I am so happy to be able to chat about our new book “Backyard Beasts & Curious Capers”! It is our fourth anthology from The Ten Penners, our first came out in 2004 and this is when we adopted our group name. Previously, we had the boring standard title of adults writing for children – a subgroup of the Gold Coast Writer’s Association (GCWA). I joined the association in approximately 2002. My daughter was just a toddler and I thought I’d join the sub-group to help me write stories for her. The group was fabulous. Sharing knowledge, which most writers do, and our group was just fun because kid’s books are fun. Maria O’Donnell was the group co-ordinator at the time and early in 2004 we took a TAFE class together. I had missed a writing meeting and she informed me that we were going to try our hand at a self-publication. Cool! I said. Maria said they already had the title… “Shock! Horror! Gasp!” And so, we all began compiling our many stories together, some had come from the monthly meeting exercises, some were new creations, and some were gems that had been sitting in the bottom drawer waiting to be released
into the world. As there were ten of us at the time, we called ourselves “The Ten Penners”. The name has simply stuck as our group name ever since. Anna, who was a drama teacher, taught us dance moves to The Monster Mash song and we dressed up as witches and ghouls for the launch at the GCWA monthly meeting at Pacific Fair’s old community room. We made a grand impression! The next year, Maria stepped down and asked me to be co-ordinator, which I accepted. She needed a rest after the massive effort of producing a book and she needed time for her grandkids.
I found out exactly how demanding compiling a book was in 2009 when we produced Fan-tas-tic-al Tales. The mix of authors changed but the fun didn’t stop, and we had some of our children put on a play to showcase our characters for the launch. If you think writing stories, and editing is hard, then add the typesetting and book layouts to get the book to be ready for publication. Then more editing, tweaking, and being relieved and excited to have the book in your hands!
Then… marketing! The efforts don’t stop once the book is written. Many writers that are even published by professional houses, still need to self-promote. Lots of time and effort go into getting the book “out there”. It is all worth it in the end, the elated feelings you get from producing a book and being called an author is wonderful. It is what we strive for as authors, to have our stories read and liked by young minds and have them comment on how much they enjoyed your stories, it makes every effort worth it. This time around we even progressed to school visits and did writing workshops for the Gold Coast Gifted and Talented at Hillcrest, Benowa Primary, Surfers Paradise Primary, Broadbeach Primary and Emanuel College.
In between the first two books, some GCWA members at our Christmas party suggested the association needed a kids sub-group. I was elected to run the meetings! I did have fun. I thought I could inspire my daughter who I dragged along with me! It wasn’t really her, but I think it helped a bit. It did increase membership for a short while and the “Writers Force” as we called the group, flourished. We did the Katharine Susannah Prichard Book in a Day challenge, two years in a row. There were some very talented authors and I hope they are still writing today.
For the next few years, I conducted our monthly meeting as usual, sharing snippets of interesting
writing tips, inspiring imaginative prose and honing our craft to create more gems from our exercises. We wanted another book and in 2017 “Mystery, Mayhem & Magic” was launched at Broadbeach Library. We had a great dress-up again and lots of fun. Another new lineup of authors. I had help from Kate & Ellie who are excellent at editing. Kate also did the collating of the stories and getting the final publishing.
I was very thankful for the help. Unfortunately, it all boils down to one person in the end and I know Kate was as exhausted as I had been with my first time publishing. Being the avid book producer she is, Kate has helped again with our latest book.
Over the sixteen years, I enjoyed being co-ordinator, but one does get a bit stale. Jill Smith was not only a perfect candidate, but she has also been impressing everyone with her organising skills and driving us to yet another successful publication with “Backyard Beasts & Curious Capers”!
I hope you all buy a copy from your favourite author or join us to celebrate at the launch or buy some books for Christmas presents, because reading is the way to improve the mind, and it is fun.
Below are our Blog Tour details, be sure to check out the other authors and reviewers. The posts will always be there on everyone’s blog so you can catch up at any time.
Also, get your children to colour in our cute Quoggle, email the artwork and hopefully win a prize!
Happy reading – Marion!
Thanks, Marion for your comprehensive rundown of being a coordinator for The Ten Penners for sixteen years. Thanks also for your kind words. - Jill
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