The Gift of Life, Australian Book Tour

March 11, 2019March 11, 2019 Josephine Moon

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It’s now just three weeks until The Gift of Life is released into the world! I’m thrilled to share I have a bumper book tour happening and will be getting around to Qld, NSW, Vic, Tas, and SA! All the details are listed on the Contact Me/Events page, but here is a list of what’s there so far. Plans are still being pinned down in the background so there may yet be more added but I do hope I get to see you on the road soon!

The Gift of Life, Book Tour Dates

Please check back often as this information is updating.

Queensland

Saturday 30 March 2019

Big W, Maroochydore, time to be confirmed

Tuesday 2 April 2019:

A Morning with Josephine Moon at Bribie Island Library, 10-11am

Bribie Island Library, 1 Welsby Parade, Bongaree, QLD, Australia, 4507

Tuesday 2 April:

An Evening with Josephine Moon at Chermside Library, 6-7pm

Chermside Library, 375 Hamilton Road Chermside, QLD 4032

Wednesday 3 April 2019

An Afternoon with Josephine Moon at Garden City Library, 1-2pm

Address:
Garden City Library
Garden City Shopping Centre
Cnr Logan and Kessels Rds
Upper Mt Gravatt
QLD 4122

Queensland Workshops

Saturday 4 May, 10am-3pm, Twelfth Night Theatre, Brisbane

Workshop 1: Bringing Your Ideas to Life. How do you find ideas for stories and what do you do with them once you find them? Josephine will guide you through the process of discovering ideas for stories, accessing research and resources, breathing life into words, and then pulling them into some sort of order to get them onto the page. She’ll also help you to work out what sort of writer you might be, which will help you know what to do with your ideas. She’ll cover different types of structure to suit different outcomes and foundational skills in the requirements of a good story.

For more info and bookings, CLICK HERE.

Sunday 5 May, 10am-3pm, Twelfth Night Theatre, Brisbane

Workshop 2: How to Write a Bestselling Novel. There isn’t one single way to write a bestseller but there are definitely common elements you can learn. Bring your idea for a novel and Josephine will show you how to plot it out to keep the pages turning, build strong characters and guide you through the foundations of self-editing. This interactive day will see you leave with a bounty of information to set you up for success.

For more info and bookings, CLICK HERE.

New South Wales

Thursday 4 April

11am – 12 pm Morning Tea with Josephine Moon at Berkelouw Mona Vale

Address: 12-14 Park Street, Mona Vale, NSW

6.30-7.30pm An Evening with Josephine Moon at Sutherland Library

Sutherland Library
Address: 30-36 Belmont Street, Sutherland, NSW, Australia, 2232Friday 5th April,2.30 – 3.30pm, An event with Josephine Moon at Camden Library

Camden Library

Tasmania

Saturday 6 April 2019

A Morning with Josephine Moon at Hobart Library, 11am-12pm

Venue Details:
Hobart LINC
Address: 91 Murray Street, Hobart, TAS, Australia, 7000 Contact: Leisha Owen

Victoria

Tuesday 7 May 2019

An Afternoon with Josephine Moon at Mornington Peninsula Libraries, 2-3pm

Mornington Peninsula Libraries
Address: 21 Marine Parade, Hastings, VIC, Australia, 3915 Contact: Gail Higgins

Tuesday 7 May, 2019

An Evening with Josephine Moon at Bunjil Place Library, 7-8pm

Bunji Place Library
Address: Bunjil Place, Patrick Northeast Drive, Narre Warren, VIC, Australia, 3805

South Australia

Wednesday 8 May, 2019, 6-7pm, An Evening with Josephine Moon at Noarlunga Library

Hannah Road, Noarlunga Centre, SA

Thursday 9 May, 2019, 1.30-3.30p, An Afternoon with Josephine Moon at Auchendarroch House

Auchendarroch House, 17 Adelaide Rd, Mt Barker, SA

Researching The Gift of Life: Watching a Heart Transplant to Finding the Silent Story

January 24, 2019January 24, 2019 Josephine Moon

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Research is my happy place. I do extensive research for every book I write and it’s where I learn not just technical information but also start to find my character development, settings and plot points too. I get to travel within Australian and overseas for location research, which is a great gift. I interview people, spend hours on the internet, watch loads of YouTube videos and, inevitably, buy a lot of reference books. It is the phase where anything is still possible, ideas are still forming and excitement takes me back again and again for more.

My forthcoming novel, The Gift of Life, is based around organ donation, specifically, heart transplants. I love anatomy (I studied it for two semesters) and Biology was also my strongest subject at school and I then did another semester of it at uni. As a result, I loved brushing up on all my anatomy and physiology and researching the many causes and treatments of heart failure, some of which lead to the need for an organ donation. I even ended up at the cardiologist myself, as I have a long history of arrhythmias and, as I found out in my research, these can lead to heart failure! (Fortunately for me, the type I have appear to be uncomplicated.) My husband, too, also ended up at the cardiologist, then my mum went… It seemed like every time I turned around, ‘hearts’ were the theme of the day. One thing I learned through all this research was that we are all vulnerable to heart issues, which can come with a long list of complications, which can also lead to a need for a transplant. I really had no idea how common it was.

The amount of personal testimony I came across (both from the point of view of a heart transplant recipient and also from the family of those who had consented to the donation of their loved one’s organs) is significantly higher coming from the USA than it is Australia. This was both tricky–because the USA medical and legal systems are very different to ours–and also an opportunity to hear different experiences and voices from those who’ve gone through the process.

There is a wealth of videos on YouTube and I even came across one that showed a heart transplant operation. That one was a little tough to stomach, to be honest!

I interviewed two Australian heart transplant recipients, which was a fabulous opportunity to hear their stories firsthand. They were both very different people–he a middle-aged man with a wife, children and career–and she a young woman in her twenties with a long life ahead if only she could get the chance. Their experience of the process was vastly different too. The organ transplant process is a gamble at every stage: the illness, the waiting period, the operation, the recovery, the chances of rejection and ongoing complications.

In the end, I had way more information than I could use in the book, which is normal. The Gift of Life starts two years after Gabby McPhee had her heart transplant; therefore much of what I learned about the difficult, emotional waiting stage (and the ongoing physical rehabilitation and care through that period) had to be cut and left out; however, it’s all there in my mind, forming the basis to the background of Gabby’s psyche.

I also became really interested in the more silent half of the story–the experiences of the family members who make the decision to donate. These stories are harder to find, and understandably so, as their experience is rooted in trauma, shock and grief. But as a writer, that ‘silent space’ is the most interesting to me. The possibility of a new, untold story is the one I want to follow. The wealth of information I found on the other side (the recipient’s stories) served to highlight a gap in the narrative that, when voiced through the character of Krystal Arthur, fleshed out the full circle of life.

I loved researching this book. It was utterly fascinating from beginning to end.

Win a Manuscript Assessment with Publisher Annette Barlow

October 1, 2018October 10, 2018 Josephine Moon

Our third and final generous Australian publisher who has donated her time to raise funds for Buy a Bale and help an aspiring or emerging writer at the same time is none other than Annette Barlow from Allen & Unwin. Here is some information about Annette and what she is offering.

If you have been working on a manuscript and want the chance to win first class feedback and maybe even find your work in front of the right people who can make your dream come true, then make sure you keep following along and bid, bid, bid to win Annette’s attention!

Annette’s offer will be on eBay in the THIRD round of auctions, starting 19 October, 6pm.

Welcome, Annette!

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Bio: Annette has worked at Allen & Unwin as an editor and a publisher for over 25 years. She includes many wonderful fiction writers on her list, for example, Kate Morton, Kirsty Manning, Alex Miller, Louise Allan, Julian Leatherdale, Holly Throsby, Fleur McDonald, Tony Jones and Karly Lane. Annette teaches at Faber Academy at A&U and is in charge of the annual Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award.

Why are you excited to do this? Jo’s desire to support Australia’s farmers spurred me on into thinking what concrete action I could take. I’m very happy to offer my skills in this way.

Genres: I look forward to reading chapters of commercial, literary, rural or contemporary fiction but fantasy, sci-fi, and YA are not my areas.

Submission length: Please send 3 chapters (max 50 pages) and a synopsis.

Communication: Phone and/or email

Reply time: within a month of receiving pages

Auction reserve: $390

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Interested? Of course you are! Stay tuned by following me on Facebook, Twitter or here on this blog to make sure you get all the news in the lead up to this exciting event!

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AUTHORS FOR FARMERS is an initiative by Australian author Josephine Moon (www.josephinemoon.com) to band together fellow authors from around the country to help with drought relief fundraising for Australian farmers. All money raised goes to BUY A BALE (registered charity, http://www.buyabale.com.au).

(Please note: Ebay charges fees for using its platform and these will be will be deducted from the total donation amount at the end.)

Win a Manuscript Assessment with Author Jenn J McLeod

September 17, 2018October 10, 2018 Josephine Moon

The first of our wonderful Australian authors who has donated her time to raise funds for Buy a Bale and help an aspiring writer at the same time is our very own nomadic writer Jenn J McLeod. Here is some information about Jenn and what she is offering.

Jenn’s offer will be on eBay in the FIRST round of auctions, starting 15 October, 6pm.

Welcome, Jenn!

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Bio: Australia’s nomadic novelist is best known her four Seasons novels, including House for all Seasons (the #5 Best Selling Debut Novel in 2013). Her fifth novel, A Place to Remember, was published in 2018 by Head of Zeus (UK) and is available world-wide.

http://www.jennjmcleod.com

Why are you excited to do this? How could I not support this cause? Travelling around the country in a caravan since 2014, I’ve been up close and personal to the challenges country-based communities face every day. The most testing, like drought, are Mother Nature’s doing, while some are man’s doing, like closing down libraries in order to channel funds elsewhere. I love that my small-town bookish tours, and books in general, can bring a little joy and let readers escape. I also love paying forward what I’ve learned about the curious and cryptic biz that is publishing with regionally-based writers.

Genres: Preferred: women’s fiction, romance and family saga

Submission length: Up to the first 30 pages (or so) submitted electronically (preferred): using MSWord (or a compatible text document that uses Track Changes), 12 pt Times New Roman font, A4 double spaced with 1 inch margins) with the following information: working title and genre, intended market (mainstream print/digital only), no. of POV characters, word count (actual or anticipated), a half-page outline/synopsis/blurb.

Communication: Includes reading and general assessment of the manuscript, followed by on-on-one by phone (at a mutually-agreeable time, TBC).

Reply time: Within two months (Submissions via post may take longer.)

Auction reserve: $149

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Interested? Of course you are! Stay tuned by following me on Facebook, Twitter or here on this blog to make sure you get all the news in the lead up to this exciting event!

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(Please note: Ebay charges fees for using its platform and these will be will be deducted from the total donation amount at the end.)

Artists, you are a human being first

May 31, 2017May 31, 2017 Josephine Moon

I recently saw a one-act play. It was part of a number of one-act plays being showcased in an afternoon. I took a last minute invite into the theatre. Then came the terror.

This particular play told the story of three little girls who’d all been murdered by a depraved man. We witnessed (with fabulously effective lighting and sound effects) his stalking, snatching and killing. The girls relayed to us how they felt–the fear, the intuition, the terror. And we learned what he did to them after he’d killed them.

Even as I write this, my heart pounds, my hands sweat and I feel like vomiting. This was how I felt in the theatre. I desperately wanted to flee but felt trapped. I blocked my ears but could not block out the sounds. I closed my eyes but it made no difference.

At the end of the play, a woman a few seats down from me leapt to her feet and fled. I followed. We made our way out of the curtains and exit doors and burst into the sunshine, stared at each other in horror and burst into tears.

‘That was horrendous!’ I gasped.

‘I don’t want that in my consciousness. I don’t want to hear that. I don’t want to see that,’ she cried. And therein lies the problem: what you’ve seen you cannot un-see; and what you’ve heard you cannot un-hear.

‘Neither do I. I have a four-year-old,’ I said. ‘Was there some kind of rating on that?’

We both fumbled for the program. No, there was no rating or advice about viewing. There had been young teens in that audience (maybe twelve or thirteen). The synopsis gave nothing to indicate the sheer viciousness of what we were to be subjected to.

Assault. That’s what it was. A random attack on our psyche–serious mental and emotional disturbance from out of nowhere.

Obviously I am an artist and I champion the rights of artists to make provocative work. So be it. Make what you like. But what you don’t have the right to do is inflict something so clearly designed to instigate serious affliction on someone else without some kind of warning.

Sometimes a work of art will take us to dark places for the explicit purpose of showing us movement in a story–from dark to light, from despair to redemption, from grief to love. There is a purpose to that darkness. But darkness that is that sophisticated (and it was cleverly written, sure, and it was expertly executed by the production team, certainly) and has no light, not a single shift, not a ray of hope, is just immature, thoughtless exploitation of our most precious resource: our own sensitivity to each other’s pain.

And lest you feel I might be a lightweight when it comes to things like this (which, hand on my heart, I confess I am), I think only someone who lacks a human spirit or consciousness would be unaffected by hearing how this man dismembered these girls and buried their little kneecaps under the staircase of their mothers’ home.

It is not okay.

I feel graphically assaulted, viscerally wounded and I will not bury my distress under the collective artists’ cop-out catch cry of ‘it’s art, you can’t censor it, it’s meant to provoke!’

You might be an artist. But you are a human being first and foremost and your first responsibility is to your fellow humans. Always.

Be the light in the darkness; don’t BE the darkness.

Produce what you like. But make sure you give us choice.

Follow your dreams, before it’s too late

April 12, 2017 Josephine Moon

Just today, I was having coffee with a friend of mine and we got onto the topic of just how important it is to do something you love. I mentioned that doing the ‘wrong’ thing, for me, led to chronic fatigue syndrome. And my life changed. Here is a piece I wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald in 2014 urging us all to try to find some space to do exactly what our soul calls us to do, before we’ve lost the chance.

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It’s 6.45 am, our toddler is in the bath and my laptop is perched on a sliver of the kitchen bench because, frankly, it looks like we had an out-of-control party here last night. Meanwhile, the dogs are trotting muddy paws across the floor, and my husband is nuzzling my neck.

If I died right now, I would actually die all over again of shame, knowing that someone would find me in this disaster. But then I’d get over the fact that the cat is eating out of the cereal bowl and there’s the smell of something rotting in the air, and I’d only be sorry I hadn’t got more books out into the world.

Because that is my calling in life: to write. It’s a calling I almost missed while I was busy leading the wrong life in the corporate jungle. But I didn’t truly start to listen to what I had to do until I had chronic fatigue syndrome and couldn’t work any more. Until the eczema spread all over my face and I couldn’t ignore it when I looked in the mirror.

So many women have amazing creative skills and yearn to leave their “day job” in favour of this passion. There’s a sadness that can’t be healed because that passion, that thing they want to do more than anything else, is also the thing that will, ultimately, make them happy.

I used to be one of those women, leaving for work and getting home in the dark, marching in silence with the hundreds of other rats racing through the tunnels on our way to the towers of soul-destroying “real work”, numbing ourselves with earphones in an attempt to ignore the fact that our true selves, our innate creative selves, were dying inside.

Some women love that life and if that’s you, I’m happy for you, truly. But for me, that life nearly destroyed me.

Unlike a virus that knocks you down for a few weeks before you start to recover, chronic fatigue doesn’t just get better. It takes time, lots of time, with an unknown finish date. Time I didn’t have. I had bills. I was a freelancer. I was a single woman. I was stuck in a horrible cycle of knowing that I needed to invest money in myself to get better, but not being able to make money to do that.

I accrued enormous debts, treading water until I could earn more money, believing one day I’d wake up and be better and everything would be fine. Eventually, I had to accept that I might not get better, that this might be as good as it got. And if that was the case then I had to start living the life that brought me joy.

It was like that saying – people work hard all their life to be wealthy, then retire and have to spend their money to save the health they ruined by working hard. Except I was only 29.

I made tough choices and changed lots of habits, not least of which was learning to accept myself rather than striving for (imagined) perfection. I had to learn to lower the bar. Do less. Expect less. Earn less. Work less. And then I had to start doing more of what truly nurtured my body and soul, even if it was by taking just one tiny step at a time.

Western medicine said it couldn’t offer me much, except perhaps for cortisone, which I didn’t feel was right. I couldn’t afford the plethora of complementary medicines being pitched my way. But I had to keep eating, so that was where I started – with food. Organic farmers’ markets became the place where I began to, finally, invest in myself.

None of these changes happened overnight. You can’t steer a ship in the wrong direction for 30 years and then expect it to turn on a dime. It’s an ongoing process.

We’re always waiting for the perfect time. And we bargain with ourselves by saying we’ll just be happy when we’ve paid off the bills, finished that degree, got that promotion, had three kids, got a cleaner, got a new car … whatever. And yet we all know the truth: there is only the now. And you can’t be temporarily unhappy to be happy.

Deep down we know this, yet we find myriad ways to delay our dreams. We think creativity is something separate from life. But it is life, not something you do for an hour on a Saturday afternoon. We’re running ourselves into the ground with pie charts and timetables and life coaches trying to find the work-life balance when there is no such thing. There is only life. And you only have one of those.

I want everyone to have what I have now – a career that fulfils me and financially supports me. One that gives me energy, not takes it away. I know that seems rare. But it doesn’t have to be. You can have that too. I honestly believe that. You just need to start and keep going. Don’t worry about how long it will take you, because you’ll still be the same age whether you do it or not. Don’t wait for the perfect time because that time is here, right now, messy kitchen and all.

Why I Want to Write Children’s Books

February 6, 2017February 6, 2017 Josephine Moon

Did you know I’m still an aspiring writer? Four books published and another scheduled for 2018 and I’m still in the same place as so many other writers out there: the beginning.

My heart still burns with the passion, frustration and disappointment of the unpublished writer. Why? Because I want to be a children’s author.

Right now, I have half a dozen picture book manuscripts ‘marinating’ in my hard drive, and one young readers’ (7-10 year old) 30,000-word chapter book bursting with promise to get out into the world.

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(Me with my pony Sparky, who stars as a character in my children’s writing.)

The reality of publishing is that is is difficult to cross that magic line and become “published”; and this is even more true for those of us who aspire to be children’s authors. Like so many of you out there, I too am writing, editing, sending out for review, submitting, following competitions and so on. It still doesn’t feel that long ago that I was in this position as a totally unpublished writer. The feelings are all too familiar!

It might be tempting for me to think, oh well, I already achieved the dream of being a published author and making a living from my writing, why bother chasing another one? Here’s why I am so passionate about making this dream come true.

Because reading as a child changed me fundamentally as a human being and made me the writer I am today.
Because I am a mother, and therefore I read hundreds of books to my son and I SEE him changing with every one we read.
And because I am a mother, it would be my greatest joy and honour to be able to cuddle up with him in bed and read to him a book that I wrote myself.
Because I want my son to be able to read Australian stories written by Australian authors.
Because in my heart I am an educator (and former English teacher), and being able to read and write is the number one skill a human being can have to empower her to change her life. And literacy begins in the laps of the parents who read to their children.
And finally, and probably most pressingly, because I have scores of stories and characters bumbling around in my head who are desperate to get out there into the world!

So here I am, an aspiring author, working away invisibly alongside so many other aspiring authors, wanting to write the best books I can possibly create to bring the greatest gifts to the world.

Write on!