Harper Lee receives Presidential Medal of Freedom

I would have liked to have headlined this with ‘George W Bush finally does something worthwhile’, but it wouldn’t have been unfair to Harper Lee who throughly deserves all the kudos for her novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ which was first published in 1960.

This book remains one of my most favoured, even through I was forced to study it for two consecutive years in high school. (I transfered schools which gave me the honour of writing numerous essays on Harper Lee’s work.)

I’m sure that you are all very familliar with the book, so here’s what The Australian has to say on the award.

To Kill a Mockingbird

NaNoWriMo – 50 000 words in November

Most of you will be familiar with MOvember, where all sorts of people grow awkward, patchy or ill fitting MOs to raise awareness for men’s health issues. But NaNoWriMo is an online community of writers all striving for 50 000 words of a fiction novel in November.

I am completely aware of that this is an ambitious task, giving I have my proofreading exam on Tuesday so I am not really going to get into writing until then. But, I have never backed away from a challenge yet. The key for me is the focus on quantity, rather than quality. I have removed my self-conciousness and began tapping away on the keyboard already. (I know I shouldn’t have started until school was over, but I couldn’t resist!)

Anyway, place a marker in your electronic calendar for next year. Go NaNoWriMo!

Cat and Joel set the record straight – Nick Earls and Rebecca Sparrow

Joel and Cat are as close to arch enemies as you can get in Year 12. If Joel wasn’t running late he would never have ended up with Cat as his partner for the English Extension writing assignment. But he was late and now Cat is his partner.

As Cat’s life rocks ‘n’ rolls with her families to-ing and fro-ing, and while Joel tries to outsmart his mother’s boyfriend, the two must trade paragraph for paragraph to put together a coherent story. The results are not only surprising, but humourous as well.

Earls and Sparrow should team-up more often to produce books for today’s teenagers. Readers will instantly recognise some of themselves in either Cat or Joel and will no doubt enjoy the different, but complementary, narrative voices of the main charaters.

Slam – Nick Hornby

Nick Hornby’s venture into young adult fiction may possibly be his best move yet. The accomplished adult author—known for High Fidelity, About a Boy and A Long Way Down— has put his convincing and unique voice to Sam, a fifteen year old skateboarder.

Sam thinks he has hit the jackpot when the beautiful Alicia shows more than a passing interest in him. Just as Sam is losing interest, Alicia drops a bomb-shell: she is pregnant. The announcement leaves Sam, Alicia and their families reeling, forcing Sam and Alicia to face facts.

Hornby does not follow a straight line in Slam, but rather diverges into Sam’s imagination. Sam relies heavily on the advice of Tony Hawk which leads to the hilarious notion of a poster leading Sam along the parenthood path.

Well worth a look. I only hope the Hornby provides us with more young adult books for those readers who are not quite up to his adult masterpieces.

Asterix to be rewritten – you be the judge

See the entire article from The Age here

Tin Tin’s cousins Quick and Flupke will hit the streets in November…

one hundred years after the birth of the author. India will act as a testing ground for the twelve volume series. Check out The Age’s full story here.

Melbourne Writer’s Festival

The Melbourne Writer’s Festival runs from August 24 to September 2. Stellar sessions include Dave Eggers on the opening night. Book tickets via the website.

Today I met one of my favourite authors – Martine Murray

And I asked her to sign my copies of How to Make a Bird and The Slightly Bruised Glory of Cedar B Hartley. It was very exciting and great to meet someone who is so modest about her success as an author.

Check out what The Australian had to say about Children’s Literature

Here

Josh Harnett definitely wants to do this…Bruce Beresford

Josh Harnett really wants to do this…true stories from a life in the screen trade.

Bruce Beresford takes readers on his journey through the life and times of an award-winning director from the end of 2003 to mid 2005.

It can take some time to become acquainted with Beresford’s style, but those who remain loyal will be rewarded. Beresford’s diary could be described as a real life Adrian Mole, together with all of the sarcasm and wit of Mole, intertwined with prolific meetings of the famous and not so famous personalities of the film world. Readers won’t be disappointed as Beresford describes the relationships he has made throughout his career.

This book is a must for any screen lover, providing insights into the harsh world of filmmaking. Of all the films made, only a few are rewarded with millions of dollars being made at the box office. The story of Beresford’s life is this: millions of dollars are promised for potential films, and of those millions, only a few hundred thousand trickle through (if you are lucky) and that takes years and patience to collect. There is no guarantee that the best scripts received by Beresford will become feature films. Nonetheless, he somehow manages to make sense of this frustrating world, shooting films to unbelievable budgets, with unrealistic deadlines on sets in locations vastly remote from Hollywood.

My sole criticism of this memoir is the constant use of footnotes that break the reading flow. Often these footnotes add valuable information, and it would have been great to see these added to the main text during editing. That said, Beresford’s style is easy to read, humorous, insightful and entertaining. This is an excellent read in which the human side of film-making is shown.