sue saliba
Sue Saliba lives on Phillip Island on a winding dirt road called Teddy Bear Lane. She has spent many summers protecting endangered birds on the beach and often rescues various strays in the neighbourhood. She loves that blue-black colour just before night-time and the music of Amy Winehouse, Rodriguez and Cesaria Evora. She still cries every time she reads The Snow Goose and wishes Jane Goodall and Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron could live forever. Her favourite poet is Mary Oliver because she so beautifully captures animals and nature.
Sue’s young adult novel, 'Something in the World Called Love' won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and her young adult novel 'Alaska' was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award. 'For the Forest of a Bird' was a CBCA Notable Australian Children’s Book.
An experienced English and Creative Writing teacher, Sue taught at Melbourne University and RMIT. These days she’s lucky enough to write full-time with the company of her much-loved fur friends, Teddy, Mer and Charbon.
'once, at the edge of the sea', is available at Turn the Page Bookstore, Phillip Island and Readings Kids, Carlton.
“and it was the pretending that might explain how she could smile so brightly while her mind felt nothing - as if, at these times, there existed a disconnection between outer and inner, a shutting off, and the key to her happiness lay in warding off pain, or dodging it, or pushing it into the shape of something else - like shame or anger or even hope.”
“for a moment, she let herself be defeated, wished herself not exactly annihilation but into a temporary absense, into being nowhere and no one just for a little while.”