Interview with Angela Sunde by Fran Knight
Adelaide, February 18, 2013.
Teacher's College in New Zealand in the 70's, like Australia, had a
bond system.Those who were the recipients of education department
bursaries for university degrees meant that once you completed your
studies you were bound to the education facility for a number of
years. Fortunately when Angela Sunde completed her training,
teaching jobs in New Zealand were scarce, and so her bond was
revoked, giving her the opportunity to apply for work in Australia.
Another happy emigre was welcomed to our shores adding to our
cultural achievements.
First work was in Melbourne, where temperatures range from 14C to
34C just in one day, as a secondary teacher of German. Angela was
heavily involved in the Goethe Institute, winning a scholarship to
Germany to work and study. Back in Australia, she and her husband
decided to move to the Gold Coast after her mother and siblings
moved there from New Zealand. Here she worked for several years, but
having children meant reducing her time in schools, so she worked in
primary schools for some years, developing an empathy and
understanding of younger children and their reading needs.
But changes here, meant that she no longer felt happy, having to
teach in two schools with reduced time given to languages, so she
took a TAFE course in writing for children and has never looked
back. Finding something you are passionate about is most gratifying
and within this genre of children's literature, she was able to tap
into her inner self and write.
Pond Magic, her first novel for upper primary students was
published in 2010, and another in the same series, Aussie Chomps,
was written but unfortunately missed the boat, that wonderful series
having been shelved by Penguin.
In Pond Magic, 12 year old Lily notices that her face is
changing colour. Later she notices that her feet are becoming webbed
and now and again a croak emanates from her mouth and she wins the
breast stroke race at the school swimming carnival by miles. What to
do? When her family, the Padds, take on an exchange student from
France, Lily finds a neat solution to her problem and all is
resolved.
The light touch of Lily's story is part of its charm. The continuing
puns on all things green, webby and French are pitched at just the
right level of humour for this age group and I for one, reread the
story hoping there would be a sequel.
Moving to the Gold Coast meant that Angela was also able to access
the events aimed at helping emerging writers. She has been to the
CYA Conferences in Brisbane each year since its inception six years
ago, listening to the authors and publishers speak about their work,
while having access to publishers and being able to pitch her own
work. At these conferences many budding authors are able to get a
publisher interested in their work, and see how their work sounds
while talking to others. Through these conferences too, Angela has
made some wonderful friends in the writing and illustrating world.
Awarded one of the 2013 May Gibbs Fellowships, Angela has been able
to stay at the apartment in Norwood, meet fellow authors and
illustrators in Adelaide, and meet some of the publishing world
here. Working on her next book, The Blue Tutu, Angela was
grateful to have spoken to Dyan Blacklock, allowing her to see her
story from a different perspective and with renewed vigour.
Angela spends some of her time volunteering for organisations using
illustrating as a forum. The event, One Word - One Day sees a group
of illustrators given one word to use as the basis for an
illustration during the day. The illustrations are taken to Sydney
where they are auctioned and the money so raised goes to the
Indigenous Literacy Foundation. This is backed by the Australian
Society of Authors. She and the writers' group in the Gold Coast to
which she belongs, Prana Writers, entered the 'Write a Book in a
Day' competition recently. A hellish task, but Angela and her group
won the day! (won National First Place in the open section and
raised $980 for the Royal Children's Hospital in Brisbane)
I asked Angela about her blog, which can be found here, as it seems
to me that many authors spend a lot of time on their blogs, possibly
taking time away from writing. She agreed, but admitted that lately
while in Adelaide, she had been posting a short piece each day on
her blog, while she usually limits it to one post a month.
For more information about Angela Sunde see here and on the Puffin
website.
Fran Knight