Category Archives: Highs

Hungerford Longlisting 2024

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I’ve been chugging away with my writing for five years now. My current complex manuscript is requiring draft after draft and while I find it difficult, it is also incredibly rewarding to see things falling into place – except when they don’t and I have to do it all over again, but then eventually I’ll be even more satisfied – if I’m not weeping because it’s still not good enough! Exaggeration but you get the drift.

Despite this joy (?!) in the process, it is nonetheless completely delightful to get external validation by being longlisted for the second time in the wonderful City of Fremantle Hungerford Award! It’s like getting a very very nice performance review from a respected boss!

Some of you may remember the first time this happened, in 2022. That was for my Young Adult manuscript ‘Treehearts’ about a seventeen year old trying to save a corridor of urban bushland while trying not to fall in love with a Deaf boy who didn’t date hearing girls. This 2024 nomination is for ‘Nowhere, Everywhere’ – another YA, this one about a boy dealing with grief and guilt while living on a holiday island with a dark history. It’s set on Wadjemup/Rottnest Island and I drew on memories, both mine and my brothers’, while writing Jack’s story.

I dearly hope this manuscript progresses further in the competition and ultimately finds a publisher. It’s a little bit funny even in the sad moments. My young adult son (and a dear Lit teacher friend) honoured me by whipping through the final draft in under 24 hours – so maybe it’s got something? That speedy reading felt like high praise indeed!

Anyway, whatever happens when the shortlist comes out later this month, I’ll still be here at my desk, wrestling with plot developments, and sentences that don’t sound the way I want them to, and characters who take themselves to places I hadn’t expected. I’ll still have my inspiring writer group friends, craft books to read and time to page slowly through novels. I’ll still be doing bookish things of all kinds and really, if that girl who loved nothing more than reading all through her childhood could see herself now, she’d be very content indeed.

It’s truly wonderful that such awards as the Hungerford exist. In these times that seem increasing lean for writers, they provide much needed encouragement and opportunity. Molly Schmidt and her wonderful Salt River Road were such deserved winners in 2022 and I have loved watching her success. To be even on the same list as Molly and others, both last time and this time, is really very delightful indeed.

For those of you beavering away with your own creative endeavours, I hope this week brings you all the time you’d like to do so! And to everyone, much love, and thanks, always, for reading 🙂

What winning something meant to me.

So. Most of you reading this will know that, just the day after my last post, I won a Highly Commended place in The Australian Society of Authors Mentorship Awards 2021 for the first draft of my Young Adult novel about love, communication and saving the banksia woodlands. The win filled me with joy, which makes sense, but I quite like to overthink these things so here’s exactly why!

Firstly, pretty much every writer I know experiences the absolute horror show that is the way the same words can look different to you one day after another. On good days, you read what you’ve written and go, “Hmmm that ain’t half bad, maybe I’ve got something here.” Or words to that effect. 24 hours later you may look at THE EXACT SAME WORDS and think, “Oh My God. This is the absolute worst rubbish ever written, so clunky, so awkward and unimportant, and not at all saying what I want to say.” You get the idea.

Winning this HC means some writers I hugely respect read my words and AGREED WITH GOOD DAY ME! So now, on a bad day, I can remind myself of this and more easily tell the negative voice in my head to go and sit in the corner and have a think about what it’s doing. Priceless.

Secondly, for me like for many people, the last year has been a sad one. I lost my feisty, supportive mum to a bleak, fast cancer and our dear labrador to a slower one. And, I had an empty nest for the first time. We don’t talk enough about the significant change that is children leaving home. For many reasons, but largely because it once appeared it might never happen, I am filled with deep joy that my two are out in the wide world, living their lives. But, oh boy, I miss seeing them every day. They’ve grown into adults who are fun to be around and they’re off being fun around other people (as they should) instead of me and…well you get my drift. I miss them and I miss me with them. So, yay for this lovely, happy news early in 2021!

Thirdly, as a Highly Commended winner I will receive direct feedback on the beginning of my manuscript from a hugely experienced mentor (I’m so thrilled to be working with this person), as well as be part of a Pathways to Publication program. Yay!! In addition to the obvious benefits of being a mentee, I’m a tad on the extroverted side and often miss the zillion billion interactions of a teaching day. Okay, maybe not every single one of them, but definitely the ones that made me feel like I was doing an okay job! Working alone can send me a little crazy (refer to my first point!)

Lastly…I’m sure I could think of more, I just don’t want to keep you here all day 🙂 …so, lastly, I’m so excited that this manuscript got noticed. There are themes in it that I care about deeply, not least: how we communicate and connect when we think we don’t have a common language and how we handle our responsibilities as custodians of this planet. This mentorship will help me write the best version of this book that I can and, to paraphrase something I heard Pip Williams (The Dictionary of Lost Words) say recently, have a better chance of ‘not letting down the idea’.

So, that’s the gist of it. A sincere thank you to the ASA and the judges of the Children’s, YA and Picture Book Illustration category,  Oliver Phommavanh and  Deborah Abela. I feel extraordinarily fortunate to have received this opportunity at this precise time. I know that there is sooo much good writing around and I was lucky.

Hmm, I’ve also got a kind of funny story to tell you about a pitch I did recently, but this post is long enough, so I’ll save that for another time. I hope you are all well and thank you to every single one of you who has signed up for emails – I’m truly honoured by the numbers.

May it be a good day at your place 🙂