Book Babble

Mad Dogs and Thunderbolts is the fourth book in Ben Pobjie’s uproarious appraisal of Australian history. But what is it about the past that fascinates Australia’s most irreverent historian so much?

Dave Glasheen has lived alone on Restoration Island for more than 20 years, since he lost his fortune in the stock market crash of 1987 and opted out of the rat-race for good. But what does it take to find happiness on a deserted island? Dave shares the five things he always keeps stock of on Resto.

Justin Heazlewood’s memoir Get Up Mum is partly built around tape cassette recordings Justin made of his family when he was 12, including recordings of his mum who lives with schizophrenia. ABC Radio National’s Life Matters adapted Get Up Mum for a special podcast series, with plenty of original recordings woven in.

Author–illustrator dream team Nick Falk and Tony Flowers have joined forces again for a hilarious new junior fiction book, Vognox the Viking and the Island of Skeletons. This rollicking adventure story entices struggling readers through visual storytelling techniques. Catch Tony Flowers at the Byron Writers Festival on Friday 2 August.

So She Did celebrates the life of May Wirth, who was born in Bundaberg in 1894 and went on to become an internationally famous circus performer. May was renowned for being the first woman in the world to perform the back across – an incredibly risky trick that involved somersaulting from one cantering horse to another. That she did it at a time when girls and women weren’t encouraged to be daring makes it all the more impressive.

At 24, Georgie Dent had the world at her feet – but within a year she was suffering such crippling anxiety that she admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital. Georgie shares what this difficult time was like, and how she relived it when writing her memoir Breaking Badly.

On my five-year anniversary with Affirm Press, Keiran and Martin decided that I’d proofed enough proofs and talked enough authors back from the brink to earn some kind of reward. I thought the idea of a long-service award was lovely, but I’ll admit, when they first brought it up I expected maybe a nice pen – certainly not the chance to spend a working week anywhere in the world for a professional development experience.

Author Maggie Hutchings and illustrator Cheryl Orsini, who teamed up for the much-loved Unicorn!, join forces again in Mermaid!, a magical new story about friendship and the wonders of the sea. Maggie shares how her day-to-day work with children as a family counsellor feeds into her work as an author.

Affirm Press editor Coco McGrath teamed up with award-winning illustrator Sarah Firth to create Badass Mums: 30 Boundary Breaking Women Getting Sh*t Done. Illustrator Sarah Firth shares why her own mum, Dianne Firth OAM, is the definition of badass.

Award-winning creator Jess Racklyeft shares the inspiration behind her heartwarming new book as author–illustrator, There’s Only One Mum Like You, celebrating the big and small ways that mothers show their love every day.

In the spirit of the ‘Desert Island Books’ series at Sydney Writers’ Festival, the Affirm Press team shares which single book they’d want to take with them if they were castaways on a desert island.

Professor Susan Hurley shares the scientific approach she applied to the plot of her brilliant debut thriller, Eight Lives.

We’re lucky to be hosting Freya Horton Andrews, a fabulous intern courtesy of the Publishing Industry Internship Program run by our friends at the Australian Publishers Association.

Angela Wales left behind her Australian bush childhood to embark on an archaeological adventure in Greece.

Alice Robinson reflects on four stories that capture the bold – and often uncomfortable – truths of motherhood.

Affirm Press is delighted to announce that our Mentorship Award with Varuna Writer’s House in 2019 will focus exclusively on Young Adult and Middle Fiction submissions for the first time.

When award-winning author Richard Newsome tried his hand at a writing experiment, he never expected it would turn into a three-book deal – but perhaps the bigger surprise was the way that his new character, Stella McNaught, took on a life of her own.

In Imperfect, Lee Kofman explores what it’s like to live in a body that deviates from the norm. Here, she shares some of the lessons learnt while researching and writing her fascinating new book.

Bad Yogi traces the two years I spent training to become a yoga teacher while seeking treatment for an eating disorder. We in the yoga community can get our heads stuck up our asanas sometimes and I wanted something that would acknowledge the pain, but also make me laugh.

Affirm Press is delighted to join forces with the Western Sydney literacy movement Sweatshop to establish a mentorship which will enable two Western Sydney writers from culturally diverse backgrounds to develop their debut novels.

Greg French is best known as a master fly fisher, and he shares many of his wondrous fishing stories in his book Water Colour. But what many readers may not realise is that he has plenty of encounters with creatures much furrier, and bigger, than fish: bears. He shares here some incredible stories and photos from over the years.

We recently celebrated the launch of John Tesarsch’s brilliant third novel, Dinner with the Dissidents, where Lee Kofman shared some of her insights into this literary thriller, set in the tumultuous times of 1970s Moscow.