Cath Crowley will be conducting a live chat for The Reading Room next Wednesday, 29th February, at 11am Eastern Standard Time.

Cath invites people to log in to be able to ask her about … well anything that they want to know!

We’re guessing people will be familiar with Cath’s blog might be tempted to ask about her use of poetry, or her recent US book launch (Graffiti Moon came out in the US on Valentine’s Day).

You’ll need to create a (free) account on The Reading Room and then use this link to get to the session.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, a day when lovers everywhere stare longingly into each other’s eyes over shared bowls of spaghetti. Or so I hear. My lonely boyfriend will be working late as I head to my evening writing class which is hosted by the very skillful Sally Rippin. The love of words is rife in this one.

But when every other Valentine’s Day is celebrated between couples falling in love – a day which often excludes the singles, the recently single, the too young to care, the too careless to care – 2012 offers a refreshing alternative that everyone can celebrate. Tomorrow is the 14th of February, and more importantly, the launch of the National Year of Reading. “But every year should be about reading!” I hear you say. And so it should be. But this year we’re celebrating it properly, with posters and banners and books aplenty. If you want to know more about NYOR head here.

And it seems that authors are celebrating too – because they’re certainly giving us some gold to read. I’ve just finished Doug MacLeod’s new book The Shiny Guys – a surreal, entertaining and thoughtful novel about mental illness and strange friendships and I loved it. So I opened the pages of Gabrielle Williams’ much anticipated new novel The Reluctant Hallelujah and already I’m loving that too. It bodes well for a year which is all about reading, that there is so much quality just waiting to be read. I for one, am hoping to read it all.

• Bec Kavanagh, Booked Out

Browse a list of speakers who work with Booked Out, and have a role as Ambassador for the 2012 National Year of Reading here. These speakers may have limited availability — but contact us to find out if they can help with your Year of Reading event.

On the weekend I opened a note from a friend that contained the list of resolutions which we’d written for 2010 and hidden in a book. To my surprise (and relief) I had actually managed to achieve most of the resolutions. The rest I no longer cared about, which was quite a nice feeling too. I like to make resolutions because it feels as though the new year might have something to offer that the old one didn’t, that things could be better, that I could achieve more, that the slate might be wiped clean so that I could start over. There are, of course, those resolutions that seem to happen every year, and are shared by most of us, and on of the most common is to be healthier, to exercise more and to eat well.

Aside from being wonderful speakers in the flesh, a lot of our wellbeing speakers have blogs of books that can be a great motivation to get moving on this resolution and start living well.

Lola Berry – www.lolaberry.com With recipes and ideas for healthier eating and a gleeful attitude to exercise and health, this is a great first stop, especially in the warmer summer months.

Lauren Burns Lauren’s book Food From a Loving Home has delicious vegetarian recipes by Lauren (who is an ex-olympian and nutritionist) as well as amazing cakes that you can take for afternoon tea if your resolution is to spend more time with loved ones and also natural, homemade remedies for skin and to ward off illness as you get back into work.

Arabella Forge – www.frugavore.com If you want to just live better and eat better, being a frugavore (or at least taking notes from one as passionate as Arabella) is a must. And with farmer’s markets popping up everywhere, there’s no nicer way to spend a Saturday morning than shopping for and eating fresh-from-the-ground food.

-Bec Kavanagh

Jeannette Rowe’s popular YoYo books have made the jump from print to pad – iPad. You can now find four interactive books / games available for iPad on the App store, and soon for other mobile devices.

Another Booked Out illustrator to be found on iTunes is Lucia Masciullo. Her beautiful illustrations are featured in the multi-lingual Mr Wolf and the Ginger Cupcakes.

Learn a little more about what’s on offer over at I Heart This App (and vote for it if you try it and like it), and see what other games are available here.

Booked Out author Tim Pegler brought these to our attention and even calls himself an e-book evangelist.

A couple that are very much worth checking out include:

• The Heart and The Bottle, by Oliver Jeffers (Developed by Harper Collins)
• Alice for the iPad, by Lewis Carroll (Developed by Atomic Antelope)
• The Cat In The Hat, by Dr. Seuss (Developed by Oceanhouse Media)

We’ve had a lovely break of summer reading and catching some rays, but now we’re back and well and truly into the swing of things. So email or call us to get your booking enquiries happening before our busy February period.

Hear from you soon!

• The Booked Out Team

Author John Danalis has just returned from a tour of Asia taking in schools in Jakarta and Hong Kong. As always John was a hit with students and staff alike and we received gushing feedback:

Just wanted to say thanks for guiding me through the process of securing Mr. Danalis for the benefit of our students and teachers. I just finished a debriefing with my teachers and each one praised the opportunity and the Mr. Danalis’ message for the kids.

I also had the incredible opportunity to have dinner with Mr. Danalis as well as explored a small bit of HK with him Friday evening. The conversation and the company was AWESOME!

John returns to Jakarta in January 2012.

Booked Out is very proud of Craig Smith! He has been awarded the 2011 Euphemia Tanner Award. It is a biennial award presented by La Trobe University to recognise distinguished services to Children’s Literature and the encouragement of the joys of reading in children.

From the award: “Craig’s generosity to and humility around his fellow creators in the publishing industry is heartwarming and humbling. Children and teachers all around Australia have been lucky enough to work with Craig as he passes on a lifetime of knowledge about translating ideas into lively and engaging images.”

And we at Booked Out are lucky to have such a talented and gracious illustrator on our books.

In 2011 the Australian Book Review launched the [to be] annualElizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. The prize is awarded to an author (emerging or established) for outstanding pieces of fiction.

In 2011 the prize was jointly awarded to Carrie Tiffany, author ofMateship with Birds, and Booked Out’s own Gregory Day. Gregory will go on to be one of the judges in the 2012 prize. Gregory’s story, The Neighbour’s Beans was published in the October 2011 edition of ABR and is still available for purchase via their website.

In 2012, Booked Out is pleased to present a schedule of ground-breaking multi-presenter professional development days for teachers and those working with young people.

Featuring

• Steve Biddulph
• Dr Michael Carr-Gregg
• Maggie Hamilton

For full information go to:

bookedout.com.au/events

Register before December 21 to qualify for the Early Bird rate (1 day/2 days = $200/$300). Please note, payment can be made in the new year if accounts have already been closed.

We hope to see you at one of our events in 2012!