Rory H. Mather is passionate about picture books. He currently has three picture books of his own out in the wild. Vlad's Bad Breath (2020) and it's sequel Vlad's in Love (2021) are published by Larrikin House and Easter Hat-astrophe (2021) is published by Scholastic Australia. Rory has four other contracted titles that should all be out in the world by April 2022. It has often been said that Rory has his head in the clouds which is probably true because he lives on top of a mountain in Toowoomba with his wife and two dogs. Rory is also passionate about sticky date pudding, history, making sure his lawn doesn't grow too long (it is a lot harder to mow when that happens) and the kidlit community, so feel free to drop him a line.
WHAT CYA CONFERENCE DID FOR ME
CYA gave me my first exposure to the writing industry when I attended in 2017 and had a session with an agent. Before the session I had falsely believed that I knew all there was to know. What I took away from that session was that I was not ready, I needed to do a lot more research into writing for children and developing my craft. I think that without CYA I would have kept blundering my way through trying to get published.
Fast forward to 2019, I attended again feeling much more confident having learnt from my previous experience, I attended lots of lectures and had a session with an agent - who ended up signing me - and with an editor who liked what she saw enough to give me her email address. I contacted that editor a little over a month later after placing in a competition that she had judged and now in January 2020 I have just signed a contract for that story to be published.
Without CYA I wouldn't have gotten my agent Justine Barker who has taught me so much and who has been my strongest advocate and I wouldn't have signed seven contracts for seven different picture book manuscripts. Thank you CYA!
