Check it out! Adrian Beck and Sally Rippin‘s new KidLit series has officially launched. And what a better way to start than an interview with Kristin Gill and Kim Kane, author of #GingerGreen – our favourite feisty fox series. If you’re on the go, you can listen to the podcast version here: https://t.co/7LCUlXpYMz 🦊🌟📚

The Kid Lit Club is an ongoing video podcast, where you can join bestselling kids’ authors Sally Rippin and Adrian Beck as they discuss children’s books from all angles, featuring author interviews as well as behind-the-scenes exclusives. Whether you’re a teacher, parent, author or a book industry professional, this is the podcast for you!

The anticipated Stella Prize longlist was announced last night. This award recognises and celebrates Australian women writers’ contribution to literature, both in non-fiction and fiction categories.

Booked Out was absolutely thrilled to see not one, but two familiar faces in the Longlist: Bri Lee, nominated for her timely memoir Eggshell Skull, and Maria Tumarkin with Axiomatic, a genre-defying and engrossing read.

Congratulations to Bri, Maria, and all those on the longlist!

Read about all the nominees on the Stella website.

Booked Out is delighted to announce that Cate Kennedy will be joining the VCE Twilight Seminars series in 2019 to speak on Like a House on Fire.

This special event will allow students to deepen their understanding of Like a House on Fire through Cate’s comprehensive sixty-minute talk encompassing her writing process and covering themes of love, family, regret, pain and salvation.

This will be followed by an open floor thirty-minute Q&A session for students to ask questions about topics they may find challenging.

Students who attend Cate’s talks benefit immensely from hearing directly from their studied author, and value having their questions answered with gentleness, intelligence and enthusiasm from Cate.

”Cate Kennedy was excellent!  She was engaging, warm and suggested useful, practical strategies that the students can use in their own writing. The students said they found her presentation really interesting … the kids were really engaged for the full hour.”
– Camberwell High School.

Event details are:

Date: Thursday, 28th March 2019
Time: Talk: 5.15pm – 6.15pm. Q&A and Signing: 6.15pm – 6.45pm (optional).
Venue: Village Roadshow Theatrette, State Library of Victoria
Cost: $18.00 pp, incl. GST
RSVP: Friday, 15th March 2019

This event is a part of a Booked Out VCE Twilight Seminars series, with other events scheduled for Maxine Beneba Clarke and Toni Jordan.

To secure your place at our event for Cate, please download and fill out the booking form, and email it to bookings@bookedout.com.au.

This event is a part of a Booked Out’s ‘Night at State Library VCE series’, with other events scheduled for Cate Kennedy and Toni Jordan later in 2019. Email us to find out more.

We will never tire of saying congratulations to the incredible and empowering Bri Lee. Bri is now winner of the People’s Choice Award category in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for Eggshell Skull (an office favourite). The accolades just keep on coming! ⭐️🐣💀💖

And we’re off! To all the students starting school today, or simply returning for the new year, we wish you a fantastic year full of success and fun! 📚👩‍🏫📝

After surviving one of the most deadly diseases, Mike is passionate about teaching resilience and his unique and practical method of ‘simplification’. Check out Mike’s interview with the ABC here, describing how physical transformations can lead to life changing mental transformations.

We are thrilled to see our speakers strongly represented in the shortlisted Indie Book Awards for 2019. We have speakers represented in each of the six categories, excluding Illustrated NonFiction and Fiction.

Our celebrated speakers are:

BRI LEE: Shortlisted for Eggshell Skull under Nonfiction. Bri is one of our new recruits, and is intelligent and passionate about justice in the legal system for sexual assault survivors.

CHRIS HAMMER: Shortlisted for Scrublands under Debut Fiction. Scrublands is a bestselling Australian crime novel set in a drought-ravaged town, and has rave reviews for its style and authenticity.

CHRISTIAN WHITE: Shortlisted for The Nowhere Child under Debut Fiction. This title has been a smash hit, and is already in talks to develop the story into a movie.

ERIN GOUGH: Shortlisted for Amelia Westlake under Young Adult. This is a gorgeous novel that we can’t wait to read – with a strong feminist theme, this novel is great for girls schools.

DAVINA BELL: Shortlisted for All the Ways to be Smart under Children’s. Inclusivity is what we are about at Booked Out, and All the Ways to be Smart encapsulates this perfectly.

Refreshed and tanned from the summer break, Booked Out has returned for a ripper 2019.

Though we mourn the loss of our glorious banana palm tree to the Melbourne heat, we are ready and looking forward to the big year ahead.

To set up your speakers for your 2019, we are now available on 03 9824 0177.

We hope everybody had a rejuvenating rest, and look forward to a fantastic 2019.

The days are heating up, the Christmas carols are playing, and the Booked Out team is winding up for 2018 – that’s right, we are taking some time to get some rest, relaxation, and reading done before we launch into 2019!

The Booked Out office will be closed from the 20th of December through to the 14th of January.

We will be back in January: informed, up to date, enthusiastic and ready to make recommendations for the most suitable authors, illustrators, and poets for your class, school, library or festival in 2019.

In the meantime, please do have a good look at our website – unlike us mere humans, the website runs 24/7.

You can also email us at bookings@bookedout.com.au and we will respond to your query when we return to the office.

A huge thanks to all our wonderful clients, authors, illustrators and speakers for all the support in 2018, and we’ll see you in the new year!