Showing posts with label mm: interview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mm: interview. Show all posts

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Shelf Envy with Melina Marchetta




This is the final post for the Quintana of Charyn blog tour! If you missed the other dates, you can find the entire schedule here.

First and foremost, I'd like to thank Melina for the intrusion. I'm sure she's wondering why in the heck I've asked her to show us her bookshelves. Well, my primary reason is that I'm nosy and I've always wanted to know the type of books she reads or have read. It wasn't easy; but asking her to do this post took a few self-inflicted slaps in the face as I psyched myself out. I'm just glad I didn't have to resort to liquid courage.


1.    What was the last book you purchase?


Damien Echols’ Life After Death. It’s an autobiography written by one of three men wrongly accused of the murder of three little boys in West Memphis Arkansas almost twenty years ago when they were teenagers. It’s an amazing read about injustice and faith and growing up different.

2.    Which literary characters (other than yours) would you like to hang out with?

Too hard a question, but apart from Sydney, I love New York so I wouldn’t mind spending a night listening to Mia and Adam (from Gayle Forman’s Where She Went) play music.

3.    Name your ultimate top 5 books.

I’m very fickle about this so if someone is to ask me in a year’s time I’d probably have another list of five and if someone is to ask me about my most influential novels, I’d have a different list and so on and so forth, but for now my five are: The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon; The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner; The Broken Shore by Peter Temple; Persuasion by Jane Austen; and Hills End by Ivan Southall.

4.    What is the most random item (knick knacks or book) in your bookshelf?

 Holy water (from my mum, who wants me to bless my house with it.

5.   Do you have a go-to book when you hit a wall in your writing? 

No, I think the worst thing I could do to myself is read someone else’s work when I’ve hit a wall with my writing.  But for solace, I find myself re-reading fantasy novels. My last re-reads were two of Anne Bishop’s books from the Ephemera Series. 


Huge thank you to Melina Marchetta for taking the time to answer our questions and to the bloggers who participated in the blog tour! This tour wouldn't have been successful without you all. It was our first time hosting a blog tour, so it was definitely a big learning experience for us. We hope everyone enjoyed following the tour and reading the posts for the past 9 10 days. :)

The giveaway is still up and will be running until the end of November. Please don't forget to enter for a chance to win the entire Lumatere Trilogy!

- Joy & Alexa

Sunday, March 25, 2012

News in Less Than 132 Minutes #3


- For the International Reading Association's ENGAGE site, Melina Marchetta wrote a post and included photos about the landscape in the Froi of the Exiles: Researching the Landscape in FROI OF THE EXILES

- Melina revealed the cover for the Australian ebook bundle of Finnikin of Rock and Froi of the Exiles on GoodReads.

- If you missed the reveal for the lovely Australian cover of Quintana of Charyn, you can check it out here! Quintana will be out this October in Australia and March 2013 in US.

- MM finished the first draft of Quintana of Charyn back in February! She shared on GoodReads what she planned on doing during her break from working on QoC.

- Also back in February, MM updated us on her travels in Europe, which helped with the setting in QoC. Find out more at her blog.

- The ladies at whatchYAreading? had Melina Marchetta Week during the week of Froi of the Exiles's US release (March 12-16) where they shared their thoughts on some of Melina's books and they also had a really wonderful interview with her!

- Chachic at Chachic's Book Nook hosted Marchetta Madness this past week (March 18-24)! There were lots of fan posts from readers and also authors where they shared their love of MM's novels, including an awesome guest post from MM!

- There were also more great fan posts written during and for Marchetta Madness Week!

- And on Twitter, @PenguinBTL found out about a new word to descirbe 'mega fan hype and activity': fandemonium. They came up with a few words of their own!


Marchetenmonium! haha There's been plenty of Marchetenmonium going on around the web these past two weeks with all the Melina Marchetta posts, and there's definitely some here at 132 Minutes. :D Thank you all for visiting this fan page!

Friday, November 25, 2011

Melina Marchetta interviewed for Just Contemporary

Just Contemporary

Ashely at Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing is the host of Just Contemporary, a month-long tribute to YA contemporary novels. She interviewed Melina Marchetta as part of the tribute, and the interview is completely awesome!

Here are some things that stood out to me: Jimmy Hailler, the Jellicoe script and novel, possibly another Danny Griggs novel with a cameo from you-know-who, maybe a 10 part TV series about Jessa McKenzie, release month of Quintana of Charyn, and more!

You can read the entire interview here!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Crooked Shelf interviews Melina Marchetta


It's Aussie YA Month over at The Crooked Shelf, and Carla has interviewed Melina Marchetta! I love reading new interviews, especially ones with lots of enthusiasm! Melina Marchetta has some awesome responses about the YA genre and Jellicoe. My favorite would have to be her answer to the last question of 'If you could spend the day with two characters from your books, which characters would you choose and how would you spend your day?' Be sure to read the entire interview at The Crooked Shelf's blog post.