|
Written by Christina Lewis
|
|
Sunday, 17 January 2010 07:34 |
Q. How do you contribute to young people through your books?
A. My books are real, funny, sad and always honest. I write about what I feel matters - school bullying in ‘I Am Jack’, blended families and aging grandparents in ‘Super Jack’, breast cancer in ‘Jack’ (to be published October 2010), search for identity and disability in ‘Butterflies’, youth male culture in ‘The Cave’, father-daughter relationships in ‘That’s Why I Wrote This Song’. Real characters, moving story, and challenges to think about themselves and their world. I’d love readers to feel new experiences, to think and care.
Q. What do you value most in life?
A. My children and family and the legacy left by my parents are deeply valuable in my life. I also value being useful in whatever I do - creating an arts and literary life at The Hughenden Hotel in Sydney, promoting youth literature as co-head of SCBWI Australia and New Zealand, being a board member at The NSW Writers Centre, nurturing new writers and illustrators, writing stories that empower and offer positive choices for young people and adults, being a good friend, being there for my family, taking care of my aging mother, engaging in the great debates of the world from climate change to racial equality and hoping to make a small difference.
Q. What do your books offer readers?
A. I hope my books make readers laugh, cry, feel and that when they close my books, the characters and themes continue to resonate with them.
Q. What are your best experiences?
A. Speaking at wonderful festivals and conferences such as the UBUD Readers and Writers Festival in Bali, the Beijing Literature Festival, the International SCBWI Conference an umbrella event of the Bologna Book Fair, conferences, schools, festivals from small indigenous communities to major international events. I am proud to have been invited to represent Australia in an IBBY anthology on Peace for Youth, by the United Nations to be published later this year. There will be 24 countries contributing. I am proud to have been invited to contribute a story in the recently released anthology – Fear Factor: Terror Incognito (published Picador)– about the impact of terrorism on ordinary people in a narrative fiction. 10 Indian and 10 Australian authors contributed including Booker Prize winners and runner-ups Sir Salman Rushdie, David Malouf and Thomas Keneally. Seeing ‘I Am Jack’ as a brilliant play and the audience response has been amazing.
Q. Please tell us about your latest book that you are writing?
A. JACK is the third book in my JACK books. It is a warm, loving, funny, quirky story of family with Nanna who loves buying bargains, Mum who does star jumps, the sister Samantha who is in love with dogs, family, friends and of course JACK. Jack’s a photographer and loves experimenting. He’s creating a new vegetable called a Ponto and he tells lots of jokes. His best mate is Christopher whose parents came from Vietnam. Jack is a regular kid, but life isn’t regular. His Mum is marrying his soon-to-be step dad and there’s his son Leo to content with. Love is in the air with Anna. Everything stops when Mum is diagnosed with breast cancer. Kids’ worst dread that something could happen to their parents comes true for Jack. JACK is about kids’ fears and hopes, the ways they react with a parent being sick. It gives a voice to kids, understanding of what’s happening and positive ways to deal with it. Breast cancer is viewed as an adult issue. It’s more than that. It impacts on the whole family, especially kids. JACK reaches kids and parents.
JACK is to be part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 2010.
|
|
Last Updated ( Saturday, 21 August 2010 17:52 )
|
|
|
|
