Sally Murphy is an Australia author. She writes kid’s books and other stuff. In 2009 her kid’s verse novel ‘Pearl Verses the World’ was shortlisted (one of three) for the Independent Booksellers Award for Best Australian Children’s Book.
Sally has a blog, and through the month of March she is inviting other authors to tell what they like about children’s poetry. I was one of those authors. Chase up my guest blog here.
Celia is a New Zealand author and past prison governor. She has two books, one about who goes to prison and one about raising boys.
Today I attended a forum with her as the speaker. The morning session was taken up with stories from her prison days. The afternoon session taken up with stories from her days working with boys in high school, trying to figure out the difference between a boy and a man.
Somewhere in among it all we sat in table groups and spoke about how her stories had something to say to our own work. Those attending came from a diverse background. On my table was a prison chaplain (me), a Housing NSW community officer, a Catholic Care worker, three people from local Juvenile Justice offices, and one refugee settlement officer. Elsewhere there were private counselors, TAFE counselors, High School teachers, Drug and Alcohol workers, all sorts of people working with boys and men in trouble.
The whole day was extraordinary. I came away with one of Celia’s books (swapped for a copy of one of mine) and a whole lot of thinking to do about how men and boys communicate with each other and the outside world.
If you ever get a chance to hear her speak, take it. She is a wonderfully warm personality with a great love of story telling, and a wealth of experience in understanding people.
Find her here
Beware Of Books is a schools initiative here in Australia. It aims to encourage reading and writing for school-age kids.
For the next two weeks I am their guest author, answering questions from school groups on a forum that we’ve set up.
If you have teenage kids and their English or Library class is not involved, send them in this direction –
The scribbly gum is a tree with scribbles. A moth lays its eggs under the bark of a gum tree. The eggs hatch and the larvae crawl around eating into the layer under the bark. The tree sheds its bark and the scribbles come to the surface. Magic.
Scribbly Gum 