The Snow Laundry by Mette Jakobsen

The Snow Laundry by Mette Jakobsen Mette Jakobsen is an excellent writer of literary fiction (The Wingmaker is a standout and I am keen to read her earlier novels) and now has branched into YA with The Snow Laundry, the first in her Tower series (published HarperCollins Australia). Mette begins her guest author post at […]

self/less by AVIVA

self/less by AVIVA self/less is multidisciplinary artist and musician AVIVA’s debut novel. It is published by Pan Macmillan Australia. In this YA dystopia, 17-year-old Teddy lives a privileged life in Metropolis where creativity is a crime. Following her desire for freedom and change, she turns her world upside down. AVIVA writes about self/less: At its […]

Claire Zorn and When We Are Invisible

“I will be the sort of person who survives in this new world.” (When We Are Invisible) Claire Zorn is one of Australia’s best and most highly awarded contemporary YA authors. Her novels The Protected and One Would Think the Deep have won major awards, including the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, the CBCA Book of […]

Catch Me If I Fall by Barry Jonsberg

“We’re like one of those fairy stories Mum used to read us at bedtime, Ashleigh. A princess and her prince brother in our beautiful tower… But we know nothing about the world out there … The real world.” (Catch Me If I Fall) Some of Barry Jonsberg’s early YA novels, The Whole Business with […]

The End of the World is Bigger than Love by Davina Bell

Inside the CBCA Shortlist “We live on a blue planet that circles around a ball of fire next to a moon that moves the sea, and you don’t believe in miracles?” (The End of the World is Bigger than Love) The End of the World is Bigger than Love by Davina Bell (Text Publishing) may […]

A.J. Betts and Rogue

Rogue (Pan Macmillan Australia) continues Hayley’s dystopian story – in a surprising, and very different setting – which began in Hive. Thank you for speaking to PaperbarkWords, A.J. Why have you written a duology? It is unusual to have two books rather than one stand-alone, a trilogy or a longer series. There’s no real reason, […]