Our 2024 season of Imagining the Past has kicked off! Our first episode features Amelia Mellor, winner of the 2023 ARA Historical Novel Prize – CYA category. Amelia discusses with our podcast host, Greg Johnston, the intricacies of writing CYA historical fiction, and her award-winning novel, The Bookseller’s Apprentice.
Click below to listen to the podcast.
About Amelia Mellor
Amelia Mellor began her writing career as her secondary school’s resident playwright in Year 11. As part of her creative writing course at the University of Melbourne, she completed a thesis on the reinvention of the Industrial Revolution in children’s fantasy literature. Her debut novel, The Grandest Bookshop in the World, has won an Australian Book Industry Award, an Indie Book Award, a NSW Premier’s Literary Award and a Booksellers’ Choice Award. It was shortlisted for the 2021 ARA Historical Novel Prize. When she isn’t writing, Amelia enjoys hiking, gardening and drawing.
The Bookseller’s Apprentice won the CYA category of the 2023 ARA Historical Novel Prize.
About The Bookseller’s Apprentice
Return to Amelia Mellor’s magical Melbourne in the prequel to best-seller The Grandest Bookshop in the World.
Twelve-year-old Billy Pyke has a talent for sorting things out, whether it’s his chaotic family home or the busy book stall at Paddy’s Market. In 1871, the market is the loud, smelly, marvellous heart of Melbourne, and Billy is delighted to work at the book stall there for the eccentric Mr Cole. When his new friend Kezia warns him of a sinister magician called the Obscurosmith, Billy can’t believe her stories of magical deals gone horribly wrong – until he sees them happening. And the night that the Obscurosmith crosses a terrifying and dangerous line, Billy realises something: if he wants the Obscurosmith stopped, he’ll have to do it himself.
Award-winning author Amelia Mellor delivers another race-against-time adventure in this action-packed prequel to The Grandest Bookshop in the World. Loaded with tricks, riddles, magic and mayhem, The Bookseller’s Apprentice is perfect for Mellor fans and newcomers alike.
The Imagining the Past podcast series features authors appearing at the Historical Novel Society Australasia biennial conferences or have been recognised in our $150,000 ARA Historical Novel Prize. Our hosts, Kelly Gardiner and Greg Johnston, discuss researching, writing and publishing historical fiction with acclaimed writers of the genre in its many forms from crime to fantasy to literary fiction, set in eras stretching from ancient times to the Swinging Sixties, and for readers of all ages.
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