Favourite Australian Novels

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Bron

There’s currently two opportunities for readers to have their say about their favourite Australian novels – and both also have the chance of prizes for those who nominate books.

Over at the ABC’s First Tuesday Book Club website, to celebrate the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, they’re giving you the opportunity to nominate your Favourite Australian Novel of 2008. For those who enter, there’s a chance to win all of the books shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s prize.

It will be interesting to see what books are nominated and selected in this ‘people’s choice’ survey, and how they compare to the literary works shortlisted for the PM’s prize. (The books shortlisted are: The Pages, Murray Bail; People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks; Wanting, Richard Flanagan; Everything I Knew, Peter Goldsworthy; One Foot Wrong, Sofie Laguna; The Boat, Nam Le; and The Good Parents, Joan London.)

(NB: As Darkness Falls was published in 2008, so if by chance it was your favourite Australian book last year, please feel free to nominate it 🙂 )

The second poll and contest is being run by the Australian Book Review, and they’re asking for readers to nominate their favourite Australian novel. The blog post announcing the poll notes that, although there have been several previous polls/surveys to find the favourite book of Australians, past ones haven’t been limited to novels, or to Australian works. So this one is specifically focused on Australian novels. For those who enter this poll, there’s a chance to win several prizes including a complete set of popular Penguins.

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Over there…

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Bron

I’m blogging at the 2007 Golden Heart finalists’ blog, Nobody Writes it Better, today – on influential fictional characters. Come on over and find out which Abbey Girl was my favourite…. and because I’m in the mood, there’s a giveaway over there, too!

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Great review – and giveaway!

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Bron

One of the romance review blogs I read regularly is Wendy’s The Misadventures of SuperLibrarian. She loves the romance genre, but recognises that it’s not all perfect, and I enjoy her straight-forward review style, her honest comments on why books work, or don’t work, for her, and her wit and sense of humour. I also enjoy the insights into the librarian’s life and role, and the snippets Wendy shares about what’s popular with her patrons in California.

Wendy reviewed As Darkness Falls last year, and enjoyed it, so I suggested to my publisher that they send her Dark Country – which they did. Wendy has just posted her review of Dark Country – and it’s a great and positive review. Thanks, Wendy, for taking the time to read, and review, my books!

In an email discussion with Wendy before her review went live, we decided to offer a giveaway on her blog. Since most of her readers are from north America, and aren’t likely to find my books in the local bookshop, we’re giving away a copy of both As Darkness Falls AND Dark Country to one lucky commentor. So, if you’d like to be in with a chance to win, hop on over to Wendy’s blog and leave a comment there. The giveaway will be drawn next Wednesday, 21st October.

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An abundance of good things

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Bron

There’s been some good things happening in the past week or so…

First up, the UK edition of As Darkness Falls has now been released and is available in UK bookstores and online booksellers. So, a warm welcome to intrepid UK readers who find their way over here to the blog! The only UK review I’m aware of so far is at lovereading.co.uk, where it is listed as a ‘Debut of the month’, with some very positive comments. Let’s hope other reviewers and readers enjoy it, too!

Secondly, on Friday I signed and posted off the contract for two more books, so now it’s all official! The third and last book in the Dungirri series will be published in September, 2010, with the first book in a new, loosely-linked series, to follow in September 2011. I’ve been very impressed by the professionalism, support, and enthusiasm for my books from everyone at Hachette, so it’s a special pleasure to be committing to publishing another two books with them.

Last week I also accepted an offer for publication of a short story – ‘Dear Ruth’ will be in the Woman’s Day magazine, sometime around January. It’s a short glimpse into the back story of a couple of Dungirri’s characters… It was fun to write, once I came up with the idea, so I hope readers will enjoy it!

Next up, it was my birthday on Sunday. When it comes to birthdays, my inner seven-year-old is alive and well 🙂 I had a lovely day, with some knitting, some weaving, lunch in town with Gordon and some friends, and Gordon’s home-baked lemon tea muffins for afternoon tea. Delicious!

So, what’s coming up? Writing, writing, and more writing… book 3 isn’t quite as advanced as I’d like it to be at this point, so I have some catching up to do. However, I’ve managed to work through a problem I was having with it, so hopefully it will be full steam ahead from now on.

And what’s coming up for my readers? Well, due to a snafu experienced on my newsletter email list last month, as a result of which some subscribers got multiple mailings (much to my embarrassment!), I’ve promised the list that there will be a subscriber-only giveaway this month. I’m still finalising details, but I’ll be posting out the information to the list, I hope in the next week or so. If you’d like to be in with a chance, hit the ‘newsletter’ link on the menu bar at the top of the page, and subscribe to the newsletter. (It’s free, I won’t sell or giveaway your email address, and I send on average less than one newsletter per month.)

For those not wanting to subscribe, I have it on good authority that there’ll be a chance to win my books coming very soon at a book reviewer’s blog – stay tuned for more details!

Now, just to finish this post on a delicious note, here’s a photo of my birthday afternoon tea treat:

Lemon Tea Muffins

Lemon Tea Muffins

Posted in Book news, General | 2 Comments

Weekend achievements

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Bron

Now that the busy, full-of-travelling months of August and September are over, and ‘all’ I have to do until the end of the year is write a book (!), I’m trying to make sure that I balance my life a bit more: using productive writing time effectively, and using non-writing time to get out of the chair and achieve other things – including some exercise!

We moved into our place over eight years ago, and we always planned to have a garden, but starting from scratch on a block out of town with limited water is a challenge, and an expensive one at that! So, other than a small herb patch outside the kitchen window, we haven’t done a lot yet. Years ago, Gordon fenced a large area a short distance from the house, intended to become the main vegetable garden/orchard, but that’s been waiting all this time for gates and a system to get water from the small dam to the garden – other than lugging buckets!

The landscaping around the house is also a major work – involving drainage systems, earthworks, water tanks and pumps and other structural elements. Our designer friend Kerry has drawn up a preliminary design, so hopefully soon we will get started on stage one of that.

However, I’ve really been missing having a garden – both the pleasure of working in one and eating fresh produce, and the physical exercise and activity in just getting outside on a regular basis. So, on Saturday, Gordon and I went into town and bought a few bits and pieces, and on Saturday afternoon set to work. While I cleared stuff, Gordon mowed the fenced area – it’s 30 metres by 20 metres, so the size of some house blocks. Then we made a gate out of chicken wire and star posts, and hung it. It’s not beautiful, but it’s functional! Yesterday, I raked up the ‘grass’ while Gordon built the first garden box, using railway sleepers we’ve had in anitcipation for years. Then I spread gypsum, to help break up the clay soil, and we spread the raked grass into the garden bed. I still need to cart a lot of soil to build up the garden, and add in whatever organic materials will help eventually make decent soil, and, once I plant, I’ll have to carry water by buckets from the dam nearby, until the landscaping/drainage/tanks/pumps are in place. For that reason, we’ll start with just one garden bed, but eventually there will be several in this patch, plus fruit trees – as well as the eventual landscape garden around the house.

But this is a beginning, and I’m very happy about it. And despite aching muscles from raking and such (it’s a long time since I raked lawns every weekend when I was growing up!), I feel better for the outdoor activity.

Garden beginnings

Garden beginnings

First layer of material

First layer of material

'Consulting' with the supervisors :-)

'Consulting' with the supervisors 🙂

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