Services
Allison grew up on a farm in a small Victorian town, fostering her love of animals, collecting vegetables and shearing the sheep. Now based in Queensland, Allison is the author of Anzac Sons: The Story of Five Brothers in the War to End All Wars and the children’s version, Anzac Sons: Five Brothers on the Western Front, which made the 2016 Australian Book Industry Awards longlist and was a CBCA notable book as well. Her interest in the service of her ancestors began when she was studying to become a teacher. She used a selection of the letters which her grandfather and his four brothers sent from the Western Front to complete an assignment. The dream to honour their courage and sacrifice was ignited.
Allison is a proud 2017 recipient of a May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust Creative Time Fellowship, which resulted in the securing of a contract for her first historical novel for young adults, Follow After Me – released in 2019.
Allison has created a series of information books for children called Australia Remembers. The first of these – Australia Remembers: Anzac Day, Remembrance Day and War Memorials was released in October 2018. The second title, Customs and Traditions of the Australian Defence Force, was recently published in March 2021.
She has written other children’s books, Granny’s Place and Shearing Time, with another; I Wonder, being released in August 2021.
Allison now works full-time as a writer and presenter in schools.
If you work in the children’s book industry – as a writer, illustrator, editor, book designer, publisher, librarian or bookseller – then this online subscription magazine is absolutely for you! Buzz Words is delivered twice monthly. Its aim is to keep readers abreast of what’s currently happening in the children’s book industry and to give subscribers as many opportunities as possible to get informed and published.
Every issue contains the following: • local and international news • publisher profiles • profiles of people in the industry • an interview • writing opportunities • markets • competitions and awards • recommended books and websites/blogs • festivals and conferences • workshops • article/s • subscribers’ achievements • letters to the editor • book reviews (via BW blog http://www.buzzwordsmagazine.com/) There are lots of links provided to all of the above.
Subscribers are able to advertise for free if they have a product and/or service. Cost is $48 per year (24 issues).
Buzz Words’ editor is children’s author and former newspaper and children’s magazine editor, Dianne (Di) Bates. Contact her on dibates@outlook.com or check out her website http://www.enterprisingwords.com.au
Debra’s debut picture book, When I See Grandma, illustrated by Leigh Hedstrom and published by Wombat Books, has been met with critical acclaim, shortlisted for the Speech Pathology Book of the Year awards in 2014 and awarded the CALEB prize for children’s picture book the same year. Debra’s other writing, both flash fiction and narrative non-fiction, has been highly commended and published in various industry magazines and journals. Debra has a Bachelor degree in Social Work and an MA in Children Literature. She reviews books for Reading Time and Creative Kids Tales, blogs for Just Write For Kids and is on the committee of her local CBCA sub-branch in Sydney. Debra is a dynamic and energetic speaker and is available for author talks and story-time sessions for schools, libraries, playgroups and festivals.
F/B: www.facebook.com/debratidballpage
Twitter: www.twitter.com/debratidball
Elizabeth Mary Cummings is a British author and poet based in Sydney, Australia. She is a member of the American Psychology Association and studied psychology and business studies at The University of Edinburgh in Scotland before training to be a Primary School teacher (with a Masters of Education) and travelling around the world with her family. Her work has taken her to many schools across the UK, New Zealand and Australia.
Elizabeth’s stories often take a child’s perspective to explain the world and reflect on important life experiences. Her picture books and junior fiction titles include themes on resilience, grief, empowerment, anti-bullying, and she writes, advocates and speaks on storytelling and health matters for families and youth.
The topics within Elizabeth’s books are of both local and global significance. She travels globally to talk about family and mental health matters as well as creative writing.
Her first book ‘The Disappearing Sister’ has gained attention for its simple explanation of eating disorders aimed at siblings and families of sufferers. Elizabeth also enjoys writing poetry and won the HARP Writers’ Prize in 2015 for a poem about gender and identity.
Three kinds of assessments are offered, as below. Your story will be read and thoroughly edited online and you will also receive a written report outlining the strengths of your manuscript and suggestions for ways in which you can improve it. If Di believes your story is publishable, she will suggest a number of Australian publishers to whom you can submit the manuscript.
When you have made payment (and informed Di), you can submit your story as a Word document and editing will be undertaken online. It usually takes fewer than five days for Di to read, edit and assess your manuscript from the date of submission. You are also welcome to ask any questions before, during and after assessment.
Di’s email address is dibates@outlook.com; she responds as soon as possible to all emails.
Picture Book Assessment
For books under 500 words, the assessment will cost you $100. For books between 500 and 1,000 words, the cost will be $150.
Junior Novel
Your novel, for children aged 8 to 12 years, should be about 25,000 words and no longer than 45,000. The cost is $10 per 1,000 words.
Children’s Non-Fiction Book
As for junior novel. Testimonials are available on request.
Payment
Apply to Di at dibates@outlook.com for how to pay.
About your assessor
Dianne (Di) Bates has published over 130 books for young readers in her 35 year writing career. Some of these books have been published overseas and won national and state book awards, including two children’s choice book awards. Di has also worked as a newspaper and children’s magazines editor. In 2006 she founded Buzz Words, an online magazine for people in the Australian children’s book industry. Di has received grants and fellowships from the Literature Board of the Australia Council. She also received the Lady Cutler Award from the Children’s Book Council of Australia for distinguished services to children’s literature.
Di offers online writing courses for adults writing for children; (she will send full details, if you are interested), and since 2006 had produced the twice monthly children’s book industry newsletter Buzz Words.
Di is married to prize-winning YA author Bill Condon; they live in Wollongong, NSW, and share a website: http://www.enterprisingwords.com.au.
Ethicool Books is a children’s book publisher with a big mission. We want to create a generation of little superheroes who understand the world’s big issues and go out there and do something about them.
Our beautifully-illustrated, heartfelt stories will help your littles ones (or getting-big-ones) understand issues such as sustainability, climate change, ocean care, poverty, gender equality, and much more. All topics are explored in a moving and relatable way, and help start important conversations in bedrooms and loungerooms, world-wide. If you want your children to not only love and learn language, but love the world they’re in and want to make it a better place, they’ll be a story for them at Ethicool.
Our books are primarily for children aged 0-8, but they also make a great addition to your coffee table collection. They’re also a memorable gift for that special little someone in your life who you know is going to grow up and make a difference.
As a children’s book publisher, we also welcome submissions from authors and illustrators.
Jane Smith is a Queensland librarian, author and freelance editor with a particular interest in history. Her books include the non-fiction ‘Australian Bushrangers’ series, the ‘Tommy Bell: Bushranger Boy’ and ‘Carly Mills, Pioneer Girl’ historical fiction series for children, as well as two books for adults: the biography Captain Starlight: The Strange but True Story of a Bushranger, Impostor and Murderer and Ship of Death. Three of Jane’s children’s books have been listed for significant Australian literature awards.
In her spare time, Jane enjoys reading, singing in a community choir, and having coffee and cake with friends at what they loosely call ‘Book Club’.
Janeen Brian has had an incredible career working with children, literature and the arts since the age of eighteen when she taught her first class of year five students. While raising a family, she began a four-year career with a professional children’s theatre company, both acting and writing. She has also been involved in over 100 television and radio commercials as well as dozens of voiceovers for radio and video Janeen began dabbling in writing in her thirties, and since then she has written over 100 books both in trade and education, and in genres ranging from picture books to poetry, short fiction, nonfiction and novels. Janeen is an award-winning author and poet and many of her books have been translated and published overseas.
Some of Janeen’s books include, Eloise and the Bucket of Stars, I’m a Dirty Dinosaur (series), Meet… Nellie Melba, Mrs Dog, This is Home: Essential Australian Poems for Children, Where Does Thursday Go?, Yong; the Journey of an Unworthy Son (adapted to stage), Look, Baby! and her latest release, The Fix-it Princess.
Janeen Brian is on Facebook at @JaneenBrianAuthor and Instagram at @janeen.brian.
June was born in PNG to an Australian Dad and Bush Mekeo mother. Her early years were spent in Tasmania and after some nomadic university years lived mostly in Queensland. She now lives in Brisbane with her three older children (university and senior school), dear science genius hubby, two guinea pigs, a pet bird and several pet fish, as well as several guitars, a drum, two digeridoos and keyboard.
Books
June is the editor and contributor to two books, Under One Sky (2010) the anthology of the Licuala Writer’s Group and After Yasi, Finding the Smile Within (2013), a compilation of photographs and stories about using the creative arts to recover from cyclone Yasi. She had a collection of her photographs and poems for family included in an online book by the late Nell Arnold, called Discovering (2011).
In 2016 June successfully crowd funded $10,000 to publish Magic Fish Dreaming as well as winning as ASA emerging writers mentorship for picture book writing.
June’s latest book is Magic Fish Dreaming, a collection of poems written for five to eleven year olds. It takes readers on a poetry quest through Far North Queensland and encourages them to write their own poetry based on their environment and imagination.
Education
June has a PhD from the University of Sydney in writing empowerments and extensive experience as a ‘writer in community’ workshopping, dramaturging and performing. When she isn’t writing she is tutoring creative writers at QUT in the keystones program at the Oodgeroo unit, working on creative collaborations, walking in nature or reading. She maintains blogs on writing and life in Queensland.
Awards
June was honoured to receive an Australia Day Award in 2011 for five years of service to writing and youth empowerment in the Cassowary Coast, including mentoring young and community writers from all walks of life in writing their own poetry. She’s received a number of RADF and Australian council grants to facilitate a diverse range of writing projects.
Themes
The main themes of June’s picture books and YA novels in development are; discovery, migration, respect for nature, people and diversity, dreaming, creativity, compassion, and poetry.
Upcoming
June is booked on a panel at the Sandcliffe Festival in April 2017, sharing her ‘unique story’ and is currently designing library workshop, events and festival submissions to further the cause of poetry for children and children’s poets.
M. J. Gibbs has an innate curiosity about people and places when finding ideas for the stories and poems she writes. From ‘Booknook Blue’ in Maryborough and Kenmore, Brisbane to the Bookloft in Mapleton, Marg has reached out to children in local communities to bring a love of reading and story telling. The book clubs enabled her own four children and their friends a golden opportunity to connect, be creative and enjoy a bookish program involving craft, games and outings.
Marg has published poetry in magazines and anthologies, ‘The Magic Fairy Wish’ and ‘Musical Christmas Tree’, ‘Alone in a Dark Room’, ‘Phantom Moon’, ‘The Hope Tree’ and ‘Art Room’ in the NSW School magazine. Her stories about the Brisbane flood have been enjoyed by many.
Her recent picture book called ‘Arriving Home’, about Maggie the Magpie Goose and Eric Echidna was well received in the community especially with the help of 9 local artists who illustrated it. Its message is clear – friendship, belonging and community.
‘Jasper’s Jumbled up Words’ is a sensitive and gentle picture book about a young boy who wants to be understood, which deals with the difficulties surrounding language development. Illustrated by Emma Stuart, this book was published in July 2020.
