Congratulations to Cath Crowley for winning the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature in the recently announced 2011 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.

Graffiti Moon is Cath’s fifth young adult novel and has been one of our fave YA picks in the office of late.

The full list of award winners can be found here.

Morris Gleitzman has just released his 32nd book, Too Small to Fail.

Who better than Morris to tackle the issue of the global financial crisis and use it as the backdrop for a comic and poignant account of one boy’s longing for a caring family and love for a puppy.

At The Little Bookroom last week the book was launched by a very confident and funny 12 yr old. Harriet Walker – a name to watch – held the audience with great humour and insight as she gave her review about the hapless Oliver and his merchant banker parents who give him everything the wants except love and a puppy.

The talented Bec Kavanagh recently interviewed Meg Mundell for the A Thousand Words newsletter. We’ve taken a snippet of the Q&A below and the full interview can be read here.

A Thousand Words has a competition for readers under 18 years of age to win a free copy of Meg’s debut novel Black Glass. To enter email bec@athousandwordsfestival.com.au and describe what smell brings back the strongest memories for you and why.

The ‘moodies’ (characters who control the atmosphere of a room by altering peoples sensory experience) are fascinating. Where did the idea for these artists come from?

Partly that came from my past experience working as a DJ, watching how different sounds would affect the behaviour of a crowd. Also I’m interested in space and the senses, and how we experience different places through sound, colour, touch, smell. And I wanted the Moodie to be a creative character who has to face some tricky moral questions – is it ethical to secretly control people in this way? Where does art stop and greed take over?

What kind of research did you do to be able to describe so well the kinds of scents and sounds that the majority of readers would respond to in the same way as the characters?

Well, I did a lot of sniffing! Strange, but true. I looked into the effects of certain smells, colours and sounds on human behaviour. There are all sorts of theories and experiments circling around out there. For example, about half of the casinos in Las Vegas pump special smells through their air-conditioning systems to encourage people to stay longer and spend more money. Apparently fast-food restaurants often use the colours red and yellow, which stimulate your appetite, so you eat fast and move on, leaving your table free for another customer. And at some train stations overseas they play dodgy, uncool “muzak” through the speakers to discourage teenagers from hanging around. Those sorts of ideas found their way into the book.

A Thousand Words is an Australian literature festival that celebrates children’s stories, brings books out of the classroom and helps to develop a wide-reaching network for readers and writers. The [missing asset] festival runs September 23-24, 2011.

Fans of the cryptic crosswords appearing in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald will bring recollections of many hours spent wrestling with words to find solutions planned out by the puzzle creator, DA.

More recent initiates, fans of SBS television’s Letters and Numbers will have more to go on: a face and a full name to put to the initials.

This man is David Astle, and he is the subject of a large scale portrait by Melbourne artist Amanda Marburg, which is a finalist in this years 90th installment of the prestigious Archibald Prize. Marburg’s art practice has long relied on painstaking reproduction, in oil on linen, of plasticine sculptures she makes of her subjects.

The Archibald continues at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until 26 June, before going on tour around Australia.

Amanda Marburg’s image is used courtesy the artist, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and Rex Irwin Art Dealer.

Before heading off for Easter holidays, I went along to see Dr Leslie Cannold speak at The Wheeler Centre as part of their Lunchbox/Soapbox series. Her speech was provocatively titled The Trouble with Feminists, which we were quickly told was that there aren’t enough of them.

Dr Cannold focussed on the fictional worlds created in literature as the battlefield in which female characters must fight for their entitled space.

‘But just like their real-life counterparts, fictional females don’t need to be good or virtuous or admirable to be entitled to half. In their case, to half of the space in stories our culture tells about itself to ourselves.’

Dr Cannold has written several books and chapters on various ethical issues including motherhood and abortion in Australia. Her first fiction novel was published last month, The Book of Rachael.

Other new speakers we have added in April are:

• Meyer Eidelson, historian and naturalist.
• Pelissa Tsilimidos-Thorne, NSW HSC English specialist.
• Jack Heath, author and boywonder.
• David Stavanger: Ghostboy, psychologist turned performance poet.
• Ken Haley, journalist and inspirational speaker who has travelled the world in his wheelchair.
• Dr Tony Birch, historian, short story writer and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at The University of Melbourne.
• Arabella Forge, dietitian and food writer.
• Mary Delahunty, author and former Education and Arts minister for Victoria.
• Karen Healey, contemporary fantasy author.
• Brian Falkner, recently migrated NZ author.

Please welcome our new speakers by clicking on their page.

Until next month, yours sincerely,

Esther Kennedy

Today sees Michael Pryor’s last book in the Laws of Magic series,Hour of Need hit the bookstores nation wide.

Michael paved the way for Australian steampunk when Laws of Magicfirst hit the shelves. In Hour of Need we say farewell to the much loved characters (bye bye Aubrey, George and Caroline!); and Michael heads back to his studio to begin work on a new series.

Read all about the Laws of Magic on Michael’s site here, and get an insight into Michael’s writing process with this interview he did for Tristan Bancks’ site.

In April 2011, the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa launched “Writers in Motion,” a study tour of the Mid-Atlantic and the American South, where eight international writers are exploring the theme of “Fall and Recovery.” The writers are traveling to Gettysburg, Baltimore, New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, Birmingham, AL, and Washington, D.C. to examine some of the challenges presented by historical crises and upheavals, both natural and social. This piece was generated from this project.

Earlier today the Children’s Book Council of Australia announced the shortlisted books for their much coveted Book of the Year Awards.

Booked Out would like to offer a big congratulations to the following authors:

Book of the Year (Older Readers)

• Cath Crowley, Graffiti Moon
• Joanne Horniman, About a Girl
• Doug Macleod, The Life of a Teenage Body-Snatcher
• Melina Marchetta, The Piper’s Son
• Fiona Wood, Six Impossible Things

Book of the Year (Younger Readers)

• Michael Gerard Bauer, Just a Dog
• Isobelle Carmody, The Red Wind

Book of the Year (Early Childhood)

• Mitch Vane, illus. The Deep End
• Leonie Norrington, Look See, Look at Me!
• Freya Blackwood, illus. Maudie and Bear

Picture Book of the Year

• Nicki Greenberg, Hamlet
• Kim Kane, The Family Forest

Eve Pownall Award for Information Books

• Terry Denton, illus. Wicked Warriors & Evil Emperors: The True Story of the Fight for Ancient China

And congratulations to all our authors whose books were chosen for the Notables list: Randa Abdel-Fattah, Robyn Bavati, Anthony Eaton, Jackie French, Scot Gardner, Leanne Hall, Nette Hilton, Kirsty Murray, Michael Pryor, Catherine Bateson, Sherryl Clark, Justin D’Ath, Julia Lawrinson, Glenda Millard, Jane Godwin, Anna Walker, Sue DeGennaro, David Miller, Felicity Marshall, Sally Rippin, Gabrielle Wang, Anne Spudvilas and Mark Wilson.