The premiere of the Queensland Literary Awards

One thousand cheers for the Queensland Literary Awards which were established earlier this year - after the Queensland Premier's Awards were cancelled...

These brand new awards have a clear mission. 

Mission
1. To raise the profile of Queensland writing and writers nationally and internationally.
2. To reward and recognise excellence in Australian writing, particularly Queensland writing.
3. To support the development of Australian writing, particularly Australian writing within Queensland.
4. To facilitate the  production and publication of works by emerging and established Australian writers, particularly Queensland writers.
5. To encourage public debate in Queensland and contribute to the public life of the state.
6. To encourage reading in Queensland, particularly among young people.

Big HOORAYS. Huge!

And the most excellent news is that the shortlists for the inaugural awards have been announced. And there is once again happy-dancing in the House!

Shortlisted for the Children's Book Award

Ten Blue Wrens by Elizabeth Honey

Shortlisted for Young Adult Book Award

The Ink Bridge by Neil Grant 

Three Summers by Judith Clarke 

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan

Congratulations to all the authors on the shortlists. 

Oh, happy, happy day!

Monday stuff and items

1) Don't you wish you were at the Edinburgh International Book Festival to hear Garth Nix give a sneak preview of Clariel, the prequel to the Old Kingdom trilogy which we will be publishing NEXT YEAR! Hurry up, next year!*

Also appearing at this fine festival is the marvellous Margo Lanagan and the splendid Shaun Tan. Where, oh, where is our portal to the other side of the world when we need it!

2) The Kill Your Darlings YA Challenge has been FABULOUS. Smart people championing their favourite YA novels: what's not to love? Here's Lili Wilkinson talking about Obernewtyn.

And Holly Harper on Sabriel and Andrew McDonald on Space Demons. 


3) CELEBRATION OF A NATION**

We are sending out huge congratulations and much love to Scot Gardner and Kate Constable because... 

The Dead I Know 

WINNER OF THE CBCA BOOK OF THE YEAR: OLDER READERS

Crow Country 

WINNER OF THE CBCA BOOK OF THE YEAR: YOUNGER READERS 

Two brilliant books and two wonderful authors. We couldn't be more proud to be their publishers.

But wait, there's more!

HONOUR BOOK, HONOUR BOOK, HONOUR BOOK, HONOUR BOOK!

A Straight Line to My Heart by Bill Condon (Older Readers)
That's Not a Daffodil! by Elizabeth Honey (Early Childhood)

The Dream of the Thylacine by Ron Brooks & Margaret Wild (Picture Book)
The Little Refugee by Anh Do, Suzanne Do & Bruce Whatley (Eve Pownall)

Hearty congratulations to Bill, Elizabeth, Ron, Margaret, Anh, Suzanne & Bruce. HURRAH!

*Although, in another, very real way, please don't hurry up, next year. How is it already late August? So many books to make!

** Trip down memory lane, anyone? 

Farewell from Barry and Stella

Barry:  It's our last day (sniff), and my turn to write the captions.

Today we did real editorial work. Stella wrote a letter to an author telling them their book was brilliant, except for the beginning, the middle and the end.

And I got halfway through an email to Jennifer Castles and Dean Bowen telling them how I loved their book but thought they would sell more copies in Australia if it was in English, before I worked out that they already knew that.

All in all, it's been a big week, and we're exhausted.

But we had the best time. Thank you to everyone who made such nice comments on our posts. 

Stella: Yes, thank you, everyone! Even you, Mr Smithingtonson. We're not quite ready to be real editors yet, but we do have a real picture book you can read, which our friend Mini helped us with!

Barry: Oh, also! If you want us to do work experience at your workplace, or just come over and play at your house, you should enter this competition that the Onions are running.

Stella: Thank you again, everyone! We'll say goodbye now  because it's almost home time.

Barry: No, I distinctly heard an Onion say that it was almost wine time. Let's go!

 

*The Onions would like to state for the record that we do not condone underage drinking. Barry and Stella will be toasting their work experience week with a tall frosty glass of orange juice.

We would also like to thank Barry and Stella's best friend Mini Goss for letting them hang out with us this week. It has been most enjoyable, and things have never been so well alphabetised.

Barry and Stella do all the important things

Stella: Hello, everyone. Barry's still washing up the cake forks, so I'm doing all the captions!

Today we carried out a lot of tasks reserved especially for work experience students like us, because of their extremely high levels of importance.

The Onions said they were really jealous of our tasks today, and they were only letting us do them because they were so busy. 

But then I caught one with her feet up on the desk watching the book trailer of Unforgotten by Tohby Riddle, so I'm not sure if that's true. 

The Unforgotten trailer is so cool. You should watch it too.





After we watched that a few (dozen) times, we participated in the most Onion of events: cake!

It is our best friend Mini Goss's birthday today. She's not doing work experience with us, though, so we had to just think of her as we ate. Happy Birthday, Mini!

Barry and Stella's Tidy-up

Today we had a look around the House, and it became clear we really needed to help those busy Onions clean up a bit.

Stella: Barry, I think I just found out why the kitchen smells of ancient mandarin peel.

Barry: Ew! Why would anyone keep old tea-leaves and apple cores?

Stella: Maybe it's a home brew for Friday nights.

Onion: Ahem. Actually, we are utilising an Effective Micro-Organism to transform kitchen waste into a nutrient-rich soil conditioner through anaerobic composting.

Stella: And look, Barry, it's all the drafts of our book! Oo, you had such hat hair after that shoot, remember?

Barry: Look at that massive box in that massive pile of boxes. Now that it's a book, isn't it a little redundant to keep all those old notes and bits of paper?

Onion: One day the National Library will be very grateful for that. And one day we might need to refer to something.  

Barry: It's really because you haven't got around to making a slim archive folder of essential documents, isn't it? Let me help.

Stella: You know what, Barry? I can't bear the lack of alphabetical order in that bookcase any longer.

Onion [covering eyes]: We take no responsibility for work-experience students taking matters into their own hands and abseiling while unattended.

Onion 2: Is it just me or is it proving to be a long week?