Catherine is a children’s book author. Her debut book is a middle-grade novel, Quark’s Academy was published in February 2018 (Hachette, Australia). Her picture book, Something for Fleur was published in August 2018 (Hachette, Australia).
Quark’s Academy and Something for Fleur were both selected for the 2019 NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge, Quark’s Academy was also one of the few selected texts for the CBCA Readers Cup for 2019 and shortlisted for the 2019 Western Australian Young Reader’s Book Award.
Catherine has been a speaker at several events including the Sharjah Children's Festival, twice, CBCA events, as well as writing festivals including Writers, Unleashed.
WHAT CYA CONFERENCE DID FOR ME
I have entered the CYA conference competition several times. I’ve always found the feedback to be incredibly helpful. A couple of times I placed in the top ten which really helped with my writing confidence. At the 2015 CYA Conference, there was an opportunity to pitch to agents and editors over Skype. As I live in Sydney, this was perfect for me. I pitched my middle-grade book, Quarks Academy to agent, Alex Adsett. Alex loved the pitch and asked me to send the whole manuscript! After squealing with excitement, I sent her the story. At the CYA conference in 2016 (nearly a year to the day), I officially signed the contract to join AAPS publishing! It was an amazing moment. As if that wasn’t exciting enough, I placed first in the young reader’s category for another story at the conference: Vikings Behaving Badly.
Later that year, when I received the CYA competition feedback for a picture book I had entered, I had another burst of excitement. The feedback was really positive! It gave me the confidence to send that story to my agent, Alex. A few months later, I had another offer from Hachette to publish that picture book, which will be published in 2018.
Without CYA, I don’t believe I would be where I am. CYA is an incredibly well-organised, supportive community, that gave me the opportunity to connect with agents, publishers and writers, as well as guide me with my writing career!
CYA is a fantastic conference and a place for writers to come together. Tina and the team understand what writers are looking for and work hard to facilitate that - as writers, we are super lucky to have the opportunity to learn and connect with one another, publishers and agents!
Thank you so much!
