off-the-press autographed copies.

Last weekend, friends, family and publishing folk gathered at The Sun Bookshop on a stunning blue-sky Melbourne afternoon to celebrate the launch of Cinnamon Girl. Champaign was drunk, vegan brownies were consumed, and Wonder Woman badges were pinned in various places. The always fabulous Ellie Marney stepped in to make the introductions (seriously, read her books!), and Tina from IBBY presented the Ena Noel award, and honour that I’m still pretty stunned to have won.

A giant thank you to everyone who attended; as always, I’m eternally grateful for your hugs, well-wishes, enthusiasm and support.

(**The Park Street household accepts that no-one here can pull off using the word ‘totes’)

IMG_045410502479_1449589598655906_6804821235048022874_nDSCN2312DSCN23091620719_10204591028280765_7810277707244603457_nCG photo 4DSCN2359DSCN236310455563_10204591029400793_8882145284352670719_nphotoCG Art 21604375_1449589618655904_1047447513686428283_n

 

 

 

Cinnamon Girl in the real world

So this happened. New books! Real books! Soon to be found in a real bookstore! And yeah, I may have spent a good few days simply staring at them on my shelf; flipping vaguely through crisp pages, feeling both excited and a little melancholic that my time inside Alba’s head is all but over. Can’t wait to send her out into the world come September…

Cinnamon Girl advance 1

photo 1

 

 

Life in Outer Space
My debut novel, March 2013 from Hardie Grant Egmont

It has a cover! The awesome peeps at The Ampersand Project have been working hard for the past couple of months to create the jacket for my book. And I love it! The wonderful Steph has done a fabulous job of rendering the characters (authentic outfits and all). Very exciting, and a little surreal…

Welcome!

So this is, officially, my very first blog post on my very first blog/website/interwebs page thingy. Huzzah! It’s a slightly odd thing to be writing because at this point no one is reading anyway, but nevertheless, I shall shout out into the void – welcome to my little corner of the web. 

Today, I am polishing what is hopefully the final draft of my first young adult novel, an as yet untitled romantic comedy that will be published in March 2013 by the wonderful folks at Hardie Grant Egmont. As a writer and book editor, I should probably be able to produce a searingly brilliant and insightful post about the editorial process; but really, after working on this novel solidly for over a year now, and with my final draft due tomorrow, the ‘process’ has come down to this: drinking copious amounts of coffee, and desperately thumbing through my thesaurus for synonyms for the word ‘scrambled’.

And procrastination. Oh, the procrastination. My word document shall be opened, and stared at, and closed again with nary a comma altered. The font on my blog will be changed, and changed again. Episodes of Game of Thrones will be watched. My house will be the cleanest it has been since the day before my last draft was due. 

Hopefully, searingly brilliant writerly insights might be possible in the future. But for now – I really just need another cup of coffee…