Better Read Than Dead Loves Oz YA

Sit down on your finest Zooming lounge with some of the brightest Oz YA and Middle Grade authors - Zana Fraillon, Danielle Binks & Bren MacDibble - as they discuss their latest books with fellow author Kate Mildenhall and our very own Ayesha Salier in this FREE event! 

You can buy copies of The Lost Soul Atlas, The Year the Maps Changed, and Across the Risen Sea - or get all three with a bundled discount of 10%! 

This event takes place on Zoom. The Zoom meeting details form part of the ticket emailed to your after your register. 

About the Books

The Lost Soul Atlas is a powerful story of hope and friendship, by Zana Fraillon, author of acclaimed The Bone Sparrow. Loyalty is tested, and a cruel twist of fate leads to an act of ultimate betrayal in this epic story that spans a city, a decade, and the divide between life and death itself.

The Year the Maps Changed by Danielle Binks is a middle-grade coming-of-age story inspired by true events about the bonds of family, the weight of grief and the power of compassion for fans of The Bone Sparrow, Wolf Hollow, and The Thing About Jellyfish. 

Across the Risen Sea is an action-packed, compelling and heartfelt middle-fiction adventure, set in a post-climate change landscape, from Bren MacDibble, the multi-award winning author of How to Bee.

About the Authors

Zana Fraillon was born in Melbourne, but spent her early childhood in San Francisco. Her 2016 novel The Bone Sparrow won the ABIA Book of the Year for Older Children, the Readings Young Adult Book Prize and the Amnesty CILIP Honour. It was also shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, the Queensland Literary Awards, the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the Gold Inky and the CILIP Carnegie Medal.

She spent a year in China teaching English and now lives in Melbourne with her three children, husband and two dogs. When Zana isn't reading or writing, she likes to explore the museums and hidden passageways scattered across Melbourne. They provide the same excitement as that moment before opening a new book - preparing to step into the unknown where a whole world of possibilities awaits.

Danielle Binks is a writer, reviewer, agent and book blogger who lives on the Mornington Peninsula. In 2017, she edited and contributed to Begin, End, Begin, an anthology of new Australian young adult writing inspired by the #LoveOzYA movement, which won the ABIA Book of the Year for Older Children (Ages 13+) and was shortlisted in the 2018 Gold Inky Awards. The Year the Maps Changed is Danielle's debut middle-grade novel.

Bren MacDibble was raised on farms all over New Zealand, so is an expert about being a kid on the land. She now lives in Melbourne with her family and a cheeky dog, works with gifted children, and teaches writing at TAFE.  In 2018, How to Bee - her first novel for younger readers - won the Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award for Younger Readers, the New South Wales Premier's Literary Award Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature, and the New Zealand Book Awards Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction. In 2019 The Dog Runner won the New Zealand Book Awards Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction.   

About the Moderators

Kate Mildenhall is a writer and teacher. Her debut novel, Skylarking (Black Inc., 2016), was a favourite of ours back in 2016 and was longlisted for Debut Fiction in The Indie Book Awards 2017 and the 2017 Voss Literary Award. Kate co-hosts The First Time podcast, a podcast about the first time you publish a book. Her much-anticipated second novel The Mother Fault is due out in September this year. Find out more katemildenhall.com or connect via Twitter Instagram or facebook.

Ayesha Salier is a bookseller at Better Read Than Dead, specialising in kids & YA books. She is the editor of our YA Twist of Fate anthology.