Break it, fix it, reinvent yourself
A brand new website and a month of bookish things
It’s taken months and it’s been confronting but at last, my BRAND NEW WEBSITE is live - TA-DAH!
kirstymurray.com
Please take a look and email me if I’ve missed anything. Or just email me to say how much you like it. Don’t email if you hate it. It nearly killed me to rebuild it. Thanks to my brilliant designer son, Elwyn Murray, the new website is gorgeous and I am still alive.
My old website had grown creaky. The pictures of me looked like someone from another lifetime. I like to imagine that (occasionally) I still look like those old photos but I know that (mostly) I don’t. A lot happens in a decade or two. Maybe I look smarter now(?)
One of my favourite things about the new website is that I have a very exciting arrangement with The Little Bookroom to send signed copies of my books to anyone who wants them. TA-DAH! (again)
The hardest thing about updating my website was coming to terms with:
my vanity
the fact that the internet has destroyed mountains of teachers’ notes.
My old website linked to fabulous resources created by dedicated English teachers: webquests, wikis and entire websites that supported the teaching of my books have disappeared. Sites lost their hosts, software became obsolete and program’s shattered.
Poking around in the ‘way back’ machine of the internet archive I found broken bits and pieces that were once cohesive classroom resources. Thank you to all those lovely, hard working thinkers, dreamers, readers and inspiring educators that have responded so enthusiastically to my books over the years and helped their students to read deeply: Lilian Leptos, J. Mitchell M. Reid and C. Bradbeer , Di Wilson, Hamish Curry to name a few.
Luckily, Allen & Unwin have preserved the teacher’s notes that they commissioned and I found some new resources to link to as well. But if you are a teacher who would like to share resources focussing on any of my books, please let me know. I’d love to add them to the new website.
Bookish things that happened last month
Prizes
The very beautiful Strangers on Country was shortlisted by the judges of the 2021 CBCA Book of the Year Awards. Huzzah! There are some gorgeous books on the shortlist for the Eve Pownall Awards for Information books so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Strangers on Country is one of the most important books I’ve ever worked on. Its first print-run sold out but copies will be available again in June.
Panels
I spoke on a panel on Digital Lending Rights at the Australian Digital Alliance Conference about why we need DLR for Australian writers and illustrators and why we need them now. Olivia Lanchester, CEO of the Australian Society of Authors and Trish Hepworth, Director of Policy and Education at the Australian Library and Information Association also spoke about why DLR matters, why they support it and why it will change lives.
Playfulness
One afternoon a week I volunteer in the school library at Waratah Special Developmental School. The kids at Waratah SDS have moderate to severe intellectual disabilities and they’ve taught me so much about the importance of books for kids of every ability. Last month, with the help of The Kids’ Bookshop and the dedicated staff at Waratah, we organised an online book fair to help refresh the shelves of the school library. It was humbling to realise just how generous people can be in support of kids and books. I can’t wait to see the students loving all the beautiful new titles that are about to land on the library shelves.
Bookish things that happened in the last 23 years
In twenty-three years, I’ve produced twenty-three published books. I’ve also written countless unpublished/yet to be published works, thousands of blogs, emails and other ephemera, including a lot of shopping lists. While updating my website, I looked across those past 23 years in 5 year blocks. It made me feel a little tired but also realise I have a lot more to do. Here’s my 23 year summary with the mess and shopping lists removed:
1998: I was a struggling writer of non-fiction for children with half a dozen part-time jobs and a complicated, chaotic household full of kids and teenagers.
2003: I was a full-time professional author for children and teens with a focus on historical fiction. I attended writers’ festivals, taught creative writing in schools and launched my first website, and my fourth novel, the first book in the Children of the Wind series, Bridie’s Fire.
2008: I put the finishing touches on Vulture’s Gate – a futuristic dystopia – and started to push the boundaries of my writing practice. The first grandchild arrived in our family. My kids were leaving home and in some ways, so was I. My passport was filling up with visas to India, China and other destinations.
2013: My tenth novel The Four Seasons of Lucy McKenzie was published and I launched my second website. I began work on Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean as both an editor and contributor and spent days in meetings with writers and publishers, and countless hours editing and thinking about transnational narratives.
2018: My first picture book, Puddle Hunters, illustrated by the endlessly talented Karen Blair arrived in bookshops. At last, I was a ‘proper’ children’s author! Writing picture books made me feel that I’d reached the pinnacle of achievement in children’s literature. Scaling back from 80,000 word novels to 400 word picture book manuscripts was seriously challenging. So in my never-ending quest to be a real grown-up, I set myself a new challenge and joined the board of the Australian Society of Authors.
2021: The world looks different. The lines are shifting. I’m a director on two boards that are trying to help writers and artists make their way in this complicated world. Looking down the span of decades and into the faces of our grandchildren and godchildren, I’m beginning to rethink my writing practice yet again. Stay posted for the next reinvention.
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