Misrule
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Source: About ‹ Misrule — WordPress
Read MoreDr Maurice Saxby AM: In Memoriam
Maurice Saxby, 26 December 1924—2 December 2014 I met Maurice Saxby the first time I attended a meeting of the NSW Branch of the Children’s Book Council. I was in my mid-20s, and I had not long since decided that I wanted to make children’s books my life’s work. I had met Ros Bastian, who…
Read MoreRead the damn books
A bit over ten years ago, I was writing a Master’s thesis on feminist retellings of fairy tales in novels for teenagers. My interest in fairy tale retellings was to analyse the books through the prism of both narrative theory—to investigate the robust shape of these stories over the centuries—and that of the strong feminist…
Read MoreKylie Fornasier’s Masquerade
Back on August 2, I spoke at the launch of Kylie Fornasier‘s debut young adult novel Masquerade. I initially met Kylie through my work at WestWords, and since then, we have become friends and colleagues. Masquerade is Kylie’s first YA novel (she has published a chapter book and has a picture book scheduled for 2015), and…
Read MoreCrafting memory
I’ve always been primarily a fiction reader, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found a real interest in and attraction to memoir, and to certain types of non-fiction associated with personal stories. I’ve always liked biography, and indeed, as a young person a lot of the fiction I read (in late primary school, early high…
Read MoreRemembering Nestlé Write Around Australia
I’ve had a lot of terrific jobs over the years, and one of the nicest was working on the Nestlé Write Around Australia creative writing program for kids. For those of you who don’t know it, it was a national program for kids in (equivalent of) Years 5 and 6, that involved sending authors to 50…
Read MoreDear Mr Pyne
I am sure anyone who knows me or reads this blog has a pretty fair idea of where my political and ideological affiliations sit. I won’t go on in length here about the recent budget or the horrors of the past 8 months under this LNP government… that’s what Facebook and Twitter are for, after…
Read MoreFrom the Vault: Alice in the Undertoad
From misrule.com.au/s9y Originally published Saturday March 6 2010 ________________________________________ I went to see Alice in Wonderland last night. As some of my readers will know, Alice is one of my favourite books. I have a smallish but nice collection of different editions of Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, as well as another small but interesting collection of Alice-abilia/-iana, whatever you call…
Read MoreWhither the Children’s Book? From the Vault: Wednesday, June 15 2011
This post was first published in June 2011, but it’s as relevant as the day I wrote it. Just this weekend, in fact, I read a review which described Neil Gaiman‘s Fortunately, The Milk, as being for ‘the younger end of the YA readership’. Um, no. That would be CHILDREN. Remember them? They’re not mini-teenagers.…
Read MoreWe can’t all be Miss Honey and maybe we shouldn’t even try.
I got a little bit cranky on Twitter tonight. Oh, that’s nothing unusual. Twitter is kind of designed to make you cranky—indeed, that’s why many people, it seems to me, seek it out. Me, I usually retreat when I start to feel my blood pressure rise. Emotional equilibrium is pretty precious to me, and I’m…
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