The New Year's Eve Edition
Recommendations and the final day of a special offer
When I started Voracious on this day a year ago . . .
. . . I had no one to send the first post to but myself (I Can’t Promise Anything). Today I’m addressing 600+ readers so I’m taking this opportunity to explain my motivation.
Side note: a reminder that it’s the final day of my special offer, making the annual subscription fee $30 (Australian).
In September I wrote about the particular circumstances that drove me to newsletter-land (Why I Really Started This Newsletter, paid subscriber post) but what keeps me here is the unique opportunity to write, read and express myself beyond the constraints of the way children’s authors are perceived.
We are rarely given the opportunity to speak beyond topics such as what made us want to write for children, or what our favourite childhood books were. While those are conversations I relish, see Mrs Pepperpot or Francine Pascal, and coming soon Judy Blume’s Forever and Barry Hines’ A Kestrel For A Knave, children’s authors are too often addressed as if we’re providing a service that is removed from the general craft of writing, as if we are not artists with interesting brains and experiences, but a subset of entertainers. We’re sidelined.
Moreover coverage in mainstream media of children’s literature, in Australia at least, is now so rare that we find ourselves grateful for crumbs, or incensed when unqualified writers are given premium space to complain about children’s books (as occurred earlier this year in The Saturday Paper) while experts can’t get a gig.
So that’s it, dear reader. That’s why I put on my big girl britches this time last year and tried to make a space for all the kinds of thinking that a typical children’s author likes to do.
4 recommendations and a prediction
READ: Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, this year’s Booker Prize winner in which Ireland slips into totalitarianism, seen through the eyes of a mother-of-four left to fend for herself when her husband is arrested. While the concept has a done-before feel to it, the prose is like dancing with someone who sweeps you off your feet one minute and trips you up the next to make sure you’re paying attention. It builds beautifully and the final chapters are breathtaking.
WATCH: Slow Horses (three seasons on Apple TV), about a team of British intelligence agents who’ve been relegated to a dumping ground called Slough House, headed by a brilliant but revolting character called Jackson Lamb, for a range of almost career-ending errors. Funny, bold, diverse, filler-free, and nail-biting — I watched some of the final episode of Season 3 on my feet because I was too invested to sit still.
LISTEN: Science Friction with James Purtill, a podcast by ABC Radio National. If you’re in the flailing stage with your understanding of A.I., as I am, you’ll love this series of six short episodes covering: the first time a machine beat the world’s greatest chess champ, the tragic failures of A.I. in criminal investigations, driverless cars, the money and power side of A.I., student use of ChatGPT for assignments, how it’s already affecting actors, writers and artists, and how close we are to super-intelligent A.I.
PLAY: Connections, a New York Times word association game. This is my current favourite anti-doom-scrolling activity since I grew weary of Wordle. You get a grid of 16 words and they must be grouped by fours, but there are crossovers to trick you. It’s helpful to those of us who don’t live in America to remember where it’s coming from, but the topics are a range of lateral, literal, cultural, tricky, too-easy, etc . . . the perfect game to play while the morning coffee brews.
PREDICTION: As Florence and the Machine sang: The horses are coming, so you’d better run . . . Horse books for children; I’m predicting a surge like my ghost book collection of 2022. In Australia there’s my collaboration with Nova Weetman, Outlaw Girls (which as the cover hints is VERY HORSEY), and I was excited by the covers for The Grimmelings by New Zealand author Rachael King, published in February by A&U, and the recent Finding Wonder by Lauren St John. I’ll find more, just you wait. You heard it here first: the dog days are over. (Not really, I love dogs.) (That link goes to the Florence and the Machine song, by the way.)
Excellent post! We need to band together in terms of coverage of children's literature. I hope my reviews go some way to helping, I'm still trying to work out what else to do though.
"...children’s authors are too often addressed as if we’re providing a service that is removed from the general craft of writing" - I'm really passionate about this issue. I have a book coming out in September around appreciation of the craft of picture books. May I perhaps pick your brain at some point about ways to promote it? Meanwhile, happy new year!