Category: Behind the book

Last year was a great year for Helen Milroy. Her work was shortlisted for the WA Premier’s Book Awards, the Readings Children’s Book Prize and the Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards, while reviewers called her picture book Backyard Birds vibrant, bright, beautiful, wonderful, colourful and bold. In 2021 the First Nations author […]

Women of a Certain Rage is the book that happened when Liz Byrski asked 20 women to take up her challenge and write her a story about rage. The result is a book that Judith Lucy calls ‘compassionate, absorbing and thought-provoking’.

In 2019, I had the chance to travel to Eungella National Park in Queensland to see wild platypus. I wasn’t planning to write an adventure novel starring a monotreme … And I wasn’t planning to spend a day battling mud and swollen rivers and carnivorous worms, either. But somehow, both of those things happened and […]

It’s release month for the second book in Alan Carter’s award-winning Nick Chester series. We asked Alan to tell us more.

Joanna Morrison’s manuscript, Still Dark, is shortlisted for the 2020 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award. If she wins, she’ll secure herself a publishing contract with Fremantle Press and a $15,000 cash prize from the City of Fremantle.

Beautiful, bold Australian wildflowers are the heroes of Let’s Count Wildflowers by botanical pop artist Tracey Gibbs, AKA Lalleuca.

Sally Tinker is back with a new adventure in invention! The fourth book from the mind of James Foley in the S.Tinker Inc. graphic novel for junior readers series is out now.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, the Alice Mitchell murder trial gripped the city of Perth and the Australian nation. Stella Budrikis’s book, The Edward Street Baby Farm, retraces this infamous tragedy – a tragedy that ultimately led to legislative changes in order to better protect children’s welfare. In this interview, Fremantle Press […]

In this interview Rebecca talks about the histories behind the history and how these might be used to stimulate classroom discussions, research and writing activities.

I met a bloke last week who said his father died 20 years ago and he had never got over it. My father died in 2002 and I can still hear him telling me how to remove the ceiling fan in the bathroom. I’d done it a couple of times before and I was over […]

The importance of critical thinking has become a common discussion topic in the media in recent weeks. And teachers have long known critical thinking is the basis for progress in learning. In this article, writer, illustrator and former teacher Katie Stewart shows how to use her new picture book, What Colour is the Sea?, to […]

Kelly Canby’s new book, Littlelight, is already on the reprint list after COVID-19 led Fremantle Press to let our booksellers get the book earlier than its release date. In this e-interview, Kelly tells us more about the book and shares some recent news.

Father of the Lost Boys author and former child soldier Yuot A. Alaak says lived experiences have a lot to teach us. He says giving students the opportunity to enter the lives of refugee children in a war, but from a safe distance, can help build empathy and understanding. In this very special blog post, […]

Goldfields Girl by Elaine Forrestal is a historical novel for middle readers featuring real-life nineteenth-century teenager Clara Saunders. In this blog post, Elaine takes us into the exciting, dusty, fly-ridden world of a gold rush.

In 2015, I was well and truly sick of my book. The History of Mischief had been lingering with me since 2006, and progress was slow. It was often left for months, only for me to return to it, tinker a bit, and then abandon it for another lengthy period of time. I needed something to […]

Fiction has always been a fluid concept: the wispy smoke of a doused campfire, the dangerous flaring of a forgotten ember, the promise of a speck of brightness in a gold pan. But these days, how the hell are you meant to imagine the unimaginable when it is surpassed most days in your news feed? […]

I’m Elaine Forrestal and Goldfields Girl is my latest historical fiction for students, teachers and history buffs of any age. My fiction, in various genres, has been published since 1983. This is my third historical fiction novel. In this blog post I will share my top tips for using your local, state or national library […]

Anzac Day marks the anniversary of Australia’s first major military action and is also a national day of remembrance that commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations. Though we may only be able to celebrate the Dawn Service with a candle in our front yards, […]

It’s Women’s History Month and we’re really excited to announce the publication of Goldfields Girl, a historical fiction novel about an extraordinary woman named Clara Saunders. Here, author Elaine Forrestal shares with us some of what she learned about this amazing pioneer of the Western Australian Goldfields.

A peripatetic childhood gave What Colour is the Sea? illustrator and author Katie Stewart the chance to see the world from many perspectives. Katie’s new book, her first with a traditional publisher, is about a koala who asks her Aussie animal mates what the true colour of the sea is. The answers vary, so when […]

What is Left Over, After was Natasha Lester’s Hungerford Award winning debut novel back in 2008. These days she’s topping the bestseller list of the New York Times, as well as offering advice to new and emerging authors.

Craig Silvey’s debut novel, Rhubarb, is a masterclass in writing from an author who was named in the Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelists list in 2005 and again in 2010 for his novel Jasper Jones.

Avan Judd Stallard’s novel Spinifex & Sunflowers goes behind the walls of an immigration detention centre in an honest, and at times harrowing, exploration of life as an asylum seeker in modern Australia.

From the rodeos and fishing holes of northern Australia to the dazzling streets of night-time Tokyo, Red Can Origami is a gripping tale of love, loss, land and identity.