Archive for the ‘Katrina’s Blog’ Category

What’s Up?

Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

Just the sky….

small payday loans very cheap

A little bit of news from me.

Awards

My Dad thinks He’s Funny has been shortlisted in the 2011 Children’s Choice Book Awards in the Picture Storybook category. You can check out its competition here.

My Dad Thinks He’s Funny was highly commended in the recent Australian Book Design Awards in the Children’s Picture Book category. Congratulations to its designers Donna Rawlins and Tom Jellett.

(Plus, I have just heard that Donna Rawlins will be designing my latest picture book Somebody’s House. Yay!)

Media

My article One Planet, Many Many Worlds and Billions and Trillions and Zillions of Stories appears in the current edition of ACCESS (The Australian School Library Association Magazine) – Volume 25, Issue 2, 2011.

Meet the Author (me!) in the current edition of Book Beat (The Children’s Book Council Of Australia NSW Magazine)- Issue 2, 2011.

And back home in Adelaide I was in the paper with my children. Here’s the link.

Travelling

On July 12 I leave Adelaide for a trip around Australia with my family. We’ve decided to follow the sun so will be spending most of our time in WA, NT and QLD. I will be presenting author talks and workshops along the way.

School Visits

WA is fully booked. I’m looking extra forward to spending Book Week  flying around the Kimberly!

Due to some reshuffling I now have two more dates avaible for school visits in the NT. Darwin: Tuesday August 23, Alice Springs: Thursday September 15. Email me for info.

We have also decided to extend our trip by two weeks. (Why hurry back?) So this will open up a few new dates in QLD around Brisbane and the Gold Coast also.

Writing Workshops

Through the NT Writers Centre I’ll be conducting writing workshops in the Northern Territory for aspiring picture book authors. The dates are below and here’s the flyer with all the details.

Darwin: Saturday morning, August 27.  Alice Springs: Wednesday evening, September 14.  Tennant Creek: Friday Evening, September 9. Katherine: Saturday morning, August 20.

Phew.

I best go pack.

See you on the road,

Katrina x

 

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In Answer to Your Email

Sunday, June 5th, 2011

A stranger recently asked me this in an email: How do you ever know if your writing is any good? She said she had been working on a few pieces of children’s writing for over a year but was too scared to show anyone. Most writers are the same. We fear that perhaps what we’re writing is in fact rubbish. We worry that we’ll embarrass ourselves if we show anyone. (While we also secretly dream that what we’re writing is actually unbelievably brilliant.)

If you’re writing privately for yourself as a creative outlet then it doesn’t really matter if your writing is clumsy and there’s no need to ever show anyone. If you’re hoping instead to one day be published then you must show someone your work. There is no way around it. Someone has to read your story if you want to be an author.

I’ve written about finding the right people who will give you honest feedback here but if you’re really nervous perhaps start with someone who you know will be kind regardless of the quality of your work. Then move on to someone who actually knows what they’re talking about. Be prepared for some criticism and when it comes remind yourself that it’s part of being a writer. Criticism provides an opportunity to improve.

In the past I’ve had plenty of thorny ‘opportunities to improve’. I cringe when I think of some of the work I sought feedback for and some of the underdeveloped submissions I mailed to publishers. I cringe but I have no regrets. I am grateful for the feedback that helped me to develop as a writer. And I continue to chase feedback so I can continue to grow.

The short answer to the email is this: The only way to find out if your writing is any good is to share it. Don’t let fear hold you back. Redraft until you’re sure your writing is as good as it can be, take a deep breath, and …share.

If you want to be an author you need to be brave.

Good luck. xxx

In Answer to Your Email © Katrina Germein 2011

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