Podcast appearances and mentions of claire zorn

As part of this year's MQ Student Writers' Festival, Jason Chen and Jessica Jarrett discuss Claire Zorn's When We Are Invisible and John Marsden's Tomorrow When the War Began as examples of the Dystopian Bush genre. 

Claire Zorn lives on the south coast of New South Wales with her husband and two small children. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Post Graduate Diploma in writing. She is a music lover, retro furniture collector and amateur swim-club enthusiast. With the release of her latest book 'When We Are Invisible', Sarah sat down with Claire to discuss returning to the world of The Sky So Heavy, new perspectives, control and power in her work, and more. Books mentioned in this podcast: Claire Zorn - 'When We Are Invisible': https://bit.ly/3xeMcq2 Host: Sarah McDuling Guest: Claire Zorn Producer: Nick Wasiliev

Claire Zorn is a multi-award-winning author of young adult literature. Her resume of awards is incredibly impressive including the Children's Book Council of Australia awards, the Inky Awards, the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, and multiple state Premier's awards. Today we are discussing her new novel When We Are Invisible, a sequel to her stunning post-apocalyptic debut The Sky So Heavy.  Our interview starts at 16 minutes.  Caitlin recommends: Fisk (TV show) An enjoyable  and witty new ABC sitcom by comedian Kitty Flanagan. Perfect for fans of Utopia or Rosehaven.  Michelle recommends: The Syndicate (TV show) An underrated television drama about what happens to a group of co-workers when they win a life-changing amount of money in the lottery.  In this interview, we talk about: Why Claire wanted to return to the world of her debut novel The Sky So Heavy in When We Are Invisible and why she switched perspective to Lucy for the second novel Exploring patriarchal notions of power and society in a post-apocalyptic setting Why anger at the patriarchy is a compelling force for Claire when writing How Claire researched a nuclear winter and apocalyptic world Expectation and success and the impact on the creative process The success of The Sky So Heavy (especially with teenage boys who still write to Claire about the book) Books and other things mentioned: Good Girls (TV show) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZZSYDhx0FI (Nameless, Faceless by Courtney Barnett) (song) Thursday Murder Club by Richard Oseman Kate Atkinson books Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series Follow Claire on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/claire_zorn/ (@claire_zorn) Follow us on Instagram https://ww.instagram.com/betterwordspod (@betterwordspod) When We Are Invisible is available now in Australia. We both received copies of When We Are Invisible for from University of Queensland Press.  

How can stories help us – and help young people – navigate a sometimes lonely world? As part of RN's Big Weekend of Books, award-winning YA author Claire Zorn joins Meredith Lake to discuss writing, faith, the ethics of imagination, and her own sometimes difficult experience of learning to find her place in the world.

How can stories help us – and help young people – navigate a sometimes lonely world? As part of RN's Big Weekend of Books, award-winning YA author Claire Zorn joins Meredith Lake to discuss writing, faith, the ethics of imagination, and her own sometimes difficult experience of learning to find her place in the world.

In this episode we chat about our competition the Reading Relay and then we review our Christmas reads! This ep is a bit longer today due to the volumes we read over the break. Reviews begin at 5.20 - 'One would think the deep' by Claire Zorn, 'Chessboxer' by Stephen Davies, 'Large expanse of sea' by Tahereh Mafi, 'Night of the party' by Tracey Mathias, 'The surface breaks' by Louise O'Neill, 'The Harm Tree' by Rose Edwards, 'DOGS' by M.A Bennett and 'Noah can't even' by Simon James Green. As always follow us on twitter @lounge_learning

In this episode we discuss the new Booktrust pack including Race to the Frozen North by Catherine Johnson, Looking at the Stars by Lewis Hine, Lightening Mary by Anthea Simmons, Ghost by Jason Reynolds and The Dog Runner by Bren Macdibble. We then let you know which books we've chosen to be our Christmas reads! From 5 mins - Eat Dirt by Goldy Moldavsky, A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi, The Harm Tree by Rose Edwards, Surface Breaks by Louise O'Neill, Chessboxer by Stephen Davies, One Would Think the Deep by Claire Zorn and Night of the Party by Tracey Mathias. Lounging with books will be back in the New Year. Until then Merry Christmas and don't forget to catch up on any episodes you might have missed. See you on twitter @lounge_learning.

CBCA Book of the Year winner Claire Zorn is known for her gripping and unputdownable YA novels. We sat down with Claire to talk about her new book No Place for an Octopus, her first children's picture book! Not only that, we chat about her love of drawing and life long dream to write picture books, the challenges of this new format, the strange lives of octopuses, her career, what's next, her publishing experience and much more. Books mentioned in this podcast: No Place for an Octopus by Claire Zorn —> http://bit.ly/2OElrGo Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta —> http://bit.ly/2Of7eAG Pride and Predujice by Jane Austen —> http://bit.ly/37yjR17 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte —> http://bit.ly/2XK16mQ In Cold Blood by Truman Capote —> http://bit.ly/34heS31 Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote —> http://bit.ly/33dQNsn Hosts: Sarah McDuling and Olivia Fricot Guest: Claire Zorn

How do you put faith on a page? Can a writer disconnect their spiritual self from their writing? On Soul Search today, we remember late poet Les Murray, and head to the Sydney Writers' Festival where a new generation of authors answer the question: "What's God Got to Do With It?"

How do you put faith on a page? Can a writer disconnect their spiritual self from their writing? On Soul Search today, we remember late poet Les Murray, and head to the Sydney Writers' Festival where a new generation of authors answer the question: "What's God Got to Do With It?"

YA novelist Claire Zorn on surviving high school, why she didn't expect to be a writer, and mental illness. --- “I suppose I always had these preconceived ideas of the sort of person a writer was, and I didn't have a whole lot of confidence in my ability to write … I think I thought that a writer was a very serious, intellectual, well-read sort of person. I do read a lot, but I thought it was someone who read the classics and loved James Joyce … I just thought it was someone very different from the sort of person I was.” Claire Zorn is the multi-award-winning writer of YA novels The Sky So Heavy, The Protected, and One Would Think the Deep. She's as surprised as anyone, though, to find herself in this position – she never really thought of herself as a writer, despite growing up with a mental world teeming with characters and stories. Having what she describes as a “busy brain” has been a two-edged thing for her. “I have a pretty high dose of anxiety, and my specialty is catastrophising. My mind will generally go down the ‘what if, what if, what if' route, whether I want it to or not. So with my books I tend to use that … I think it's interesting to place a character in a situation where they are really challenged by the space that they find themselves in. That makes for really rich writing.” In this episode of Life & Faith, Claire takes us through what she wanted to be when she grew up, the books that inspired her to write fiction for young adults, and why she calls her time in high school the worst years of her life – along with some survival tips for other struggling teens. “I suppose it was just being very self-conscious, being overly self-conscious – and this feeling of not fitting in. Now I quite like not fitting in! I like being different. But when you're a kid, that's the last thing you want to be. I just felt different to the other kids, and I lived in an imaginary world, and when you go from that to the intensity of high school and the ruthlessness of particularly teenage girls, and the kind of emotional manipulation that goes on, I think poor little me was just completely blindsided by the whole thing.” From a very young age, Claire struggled with mental illness. Throughout her teen years, then later after the birth of her first child, she experienced severe anxiety and depression and has had to develop ways of managing her mental health. Somewhere in the middle of that, she also became a Christian. “I believed in God very very much, and I understood that God loved me. But when things start to go wrong or you start to feel very isolated in your life … for me, I was like, I thought God loved me, isn't he supposed to look after me? I don't know if I was ever actually an atheist, but I was trying very very hard to be one. By the time I left high school, I thought there was maybe a God, but I didn't like him very much.” Finding “her people” at university made a big difference to Claire's mental well-being. She was shocked to discover, though, that these new friends were, of all things, Christians. She kept brushing off their invitations to church, but eventually came along one night without telling them, and what she found there surprised her. Knowing God doesn't “fix” things, she explains – or not necessarily. There are various things that help in her ongoing battle with mental illness, including being careful about how much she commits to, and the hope that comes from hearing other people's stories. But she also speaks of the comfort of knowing that Jesus is walking with her, as weird as she knows that might sound. “He's in the boat with me. I'm freaking out, and there's water coming in, and I'm hoping that I'm going to survive. And he's in the boat going, ‘it's ok, I've got this'.” --- Find out more about Claire:

Post-apocalyptic fiction is all the rage in young adult fiction at the moment from Divergent to The Hunger Games. Claire Zorn is the author of The Sky so Heavy an Australian novel about living in a nuclear winter. She joined Simon Smart and Natasha Moore on Life and Faith to discuss her book.

So, we accidentally took a break...and now we're back! We chat about our fave books of the year so far, play a thrilling round of 'Book Rec Death Match' and catch you up on what we've been up to.  Books Mentioned:July releases:Zac and Mia by AJ BettsDirty Little Secret by Jennifer EcholsTruly, Madly, Deadly by Hannah JayneA Really Awesome Mess by Trish Cook and Brendan HalpinThe Sky So Heavy by Claire ZornPick of the month:The Accident by Kate HendrickBuy it now at BookworldCurrently Reading:Mandee: Zac and Mia by AJ Betts Rey: 17 & Gone by Nova Ren SumaTrin: The Accident by Kate HendrickOur favourite books (so far) of 2013Disclaimer: Girl Defective by Simmone Howell and Wildlife by Fiona Wood top all our lists.Rey: Infinite Sky by CJ FloodOut of the Easy by Ruta SepetysCode Name Verity by Elizabeth WeinCharm & Strange by Stephanie KuehnMandee: Alex as Well by Alyssa BrugmanAll This Could End by Steph BoweThe Zigzag Effect by Lili WilkinsonLife in Outer Space by Melissa KeilTrin: Fall For Anything by Courtney SummersThe Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater Notes From the Teenage Underground by Simmone HowellWild Awake by Hilary T SmithListener Question:What are your favourite books so far? Also what on earth is that book with the cowboy?Listen NowOn iTunes