chrismctrustry

Books of Mine Number 2

My second children’s novel was ‘The Card Shark‘.

This was published in the Mammoth Mystery series by Reed Books (Melbourne).

The best way to tell you what the book is about is to check out the back cover blurb (I wrote this, too):

After a severe case of crossed wires, Sean’s valuable sports card collection ends up in the hands of his arch enemy, Max Logan.

When the collection goes missing, Sean is accused of stealing it! Knowing the only way to prove his innocence is to catch the culprit, Sean sets out to catch the Card Shark.

I was very pleased when this book was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Crime Writing Award (children’s mystery). I didn’t win. Gary Crew won. Oh well, you win, you lose some . . .

Books of Mine

I’ll start at the beginning.

My first children’s novel was ‘The Cat Burglar’.

I’d just finished writing television scripts for Australian drama series like ‘Neighbours‘ and ‘Home and Away‘ when a university colleague suggested I submit an idea for a children’s mystery to Reed Books (Melbourne) for their upcoming Mammoth Mystery series.

‘I don’t write prose,’ was my reply.

‘This publisher wants manuscripts,’ my friend said. ‘What have you got to lose?’

I was hooked. So, as I pedalled my way round the streets of Wollongong in my day job as a postman, I formulated an idea for a kids’ mystery. It involved a cranky Vietnamese man (who actually had a heart of gold), missing cats, and a boy (the hero Matt) who is suffering through the most boring Christmas holidays, ever.

I wrote the outline, sent it off to Melbourne and forgot all about it, until . . . I received a phone call from the publisher asking for the manuscript. ‘It’s, um, not written,’ I stammered.

‘How long would it take you to write?’ asked the publisher.

‘How long have I got?’

‘How long do you need?’

‘Um,’ I said. ‘Six . . . weeks?’

‘Wonderful. I look forward to reading your story.’

And that was that. A crash course in writing a children’s novel. The editors I worked with – Mary Ann Ballantyne and Andrew Knight – were wonderful. They’re now the driving force behind Black Dog Books.

The Journey Begins

Welcome to my website.

Where to begin . . . Well, I’m an Australian children/YA author and I’ve published about thirty books here in Australia as well in Asia, New Zealand, U.S.A and U.K. Short stories, too.

Oh, and once upon a time, I wrote scripts for Australian television dramas such as Neighbours and Home and Away.

But now, my writing is focused on crime fiction for adults. A while ago – a long while ago – I started a crime novel. Started but didn’t finish. Until eighteen months ago when, after encouragement from my wife, Patricia, I finished, edited and polished the manuscript . . . and sent it out into the world of publishing.

My manuscript, now called The Highlands landed me a chat with literary agent, Lyn Tranter of Australian Literary Management. I’m now on the books of ALM and my second crime manuscript Corruption is making itself known to Australian publishers. As they say in the classics, fingers crossed . . .

I’ll be keeping you up-to-date with my writing life, my reading life, my movie-watching life, my television-watching life, my life life and anything else that’s interesting.

Please feel free to comment – agree, disagree, expand and even, ahem, praise (I won’t discourage that!). Okay, that’s it for the introduction. Let the adventure begin!

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That’s me. On a mountain. In Switzerland. It’s much colder than it looks (yeah, I’m tough). And see in the background, those mountains are the Swiss Alps. We don’t have mountains like them in Australia. Oh no. Compared to The Alps our mountains are hills.

Okay. That’s it for now. But I will share more holiday snaps with you. Seeing photos of holidays past encourages me to write, so I can (hopefully) sell a book to a publisher and travel some more. And hey, I’m not just having fun all of the time, I’m researching, too. Research is very important to a writer. Very important.