The August Nutshell

Jessica Miller, Mrs Pepperpot, Book Week, and new prizes

Dear Reader,

A bit of a bah humbug reading month for me: several times I’d start to read a novel, feel enormous promise, get to the halfway mark and decide to call it a day. I hate everything about giving up on a book. DNF is a joyless bookish acronym to me.

Despite that, several novels took me effortlessly to the finish line. My feel-good reading experience goes to The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue, a funny Irish novel about the unique messiness of your early 20s with a satisfying complexity to the story. Not as intense as Sorrow and Bliss but a similar mix of humour, pathos and shrewd observations of a woman reflecting on her youth.

Despite an unsure start, I ended up relishing The New Me by Halle Butler, which came out a few years ago. From a review that puts it better than I could:

It’s about a depressed young American woman called Millie, who works in a depressing temp job, while spiralling into even greater depression at the prospect that the job might become permanent . . . Her coping mechanisms are alcohol, back-to-back episodes of true-crime TV, deadpan humour and delicious hostility.

I needed a few of its short, sharp chapters to appreciate the tone, but then I found it astute and very droll.

Not only did I leave a string of unfinished novels in my wake this month, I also . . . watched football. Unheard of. Alone. Except I wasn’t alone because I had Twitter open, where I confessed with some trepidation that the Matildas V. Lionesses game could only end badly for me — I didn’t want either of them to lose. I know that’s hideous but my heart belongs to both places.

Still, what a thing to witness. With it being Book Week the same month, I can only imagine the number of little Matilda costumes. In that vein I wanted to mention for older readers the re-jacketed Grace Faltrain series by the brilliant Australian writer Cath Crowley, published by Macmillan.

Goal-kicking, super-girl, soccer star. Gracie Faltrain is on her way. To the National Championships. To Nick. To everything she's ever wanted. Or so she thinks. Gracie's about to find out that life is messy. And hard. And beautiful.

The re-jacketed Grace Faltrain trilogy by Cath Crowley

There was a paywalled article this month with this heading, which got up my nose:

At my worst I can be a literary snob, but when it comes to children I believe that the best way to foster their love of reading is to give them freedom and never belittle the characters they’re passionate about. During Book Week, let them make great memories unhindered by what adults consider to be “proper books”. There are cleverer ways of enriching their lives with a wide variety of texts than making them wear something they don’t absolutely love.

This month, for paid subscribers:

I decided I’d been rambling on too much so I started a new series called Minis.

• Minis #1: When You Say Nothing At All: one consideration when creating a character's voice — inspired by Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns (1950) and the critically acclaimed Assembly by Natasha Brown (2021).

  Comyns could have developed a voice characterised by directly stated desperation and drama — this is a situation that easily inspires rage: towards the useless husband and a society that educated him to believe that nothing should get in the way of his mediocre paintings. Instead, Comyns’ voice says something about one kind of survival technique in the face of oppression: don’t admit how horrible it is.

After that I launched a nostalgic series about children’s books called Trip Down Memory Lane and kicked it off with:

• Mrs Pepperpot by Alf Proysen

Before we consciously realise it, we’re grappling with parts of our identity that may be set and other parts that may feel unformed or unreliable. My first taste of a transformation story was David McKee’s Mr Benn, a book that became a TV series in the 70s. Aged three I’d watch during my very British 70s lunch (cod-in-the-bag, mashed potatoes and peas).

Finally, I got confessional and regretted it immediately:

• The Ambivert Writer: an account of Book Week nerves

  My primary school was a convent and the nuns ruled with antagonism. They regularly indulged in humiliation and were equally unsympathetic towards lack of ability or lack of confidence. I figured this out when I was four and didn’t realise that it was a them-problem, not a me-problem, until I was eleven. By then it was too late.

For free subscribers:

For months I’ve been wanting to chat to Australian writer abroad Jessica Miller, so when I finally got the chance I made the podcast episode available to all subscribers.

• Letters Home

To accompany the episode, I’ve temporarily unlocked a post from my archive:

• Children’s Book Reading Notes #1 which is on Jessica’s novel The Hotel Witch.

  

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• Writing:
  
  Nova Weetman and I have almost finished the next editing stage of our 2024 time-slip novel. We’ve seen the cover art and it’s so lovely that I’ve had to delete it from my phone because I was scared I might send it to everyone I know. Time-travel, horses, and a whole heap of trouble: coming soon.

• Reading:

  
  A read-alike for kids who loved the recent CBCA Honour Book Evie and Rhino by Neridah McMullin (illus. Astred Hicks) is The Tiger Who Sleeps Under My Chair by Hannah Foley, a dual timeline between contemporary and Victorian England, which features a girl who idolises fossil pioneer Mary Anning, and a boy kicked off the football squad who finds friendship with a girl struggling with mental illness.

• Listening:
  
  5 Writers 5 Minutes is an excellent new podcast by best-selling kids' authors Deborah Abela, Tristan Bancks, Sarah Armstrong, Lian Tanner and Zanni Louise.

  

  Kidlit Classics is for deeper dives into the favourite childhood reads of authors, editors, librarians and other industry folk, hosted by Samantha Ellen-Bound.

• Watching:

  With thanks to my friend Simmone Howell, who writes the excellent Moment to Moment, here is a 1969 Puffin profile on Joan Aiken (The Wolves of Willoughby Chase): Joan Aiken: Puffin Club profile (1969).

On that note, last month I was happy (and terrified) to join the ranks of authors in the new Story Tools range of videos produced by Storybox for school children. Watch: Introducing Story Tools

Pretending to write while being filmed (actually, I was writing, but nothing that the world will ever see.)

• Favourite industry news:
  

  1. The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards are open for 2024 (until 10th September) but this year is exciting because for the first time since 1995 there is a Children’s Literature category. The winner will receive the same prize money as the other categories ($25,000). Nothing like a bit of well-timed agitation. Thank you to everyone who supported our spot of trouble-making. 25 years in the children’s book industry has taught me that you have to fight tooth and nail in every organisation for recognition.

  2. Melbourne indie bookshop Readings has added an additional prize to its usual YA Book Prize: the Gab Williams Prize will ‘honour previous prize manager and young adult author Gab Williams, who passed away suddenly in January 2023’, said Readings, as reported in Books & Publishing. The winner will be chosen by the Readings Teen Advisory Board, who are readers aged between 14 and 19 years, from the Readings YA Book Prize shortlist.

     Gab loved her role as Readings’ prize manager, and loved being a YA author. She was so talented — god, she made me laugh. It’s wonderful to have her remembered and celebrated in this way.

• Irritation of the month:
  
  Irritation isn’t the right word for this but I cannot find a word that will do my feelings about it justice so let’s press on: bomb threats in libraries, children under 15 needing parental permission to check any book out of the library, book ban after book ban, YA books moved to the adult section, thousands of dollars wasted on endless reviews of challenged books. These are stories coming out of the US. In Australia, we have our own challenges: attempted bans, aggression towards booksellers, authors being told not to talk about particular books or topics during Book Week, and so on. If you’d like to do a deeper dive into the US situation, I recommend this Book Riot piece, Book Censorship News.

  Bomb threats have become a reality at public libraries
  since the rise of right-wing book banners.

As ever, I’d love to hear your thoughts on anything I’ve written about today.

Goodbye August; here’s to September. X

Thank you for reading Voracious. You’re welcome to comment on or share this post. You’ll find my other free posts by visiting emilygale.substack.com and clicking the Nutshells heading. Posts are divided into categories to help you to navigate: Writers on Writing, Children’s Books, Industry Talk, and Writers on Reading. Subscriptions are $5 per month or $50 per year, with discounts for groups. Founding members receive a free zoom call or email exchange to discuss any aspect of your writing. Public posts are available for 4 weeks from publication. The full archives can be accessed by paid subscribers.