Mapping (Melbourne) Course - Participants wanted!

Are you aged 15-21?

Interested in adventures in creative mapping?

Please join our workshop! Wednesdays 5-7 at Signal, opposite Flinders Street Station. 

Mapping (Me)lbourne with Lisa D’Onofrio & Simmone Howell

Most people are familiar with the idea of maps as representations of geographical information, but mapmaking can tell our personal stories, assist us to understand the world around us and our place within it.

In Mapping (Me)lbourne you will make maps that are not just for directions but are works of art and inspired imagination. Meet a cartographer, undertake urban wanderings, create a map using writing, photography and collage.

Your maps will be published and distributed as alternative city guides.

Dates:Wednesdays from 17 April to 15 May


Time: 5pm to 7pm


Cost: Free



Bookings essential: book online 

Out in the World

OK, Girl Defective has been out for about a month now. Big thanks to the people who have bought it, read it, stuck up stickers and in general helped put the word out. I thought I'd link to some interviews/reviews so that they're all in the one place.

There was an article by Jason Steger in the Age here
An interview with the Wheeler Centre here
An interview with Danielle Binks aka Alphareader here
Some love on the Ladies Of YA podcast here
and a review from Steph Bowe who digs on the nostalgia.

In other news: here's what I've been reading:

I'll Tell You Mine  - Pip Harry

Goth girl with big secret gets kicked out of home to board at her school. I loved the character of Kate who is dark, messy, troubled but getting there, getting to like herself and her life. Excellent realistic contemporary YA.

Shadows by Paula Weston
A so-fast-it-crackles ride featuring a great female protagonist and hot fallen angels, rooted in myth but firmly set in an urban environment. The second book in the series Haze is just about to pop so I'm looking forward to falling into Gabe's world again, this time I'll have my wits about me :)

Freia Lockhart's Summer of Awful - Aimee Said
Freia's voice funny, awkward and true. In this, the sequel to Finding Freia Lockhart she foibly family, not-always forthcoming friends, confusing boyfriend and irritating oldsters. Said is great on the little details and there were moments reading this where I smiled myself silly. NB: there is also a recipe for peanut butter-y brownies in the back of the book. Aces.

Everything Left Unsaid - Jessica Davidson
A book about first love and life. Moving and sad and lovely. Written in alternate boy/girl voices. I loved Jessica's first book, a verse novel called Blue ... I love how real her characters are and how in the telling you get the seriousness of teenage relationships and the sometimes gulf between child and parent. Anyway, Get tissues.

Fly - Ann Witherall
Set in Melbourne's punk scene - this is not YA but has a teen protagonist, a runaway. Fast, furious, visceral.  I am slowly collecting my books about Melbourne's subcultures and this sits alongside Michelle Moo's  Glory This and Sharpie and Top Fellas... all books published independently of course but deserving of a wider readership...


Willeford's reading Arkie Sparkle, The Nim Stories, Once upon a Slime and Tom Gates.

Girl Defective giveaway winners!

WINNERS OF GIRL DEFECTIVE GIVEAWAY

Thanks to all who entered! I wish I could send my book around willy-nilly - I will say that it is quite cheap on Bookworld if you're an e-reader ... costs the same as two fancy coffees and less than a trip to the movies to see a likely crap Hollywood movie!


AUSTRALIA

Georgia!

@GeorgiaHille

@Postteeen Elliot Smith's Needle In The Hay. It feels like spiders/ Crawling all over your arms/ But in a good way #girldefective

INTERNATIONAL

INTERNATIONAL

Emily!

‏@gonnella93

@Postteen Sweet Child of Mine by Guns&Roses it was the first thing that brought Dad and I together as people not just family #girldefective

Exciting Book News!

I can now announce the following:

		Children's: Young Adult		Simmone Howell's GIRL DEFECTIVE, pitched as a teen noir "High Fidelity" featuring a 15-year-old girl, her older, wilder best friend, and her kid brother, who go to the dark heart of their Coney Island-esque suburb in search of startling truths by way of teenage raves, rock star spawn, violent fangirls, and strange, true love, to Namrata Tripathi at Atheneum, in a good deal, in a pre-empt, by Jill Grinberg at Jill Grinberg Literary Management (NA).

Unconventional Women/Defective Girls

Reading Alannah Hill's My Secret Melbourne sent me into delicious reverie. I attach her to my memory of old St Kilda and I completely wish she would write a book about her coming-to-vision and early years. I have a dream project of writing about incredible/inspirational/odd women for young girls - and Alannah Hill is on my list. NB: Occasionally I wear a flower in my hair but I am not an Alannah Hill type - I wear jeans (in winter). I own, like, one bra. I read that AH is peeved by women-without-lipstick - and you know, all my glamour is in my head, but I remember her sitting in the Indigo store on Chapel Street around 1987 with her black bob and Kewpie-doll mouth and she was formidable. I love her story of arriving from Tassie with suitcases of clothes - and sleeping in her suitcase. It calls to mind Madonna arriving in New York with stretch tights and fifty bucks in her pocket - or even Carrie from Sex & the City sleeping on her fur coat which in turn makes me think of Loco in How to Marry a Millionaire conning men into buying her groceries... These were wily women with dreams! Making their own opportunities!

(Speaking of I just found this series version of HTMAM with Barbara Eden as Loco. Enjoy!)


 

This week's haul plus launch-y thanks

I had a Readings gift voucher so I was FORCED to buy books! Shiny new fragrant books that I have new-discovered or hankered-after. Here they are:

In other news the book launch for my Girl Defective and Kate Constable's New Guinea Moon went off without a hitch. It was very hot and hectic but it feels great to have done it. Also it was lovely to see people of old and twitter/FB friends and some super-troupers came down from Castlemaine and the small cakes were very tasty indeed. So thanks to Readings and Emily Gale (Super-Book Buyer) and Sean O'Beirne (Super Introducer & date-wrangler) and all who came, or tried to. There might be a photo or two floating around ... Maybe.

Next week I am off to Somerset to love on the YA, the week after that I'm doing a little creative chat during the Castlemaine State Festival which I will report on when the date is confirmed...

Girl Defective Launch Day Give-away

Hello - the launch for Girl Defective is TONIGHT!
To celebrate I'm giving away the following prize pack:

1. Copy of the book Girl Defective
2. GD satchel (exclusive! one in existence only!)
3. Copy of St Kilda sketchbook
4. CD of tracks featured in the book!

NOTE! Due to exorbitant postage the prize pack is only for Australian entries. BUT a second prize containing GD & cd is open to International entries.

SO here's what you have to do:

Music runs throughout GD. Sky, my main character works in the family record shop and plays certain songs that have special meaning for her.

To win  the super oz prize pack or the super international book & cd combo please tweet me your favourite song with a line or two two  indicating what you love about it, what it makes you feel etc ...

tweet your song to @postteen and tag it #girldefective
You can enter as many times as you like!

This competition closes in two weeks on March 20th

And here is an example from the book. Sky talking about Kraftwerk's Neon Lights:
"It was so long and spare and glittery-sad. It made me feel like I was falling off the face of the earth."