It’s been an amazing 3 weeks since the official publication day of 50 Ways to Die in Space. Illustrator Nico and I have been opening spaceports at various bookshops around Brisbane to launch our first graphic novel together. I’ve also been visiting some not-so-local libraries to do workshops with kids outside of the confines of Brisbane. We’ve also had a couple of pals (human and otherwise) help us out at the book launches.

The first foray into the world of live promotion of 50 Ways to Die in Space was at Kin Kin, a tiny town on the Sunshine Coast hinterland. I took a few books plus my supply of air rocket-making materials (photocopies of a template I drew up the day before), rocket launcher and launch safety officer. Kin Kin is a super cute town with some unexpected, giant artwork. To my delight, 1/3 of the primary school had turned up for the event! We talked about space, read some of the book, then got into rocket making and launching which kept the attendees engaged for much longer than the nominal 45 minutes.

After a quick lunch with a friend it was on to a booked out session at Noosaville Library. I raided their shelves for astronomy books (I’m used to having pictures about space ready at my fingertips and I really missed being able to show the kids constellations at Kin Kin), but this time the conversation was different and pictures from 50 Ways to Die in Space were sufficient. Again, the rocket making and launching was a highlight and went on for long enough for me to chat to the adults who’d accompanied their kids who had also learned a lot.

Back to Brisbane, and a few days later Nico and Renata, host of The Endless Shelf podcast, joined me at Quick Brown Fox Bookshop for the north Brisbane launch. It was an incredibly wet day, but that did not deter the crowd who packed in and got to witness Nico and my puppeteering skills.

The next day my colleague Tom joined Nico, myself and another packed out crowd at Avid Reader for the west Brisbane launch, and invited an astronaut up on stage to act out some of the ways you will die if exposed to ionising radiation. We caused a bit of a pedestrian traffic hazard out the front with our signing table, but luckily no one got too grumpy.

Later that week I took the rocket launcher across to Russell Island then back to Capalaba Library for more workshops. I was very touched that a family had caught the ferry to Russell Island from a nearby island to come along. A downside to the day was witnessing a dognapping. A man came running off the ferry with a dog, and it wasn’t until minutes later the distraught owner came off the ferry after him. I hope they were able to reunite the dog and owner, and my thoughts for the day often returned to worrying about the welfare of the dog.

Yesterday Nico and I joined forces again for our east Brisbane launch and entertained the crowd at Harry Hartog Carindale with our puppets. My favourite quote of the day was from bookseller Amy who said; “I knew it would be funny, but I didn’t expect it to be that funny.” There weren’t many books left after the launch, but Amy promised to shelve them with the cover facing out, which is very high praise indeed!

Nico and I (and the puppets) will be back at Books@Stones on Thursday May 15 at 6:30pm, and we’d love to see you there.

Only 4 weeks to go until 50 Ways to Die in Space is officially released!

Writing 50 Ways to Die in Space was a very different process for me, as the book wasn’t my idea at all! I was at a party at my publisher’s house when she asked me what I’d done earlier that day. I had been at my day job, and as Halloween was approaching, we did a Halloween spooky special planetarium show. Lots of kids dressed up for it and it was lots of fun. Then my husband said; “What you should have done was all the ways you can die in space.” My publisher whipped her head around to me so quickly she must have given herself whiplash and said; “Can you write that book?”

I didn’t take their suggestion too seriously at the time, but over the next week or two the idea really grew on me. I could write that book. So easily. I knew all the science behind it*. As the idea had started from a conversation, I pictured the book being a conversation between two nameless characters, one enthralled by the beauty of space, one warning of its dangers. I wrote the dialogue and really liked the flow of it. There was no he said/she said, it was just the characters talking. I thought it really worked. So I put it in the proverbial bottom drawer to let my mind forget about it and look at it with fresh eyes in a few weeks’ time.

Once I’d dusted the manuscript of and re-read it, I still really liked it and was excited to send it to my publisher. But there was only one problem: the only way to present a conversation without quotation marks and he saids/she saids was as a graphic novel. And graphic novels are expensive. There were over 400 pictures to draw, and the printing process uses a lot of ink.

Anyhoo, I sent the manuscript in, reminding the publisher about the conversation we’d had, and waited. Not for long! 12 days later I received a yes. This is ridiculously fast in publishing time frames.

So writing the book was fast, receiving the contract was fast, but from that point it took over two years to bring us to today when the book is available for pre-order. The long bit was the illustrating. First of all we had to find an illustrator. That took almost 6 months, and we were very happy when Nico O’Sullivan agreed to bring the story to life. As I said, there are over 400 frames in the book (some of them double page spreads), which is more than a frame a day for a whole year with no days off (not even Christmas!). To top that off, Nico was doing Year 12, which is quite a high study load. He turned in an outstanding job. After that there’s the whole … actually I don’t really know what comes next, I just do the words, but there was some massaging needed to get the book up to the print stage, and then printed and shipped.

There are lots of launches and library visits lined up in April:

April 8 Noosaville and Kin Kin library workshops

April 12 Quick Brown Fox Bookshop launch 2:30pm

April 13 Avid Reader/Where the Wild Things Are launch 3pm

April 16 Russell Island and Capalaba Library workshops

April 26 Harry Hartog launch

*To be honest, I did have to do a smidge of research, especially on physiology

(This post is a bit late because I’ve been busy reading!)

There are many special “days” in March: International Women’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, Harmony Day and many cultural festivals. Even though it only technically goes for 1/24th of the day, Australian Reading Hour on March 9 is a national day dedicated to sharing the joys of books, reading and stories.

I spend at least an hour every day reading. There’s a supply of books on my bedside table that changes constantly. I get through the fiction titles fairly quickly, dipping into the non-fiction books when I’m in the mood.

Australian Reading Hour was designed to share stories, but did you know that every time you read a book you are doing just that? As you read, the author is sharing their story with you. They might be sharing the story from miles away or even across the sea. They are always sharing their story through time, because even with a book that is newly published, the author finished writing the story many months ago. Many books that you read may have been written last century – or in the case of fairy tales, first told hundreds of years ago.

When you are reading, remember to always have good lighting (reading outside in the shade is ideal!) and to take breaks every so often to give your eyes a rest from focusing up close for long amounts of time.

There are some authors out there who are so good they only do authoring stuff – which isn’t just writing, by the way, but visiting their adoring public at schools, libraries and bookshops (fun – although some authors’ worst nightmare!), dealing with rejection letters (not so much fun and every author’s worst nightmare), or employing interns to answer their fan mail for them.

Unfortunately I’m not one of those authors and I have a day job which just happens to be the exact opposite to authoring. Instead of sitting in front of a keyboard or snuggled up in a comfy chair by myself with an exercise book for company, I stand in a room full of people, in the dark, and tell them all about space.

I show them pictures of space, too.

And videos.

It’s quite fun!

A lot’s been happening in space lately. Just this week alone three reasonably sized asteroids cruised close by our planet, Jupiter and Venus had a conjunction (where they look really close together in the sky even though they’re hundreds of millions of kilometres away from each other), and results from last year’s resoundingly successful Double Asteroid Redirection Test were published in an important science journal.

In fact, I’m feeling so inspired by all this space stuff, I’ve had a really good idea for a book. I’d better get started on it straight away.

Watch this (pardon the pun) space…