WELL-known children’s author and illustrator Aaron Blabey wrote his first book on a roll of toilet paper - and the kids loved it.
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Mr Blabey had the children captivated during a talk at Goulburn West Public School on Monday. He was a guest speaker at the school as part of Public Education Week.
The students were asking Mr Blabey lots of questions during one of three sessions he had at the school during the day.
He told the children he was a busy author who produces about five books per year and that he wrote his first book, Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley on a roll of toilet paper, because he could not locate any paper in the house he was staying at - and he did not want to wake anyone up.
“The idea just came to me that quickly and I had to get it down,” he said.
Mr Blabey said he often spends weeks just walking in his local environs, in the Blue Mountains, in the search for ideas before he starts writing. He also spends part of each year painting.
He said he always wanted to write children’s books, but he put it on the backburner while he pursued a career as an actor.
“I wanted to do it for a long time, but I wasted about 20 years,” he said.
“My first book was published very quickly, but it took a few years for this to become my main job.
HIs advice to budding authors in the room was to “just stick at it and never stop writing” and he said “the hardest thing to achieve in writing is simplicity.”
Mr Blabey is the author of 13 popular children’s books including: Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas, The Bad Guys, Thelma The Unicorn, Pig The Fibber, Pig The Pug, The Brothers Quibble, Noah Dreary, The Dreadful Fluff, The Ghost of Miss Annabel Spoon, Stanley Paste, Sunday Chutney, Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley and Babies Don’t Suck.
The Ghost of Miss Annabel Spoon won the Patricia Wrightson Award in 2013 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, the 2013 Children’s Peace Literature Award and was recorded by Nick Cave for the Story Box Library.
He is also a well-known actor, having starred in Australian TV Series The Damnation of Harvey McHugh and the films Erskineville Kings and Mullet, among others.
He retired from acting in 2005, when he turned his attention to painting. He then created six separate solo exhibitions across Australia between 2004 and 2006.