Mad March, Writers' Week and small-minded people

March in Adelaide is the time rather a lot of strangers roam the street, map in hand, looking for one of a number of events that happen in Adelaide.  Melbourne envies us our cosmopolitan insouciance as we natives wander white-hatted from outdoor event to outdoor event. They can only look on in wonder and disbelief as rain stays away, the sky is blue and a light breeze blows through the parks.  Writers' Week, Womadelaide, The Fringe, the Adelaide Festival, and oh yes, that race. The city is, for a few short days, practically shut down as roads are turned over to race tracks and cars with writing all over them shred their tyres through our leafy parkland streets.  Quite frankly I'd be very happy for Melbourne to steal the race from us like they stole the last one and good luck to them, Albert Park can have it. This year the screaming engines rather spoiled Ennio Morricone's concert and our beloved Premier had to call someone to suggest they turn off their ignitions. Now.  

Boori Pryor – first Australian Children's Laureate speaking at Adelaide Writers' Week

My favourite this year was Writers' Week. With a new director, Laura Kroetsch, at the helm  aided by Anna Hughes they managed to pull off the best event I think we have had in a long time. The truth is, and there are rather a lot of people in cardies who won't like this, Adelaide Writer's Week had become insular, stuffy and boring. There was nothing at all for children's writers, for example, so if you happened to be one or be interested in one it wasn't the place to be. There was nothing for families, the white marquees flapped noisily in any slight breeze and when not flapping did a rather remarkable imitation of plastic saunas.  People used to emerge from sessions and wring out their clothes. 

This year Laura disposed of the marquees which caused instant consternation among the white-hatted brigade. How dare she? Really! Those tents were an institution, didn't this foreigner know that?  (Oh yes, she isn't 'one of us' – indeed she had an actual accent which clearly put her at the back of the bus.)  She moved the food away from the areas where speakers were speaking and the book tent moved closer to the food with a very nice area between them for seating. The weather was perfect (sorry all those who were hoping for bog and wind to ruin it) the speakers were potent and the audiences excellent. There might not have been as many huge names there but our Writers' Week is famous for bringing in writers before they are famous. We may not have much money to fling at these overseas guests but those that come love the place. There was a brilliant family day, the marquees were replaced with light airy spaces covered by blue sails and the backdrops and entrance were woven sapling branches which added to the sense of lightness and creativity. And in a master stroke, the week was dedicated to children's writer, Margo Lanagan. Margo and I began writing at the same time – both published by Allen and Unwin. Margo went on to international fame ... sigh.

What a pity some of the very big publishers decided not to send their publicists when they had up to fourteen of their authors attending. There were no publisher parties this year either - are these publishers pinching in their belts and sticking the good wine under their desks perhaps? There is no doubt the industry is suffering right now and if it wasn't bloody-mindedness then I can only assume lack of funds was the problem.

Congratulations to Laura and her team.  Here's to many more innovative and exciting Writers' Weeks under her guidance. And here's to all those doubters and naysayers realising change isn't always a bad thing - sometimes it actually improves our world. Bring it on, Laura!

A note from your Conductor xx

New in March

Goodness, it's been a busy start to the year. We editors have had our heads buried in pages and I happen to know our patchworking designer has worn a groove in the footpath between our little office and a certain well-known South Australian chocolatier conveniently located just around the corner. Those big screens run on excellent quality cacao, you realise. It's been novels, novels, some more novels and some picture books too. That must mean a flood of new reading and sumptuous freshly printed illustrations must be on their way. But for now you will be more than satisfied with this humorous gem, out in March. Not Bog Standard is a compilation of catastrophic and mind-bending tales, guaranteed to have young readers chuckling if not laughing out loud.

New this month!

January in publishing is traditionally a no-releases month. The book-buying punters are deemed worn out from all of that Christmas giving, and the publishers and editors and designers travelling on this bus seize the chance to get down to some serious Lego playing with grandsons, go to the pool every day with newly-learned-to-swim kids, or drive down the coast for some well-earned computer-free time.

But come February, all bets are off! It's time to set free some truly delicious new fiction onto the lovely fresh shelves of bookshops across the land.

Setting out on its own is the first book in a new series from  exciting new author Peter Cooper. A fire in a temple, an orphan running for his life. But is Dillen running away from, or towards, his destiny? A mysterious Easterner has sent Dillen on a simple quest: find the sorcerer Hallegat and serve him well. But for Dillen, things will never be simple again.

And from one of Australia’s most popular writers for children, Christine Harris, comes an exciting new series for nine to thirteen-year-olds. Raven Lucas is our heroine and she's smart, resourceful and desperately searching for her missing father. Guaranteed page-turning.

  

Bait for the Reader

Sometimes you ought not research the person whose talk you are going to see.  In the internet age a great deal of everything anyone has ever said is already on youtube.  Googling the name of the speaker/presenter can take you, as it did me, direct to the very words he or she will be speaking.  That might not be a bad thing unless you'ver paid good money for tickets.  In my case the tickets were a welcome Christmas gift so I wasn't actually out of pocket.  Just a wee bit out of sorts because I had hoped to be surprised.  The speaker was Ira Glass.  The subject was the structure of story.  If you go to this link and watch all four parts you will have saved yourself the $45 for a ticket and learned something at the same time.
The art of the story
Ira Glass is  certainly interesting.  He can tell a story and he understands structure (he studied semiotics).  He made me think and I loved the way he used his iPad to run the whole show on stage.

But I wish I had remembered to buy tickets to David Sedaris.  I think he might have been more fun.

A note from your Conductor xx

Holding Out For Wonderful

Welcome to the New Year at Onyabus.  I've been remiss in posting - there is never enough time in the working day to sit and think but I am determined to Do Better.

Today has been a day of emails, interviews and, sigh, unsoliciteds.  The pile of unsolicited manuscripts is awfully high and awfully lacking in genius.  Would that it were otherwise.  Where are all the undiscovered diamonds of the children's lit world I wonder - those marvellous manuscripts from writers so talented they cannot help but get offers from all and sundry to publish their work?  I am probably the only children's publisher in the world who actually sifts through the unsolicited pile myself but I read on with a somewhat sinking feeling and less hope in my heart than when I began this morning.  There is always hope at the start of the reading pile.  There is always a need for chocolate or a stiff drink at the end.  I see we have been sent more stories about fairies...FYI we don't publish fairy books.  More stories about environmental disasters - no, not for us, thankyou.    Lots and lots of stories that the writers felt were picture books but are nothing more than lists of actions undertaken by a too-twee child.  Dog and cat stories - mostly heroic dogs and recalitrant cats.  No thanks. Four manuscripts were purportedly written by very small children whose grasp of language is uncannily adult but whose stories are woeful.  Sorry. Your teacher, aunt, mother or father ought to put the stories you write in a drawer and give them to you on your 21st - not post them to us. There is a smattering of stories about desperate teenagers whose lives are forever blighted by First World Problems like their hair, their boyfriend or their mother.  No thanks. We even have manuscripts about god, creationism and good calories. 

I am beginning to slump. 

Or even become slightly more deranged than usual..

How I look when deranged

Please someone send me a fabulous story - something utterly original.
In case I sound terribly ungrateful for the many manuscripts that fly in our door each day I am not.  I am just very, very picky. Markus Zusak's first published book, The Underdog came from the pile - such a wonderful story.  So original.  So beautifully written.  We snapped it up all those years ago and now look at him!  Then there was Michael Gerard Bauer, the perfect gentleman of publishing whose first book, The Running Man, came off the unsolicited pile too and went on to win so many awards they scarcely all fit on the cover.  Lyn Lee wote Pog - an unsolicited manuscript that won a swag of prizes.  We can spot a good one when we see it.  It just seems to me that there are a vast number of people out there who can't write but do anyway (and good on them, just don't send it to us) and an equal number of people who write what we call the OK Book; it's OK but it isn't wonderful. 

I'm holding out for wonderful.

A note from your Conductor xx

I'm (definitely) not singing

This CD has been on high holiday rotation in our house ... and car ... and headphones ... since it was found under the Christmas tree. Who can argue with the musical Dad expertise of Rhys Muldoon, Tex Perkins and Kram of Spriderbait? Our favourite song has to be 'Bob the Bear' in which Bob attempts to find the source of a nasty smell in the nappies of his playmates: 'But who, but who, who had done the poo?'

Irreverent in the extreme. Recommended for the offspring of Generation X.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!