Write-on with Riley

I was super excited to interview H.S. Valley! In this 20 minute long video we chat about neighborhood cats and seagulls, the fascinating history of banana's and banana lollies, boarding schools, their fantastic book Tim te Maro and the Subterranean Heartsick Blues and much, much more! 

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H.S. valley is an amazing and passionate writer with so many amazing stories and good advice for young writers. I know that you will love  listening to our conversation and getting to know the incredible H.S Valley

I was absolutely thrilled to interview Anna Whateley! In this nearly 40 minutes long interview, we chat about; gaming worlds, being autistic and awesome, Peta Lyre's Rating Normal and a bunch of other cool things!  

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Anna and I both had so much fun during this interview! She's such an inspiration to me, so I hope you love watching this as much as we loved  doing it. She also has oodles of fabulous advice for young writers too!

So thrilled to have interviewed Will Kostakis! In this 20 minute interview, we chatted about Will's most embarrassing moment during a school presentation, conversations with pets during lockdown, gaming and the differences between the ARCs and the final versions of monuments and rebel gods plus heaps more.  

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Will is so fun passionate about writing and he has lots of wonderful advice for writers too. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did and you enjoy getting to know the incomparable Will Kostakis.

I was blessed to interview the epic Rhiannon Wilde and ask her about her debut book which will be released in July this year (2021); Henry  Hamlets Heart.   

We chatted about cemeteries, awkward high school teacher moments,  personal libraries with sliding ladders, queerness, amazing grans,  awkwardness and much more.  

Make sure to check out this video and then go and check out Rhiannon  Wilde's website, socials and her extraordinary book; 

Instagram- @rhiannon-wilde 

Website- www.rhiannonwilde.com.au

So I had a total fanboy moment at the beginning of this one but managed  to pull myself together and seem almost sort of professional  eventually... but he's so cool!!  

We talked about his short stories, Firefly, Carried away and Island Boy,  which are all awesome and we also talked about video games, gay love stories, comic books, that time he met Tom Felton and his migration from Mauritius to Perth.  

Check out Raphael at these links: 

www.raphaelfarmer.com 

https://centreforstories.com/person/raphael-farmer/ 

www.instagram.com/raphaelfarmer 

www.youtube.com/c/RaphaelFarmer/featured

I was a little (okay a lot) start struck during this interview But AJ is  just so humble, kind and funny, so we had a lot of fun, some of my  questions were a little tough, but it was all in good fun. This was  definitely a career highlight for me.   

We chatted about cycling around Europe, the ups and downs of book tours,  the concept of "good vs evil", characters in her books that we love but  would hate to meet and SO MUCH MORE.  

Also; PSA: Don't ever give this woman a boring ice cream, she deserves an epic ripple and crunchy stuff in it!  Here's some links to check out AJ's awesomeness:  

www.instagram.com/ajbettswrites 

http://www.ajbetts.com/ 

www.facebook.com/AJBettsAuthor

How awesome is Josh Langley!   His newest book "Magnificent Mistakes and Fantastic Failures" was  launched right at the beginning of the pandemic but is thankfully, now  getting out to families. I have a copy and LOVE it!  We chatted about using kindness as a super power, building residence,  setting our fear to the side so we can be ourselves and other important  things like drawing poop for a living while other people have to work,  flowers, pasta and of course; ice cream.   Here's the link to our interview from last year in case you missed it  and some links to stalk, I mean check out Josh Langley! www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7SRVP6iyZo www.facebook.com/joshlangleywriter https://joshlangley.com.au/ www.instagram.com/joshlangleyauthor

This was a very special interview for me, Alyssa is such an inspiration  to me as she's a brilliant, beautiful writer but she also lives with  Crohns disease which some days is too much to push through but other  days, she absolutely kicks its butt and I love how real and honest  Alyssa is about that. That honesty makes me feel stronger and okay about  my chronic illness sometimes getting the better of me too.  We chatted about her wonderful short story which has just been published  on the "centre for Stories" website, the FABULOUS new book she's  working on that I can't wait to read, what makes someone a "valid"  writer, puzzles, staring in a Gym video, people watching and so much  more.   We're wearing purple here because we filmed this on "Wear it Purple Day"   2020, which is a day to celebrate and acknowledge LGBTQIA+ youth in  Australia.   I was particularly wriggly in this vid, I guess this is what I look like  when I'm dealing with a bit of sensory overload (two interviews in one  day) and during a high pain day. Alyssa was very kind to ignore it :-)    Here's the link to read "Swift"  centreforstories.com/story/journal-alyssa-shapland And the link to the "Girls With Guts" blog: www.girlswithguts.org And Ayssa's instagram: www.instagram.com/gameofcrohns14

One of the funniest interviews so far but also very deep! We talked  about self acceptance, the importance of representation in literature,  taking time to have fun and of course the amazing book; Invisible Boys!  

It was a super windy day and unfortunately the camera picked up all the  noisy wind, but it's definitely still worth listening to Holden has a lot of fabulous advice for everyone.  

I have had a few comments about the fact that I was allowed to read  Invisible Boys which is clearly for older teens so I'd just like to  mention that this was very well managed by my mum, my amazing sister,  Holden and his wonderful publicist Jen. Jen and Holden cleared it with  my mum first and my sister read it before me and censored all of the  inappropriate parts, so I was able to enjoy the book without any of the  nitty gritty stuff which I'm not ready to read about yet. 

Also, I look  and sound a lot younger than I am, most people think I'm about 10 when  they meet me, but I'm older than that! I'm just a bit teeny for my age.   

Here's a book review for Invisible boys:  http://www.imanitheauthor.com/blog/book-review-invisible-boys  Here's the link to Holden's website to learn more about this amazing,  soon to be super rich and famous author:  https://www.holdensheppard.com

Oh wow. this was just SO MUCH FUN!  Sandi is one of the most empowering and uplifting humans I know, she's  always got heaps of great advice and is as obsessed with stories and  books as I am, you can feel her passion radiating through the screen in  this vid.  We chatted about her gorgeous but mischievous dogs, the "growing Up  Disabled" anthology, the good things which have come out of lockdown,  being a human book and so much more awesomeness.   Any publishers watching this; PLEASE, PLEASE publish "The Ned Head  Heist" I love that story, it needs to be a book.   I'm off to google Mia Corvere from never night...  

Here's the link to some of our bloopers and to last year's Booktoberfest  vid and of course, Sandi's website and socials. Please check them out  and share how awesome she is!  LAST YEAR'S INTERVIEW: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k-OfBrf6aw 

THIS YEAR'S BLOOPERS: www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPn119esIT0 

https://sandiwrites.com.au/ 

www.facebook.com/SandiParsonsWriter 

www.instagram.com/sandi.writes