An Interview With: Poppy Nwosu

In this latest author interview series, work experience student Sian Beatton interviews Poppy Nwosu, author of Making Friends with Alice Dyson. Poppy's story came runner up for the 2018 Adelaide Festival Unpublished Manuscript Award, but here at Wakefield press we thought her story too good to go unnoticed. Poppy's book is a romantic story about rumours, friendship, and discovering who you really are. How do you keep a book interesting? This is a great question! For me, I…

Interviews with Amazing Authors: Simon Butters

In early October, work experience student Guthrow interviewed author Simon Butters. Simon's book The Hounded was longlisted for the Children's Book Council of Australia's 2017 Book of the Year for Older Readers, and shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards 2017 Griffith University Young Adult Book Award. The Hounded is a book about depression and working out who you really are, from one of Australia's most prolific children's television writers. Guthrow: Why did you go from…

Author Profiles – Christine V. Courtney

Christine V. Courtney’s first career was as a professional dancer, moving from Adelaide to Britain to dance with the Ballet Rambert and directing her own small ballet company before returning to Australia to work as a teacher and producer. She first visited Venice while leading fine arts tours to Europe in the 1980s. The city provided the inspiration for her first book, Venetian Voices. What is your favourite memory from your time in dance? My favourite…

Author Profiles – Michael McGuire

Award-winning journalist Michael McGuire has worked for more than twenty years at the Australian in Sydney, and the Adelaide Advertiser where he is now senior writer. He has also dabbled in state and federal politics. His first foray into fiction, Never a True Word, has been called 'a political novel for our times' (Australian). What were you like as a child? Did you ever get into trouble? Mostly okay, I think. There were two parts to my childhood.…

Author Profiles – Stephen Orr

We decided it was time to bring back our popular author profiles, and who better to start with than Stephen Orr. Stephen Orr is the award-winning author of six novels, including Time's Long Ruin, The Hands, Hill of Grace and Dissonance. Peter Goers has called him South-Australia’s finest novelist. A fascination with the dynamics of families and small communities pervades his fiction and non-fiction. He contributes essays and features to several magazines, journals and newspapers. Stephen's short…

Book Extract - Lisa Fabry

Lisa Fabry's two great passions in life – food and yoga – led her to the 'divine vegan' concept, a way of combining practical food choices with ethical, moral and spiritual awareness. Born in London, Lisa now lives in Adelaide. She has worked as a film and television producer, writer, editor, barista, chef, and yoga teacher. In between times, she home educated her two daughters, and ran a vegan, organic cafe. You can visit Lisa…

Author Profiles - Bruce Munday

In 1974 Bruce and Kristin Munday bought a farm in the Adelaide Hills where they raised sheep, cattle and three children, and planted many trees. When the kids left home Bruce established his own business as a communications consultant in natural resource management and discovered how much he enjoyed sharing stories with people living on the land – particularly those who love the land and want to conserve it. Those Dry-Stone Walls documents the beauty of South Australia's dry-stone walls, many…

Author Profiles – Valerie Volk

Another day, another profile of one of Wakefield Press's amazing authors! Valerie Volk is a former secondary teacher, tertiary lecturer, and director of an international education program. She has won awards for poetry and short fiction and has published widely in journals, anthologies and magazines. Her first book, In Due Season, won the Omega Writers CALEB Poetry Prize in 2010, and there have been enthusiastic reviews of both her verse novel A Promise of Peaches and her sardonic modern versions of Grimms’ Tales,…

Author Profiles - Jude Aquilina

Jude Aquilina's poetry and short stories have been published in newspapers, anthologies and literary journals in Australia and abroad. Jude has been a guest speaker at numerous writers' festivals, including Adelaide Writers' Week, Canberra Spring Poetry Festival and Penola Arts Festival. She has published two collections of her own poetry: Knifing the Ice (Friendly Street Poets/Wakefield Press 2000) and On a Moon Spiced Night (Wakefield Press 2004). She has also published one coauthored collection, WomanSpeak (Wakefield Press, 2009), co-written with Louise Nicholas,…

Author Profiles - Sharon Kernot

Sharon Kernot worked as a community support worker in a child protection agency in the northern suburbs of Adelaide for eleven years. She has a masters in Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide and a PhD from Flinders University. Underground Road is Sharon Kernot’s first novel. It was shortlisted in the Unpublished Manuscript category of the Adelaide Festival Awards in 2010. Sharon is also the author of a collection of short stories, In the Shadows of the Garden, and one of poetry, Washday Pockets.…