The Truth Is Still Out There

As many of you know, I have been working for some years to dispel the many myths that circulate about penguins. My book The Truth About Penguins was an important step in this process.

Since its publication, I have gone into schools, libraries, festivals - wherever they will have me - presenting the facts to children young and old. Some of my audience, I find, are more easily persuaded than others. Some are downright stubborn.

Earlier this week, to kick off the National Year of Reading, I went down to Kwinana Library. There I attempted, mostly in vain, to preach my penguin-y gospel.

Audience feedback went something like this.

But penguins don't eat pizza! They're not funky! They don't go to the beach! They're not colourful! YOU'RE JUST BEING SILLY!!

It really is hard work, sometimes.

Here's something I found interesting, though. Following my talk, there was a craft activity. A penguin-based activity. Wherein stubborn children who know everything about penguins and think I'm JUST BEING SILLY made snowglobes. With penguins in them. And I watched as

they stuffed handful after handful of glitter into those snowglobes, as they dressed them up in stickers and sequins and colourful ribbon and glitter glue.

Because argue as they might, deep inside themselves, they know that what penguins really love is colour - spots and stripes and great snowing sparkles of it. They know that every penguin's fondest wish is to be as funky as possible.

Thanks for your help in my quest, Kwinana Library. Slowly but surely, my message is gaining ground.

For those still sceptical, I offer this recent news item, from the local shores of Denmark, WA. Two salient details from the article:

The northern rockhopper penguins arrived on Parry and Ocean Beaches early last week ...

Denmark's two penguin visitors were released into the wild last Thursday after a surfboard ride to an island off Walpole.

Beaches! Surfboards! I rest my case.

Career Highlights

Last week I was interviewed over at Books for Little Hands. One of the questions asked what had been the highlight of my career so far and I found it a little difficult to answer, partly because of my maddening tendency to want to unpack the nuances of every word put before me.

I wanted to wrestle for a while with the word 'career' and what that really meant for me and whether it was the 'right' term for what I'm doing with this whole writing thing. And the highlights I arrived at had nothing to do with 'career' really and more to do with small creative satisfactions. So it may be that my response was a bit disingenuous. Possibly even pretentious.

And then the very next day something happened. I had a genuine career highlight, and it was this:

In April this year, my book Duck for a Day was adapted for musical theatre by Tony Bones Entertainment.

Since they only tour on the east coast, I didn't get to see the show, but last week, the lovely Tony himself sent me a DVD of one of the performances. And I feel a little ridiculous, but watching it made me a bit teary.

Firstly, it was gorgeous. It was so well done - so cleverly adapted, so professionally and engagingly presented. The kids in the audience were clearly completely absorbed by the show. Then at the end, Tony talked about the book - why they chose it and how they adapted it, which I found really interesting and which in fact taught me a bit about narrative structure, and what I was doing without even realising it.

Secondly, it made me remember the few shows that I got to see when I was a kid, when performers came to our school, or we walked into town in a long crocodile line ("Just remember who's in front of you and who's behind you and we'll all be okay"). Those experiences have stayed with me. They have a certain glow that persists to this day. And I can't help but be moved by the possibility of that being true for some of those kids, that my story, brought to life so wonderfully, will stay with them. I know that books can work in the same way, but having Duck adapted feels different somehow. Which brings me to my third point ...

Seeing other creators adapt my work

made me feel like my story was becoming, in a small way, part of the fabric of things, becoming more embedded in the creative landscape. It's hard to articulate what I mean, but it's something I found enormously satisfying.

Fourthly, and finally, Max as a marionette. Just saying.

So, there you are. A career highlight. A real one. Thanks, Tony.

Everything Old Is New Again

Or at least one thing. Specifically, this:

It's my new book, The Truth About Penguins. And my old book, The Truth About Penguins.

Confused? Don't be.

If you look closely, you can see differences in the two books - in size, font, and other small elements to do with presentation.*

I'm delighted to announce that The Truth About Penguins will be out in paperback in December, just in time for Christmas. It's lovely to see my work getting a new lease on life like this, and I can only hope the new format helps it find its way into the hands of even more readers over the coming months.


* For the eagle-eyed reader, there is another crucial difference. If you have access to both copies, the last page of text will reveal all.

Out and About

The last couple of months have been a busy time for me. As other writers will attest to, Book Week seems to have turned into Book Month somewhere along the line and I've only just finished a steady stream of school and library visits. I could give you a bunch of stats here but I'd rather sit down and get some writing done, so instead I'll just say that I drove a lot, talked a lot, listened a lot, and laughed a lot. It was energising and exhausting, all at once. And bookings are coming in for 2012, which is lovely, but also a little alarming.

I am always amazed by the creative and insightful ideas kids come up with. There was a great wealth of these this year, but I have to say that my favourite comment from a student was: "Meg, you are the most expiring author I have ever met!" Coming at the end of a long day, this was at once motivating and accidentally apt.

I also spent some time at Beaufort Street Books, a beautiful little bookstore in Mt Lawley (which features a vaguely menacing chef-mannequin - see left). I went along to read and sign and somehow ended up buying books as well. When staff are passionate about the books, they become irresistible.


And back in July, I headed down to Balingup for "Telling Tales", the most beautiful little festival with what feels like the whole town behind it. Balingup was cold and crisp and sunny and absolutely beautiful. Readers came from far and wide. There were workshops and talks and readings. There was even a parade. Telling Tales is worth a mid-winter weekend trip from Perth for anyone into children's books.

In September, I headed for the hills as part of the HeARTlines Festival of Children's Literature and Book Illustrations which took place at Mundaring Arts Centre. I presented as part of both the schools programme and the public programme and was also thrilled to see the originals of some of Leila Rudge's gorgeous illustrations for Duck for a Day and No Bears, which were there throughout September as part of the gallery exhibition.

In the midst of it all, I'm working on two new projects - one junior fiction and one lower YA - and aiming to have first drafts on both by the end of the year. I suspect this will be something of a challenge, but I do love a deadline, even an artificially imposed one.

One final image to leave you with: towards the end of my Book Week travels, I visited a gorgeous little school in Floreat. I spoke to three classes of Year 2s, all of whom had read/heard the complete story of Duck for a Day. They helped me come up with some fantastic ideas for the sequel(s). And they knew all about ducks, because they had some. In preparation for my visit, they had set up an incubator in the library, where they had hatched ducklings - ducklings which waddled about cheeping on the edge of my sessions all day long. It was quite simply too wonderful for words.

Duck Season

Last week I posted about having submitted the draft of a follow-up to Duck for a Day.

Just after that, I experienced another of those curious alignments of which I am so fond.

It was about two years ago that I finished the revisions on the first Duck and the day after sending those off, I woke up to find a duck on my doorstep. At the time I wondered:

Is it a sign?
And if so, what does it mean?

But now I don't need to wonder. Because the day after I finished the draft of my follow-up, I woke to this lovely crew crossing the cul-de-sac at the foot of our yard.

Not just a duck, but a duck with ducklings -- not unlike a book which spawns a sequel (or three?).

So it seems that these visits must be a sign, one that's giving a clear and very duckish nod of approval to my work.

Either that or I've inadvertently timed my duck-related writing cycle with hatching season. I suppose that might also be possible, although as a theory it seems decidedly less charming.

The other reason it's duck season is that Victorian theatre company Tony Bones Entertainment is currently touring a musical theatre adaptation of Duck for a Day in venues across the east coast. As I live in WA, I'm unable to attend a performance myself, but I'm thrilled at the thought of my characters and story coming to life for kids in this way. Max as a marionette! Just thinking about it makes me smile.

A Not-so-tiny Thing

I've been sitting on this news for a while, waiting for an illustrator to be confirmed, but now that all is signed and sealed, I can announce that I have a new picture book forthcoming in 2012!

This one is with Fremantle Press, which is fitting as it's a 'very Freo' book in many ways. It's called Ten Tiny Things and it's inspired by something my daughter and I often do when we go out walking, an activity we have cleverly named “Things We Would Never Have Seen If We Had Been Driving”. As you can see, I have a way with words …

I've seen early sketches and am very excited about what's to come for this book. The illustrator is this guy. He's a little creepy but there's not much I can (or would) do about that. Click on the "Secrets" link on his site to see why he's perfect for the book. You've probably seen his work in the city, possibly without even realising. You would probably have seen more of it had you been on foot ...

Watch this space for more details. Watch the secret spaces all around you for random flashes of loveliness. Go out walking. See if you can spot ten tiny things.

Clean Slate

Today I moved from one state to another.

Today I moved from this ...

... to this:

From a whiteboard covered in scenes and scribble to one covered in nothing but possibility.

Today I sent the draft of a new manuscript off to my editor. It's a sequel to Duck for a Day and I've been working on it for far too long, as is the way of these things from time to time or perhaps more accurately, always. But the main thing is that the draft is done and it's off my desk for now and onto someone else's.

And circumstances have conspired to mean that I don't yet have the editorial report I'm expecting for another book, which means I can't start edits yet and have some clear space. Which means I can dive into thinking and pottering about with a new project, at least for a little while. And if I do enough thinking and pottering, it may grow legs quickly enough that I can start working on it, and that will be my project for the second half of the year.

Of course, there is another duck book percolating, thanks to a stray remark from the always-inspiring Deb Fitzpatrick, but I suspect that can wait a bit, at least until the duck's stern, flinty gaze becomes too difficult to bear.

There is other news on the horizon and in the wings and in the many and various crannies in which news is wont to lurk, but that is for another time.

For now, I shall stare at my clean slate and perhaps begin to scribble a little.

And yes, I am aware that the slate isn't entirely clean. Those things you see on the right are magnetic buttons. And also a couple of geckos. Obviously. Every writer needs a gecko or two.