A saltine battery

I've added a new category to my blog today. The "me being a self-righteous git" tag will be reserved for posts that deal with my single greatest literary bug-bear -- those people who stuff the written English language into a sack, tie off the end and proceed to kick thirteen shades of crap out of it, inspired by nothing other than complete ignorance of what certain words look like.

For example, yesterday I saw, on one of those school signs with the slide-in letters, the following message:

GOOD LUCKT OUR DEBATING TEAM

One might argue that the T had slipped slightly to the left, but what happened to the O? And how did it slip, when the whole message was locked behind a quarter-inch-thick sheet of perspex?

And then, this very morning, on a newsblog comment page, someone wrote this gem:

One hour is long enough, little lone eight.

Clearly the creators of these sentences know what said sentences should sound like, but haven't ever seen them written down.

I fear that this won't be the last of these posts.

NSW Premier's Literary Awards Shortlist

At Gleebooks today, the shortlists for the 2008 NSW Premier's Literary Awards were read out. And joy of joys, Town was on the Ethel Turner (young adult) shortlist! The winners will be announced on Monday, 19th of May.

In a feeble attempt to make up in some tiny way for the years of the kids'/YA lists being neglected in the press at the expense of the 'real' books, here is the Ethel Turner shortlist and the Patricia Wrightson (children's) list. The rest of the categories can be found here.

Ethel Turner Prize for young people’s literature
Lollie Barr - The Mag Hags - Random House Australia Pty Ltd
David Metzenthen - Black Water - Penguin Group (Australia)
Robert Newton - The Black Dog Gang - Penguin Group (Australia)
James Roy - Town - University of Queensland Press
David Spillman & Lisa Wilyuka - Us Mob Walawurru - Magabala Books Aboriginal Corporation
Lizzie Wilcock - GriEVE - Scholastic Australia Pty Ltd

Patricia Wrightson Prize
Aaron Blabey - Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley - Penguin Group (Australia)
Martin Chatterton - The Brain Finds a Leg - Little Hare Books
Li Cunxin & Anne Spudvilas (illus) - The Peasant Prince - Penguin Group (Australia)
Liz Lofthouse & Robert Ingpen (illus) - Ziba Came on a Boat - Penguin Group (Australia)
Emily Rodda - The Key to Rondo - Omnibus Books
Carole Wilkinson - Dragon Moon - Black Dog Books

Woolshed Press off and running

On Wednesday evening (April 9) a sizable crowd hit the offices of Random House Australia in North Sydney to celebrate the launch of Australia's newest publishing imprint, Woolshed Press. The publisher is my dear friend Leonie Tyle, formerly of UQP.

First off the press will be books by Bill Condon and Catherine Bateson, followed by Anthony Eaton and a new writer by the name of Victoria Bowen, with Brian Caswell and yours truly publishing our titles later in the year. Other names on the author list are Anne Spudvilas and Celeste Walters.

It was a great night, attended by a huge number of kid-lit personalities, such as Maurice Saxby, Judith Ridge, Margaret Hamilton, Mark Macleod, Rae Turton, Bronwen Bennett, Marj Kirkland, Chris Cheng, Paul MacDonald, Alyssa Brugman, Deb Abela, Laurine Croasdale, Tony Davis, Ernie Tucker, Kate Colley, Kris and Catherine from Lateral Learning, and of course the afore-mentioned Bill Condon, Catherine Bateson and Brian Caswell. And the list goes on - sorry if I've missed someone important...

Woolshed was launched by the Random House Australia children's publisher, Linsay Knight.
Keep your eyes peeled for some great titles coming soon!

CBCA Shortlists announced

Well, last Tuesday the Children's Book Council of Australia shortlists were announced. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't disappointed that my book Town wasn't on the older readers' list, especially after it was chosen on at least two Claytons lists. I was quite hopeful, and while I'm really happy to be on the 20-strong list of Notable Books, it would have been nice to see it go one step further. Still, I'm in good company - some of the other books that I thought might be on there but aren't are Cold Skin by Steven Herrick, Solo by Alyssa Brugman, and Daredevils by Bill Condon.

I was also hopeful that Problem Child might at least find its way onto the Younger Readers' notable list, but again, no cigar.

In case you've missed the news, here are the Older Reader and Younger Reader categories. Full lists can be found on the CBCA website.

OLDER READERS

FRENCH, Jackie	PHARAOH: THE BOY WHO CONQUERED THE NILE	Angus&Robertson (HarperCollins Australia)
HARTNETT, Sonya	THE GHOST’S CHILD	Viking (Penguin Group Australia)
HEFFERNAN, John	MARTY’S SHADOW	Omnibus Books (Scholastic Australia)
McDONALD, Meme	LOVE LIKE WATER	Allen & Unwin
METZENTHEN, David	BLACK WATER	Penguin Books (Penguin Group Australia)
NORRINGTON, Leonie	LEAVING BARRUMBI	Omnibus Books (Scholastic Australia)

YOUNGER READERS

CLARK, Sherryl Illustrated by Elissa CHRISTIAN	SIXTH GRADE STYLE QUEEN (NOT!)	Puffin Books (Penguin Group Australia)
FRENCH, Jackie Illustrated by Bruce WHATLEY	THE SHAGGY GULLY TIMES	Angus & Robertson (HarperCollinsPublishers Australia)
HIRSCH, Odo	AMELIA DEE AND THE PEACOCK LAMP	Allen & Unwin
METZENTHEN, David Illustrated by Stephen AXELSEN	WINNING THE WORLD CUP	Puffin Books (Penguin Group Australia)
RODDA, Emily	THE KEY TO RONDO	Omnibus Books (Scholastic Australia)
WILKINSON, Carole	DRAGON MOON	Black Dog Books

Wee Jasper

I just want to thank the lovely kids from Wee Jasper, Bongongo, Reids Flat, Rye Park and Rugby Public Schools for having me at their adventure camp, held at Cooradigbee. These schools are so small that when they have a school camp, they combine several schools, and everyone comes along - every student, every teacher, even (in one case) the teacher's dog.

We had so much fun. Whenever the kids weren't caving, stalking nocturnal critters, having professional tennis coaching, star-gazing or toasting marshmallows, they were having writing workshops with me.

For the record (and for the benefit of the students who were there), here are my five things:

1. Weirdest thing: the two Yr 6 boys who seemed incapable of saying anything but "Why?"
2. Funniest thing: The reaction when Mason pulled out the snake/legless lizard.
3. Scariest/worst thing: Hearing it rain all night and worrying that I might have to run workshops for 40 Kindy-Yr 6 students for an entire day. Also, having the telescope guys out there on a night of heavy cloud, but not having them there the following night, when the skies were perfectly clear.
4. Best thing: Hearing Ben read. That was pretty brave, Ben. Also, the huge batch of scones the ladies whipped up in the kitchen of the shearers' quarters.
5. The most interesting thing I learnt: Adding a cup of lemonade to your scone mix makes them FANTASTIC!

'Trust Me!'

Ford Street Publishing has just released Trust Me!, a 'sampler' of stories, poems and pictures by 46 of Australia’s best known children’s authors, poets and illustrators. Original stories, poems and art cross all genres: mystery, romance, crime, fantasy, SF, humour and more.

I haven't read every contribution just yet, but the ones that really caught my attention were those by Doug Macleod, Lili Wilkinson and Catherine Bateson. There's also a fantastic Twilight Zoney story in there by Scot Gardner, called Answers.

Paula Kelly of the CYL will be launching 'Trust Me!' at the State Library of Victoria on April 10 at 4pm. Many of the contributers will be there to sign your copy, so get along!

So for anyone thinking that they'd like to give a different genre a bit of a bash, this is a pretty easy way to do it. $22.95 rrp, wherever good books are sold...

Resurrection

OK, no comments about delusions of grandeur please: what I'm about to say might sound like I think that I'm the Messiah. I'm don't. I just think it's kind of weird that my jamesroy.blogspot.com blog vanished some time around Good Friday. Gone. Dead. Given up the ghost. And then, three (or so) days after it went to blog heaven (no explanation has been forthcoming from the good people at Google, by the way) it has returned, brighter, more majestic and probably better for the experience.

Now, the tragedy is that all my groovy posts have gone, swallowed up by the everlasting fires of Google hell. Some might say that at least metaphorically, those posts were like my sins, which are now gone. I think that's stretching it a bit. But the hard fact is, all that old stuff was swept away on the Friday, and a reincarnation was back a few days later.

I'll let you make up your own mind.

Anyway, to recap on what went missing when my blog mysteriously vanished...

• Kevin Rudd's apology speech (good)
• Brendan Nelson's reply to above apology speech (bad)
• Some interesting adventures in bad architecture (weird)
• A response to something lili wilkinson said about something to do with editors, Mitchell & Webb, and something. Oh yeah, the American guy who says that books arouse him in odd ways.
  
• Some movie reviews: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (3.5 stars); The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (3.5 stars); The Golden Compass (2.5 stars); Juno (4.5 stars); Hey Hey, It's Esther Blueburger (3.5 stars).
• An awesome Youtube video of Taylor Mali talking about teachers
• A couple of pretty schmicko reviews of Town, by yours truly (the book, not the reviews)
• A couple of photos from our school reunion
• Some random stuff about books, festivals and other writers (all good, of course)

So now you're up to speed. To paraphrase someone famous and wise (Confucius, Oscar Wilde or Walt Whitman, no doubt), this post is the first post of the rest of my blog.