Alison Stegert
Alison Stegert, a writer of Middle Grade and Young Adult fiction put me on to this blog tour. Check out Alison’s blog and her writing process. I have come to know Alison over the last year through my writing group, called Write Links Children’s Writers Group in Brisbane. 
I wish I had notebooks like these, but my handwriting is much messier.
1. What am I working on? My greatest love is writing picture books. I have quite a few on the go and I go back to writing or editing these. I start many new ones too. I have a massive ideas file of ones waiting to be developed. I have also started to write short stories and enjoy submitting these in competitions. I have been fortunate to win a commended certificate and have one published on Kids’ Book Review. I have also started writing two junior fiction chapter books. These are in the very early stages. 
I spend a lot of time drinking tea when I write.
2. How does my work differ from others of its genre? My perspective with picture books is I try to find a balance between humour and heartfelt. I want to leave a lasting impression on a young child to read a book again and again and I hope my work encourages them to pick up another book. 
A beautiful sight
3. Why do I write what I do? I write for children because I love how absorbed they can get in a book they are really interested in. I struggled to learn to read and I want children to connect with books from an early age. Reading opens so many doors and I want children to love what they read. 
Lots of edits from my critique buddies
4. How does your writing process work?
I keep a lot of ideas filed away. I work on what takes my interest at the time. When there are deadlines for competitions or assessments, I focus on editing those manuscripts first. I will often come back to manuscripts that have been tucked away for months when I feel ready to look at it again and have some fresh ideas. Once I’ve gotten to an impasse with my manuscript I will send it to one of my critique groups for comments. These critiques help me to edit and rewrite manuscripts. I often go through at least two rounds of critique on each manuscript, sometimes months apart to ensure the manuscript is ready for submission. It is reassuring to get validation from other writing friends who believe when your manuscript is ready and have seen it transform over time. I trust their opinion because they would tell me if it wasn’t. You need to find honest, constructive, but encouraging critique partners who can be your sounding board and you can be the same for them.
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 Felicity Vallence On Monday night I sat amongst a sea of teenage girl fans of Young Adult (YA Fiction) at the State Library of Queensland organised by Penguin Teen Australia. I felt a little like a fish out of water. I met the ultimate grown-up teen girl in Penguin’s very own, Felicity Vallence. Who doesn’t like getting a free copy of the book, Popular on your way in? Great way to win over your audience. But I was still a little reserved. What was I doing here? Was I really like these teen girls? Then it all flooded back to me. The highs, the lows, the gossip, the friends, the boys, the drama of it all.  I loved and absorbed every moment. I rode the wave. I felt the squeals and screams of the girl’s excitement at the announcement of books and authors, the swoons and sighs over dreamy male characters and major clapping for the chemistry between different characters. All this for John Green, Vampire Academy’s Richelle Mead, Melina Marchetta and many more.  The constant interaction between, all-things-teen-knowing-Felicity and the audience was amazing. The crowd fed off each other. The teen girls knew and reacted to each book that flashed on the screen and spoke with such intelligence and connection. These fans live and breathe all that is YA and even blog about it. Did this amount of amazing teen fiction exist when I was a teenager? I’m not sure. A late bloomer to reading, I only really discovered my love of books when I was at university and I was dying to read anything other than a textbook. I struggled to learn to read. The great thing about reading, is it doesn’t matter at what age you connect. Audience transcends genre and recommended age group. My writing friends and I are proof of this. We love children’s literature. During the break I think we all talked like a group of teen girls, catching up on each other’s latest news. We commiserated, we laughed and we encouraged each other. I no longer felt like I was out of my depths, but I was delving back into my inner teen and loving every minute.  Caylie Jeffery, Melanie Hill, me and Alison Stegert. I loved that Felicity not only plugged Penguin books, she also spoke about other YA and New Adult books from other publishers that she loved. Here are her top picks:
Our Top 5 Side Effects May Vary, Julie Murphy On the Jellicoe Road, Melina Marchetta Anna and the French Kiss, Stephanie Perkins The Fault in Our Stars, John Green Vampire Academy, Richelle Mead Other Publishers Books We Love: If I Stay, Gayle Forman Where She Went, Gayle Forman Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell The Impossible Memory of Knife, Laurie Halse Anderson Going Too Far, Jennifer Echols These Broken Stars, Amie Kaufman & Megan Spooner Pushing the Limits series, Katie McGarry Other Books We Want to Read: Shatter Me, Tahereh Mafi Miss Peregrine’s Home for the Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs Anna Dressed in Blood, Kendare Blake The Geography of You and Me, Jennifer E. Smith The Diviners, Libba Bray The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, Michelle Hodkin Throne of Glass, Sarah J. Maas Slammed, Colleen Hoover Under the Never Sky, Veronica Rossi Obsidian, Jennifer L. Armentrout The Underrated: My Life Next Door, Huntley Fitzpatrick The Legend Series, Marie Lu Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Marissa Meyer The Enemy series Charlie Higson 2014 The Fault in Our Stars, John Green Winning the Player, Leesa Bow –ebook only Popular, Maya Van Wagenen Breakable, Tammara Webber – also Easy Dangerous Creatures, Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl – series spin off of Beautiful Creatures series The Immortal Crown, Richelle Mead – Bk 2 in The Age of X series, Bk 1 Gameboard of the Gods Masquerade, Kylie Fornasier Silver Shadows, Richelle Mead – Bk 5 in The Bloodlines series, Bk 1 Bloodlines, Bk 2 The Golden Lily, Bk 3 The Indigo Spell, Bk 4 The Fiery Heart The Rapunzel Dilemma, Jen Kloester – Bk 2, Bk 1 The Cinderella Moment The Revenge of Seven, Pittacus Lore – Bk 5 in the Lorien Legacies series, Bk 1 I Am Number Four, Bk 2 The Power of Six, Bk 3 The Rise of Nine, Bk 4 The Fall of Five Shatter, by Erin McCarthy – Bk 4 in True Believers series, Bk 1 True, Bk 2 Sweet *ebook only, Bk 3 Believe *ebook only The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey – Bk 2, Bk 1 The 5th Wave Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld Blood of Olympus: Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan – Bk 5 in Heroes of Olympus series Bk 1 The Lost Heroes Bk 2 The Son of Neptune Bk 3 The Mark of Athena Bk 4 The House of Hades Gathering Darkness by Morgan Rhodes – Bk 3 in the Falling Kingdoms series Bk 1 Falling Kingdoms Bk 2 Rebel Spring A little like a teen groupie, I hung around at the end and had to meet the vivacious Felicity. My writing friend Melanie, came with me, like your teen friends do. Felicity gave me hope and let me know Melina Marchetta had once been a teacher turned writer. We bonded over Channel Seven’s top shows as a teenager, namely the 10.30pm weekday timeslots devoted to Buffy, Angel and Felicity. She even recognised my name when I’d RSVP to the event. If anyone can make you love dystopian YA fiction, look no further than Felicity and you can interact with her on the live Twitter chats. Felicity is the ultimate YA ambassador and proud of it. Best of all you can hear more of Felicity and the Penguin team at Penguin Teen Live Australia TV. Squeal some more teen girls! All you ever want to know about YA books in their fortnightly episodes. I love the dialogue that a publisher has with their audience. It makes me want to engage with kids more, and understand them so I can write better. Penguin is lucky to have Felicity and it makes me excited that one day I will work with someone who loves children’s literature, lives and breathes it as much as I do. Thanks for a great night. |
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Photos used under Creative Commons from keithalexander, aliwest44, Kuba Bożanowski, neil conway, kencf0618, Celestine Chua, mayrpamintuan, baynado1978, angelocesare, MacBeales, itsdannie., Unhindered by Talent
