And now for the news.
This post is going to be like one of those Christmas letters we used to receive in the days before Facebook showed us the inner workings of the lives of our friends and family on a daily basis.
An easy, breezy catch-up, light on detail, strong on the highlights, glossing over the bad bits that nobody really wants to know about anyway.
So where have I been?
News
VIVID SYDNEY LIVE EVENT + BOOK LAUNCH
It’s been a busy month for school visits and other events. One of the highlights was, of course, the So You Want To Be A Writer Live event at Vivid Sydney on 8 June.
“How are ya, Al?” The event incorporated all the things that listeners love about our podcast – and more!
Our Power Panel: Allison Tait, Pamela Freeman, Candice Fox, Valerie Khoo.
Valerie and I were thrilled to see so many people packed into the MCA for the live recording.
(If you missed out, click here to listen to the special live podcast episode.)
Thanks to everyone who came along and gave So You Want To Be A Writer (the book) such a brilliant welcome into the world.
STORYFEST
Last weekend, I headed down to Milton to participate in three sessions at the inaugural Storyfest festival.
It was a wonderful day, and included the opportunity to interview the charming Jaclyn Moriarty (above left) about her children’s books (and if you’d like to get an idea of what that might have included, listen to my earlier podcast interview with Jaclyn here).
And then there was the chance to talk about adventure stories with Meredith Jaffe, and a very entertaining panel about podcasts and audio books with Pamela Cook, David Hunt and Katherine Collette (above right).
Note to self: organise audio versions of A.L. Tait’s books asap!
UPCOMING EVENTS
The pace of my year does not look like slowing any time soon. Upcoming events include:
•Whitsunday Voices Youth Literature Festival, Mackay, Qld, 17-19 July, 2019 (Program here)
•Shoalhaven Readers’ & Writers’ Festival, Nowra, NSW, 27 July, 2019: I’m teaching a limited-places writing workshop for kids 9-13 at 12 noon. (Details here.)
If you’d like to talk to me about speaking at your school or event, go here.
And stand by for a couple of other very exciting announcements.
REVIEWS
“A fast-paced adventure brimming with mystery and complex navigations of loyalty and morality.”
I was thrilled by this review of THE BOOK OF SECRETS on Booklist Online, the review site of the American Library Association. Read the full book review here.
INTERVIEWS
It is true that I tend to interview people rather than being interviewed, and I can vouch for the fact that we have some very exciting and entertaining guests coming up on the So You Want To Be A Writer podcast over the next few weeks.
One interview I particularly enjoyed was this one, with US author Peter Rock. If you want to know why, you’ll need to listen to it but suffice to say that Peter enjoyed a year at an Australian school ‘back in the day’ and we shared an English teacher for that year. I always knew he’d end up a writer – even if he didn’t!
From the other side of the microphone, thanks to Nick Rheinberger, ABC Illawarra, for having me on his morning show recently to talk about the So You Want To Be A Writer book.
Are you new here? Welcome to my blog! I’m Allison Tait, aka A.L. Tait, and I’m the author of two epic middle-grade adventure series, The Mapmaker Chronicles and The Ateban Cipher.
You can find out more about me here, and more about my books here.
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