What are you currently reading?
It’s not YA (gasp!), but I just finished Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. After years of back-to-back deadlines, my creativity has been shrivelling up like a sultana – and always at the most inopportune times! Big Magic has been a wonderful, heart-warming reminder of why I write – not just professionally, but why I’ve always loved to write… and why I HAVE to write. And I’m about six chapters in with Dave Burton’s How To Be Happy; absolutely adoring it.
What are your recent OzYA favourites?
I adored Daniel Herborn’sYou’re The Kind of Girl I Write Songs About. It was so entertaining – not to mention reminiscent of my early-twenties experiences in the Sydney CBD – that I wish I’d written it.
What 5 OzYA titles are currently in your TBR pile?
It feels like EVERYTHING is in my TBR pile at the moment. Bad YA author! I’m looking forward to reading Risk, Zeroes, Illuminae, the Every series, Green Valentine, as well as finishing off Pieces of Sky.
What advice would you give to aspiring YA authors?
Write a story you WANT to tell. Forget about trends. Forget about what everyone else is writing about. Forget about comparing yourself. Stay in your lane. Write for you, do your best, carve out time for yourself where possible and just start. Oh, and whatever you do, remind yourself that the first draft of everything is crap. So, so crap.
Can you tell us a little bit about your current writing project?
I’m not allowed to reveal too much at this stage, but my third book is a contemporary YA standalone set in regional Australia due out December 2016. I’m also toying around with a children’s picture book idea that’s making my heart swell.
Visit Gabrielle Tozer's website for more information about her books and author events.
November YA New Releases
