Ripping Ozzie Reads

When I heard that Vision member Sally had been offered a place in the Allen and Unwin/QWC Children’s Manuscript Development Program I thought ‘You lucky thing!’ So I invited her along to ROR, now Sally is going to share her insights with us.

Oh, I like A A Bell’s opening so I’m gonna steal it  – Greetings fellow speculators!

Rowena has asked me to tell a bit about the amazing experience that was the inaugural Allen & Unwin / Queensland Writers Centre children’s literature manuscript development program. So – the basics first off: I was fortunate enough to be one of the 10 selected participants (from I think about 230 applicants nationwide) in this 5 day program that ran out of the QWC in Brisbane’s lovely new State Library. The submission process was this: you sent off your first 50 pages of a (supposedly!) complete first draft, after which you might’ve made it onto the longlist of 40, which then got whittled down to 10 successful applicants. Three of these spaces were reserved for residents of QLD.

After we had been notified of our success, we then had 72 hours to get our whole manuscript to the QWC. Gulp. I had a whole first draft, yes, but I was in the early stages of the rewrite and radical changes were afoot. I really had had no expectation of being selected, so I was hopelessly disorganised when I got the call. I had to scramble to patchwork together something vaguely cohesive and sent it off with a shrug, thinking, oh well, maybe now they’ll be sorry they picked me!

I’ve gone fuzzy on time now, but I think it was then a couple of months before the actual program, which ran from the 15-20 October, with all accomodation and most meals catered for (the food was great, by the way! Thanks Chef Stick!). In that meantime I barely looked at the manuscript, figuring my rewrite plan might’ve needed to be thrown out the window after the consultation with the editors from Allen & Unwin. So it all seemed a bit distant and dreamlike.

And then I was there, having drinkies and nibblies in the Red Box in the State Library overlooking the glittering lights on the Brisbane River and hobnobbing with Anna McFarlane and Eva Mills (the children’s lit editors from A&U) and the nine other participants, and the lovely staff of QWC. Needless to say, this shy little country girl from Nth NSW ended up gravitating towards chatting with the chef and drinking far too much wine that first night!

The first full day of the program was set aside for our one-on-one hour-long consultations with the A&U editors. Eva Mills had read my MS and of course she had amazingly astute feedback to give me. What thrilled me most was how easy it was to talk with her, how open to and encouraging she was of my pretty intuitive style of working. It felt so natural to discuss the story with her, we slipped into an organic, fluid sort of workshopping of various issues, which was just the kind of discussion I had been so hungry for. I wanted to take her home with me! Also, my story engages with some Indigenous Australian themes and she had some great experience and advice to share with me on what has been my biggest issue with this MS.

All in all I was left with a feeling of great encouragement after this session. Eva told me my rewrite was working just fine thus far and to just keep doing what I’d been doing. And to send it to her when I was done. Wow! I think this was the strangest, most wonderful feeling of all throughout the program – the sense that the door is open, and that it’s now just up to me to give it my absolute best when it comes to walking through.

The following four days were also incredibly rich. Each morning until lunch we had a group session with various industry professionals. On one day we had a round-table discussion with Eva and Anna, accompanied by Tara Wynne of Curtis Brown literary agency and the very lovely and generous Michael Gerard Bauer, who was our writer mentor for the entire program. The following day we had a session about children’s writing networks, with Helen Bain from the Brisbane-based Speakers Ink booking agency, Beth Green from the QLD branch of Children’s Book Council and Kelly Dunham from the Voices on the Coast children’s literature festival.

The day after that we learnt all about the industry from a bookseller’s perspective via Emily from Riverbend Bookstore. We were so inspired by her telling us that the children’s and young adult sections take up the bulk of the floorspace of the store that a bunch of us hopped on the ferry down to Bulimba that afternoon! And yes – the kids’ section is brilliant!

The final session was run by Angela Slatter of QWC who did a great job of pulling all the threads together. As a fairly newly established author herself, it was really helpful getting that perspective on the industry, as well. She had lots of good tips. One of the things she said that stuck most was that this is an industry made of relationships (so be polite to everyone, because everyone knows everyone!).

As a kind of shy person, I’ve always felt a bit scared of this aspect of the industry, this ‘networky’ thing we’re all supposed to do. But I think one of the key things I took from the program as a whole was that it doesn’t have to be scary at all, in fact, it can be rather wonderful making relationships and yes, friendships with people who at the heart of it all, are all people who love books and writing and stories – ie. MY KIND OF PEOPLE! The feeling I got, too, was that, like the speculative fiction community, children’s literature people are a kind of tribe too, there is a sense of camaraderie and support and just general nice-ness. So I have chosen very well, I’ve decided, in my genre/market division leanings!

Overall, the program was simply a brilliant experience. I feel incredibly grateful for the opportunity this has given me, with the open, encouraging door at Allen & Unwin awaiting my rewritten MS. And I feel incredibly proud of the QWC for being such a shit-hot, professional body that has publishers like A&U approaching them to run such programs!

Lastly I want to acknowledge my fellow participants Ann, Jill, Fiona, Sean, Helena, Sam, Jenny, David and Maude. Meeting these lovely people was as much of a blessing as the open door to the publisher.

Sally Newham

Sally Newham lives in a shack by a creek in Nth NSW where she is working on her first fantasy/steampunk novel (when she is not procrastinating, or baking organic sourdough bread, which is what pays the bills at present).

Feel free to ask Sally questions.