On Thursday 27 July from 11.30am to 12.30pm, join our live videoconference
WordSpace: Fantasy Fiction
Join VM Jones and Elizabeth Knox in a discussion about fantasy fiction. WordSpace is a series of videoconference discussions between secondary school students and leading New Zealand writers, brought to you by the New Zealand Book Council and CWA New Media. To participate, your school will need to be a member of the Book Council.
The session will consider questions like how to make fantasy believable, and what the difference is between fact, fiction and fantasy. The authors will talk about the origins of their own works, and where their ideas come from.
VM Jones
VM (Vicky) Jones is a novelist who writes junior fiction. Her first novel Buddy (2002) won the junior fiction section and the Best First Book Award at the New Zealand Post Book Awards 2003, and was also shortlisted for the 2003 LIANZA Esther Glen Medal.
Juggling with Mandarins (2003) tells the story of a pivotal time in the life of a young boy. The Serpents of Arakesh (2003) is about a boy who enters another world through a computer game, and is the first book in the Karazan Quartet. Both books were finalists in the junior fiction section of the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children & Young Adults 2004, with Juggling with Mandarins the winner.
Book Two of the Karazan Quartet, Beyond the Shroud (2004), was a finalist in the junior fiction category of the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2005. The quartet is rounded off with Prince of the Wind (2004) and Quest for the Sun (2005).
Elizabeth Knox
Elizabeth Knox is a full-time fiction writer who defines her bearings in time and space as ‘conviction and glee’. Her first novel After Z-Hour (1987), was followed by Treasure (1992), which was short-listed for the 1993 New Zealand Book Award for Fiction. A third novel, Glamour and the Sea (1996), gradually unveils a mystery set in and around Wellington during the 1940s. Paremata (1989), Pomare (1994) and Tawa (1998) are partly based on autobiographical experiences of a childhood near Wellington. The Vintner’s Luck (1999) won the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the 1999 Montana New Zealand Book Awards, where it also received the Readers’ Choice and Booksellers’ Choice awards. It was also short-listed for the 1999 Orange Prize and in 2001 it was awarded the inaugural Tasmania Pacific Region Prize.
Elizabeth was the recipient of a 2000 Arts Foundation Laureate Award. Her novel Black Oxen was published in 2001, and was followed by Billie’s Kiss (2002), which was short-listed in the 2002 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. In the 2002 New Zealand Queen’s Birthday honours list, Knox was awarded an ONZM for her services to literature. Daylight (2003) was short-listed for Best Book in the South Pacific & South East Asian Region of the 2004 Commonwealth Writers Prize. Dreamhunter is her latest title (2005), a fantasy novel for young adult readers. It will be followed by sequel Dreamquake in 2006.
TO REGISTER FOR THIS VIDEO-CONFERENCE, CONTACT digitalconversations@cwa.co.nz BY MONDAY 24 JULY 2006.
Telephone: (04) 382 6515
The Book Council will be creating a DVD of this session, which will be available for schools to purchase. If your school takes part in the session, please be aware that we will need signed permission forms from all participating students.
