12 Curly Questions with children's author Jess Horn

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

I’m terrible at picking favourites and answering questions without context. Actually, that’s probably something people do know about me, but I felt the need to add it here to preface my answers to the remaining 11 questions. In more obscure news, I once created an incredibly long insult using my extensive Ghostbusters vocabulary to ward off bullies. Did it work? No. But it thoroughly baffled them
for a bit, which I consider a mild success. I can still recite it to this day, so if you ever end up in my bad books … consider yourself warned.

12 Curly Questions with children's author Olivia Muscat

1.Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

That I really Hate Mars Bars and I hate Mars Bar slice even more.

2. What is your nickname?
My close family and friends call me Oli or Ol … and many variations of those. To my sister, and only my sister, I’m known as Polly.

12 Curly Questions with children's author Jacinta Liu

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

I have a double degree in Software Engineering and Finance, and after graduating, I worked in IT at an investment bank. In 2013, I left my job in search of something more and set off on a solo journey, travelling internationally for more than six months with no idea what might be waiting on the horizon.

2. What is your nickname?
My Chinese family calls me Chang Chang, which means happiness.

12 Curly Questions with children's author Rhonda Ooi

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

I am a collector. I collect dolls. I have Blythe, Barbies, Pullip and many more. I collected many I remembered from my childhood and am currently coveting a felt doll on Sage and Clare. I also collect socks and picture books. People who follow my Instagram probably already know about the socks and books.

12 Curly Questions with poet and author Robbie Coburn

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

Believe it or not, I used to be a competitive swimmer in my childhood. My best event was the 100m butterfly and I went to the state level for it.

2. What is your nickname?
Technically, I use a nickname professionally. I’ve always been called Robbie. My birth name is Robert, but I’ve never been referred to as that, except maybe at school or work. There is this great photo of my third birthday and the cake has a toy horse on it and says Robbie. But some of my friends call me Rob, and one day I’m hoping to graduate to being called Bob.

12 Curly Questions with children's author Kristin Kelly

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

I’m obsessed with origami. I think it’s genius. I love making things by folding paper, often pages torn from old map books. My house is full of paper cranes, boxes and butterflies, which I kick through on my way from room to room, like evolutionary leaves dropped from an origami tree.

12 Curly Questions with children's author Olivia Coates

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

I don’t like touching the yellowy foam inside couch cushions or mattresses. It actually freaks me out. And foam body sponges in the shower? Hard pass.

2. What is your nickname?
I got called Charger by my soccer team. I’m not sure why.

3. What is your greatest fear?
It already happened and was worse than I could have imagined. The fear is 100 times worse now. It’s too scary to think or even write about so I’ll jump to the next question.

4. Describe your writing style in 10 words.
Evolving. Heart with a tentative toe dipped towards humour.

12 Curly Questions with author/illustrator Tom Jellett

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

I eat too too many biscuits.

2. What is your nickname?
I’m not sure I have one. Unless there is one I don’t know about. There are only two people who call me ‘Tommy’. They know who they are.

3. What is your greatest fear?
Band-Aids at the bottom of the pool.

4. Describe your writing style in 10words.
I use too many words and run out of…

5. Tell us five positive words that describe you as a writer.
Slow in a good way.

12 Curly Questions with children's author Angie Cui

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

I once won a school storytelling competition by making up a story on the spot about a talking dumpling.

2. What is your nickname?
My friends sometimes call me Ang, but my kids just call me Mummy. But I do have a Chinese nickname - Ting Ting (very popular name thou).

3. What is your greatest fear?
That I’ll start a sentence and forget what I was saying halfway through… Oh wait, what was the question again?

12 Curly Questions with children's author Rae White

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

My parents love to remind me that when I was a kid, I’d fold paper into tiny books and fill them with stories. These were essentially bespoke (and often dirt-stained) zines! I was always mesmerised by books – not just their stories, but their shape, texture, and the magical feeling of holding a world in my hands.

2. What is your nickname?
My dad lovingly calls me Poss, short for Possum, while many of my loved ones call me Bun, short for Bunny. Maybe there’s a children’s book in that – The Adventures of Two Unlikely Friends: Poss and Bun!

3. What is your greatest fear?
Probably toads! One humid New Year’s Eve, our driveway and the road outside our house were completely covered in recently hatched toads. The floor wasn’t lava – the road was toads!

12 Curly Questions with author Cassy Polimeni

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

I once appeared on Deal or No Deal. Being on a game show had been on my bucket list so when I got the chance I took a day off work and dragged a friend and our mums along. They filmed a week’s worth of shows at once so we spent six hours playing audience members before getting called up onstage. When my moment finally came to guess how much was in my suitcase I was so dazed and delirious from the lights and the long day that the host had to call my name three times before I answered.

2. What is your nickname?
I don’t really have one – despite years of campaigning! During the height of my nickname campaign some workmates took pity on me and tried out ‘Casio’ and ‘Cassiopeia’ but neither really caught on.

12 Curly Questions with author Jess Galatola

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

Not many people know that when I was 13, I volunteered to work for free in a bookshop, in the hopes of earning an ongoing position. After cleaning every shelf in that shop (which took a full day), I scored my first casual job at QBD The Bookshop. I later found out that cleaning every shelf in one go was a dreaded once-a-year occurrence. I didn’t care. I was happy to be surrounded by books and use my staff

discount to start collecting picture books, YA novels and art and history resources that I felt I would use one day when I become a teacher (which I did, eight years later). Those formative years in the workforce continued to foster and fund my love of reading!

12 Curly Questions with author Amy Freund

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

Ooh, this is a hard one as I’m such an over-sharer, but when I’m feeling under the weather or just need a pick-me-up, I watch cheesy 80s action movies; the more unbelievable the better. Anyone ever seen Under Siege? Absolute classic.

2. What is your nickname?
My family nickname is Amybob and my uni friends call me Amypants, both named after my idol, Spongebob Squarepants.

3. What is your greatest fear?
I am TERRIFIED of huntsmans: they are just too big and hairy! I used to live in Eltham, and every hot day at least two huntsmans would be hanging out in my bedroom; so much so that I nicknamed them ‘Fred and George’, like the Weasley twins. I still get a bit on edge every time it’s a hot day that Fred or George will come and visit my new home.

Vale, John Marsden

Acclaimed Australian author John Marsden has died, age 74.

John had a remarkable impact on young readers in Australia and globally. From his first novel, So Much to Tell You, the best-selling young adult series Tomorrow, When the War Began, and Letters From the Inside, to picture books like The Rabbits and Prayer for the Twenty-First Century, John's writing put a spotlight on stories and issues to powerful effect.

10 Quirky Questions with author Margaret Wild

1. What's your hidden talent?

I would like to say levitation or time-travelling, but, alas, I’ll have to settle for an endless capacity for playing Scrabble.

2. Who is your favourite literary villain and why?

Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair by William Thackeray. She is clever, resourceful, selfish, 
remorseless, resilient and fascinating. I reread Vanity Fair every five years or so just for the pleasure of encountering Becky and her shenanigans yet again.

12 Curly Questions with author Kirsten Ealand

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

I came equal dux of my primary school because I very unexpectedly topped the grade in creative writing with my story A day in the Life of a Car. Wish I kept it – I’d love to read it now.

2. What is your nickname?
Family and old school friends call me Kirst, though I was Big Bird for a while in high school after the incident of the bright yellow dress.

3. What is your greatest fear?
Putting aside my biggest mortal fear of bad things happening to people I love, my biggest everyday fear is getting a chai latte when I ask for a chai tea – it’s a totally different drink and it really needs a totally different name.

10 Quirky Questions with author Margaret Wild

1. What's your hidden talent?

I would like to say levitation or time-travelling, but, alas, I’ll have to settle for an endless capacity for playing Scrabble.

2. Who is your favourite literary villain and why?
Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair by William Thackeray. She is clever, resourceful, selfish, remorseless, resilient and fascinating, I reread Vanity Fair every five years or so just for the pleasure of encountering Becky and her shenanigans yet again.

10 Quirky Questions with author Katrina Roe

1. What's your hidden talent?

I’m great at finding things that nobody else in my family can find. Oh and I make a mean cup of tea. Seriously, you should try my tea.

2. Who is your favourite literary villain and why?
Dolores Umbridge. She is the villain I love to hate. She’s just like the mean girls at school who pretended to be nice while stabbing you in the back.

10 Quirky Questions with author/illustrator/designer Anna McGregor

1. What's your hidden talent?

My arms are ‘double-jointed’ and I can bend them in some weird ways. Is that a talent?

2. Who is your favourite literary villain and why?
The Evil Queen in Snow White. I find powerful female villains exciting and complex.

3. You're hosting a literary dinner party, which five authors would you invite? (alive or dead)
Roald Dahl, Julia Donaldson, Carson Ellis, Jon Klassen and Edward Gorey.

12 Curly Questions with author Sarah Luke

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

I have camped overnight on the ice in Antarctica. It was magical – even though our ship, which was
anchored nearby, did look for a while like it was floating away...

2. What is your nickname?
Sarah the Dark (because one of my best friends is also called Sarah, but she is blonde – she is, rather fittingly, Sarah the Fair).

3. What is your greatest fear?
Losing my writing notebooks, where I keep all my ideas simmering away until they are ready to be cooked into stories.

4. Describe your writing style in 10 words.
Fast-paced, funny, heartfelt, dramatic, full of deliberate echoes and caricatures.