Day 22 Author Blog Challenge

If you could ask anyone in the world to write a blurb for your book, who would it be? Why that person/people? How did/will you go about reaching them? Yes – really!

 

For this post I’ll reference my novel, Seth, published in 2013.

If I could ask anyone to write a blurb for this book and attach their name to this it would be Tim Winton, Australian writer of novels, nonfiction, short stories and books for children that include:

An Open Swimmer (1982)

Shallows (1984)

That Eye, The Sky (1986)

In the Winter Dark (1988)

Cloudstreet (1991)

The Riders (1994)

Blueback (1998)

Dirt Music (2001)

Breath (2008)

Lockie Leonard (1990-1997)

Eyrie (2013)

 

His awards and nominations include:

1981 Australian Vogel National Literary Award An Open Swimmer

1984 Miles Franklin Award, Shallows

1985 Western Australian Council Literary Award, Scission

1990 Western Australian Premier's Book Award for Children's Fiction, Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo

1991 Miles Franklin Award, Cloudstreet

1991 NBC Banjo Award for Fiction, Cloudstreet

1991 West Australian Fiction Award, Cloudstreet

1992 Deo Gloria Award, Cloudstreet

1993 American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults Award, Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo

1993 Wilderness Society Environment Award, Lockie Leonard, Scumbuster

1995 Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist) The Riders

1995 Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best Book), The Riders

1998 Bolinda Audio Book Awards, Blueback

1998 Family Award for Children's Literature, Lockie Leonard, Legend

1998 Wilderness Society Environment Award, Blueback

1999 WAYRBA Hoffman Award for Young Readers, Blueback

2001 Western Australian Premier's Book Award Premier's Prize, Dirt Music

2001 Good Reading Award, 2001, Dirt Music

2002 Australian Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award, Dirt Music

2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist), Dirt Music

2002 Miles Franklin Award, Dirt Music

2002 New South Wales Premier's Literary Award, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, Dirt Music

2002 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, Fiction, 2002 – shortlist, Dirt Music

2003 Australian Society of Authors Medal

2004 Colin Roderick Award, 2004 – joint winner, The Turning

2005 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, Best Fiction Book, The Turning

2005 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, The Turning

2005 Inaugural Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award – shortlisted, The Turning

2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize, South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best Book – commended, The Turning

2008 Age Book of the Year, Fiction – winner, Breath

2009 Miles Franklin Award, Breath

These are the reasons why I’d ask him to write the blurb from a commercial and marketing point of view and, from a personal perspective because I admire Tim Winton as a writer, drawing inspiration from landscape and place the people who inhabit those places, and because I respect him as the individual I perceive him to be through his involvement in the Australian environmental movement. He’s a patron of the Australian Marine Conservation Society and involved in many of their campaigns in raising awareness about sustainable seafood consumption. He’s a patron of the Stop the Toad Foundation and a prominent advocate of the Save Moreton Bay organisation, the Environment Defender’s Office, the Australian Wildlife Conservancy and the Marine Conservation Society.

How would I go about reaching him? That’s a tough one. I could try to contact him through his agent or by posting a comment on his Facebook page, although this one appears to have been set up by Penguin books to publicise his work and activities. I could just turn up at one of his events and wait for an opportunity, but probably not as I’d be too shy to push myself forward. If all else failed I could send him a letter addressed to Tim Winton, Western Australia.