Lyndon Riggall, a long time contributor to the CBCA Tasmania blog, writes from a new perspective - as an author at his first book launch. Congratulations Lyndon for this heartfelt post and your first forays as a published children's book author.
I must, by now, have been to a hundred book launches in my life, and I have loved every single one of them. Still, there is a side of the table that I belong on, and it does not feel like this side. The nerves are the same as any anxious wait where the crowd meets the writer, but here, with a pen in my hand, the experience begins anew every minute. I keep going, gradually learning to breathe and not to shake. For years, the local newspaper has insisted on calling me an “author” despite the fact that I have never been published anything beyond articles in the occasional magazine. Today, I still don’t feel like an author. But the books beside me with my name neatly printed on a hardback cover appear to be suggesting otherwise…
I am at the launch of my first picture
book, Becoming Ellie (created in collaboration with artist Graeme
Whittle), which is held at Launceston College in a huge hall packed with
people.
 |
Lucinda Sharp of
40 South Publishing, Graeme Whittle, and Lyndon with the real Ellie.
Photo by
Kate Tuleja.
I was sure that the event would either be wildly underattended or draw
a huge number of people, and I am very pleased to say that the latter is the
case. Although Graeme and I bring an equal measure of friends and family along,
the signing line nevertheless feels like one of those dreams you might have
where every face from your past appears in front of you: here, a family friend
I haven’t seen in a decade or more, there, a teacher who taught me in primary
school. It could be argued that we write books because it is not possible to
share everything person-to-person, or as John Green has argued, “a writer is
someone who would love to tell you a story but doesn’t want to look you in the
eye.” I am reminded in this moment that stories are also, actually, a
celebration. Sometimes, they bring people together.
I have had lots of moments
since then that make the nine-year-old inside me, with his dreams of being a
writer, screech with delight. Becoming Ellie is on a shelf at Petrarch’s
Bookshop. Becoming Ellie has covered its publication costs and is
turning a profit. Becoming Ellie is available at the state library and
is listed on Goodreads with me as an official Goodreads author. Chief among the
highlights, though, are hearing people discuss it at a party, where they do not
know that its writer is behind them scoffing a handful of Doritos, and a woman
who stands at the sales desk at the Tasmanian Craft Fair, laboriously reading
the entire text in front of me. As she completes it, she reaches not only for
her wallet but also for a tissue, drying her eyes and declaring, “Well I have
to buy it now, don’t I?”  |
| A page from Becoming Ellie. © Graeme Whittle. |
As I continue to sign, unsure if by
the end of the night I will be able to remember my own name, let alone anyone
else’s, I reflect. I love book launches, and I have been to more than I could
ever hope to count…
But I still think mine was my favourite.
But I still think mine was my favourite.
Images are © and used with permission.