<![CDATA[ Tess Evans - Blog]]>Sun, 26 Apr 2026 14:44:17 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[June 14th, 2018]]>Fri, 15 Jun 2018 05:38:41 GMThttps://www.tessevansauthor.com/blog/june-14th-2018Since the release of this new novel, I have participated in radio interviews and various speaking engagements. I enjoy the interaction with readers almost as much as the writing. It brings the book to life in new and often surprising ways.
I'm always happy to speak to book clubs, libraries and community groups and you are welcome to contact me through this website.
]]><![CDATA[book launch]]>Fri, 27 Oct 2017 23:00:34 GMThttps://www.tessevansauthor.com/blog/book-launchThe launch of The Ballad of Banjo Crossing will be on 4 December in Eltham, Victoria. I will post an invitation when all details are finalised. 
]]><![CDATA[The Ballad of Banjo Crossing - Progress]]>Sat, 03 Jun 2017 04:10:55 GMThttps://www.tessevansauthor.com/blog/the-ballad-of-banjo-crossing-progressI have just finished the copyedit for the above novel. It's a very exacting process and I am happy to be head-ache free at last. The next job will be the proof-read and then my favourite part, the cover. I loved the cover for Mercy Street so here's hoping. I am starting an new tag for Banjo Crossing and will put all further news there.
]]><![CDATA[The Ballad of Banjo Crossing]]>Thu, 17 Nov 2016 23:00:27 GMThttps://www.tessevansauthor.com/blog/the-ballad-of-banjo-crossing
I'm so happy that Harper Collins are going to publish my new book 'The Ballad of Banjo Crossing.' More news when I know more myself.
]]><![CDATA[Echuca International Women's Day]]>Thu, 10 Mar 2016 03:51:07 GMThttps://www.tessevansauthor.com/blog/echuca-international-womens-day


Yesterday I drove up to Echuca for an International Women’s Day event organised by the Campaspe library. What a beautiful setting! The library has a wall of windows opening out to a stand of gum-trees that the Heidelberg artists would be proud to paint.
Thanks to Jenny Mustey and her friendly band of library staff who organised an event that proved to be very popular, with eighty plus readers to listen to the speakers. I enjoyed it immensely (except for the fact that I had to speak after Dianne whose topic was ‘sex in the novel.’) You can’t win them all!
My fellow speakers were Fleur Ferris and Dianne Dempsey.
Fleur is the author of YA novel ‘Risk’ and she will release another book ‘Black’ later this year. Parents who want to warn their children regarding internet predators, should give them the novel ‘Risk’ to read. Fleur is an ex-police-woman and ambulance officer so she knows what she’s talking about.
Dianne Dempsey is a journalist and literary critic whose novel ‘Girls in Our Town’ was inspired by the Bob Hudson song of the same name. It’s a coming of age story, set in a country town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. This is particularly hard for Sheba, who is different in so many ways. She has an immature and irresponsible mother, a young sister who is being bullied, and is scarred both mentally and physically in an accident that killed her best friend. She is also intelligent and ambitious in a place where these traits are looked on with suspicion. A wonderful evocation of the song.
After the speeches, there was an interesting Q&A session followed by supper and book signing. I must thank Kristine and Daryl from the Collins bookstore for setting up for the sales of books. I hope those who bought my books enjoy reading them. It was great to meet so many readers.
I also met a volunteer with an interesting job. She takes books to those who can’t get to the library and reads widely so that she can cater for all her clients. What a great service to offer people who otherwise would miss out on the pleasure of reading.
I said in my speech that to those who say with some arrogance that they never read novels, I can only reply ‘poor you.’ There were a large number of women (and a couple of men) in Echuca who know exactly what I mean.
 
Yesterday I drove up to Echuca for an International Women’s Day event organised by the Campaspe library. What a beautiful setting! The library has a wall of windows opening out to a stand of gum-trees that the Heidelberg artists would be proud to paint.
Thanks to Jenny Mustey and her friendly band of library staff who organised an event that proved to be very popular, with eighty plus readers to listen to the speakers. I enjoyed it immensely (except for the fact that I had to speak after Dianne whose topic was ‘sex in the novel.’) You can’t win them all!
My fellow speakers were Fleur Ferris and Dianne Dempsey.
Fleur is the author of YA novel ‘Risk’ and she will release another book ‘Black’ later this year. Parents who want to warn their children regarding internet predators, should give them the novel ‘Risk’ to read. Fleur is an ex-police-woman and ambulance officer so she knows what she’s talking about.
Dianne Dempsey is a journalist and literary critic whose novel ‘Girls in Our Town’ was inspired by the Bob Hudson song of the same name. It’s a coming of age story, set in a country town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. This is particularly hard for Sheba, who is different in so many ways. She has an immature and irresponsible mother, a young sister who is being bullied, and is scarred both mentally and physically in an accident that killed her best friend. She is also intelligent and ambitious in a place where these traits are looked on with suspicion. A wonderful evocation of the song.
After the speeches, there was an interesting Q&A session followed by supper and book signing. I must thank Kristine and Daryl from the Collins bookstore for setting up for the sales of books. I hope those who bought my books enjoy reading them. It was great to meet so many readers.
I also met a volunteer with an interesting job. She takes books to those who can’t get to the library and reads widely so that she can cater for all her clients. What a great service to offer people who otherwise would miss out on the pleasure of reading.
I said in my speech that to those who say with some arrogance that they never read novels, I can only reply ‘poor you.’ There were a large number of women (and a couple of men) in Echuca who know exactly what I mean.
 


]]><![CDATA[Mercy Street Party]]>Thu, 03 Mar 2016 03:02:10 GMThttps://www.tessevansauthor.com/blog/mercy-street-party Today my friend Maria invited me to afternoon tea at her house where she and other friends, Mary and Bernadette, had a wonderful spread which included sausage rolls, cocktail frankfurts, fairy bread, choc wedges and cupcakes. All was set up like Rory’s party from Mercy Street. We even had party hats, balloons and a game of pass the parcel.
This continues the tradition which started with ‘Book of Lost Threads’ (a High Tea) and ‘The Memory Tree’ (a Vietnamese lunch).
I shall continue to put food in my books – I’d be crazy not to. (You may well find a pavlova in the next one as Maria is a great pavlova maker.)
Oh. And there were balloons and lolly bags to take home. What a great group of friends!

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]]><![CDATA[February 19th, 2016]]>Sat, 20 Feb 2016 02:34:34 GMThttps://www.tessevansauthor.com/blog/february-19th-2016Yesterday I recorded an interview by Jan Goldsmith on 3CR’s Published…or Not'.  Jan is a wonderful interviewer, and I felt very relaxed and comfortable with her. The program will go to air in a couple of weeks.
While I was there, David Mc Lean interviewed Barry Jones about his new book, 'The Shock of Recognition', a compilation of great music and literature of the western world – or, as Barry called it a ‘love song.’ Every time I listen to Barry Jones I marvel not only at his erudition but his passion. To retain such a sense of wonder as you grow older is an enviable state of being.
]]><![CDATA[Mercy Street Update]]>Tue, 09 Feb 2016 03:14:48 GMThttps://www.tessevansauthor.com/blog/mercy-street-updateMercy Street was Book of the Month for Angus and Robertson and now for Readings bookstore. Needless to say, I'm very happy with this and the positive and thoughtful reviews the book has received so far.]]><![CDATA[January joys]]>Wed, 20 Jan 2016 02:24:53 GMThttps://www.tessevansauthor.com/blog/january-joysI've spent a goodly number of happy summer days catching up on my reading: Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Emily Bitto, Peter Weiringa, Peter Carey. And I still have the new Jonathon Franzen on my bedside table.
My garden is looking great, thanks to good neighbours. Recently. my niece gave me a tea-towel with this wonderful saying of Cicero. 'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.' That sums it up for me.
Since its release, I've received many wonderful  responses from readers of Mercy Street, some of them through this web-site. It's a feeling like no other to know that the book is being read and your characters cared about, not only by friends and family, but readers from all over Australia. Books and stories connect us, the community of readers and writers.
]]><![CDATA[December 18th, 2015]]>Fri, 18 Dec 2015 22:36:28 GMThttps://www.tessevansauthor.com/blog/december-18th-2015Mercy Street Launch

Mercy Street was launched on Wednesday at the Eltham library under the auspices of the Eltham Bookshop. There were close to a hundred guests who enjoyed food and wine, and hopefully, the launch. There was certainly a very festive atmosphere. I loved every minute.
The book is available now at some bookshops, but others may not have it until January as it’s technically a January 2016 release.
Here is part of my launch speech for those who are interested. It was interspersed with readings so may read oddly in parts.
Earlier this year, I went to a Harper Collins writer’s seminar. It was a great day, but at one point we were asked to come up with a phrase to answer the question I dread most. What sort of books do you write? That question always makes me wish that I wrote science fiction or murder mysteries. The answer had to be in a short phrase and one woman who writes Young Adult fiction said that she wrote Enid Blyton on steroids. Brilliant. But it was a good exercise because I now believe that when people ask me What sort of books do you write? I can answer that question. My books are about unlikely heroes.
Hero is a term used rather too freely nowadays. It often applied to sports men and women and is always tied to success, or even celebrity. Putting your body on the line is brave, but the motivation is usually personal achievement. There’s nothing wrong with that, but then there are exceptionally brave people, whose heroism comes from helping others despite grave, personal danger. For instance those who went to the aid of Ebola victims.  Or the CFA firefighters who keep us safe each summer.
But we are surrounded by heroes of another sort – and rarely notice them. Ordinary people living ordinary lives who manage to overcome habit, inbuilt prejudice and fear to make difficult moral choices.
So within the popular concept of hero, my main character, George is not very promising material, but he becomes a hero, nevertheless. He doesn’t charge into his new life, flags flying, but bumbles and fumbles his way, even, at one point, breaking the law. There’s also something of the hero in many of the other characters who are again ordinary people who are able to make courageous choices.
Where did this book come from? There is no one eureka moment. Events accumulate, sometimes over quite a long period, and then one day, they come together and you have the beginnings of a story.
I must confess that I’ve always been a bit of an eavesdropper. Probably most writers are. There is gold in overheard conversations. Travelling on trains is nowhere near as interesting as it used to be because people are either engrossed in their iPad or texting on their phones.
But you can be lucky. I was on the train a couple of years ago, when two women got on and began to complain loudly about their children. The complaints were about normal kids, doing normal, annoying kid things, but each mother was trying to outdo the other in how annoying her child was. When they left the train, I caught the eye of an old man sitting opposite. He looked after them and said ‘They don’t know how lucky they are.’ With that old man and his sad comment, the character George was born.
George is old, grumpy and isolated, living in a past when he was married to his adored Pen. They had no children and when she dies he is left alone living ‘worn out, washed out days.’
Read p.1
So that’s George – until Angie comes into his life.
When Terry and I were younger, we were part of a program of respite foster care. During the training we were told not to judge the homes these children came from, that the agency deemed them ‘good enough.’
I have always wondered where the line is between good enough and not good enough in the raising of children. Is there a line? When and how is it crossed so that it becomes not good enough? That is one of the issues I explore in the book.
Angie is an immature single mother of a grubby, not very likeable child. But when George is coming home with his milk, he’s attacked by two youths. Angie comes to the rescue which embarrasses George. He doesn’t fancy being saved by a female.  But he does thank her and mentions that he live around the corner in Mercy Street. Angie files this away for future reference and sometime later, turns up at George’s house to ask him to look after her child while she goes to the Job Centre and again when she goes for a job interview.
Read p. 41
 
So George does his best with the new problems that confront him, but is it always good enough? Is it ever good enough?  I hope you enjoy George’s journey from curmudgeon to unassuming hero as much as I enjoyed writing it. A question to ponder – at what point in the story is he at his most heroic?


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