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Small towns might be able to keep big secrets but…

Contract 3 and 4…I am terrible at keeping secrets and this one has been burning a hole in my draft blog file since August when the lovely Larissa Edwards (my publisher) rang, wanting me to sign on with Simon & Schuster for another two books.

That means books three and four of my plan (read: dream) to see my Seasons Collection in print will actually come to life in 2015 and 2016. (Now my Facebook friends will understand my fascination for trees (thanks Patricia Franks) and my new little logo thingy showing four seasonsfour seasons.)

To say I am excited is, well, a massive understatement. I am also a little daunted as my previous experience has been along the lines of: write two books, sub two books, edit two books. It wasn’t until I saw the contract front page had books three and four listed as “UNTITLED NOVEL” did the significance of this offer hit me and I decided wine was required. (Quite liked the Two Fathoms label for two books. Any excuse really!)

Sincere thanks to my followers, my friends, family and especially my readers. And to those of you who have already popped reviews on retail & review sites (Amazon, Goodreads) here is a big (((cyber hug))). Contrary to popular belief, happy reader reviews do NOT give authors massive heads. They let authors breathe and enjoy the dream.

Such a dream come true too. I’m feeling a little country magic right now and am so glad I can finally shout out my news. The wait has been killing me, but I wanted to have the contract in my hands before I told anyone and there was a delay as it had to go through the S&S USA contracts process. As a result things were a tad more ‘involved’ so I am grateful for Clare and Annabel at Curtis Brown for their expertise and guidance.

But wait! There’s more…

No, not the steak knives. It’s the B format** of House for all Seasons. (And look at this lovely praise.)

SPraise for HFAS&S are bringing it forward from March next year to Christmas – in time for Chrissie stockings, folks! (and with a snazzy teal-coloured title!)

To celebrate I will have some House for all Seasons giveaways to announce soon – I will do so here or on Facebook. So if you are not subscribed to my blog as yet HFAS B Format(or Facebook) now might be a good time if you wnat a chance to win a copy before Christmas.

**To those readers unfamiliar with the publishing jargon, the B format is the smaller  version book that generally comes out around the same time as an author’s latest release. BTW – ‘Back List’ (what the biz calls an author’s previous titles) is another word I never thought I’d associate with my name!

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Bar Yarns w/ Josephine Moon (& her tea-riffic giveaway!)

Josephine MoonThe Calingarry Crossing pub welcomes Josephine Moon, author of the 2014 release The Tea Chest — out around the same time as Simmering Season, so there will be some serious ‘shelf-elfing’ in book stores required to get pics of us together. Looking forward to that!

Come on in, Josephine. Grab a pew. What can I get you to go with your beer nuts? (Shandy? Wine Spritzer? Pink Lemonade?)

Cocktails all the way — the fluffier, fruitier, chocolatier, more umbrella-ed the better.

Her’s a beer coaster. Would you mind jotting your blurb on the back for us?

‘The Tea Chest’

Rows of teapots and Turkish tea glasses lay out for taste tests. Roasted marshmallow, chocolates, gingerbread men, Turkish delight, chocolate-coated raspberries, crystalised ginger and truffles all sat in tall glass jars, just begging for someone to pluck them for themselves.

Kate Fullerton is the lead tea designer for The Tea Chest, a boutique tea store in Brisbane, but inherits half the company after her mentor, Simone, dies. Now, she’s faced with the enormous task of going to London to set up a new store from scratch in just six weeks and prove to her family, her hostile business partner and herself that she’s worth the risk.

Leila Morton has just been fired from her job. Elizabeth Clancy has just found out her husband has betrayed her in the most awful way. Both need to start again.

Can the three women succeed against the odds?

They have to. The Tea Chest is just too precious to lose.

I’m in a bar and I have a sudden hankering for a cuppa! Hey, did you hear the one about … Got any good pub jokes?

Oh, I’m so bad at jokes I wouldn’t even try. I refer you to my Dad, however, who is always ready with a joke to share over a beer or glass of wine. 🙂

I’m a beer nut nut! What bar snack would you be and why?

There are snacks at the bar? I thought the bar was for cocktails.

Ahh, that beer hit the spot. Let me slip a drink coaster under your glass while you tell us if you are a messy desker or tidy desker? (NB: 1 = “I am a neat nut case” and 10 = “What desk? Where? Is there a desk here somewhere?”)

Shamefully, I’m going to say an 8. Right now, I share my writing room with the baby’s change table (so lots of little man shorts and shoes and smelly nappies) and my 18-year-old cat (so lots of drool and smelly kitty litter), and occasionally my husband (lots of coffee cups and lunch plates). But I’m creating a new writing room in another location so stay tuned for much improved surroundings.

The publican offers you free drinks all night if you will:

  • Dance to Gangnam Style
  • Sing John Denver’s ‘Take me Home Country Roads’ – Karaoke style
  • Spend an hour washing dishes

Which do you choose?

John Denver, without question. I actually HAVE sung ‘Take Me Home Country Roads’ at karaoke (sober, big mistake) and it was truly awful. (Funnily enough, I didn’t get any free drinks either…hmm.) That song is a lot harder to sing than you think it is!

Time to liven the place up. Got a buck? We can crank up the old jukebox in the corner. You get to pick three songs.

  1. Michael Jackson — Blame it on the Boogie
  2. Michael Jackson — Don’t stop til you get enough
  3. Michael Jackson — The way you make me feel

(Did I mention I love Michael Jackson?)

An author, an agent and a chicken walk into the bar… how do you know which one crossed the road?

Oh my gosh… can I answer this with a story? (If you throw in ‘an actor’, you would be right on track.)

A funny thing happened on the way down Oxford Street in Sydney, after I flew down there to meet my literary agent for the first time.

I was walking along, soaking up the bliss of chocolate shops, wine bars, T2 and more, when I noticed a black chook trying to make its way across the four lanes of traffic of Oxford Street. I knew immediately that the chicken was ‘for me’ (because, as a rescuer, this type of thing happens to me all the time), so I began to herd it gently to the footpath. Lots of people gathered around, taking photos, and a couple of ‘city folk’ tried to catch her by running at her. Now, if you’re a farm girl, like me, you know that is the worst thing to do to try and catch a chook because all they do is run in zig zags, so I took command and guided her gently to a stairwell and then picked her up. By this time, another rescuer type woman was there and saying we should take her to the vet (the chook had a damaged wing) and asked if I wanted to get into her car and she’d drive me and the chook (now nestle peacefully in my arms). I trusted her immediately (no fear of ‘stranger danger’). She was so lovely and warm. So we got in and off we went.

We were getting on fabulously and chatting away when I said, ‘I’m Jo, by the way,’ and she said, ‘I’m Penny.’

I looked at her and she suddenly looked really familiar. I told her as much and she said tea 2she was Penny Cook, who played the vet, Vicky, on A Country Practice. I totally adored that show as a kid so felt quite thrilled that I was on a secret chook mission with a famous actor! We dropped off the chook at the vet, went to a local preschool to see if the chook came from there, and she drove me back to Oxford Street.

So, there was an agent, an author, an actor and a chicken, and the chicken definitely was the one that crossed the road.

There’s a stapler on the bar. Tell me what it’s doing there.

Emergency repairs to fallen hems due to all the robust dancing to Michael Jackson post cocktail drinking. (That’s what I use staplers for… is there another use?)

The pub is the heart of a small town and most locals would be lost without one. What are three things you’d be lost without?

(Well obviously, my husband, son and family (furry and human)… but let me think a bit wider…)

  1. Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat.
  2. Earplugs. Every night. Also an eye mask. And my own pillow. These are the three things I pack first whenever I go away. (I’m a high-maintenance sleeper.)
  3. A good book to read and fluffy socks.

(This was more than three, sorry.)

Shhh! The last race of the day is on the TAB screen and I reckon I’ve picked a winner. I browse the race guide with the jockey colours influencing my bet. When browsing a bookshop, what influences you?

  1. Author (especially if they’re Australian)
  2. Cover design
  3. Title
  4. Tagline/blurb
  5. First chapter (I actually rarely even read part of a book before I buy it.)
  6. Last page (Never! It’s a sacrilege to read the last page!!!)

There are a few good prizes up for grabs in the bar jackpot. Do you have a lucky number?

Your lucky number is: 8

Last drinks, my friend! It’s been great. But before we go, tell us how we can find out more about you and your writing/books.

My first novel, The Tea Chest, is published by Allen & Unwin and will be on shelves in April 2014 in time for mother’s day!

You can keep in touch with me at:

www.josephinemoon.com
Twitter @josephine_moon
or on Facebook

GIVEAWAY:  Jenn, I have no books yet, but since my book is centred on tea, I’d be really happy to post someone some of my favourite tea. 🙂 Can we ask for chicken stories? I love chooks!

Take it away readers… Give us your best chicken story.

And if you enjoyed this Bar Yarn, there are lots more to come. So you never miss a post, why not whack your email in the TELL ME! box above.

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Author Bar Yarns with Kathy Mexted

Kathy Mexted flyingMeet a freelance writer, journo and photographer who likes to fly! Yes, Kathy Mexted does it all and she’s been flying pretty high with the news her latest short story was shortlisted in a recent Qld Rural Writers comp. Just like some other emerging authors who appeared on Author Harvest last year (yes, you Juliet Madison)! I think we will soon start hearing a lot more about author Kathy! (Just take a look at her ‘stapler’ answer and you’ll see what I mean. (Yes, you, Allen & Unwin!)

I remember ‘meeting’ Kathy online. She had won a copy of House for all Seasons from Helene Young’s blog and I then found her blog, loving her wonderful, witty (but more recently poignant) way with words. I just had to have a yarn.

So, what can I get you to go with your beer nuts, Kathy? (Shandy? Wine Spritzer? Beer Yarns and beer Nuts welcomes Kim Kelly Pink Lemonade?)

Hanging Rock pink bubbles (Macedon NV Brut Rosé)

Hey, did you hear the one about …?

How do you sell a rabbit to a deaf man?  WANNA BUY A RABBIT? (OK. That was a joke that worked well in the bar of the British High Commission in Singapore in 1985. Even though everybody heard Graham screaming ‘Wanna buy a rabbit’, everybody seemed to fall for the joke. It lives on in his memory).

I’m a beer nut nut! What bar snack would you be and why?

Twisties. When I lived overseas I craved them and no two Twisties/nights in a pub are ever the same. They also take no preparation. I am not much for cooking.

The publican offers you free drinks all night if you will:

  • Dance to Gangnam Style
  • Sing John Denver’s ‘Take me Home Country Roads’ on the Karaoke machine
  • Spend an hour washing dishes

Sing – definitely. It’d be a first. OK. Maybe second, oh hang on… well, there was this one night in Brisbane when I first met my husband-to-be’s family at a wedding and in a bar at 2am Uncle Greg and I were singing Khe Sanh on Karaoke. You’ve gotta do it at least once, don’t you?

Time to liven the place up. Got a buck? We can crank up the old jukebox in the corner. You get to pick three songs.

  1. Springsteen, ‘Pay Me My Money Down’ (The Live in Dublin version). I’m all over Springsteen since he played at Hanging Rock at Easter 2013 and I walked over to both concerts. I’m completely converted now. What a performer. I’d have gone every night for a week if he’d been playing for a week. Current favourite is the Live in Dublin album.
  2. Spiderbait, ‘Black Betty’ for my brother’s fantastic banjo riffs. We have spent some cherished creative moments recently. Not on the banjo though.
  3. Chisel or Sarah Blasko singing ‘Flame Trees’.  That song jumps into my head every time I drive into my old hometown of Finley.  My young daughters now demand it on the way to Tocumwal/Finley.

An author, an agent and a chicken walk into the bar… how do you know which one crossed the road?

Let’s hope it was the agent running across the road waving a contract, but we all know it would be the author running in circles, one of which happened to be intersected by a road. Chickens don’t cross roads. That’s a myth.

There’s a stapler on the bar. Tell me what it’s doing there. (Buckle up, readers. This is one tall and terrifically told yarn!)

An author is stapling business cards to manuscripts and, sinking a Whisky, she sings the blues to an ever-sympathetic barman. The supportive regulars slap her on the back, ‘It’s a g-r-e-a-t book, hunny. You know you’re gonna be famous one day.’

The clock ticks over 6pm and in the corner a solo banjo player twangs and tunes his instrument. The black vinyl on his three-legged stool is frayed at the corners. The small crowd grows expectant and the author senses a more immediate urge. The urge to sing. Sing away the blues. Sing to the anticipation of a good night in the small pub. Sing to Saturday night. She calls her mate the trombonist and whips a harmonica from her handbag. By 9pm the place is jumping and the growing crowd raise their glasses with a yahoo, grateful for the distraction from harvest. A toothless shearer lurches at the musicians who momentarily fall silent. He rifles in an old duffle bag and produces a squeeze-box.

A stranger’s anchor-tattooed arm ripples as he strokes his snowy flowing beard and then joins the fracus on the lagerphone and by midnight the owner doesn’t recognise his normally subdued crowd. The revellers spill onto the footpath. A young girl falls in love. A mother of three is dancing on a table for the first time in ten years, and the publican has run out of glasses. In the back bar, three Allen & Unwin commissioning agents were having a quiet country weekend. Like swaying cobras drawn to the snake charmers tune, the intoxicating Irish music entices them out and as they succumb to the madness, their cold beers come to rest on the manuscripts on the bar. Above the damp type, the author’s name is unfamiliar to them from a recent slush pile. Surely this girl on the microphone must be able to write though because, against the menacing ping of the banjo, she sure as hell can hold the raucous crowd with a joke.

By 3am there is no more rum and the remaining glasses are disappearing up the road in a swaying chorus to Dirty Old Town. The shearers have stopped fighting and the local cop is acting as a courtesy bus. The barmaid throws the regulars onto swags in the dining room to sleep it off and as the owner stands in stunned after-shock, a lost and lone chicken wanders through the carnage. Bork-bork-bork-bork. Hosing out the bar, the owner stoops to pick up his stapler. He places in on the bar with a set of Holden ute keys, a black jacket, four cigarette lighters and the musicians upended three-legged stool. He’s not handing any of them over until next Saturday night.

The pub is the heart of a small town and most locals would be lost without one. What are three things you’d be lost without?

  1. Laptop
  2. Camera
  3. PhoneThe Outer Barcoo

Last drinks, my friend! It’s been great. But before we go, tell us how we can find out more about you and your writing/books.

I write magazine articles and usually provide my own photos. I can’t decide which I enjoy more. I have a completed Memoir manuscript draft titled ‘The Misses and Me’. It is waiting for me to send off for a manuscript appraisal.

You can follow Kathy’s blog called The Outer Barcoo.

Why not nick over there now?http://kathymexted.typepad.com