A New Publishing Opportunity...??

One of my last posts said that the Comic Arts Awards of Australia's annual awards evening was not available for public viewing. Well, since I wrote that, the Awards have gone public: and here they are!! Please enjoy!

Meanwhile, late last month, I was fortunate enough to attend a Queensland Writer's Centre's event: GenreCon, with the specialty this year being ... just up my alley ... Graphic Novels!! Attending were some welcome comic guests known to me: (Doctor) Queenie Chan, Nick Rees, and Scott Wilson. I also caught up with creative Ken Best, who was there to pitch a graphic novel. In a special section of the weekend, writers were given the opportunity to share the precis of a novel to a commercial publisher (Hardie Grant) to see if any budding authors were likely to be picked up by a publisher. And, you know what? I had the same idea! So, just after Ken, I pitched a book about Australian comic book artist Moira Bertram to Marisa Pintado from Hardie Grant.

I had spent two whole days (Thursday and Friday) writing out and rehearsing my planned speech! And then, when the Saturday appointment came, I was told I didn't need a speech: just an ability to share the book proposal! Was I nervous!! The project is one that Neville Bain, Graeme Cliffe, and Jeremy Macpherson and I have been working on this year, so I had enough material to share with Marisa. Fortunately for me, she overlooked my nerves and appeared really interested in the idea. I was so nervous, I honestly forgot all the tips and suggestions she made!! In any case, since then, we have been further invited to submit a proposal and share more samples of the proposed book to Marisa (for the Hatchette publishing company) ... which we plan to carry out next week ...! More to come!  (That is... To Be Continued...)

In the meantime, I'm assuming my role as Lead Judge in the Ledger of Honour for the Comic Arts Awards of Australia later in the year. It's been a much more difficult task than in previous years, and the search for this year's recipients (Living Ledger of Honour, "Dead-Set" Ledger of Honour) is continuing... even to the point of keeping myself off Facebook for a period of time!