Helen Thurloe: #Robinpedia

Helen Thurloe is a writer in the purest sense of the word, she’ll write anything. She has been known to write poems, essays, text messages, shopping list, and a novel. She’s even made legit postcards! Her text messages and shopping lists have thus far been cruelly ignored by awards and scholarships but her other stuff seems to be going alright…

… And by alright I mean her poetry has won prizes including- ACU Literature Prize, Banjo Patterson Writing Award, The Age of Reinvention, Ethel Webb Bundell Literary Award and has been shortlisted and commended in many others. Her debut novel Promising Azra through Allen & Unwin has been similarly well received with manuscript development prizes such as Varuna Writers’ House Fellowship, NSW Writers’ Centre Fellowship, Children’s Book Council Frustrated Writers Mentorship, Charlotte Warring Barton Award and the completed, published novel was shortlisted for prestigious awards such as the New South Wales Premiere Literary Awards. Vanessa Bond does much of the media on that award and is a babe. We all love Vanessa. Send lots of love to the State Library of New South Wales because they deserve it.

On seeing this cover my twins drew all over themselves with a SHARPIE, do not show to under 3s.

Diverting from Robinpedia for a moment: As a former English teacher, I taught for a little over a decade before leaving to pursue writing, I would personally highly recommend Promising Azra to any English teacher. It would work particularly well for year 10 because it is a very easy read. The novel is set in an Australian high school with the main characters being from a south Asian background. The book focuses on Azra, who is smart, doing incredibly well in school and thinking about going to university when it is revealed that her parents have arranged a marriage to someone she has never met in Pakistan. As Azra struggles her friend Layla is looking forward to her arranged marriage as a chance to get out of school early. The book is highly nuanced with examination of how we are of our families but also our own people and how that conflict plays out. The stakes are incredibly high, Azra’s future, but also realistic.

 

Back to Robinpedia

Helen Thurloe has set aside a dynamic workspace for herself in her home. It has a computer, an exercise bike, and a laundry basket. As an owner of an ergonomic furniture business she also ensures that she works in a manner that is healthy for her body with equipment that is easily adjusted for sitting and standing.

This is how I picture her working

Find Helen Thurloe’s Website here.

Love Helen Thurloe on twitter here.

Follow Helen Thurloe on Facebook here.

If there is any information that you feel would enhance this entry please feel free to leave it in the comment section. 

Read more about Robinpedia here. 

Read about my experience of being a dyslexic writer here.

Read about my opinion on author branding here.

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Confessions of a Mad Mooer: The Mad Robin in the Attic #rant

Everything is awesome

I like having a bit of a write (and evidently a lot of a rant). In my adult life I’ve now written three novels, two children’s fantasy novels and most recently a memoir or a me-moi as my daughter says. Add to that the three fabulous novels I wrote in Primary School (viciously slammed by the critics, siblings can be so cruel,  but take it from me they were sensational) and I’m quite the novelist. So it surprised me somewhat when I told a friend that I’d just written a me-moi and they responded by saying, “Oh, are you still writing? I thought you’d give up now that you’d spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Wouldn’t you be unpublishable now?”
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      WHAT THE ACTUAL F!!!!

I responded with something resembling a sentence and then disengaged from the conversation as soon as was politely acceptable. Clearly they’re unfamiliar with Susanna Kaysen and the now famous quote from Girl Interrupted, “Don’t point your finger at crazy people.” Obviously nothing bad happened to them, I didn’t explode or bark or start wailing or use too many ors in a sentence or forget to use commas… I just muttered something about liking writing and then retreated to the blanket fort in my head. Here’s what I should have said –

Serious, literary, lego me

In 1979 two great things happened, I was born (shamelessly arrogant but I feel the sense of drama was required) and The Mad Woman in the Attic was first published. The Mad Woman in the Attic was possibly my favourite text that I studied in University. And you Good Sir should read it. Because not only would you lock away the “mad woman” in literature but also in society. As soon as a woman is counter to your understanding she is to be boxed up and put away. Did it not occur to you that not all who seek help are snivelling,  messy haired, violent psychopaths? That we can be productive members of society? That perhaps the locking away and stigmatising of the “mad woman” is what forces them into violent gibberhood. And so what if I am a crackpot? At least I am in good company! Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Virginia Woolf, Luanne Rice, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Suzanna Kaysen and Patricia Cornwell have all been considered raving loonies at some point. They’ve all spent time in “supportive environments whilst they recovered from exhaustion.” So when you think about it, being barking mad would pretty much be a prerequisite. If anything I should be expecting a bunch or marauding female novelists to come barging through my door at any given moment in order to clutch me to their collective bosom and shower me with literary agents’ contact details. I too am now a raving writer. I too drink tea like it’s on tap. Ich bin ein lunatic. And honestly what real writer doesn’t have a scarf, a beret and a jumbo sized pack of antidepressants on them at all times? (I’m pretty sure I stole part of that quote from a joke about stereotypes made by Destination Saigon authour, Walter Mason) So just go take your snivelling comment and stuff it down you fluffy, lemon, jumper.

Oh, on second thoughts, it’s probably better that I didn’t say that. Let’s face it, if I did he probably would have just said, “Yeah, that makes a lot of sense if you think about it like a crazy person.”

Unequivocal proof of my madness, not even my kids are safe from me logoising them.