THE BLUE ROSE: My Novel-in-Progress

I have a secret page on my website that only those that search carefully can find. I call it The 50/50 Project ...

It is a list of all my hopes and dreams - both possible and impossible - & all the places I hope to one day go and all the things I hope to one day do. I call it The 50/50 Project because it was inspired by the inching closer of my 50th birthday and the realisation that there are still so many things in the world I want to do (I found 50 of them, hence the title). The idea is that - as I go somewhere or achieve something - I'll blog about it, and gradually be able to cross off some of these dreams.

Today I am crossing off:

No 49: Win A Major Literary Prize

I have been short-listed for lots of awards and won a few.

'The Wild Girl' was voted The Most Memorable Love Story of 2013 by Australians

‘The Puzzle Ring’ was short-listed for the 2009 Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Novel, and named an 'Unsung Hero of 2009'

‘The Gypsy Crown’ was nominated for a CYBIL Award in the US and for the Surrey ‘Book of the Year’ award in Canada in 2009

In Australia, where ‘The Gypsy Crown’ was sold as a 6-book series, Books 2-6 won the 2007 Aurealis Award for Children’s Fiction & Book 5: ‘The Lightning Bolt’ was a CBCA Notable Book

'The Starthorn Tree' was shortlisted for the 2002 Aurealis Award for Best Children’s Fantasy & the Western Australian Children's Choice Awards and chosen for the One Book, One City campaign in Brisbane

‘The Cursed Towers’ was short-listed for the 1999 Aurealis Fantasy Award.

‘Dragonclaw’ was short-listed for the 1997 Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel and (in the US where it was published as ‘The Witches of Eileanan’), it was named one of the Best First Novels of 1998 by Locus magazine.

Yet I'd always dreamed of winning something BIG, something international ... the Nobel Prize for Literature, for example ....

Well, I'm very happy to say BITTER GREENS, my retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale, has won the American Library Association (ALA) award for Best Historical Fiction in 2015.

The ALA is the oldest and largest library association in the world, and its prestigious awards include the Caldecott Medal, the Newbery Medal, the Carnegie Medal, and the Michael L. Printz Award.

BITTER GREENS was also a Library Journal US Best Historical Novel, and was shortlisted for the Aurealis Award, the Ditmar Award, and a Norma K. Hemming Award (for which it received an Honourable Mention).

BITTER GREENS around the world: