Did you know that each of my novels come with free reading notes – Book Club Notes and/or Teachers’ Notes – which you can download right now?
They include all kinds of valuable insights into characters, settings, authorial purpose, key themes, social issues, beliefs and cultural explorations, relationship & family deliberations, as well as discussion questions and personal reflections to keep the adventure going, long after you’ve finished reading! Just like my books, they’re accessible reads that resonate with contemporary and speculative readers alike:
- When Dark Waters Burn – Teachers’ Notes & Book Club Notes
- When Dark Roots Hunt – Teachers’ Notes & Book Club Notes
- Towards White – Book Club Notes
- Into Tordon – Teachers’ Notes
Book Club Notes
Book Club Notes are perfect for the general reader – adults or young adults, alone or in a group. Just click on the relevant image to download:
Teachers’ Notes
Teachers’ Notes are aimed at those seeking to analyse the texts in more detail.
1. Techniques, Themes & Issues
In these notes, we more closely examine literary techniques, narrative form, worldbuilding, speculative fiction writing, contemporary issues and themes, as well as develop general capabilities such as Literacy, Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Capability, Ethical Understanding, and Intercultural Understanding.
2. Related Texts
When Dark Roots Hunt and When Dark Waters Burn are also perfect related texts for a wide range of prescribed texts on the senior curriculum – just click to review the suggestions listed in the notes.
3. Tasks
The notes also offer Analytical, Imaginative, Discursive, Multimodal and EALD tasks that cater for different ability levels and learning styles, along with marking criteria suggestions for teachers.
Just click on the relevant image to download:
Author Insight
As you’ll see when you download the notes, it takes quite a lot of time and effort to write them. But the amazing thing is that it gives me a greater appreciation for my own work!
Usually, I start off writing a novel with a grand idea or two, which inspire and propel me into creating and researching how those ideas might live and breathe as a story. Once I know those ideas will indeed live, I begin to envisage a character who might be able to support and explore them, and how I might express that character’s journey through a series of thrilling scenes as they attempt to overcome adversity. This is the fun stuff! Creating an immersive ride through a strange new world!
But after the final edits are agreed with the publisher and the story goes to print, I get to turn my mind to spreading the word so readers can find and discover my stories, so they get to enjoy the thrilling adventures I’ve created for them – and writing reading notes is a part of that.
So I return to my original grand ideas, look at them from the other side of the creation process, and consider what I’ve learnt about them myself.
Not only would I have spent days researching my ideas more fully as I wrote, but I would have spent tens of thousands of words actually exploring them, as well as subconsciously thinking about them while writing all the exciting action, drama and romance in my stories. Those grand ideas were there in the beginning as inspiration, were there all throughout, and sustained my inspiration until I wrote ‘The End’. In a way, when authors write a book, we become a bit of an expert in whatever ideas we’re exploring – expertise we can then share with others when writing our reading notes!
So I truly hope you enjoy contemplating the grand ideas you can discover and explore through downloading the reading notes of your choice – just click on the links, and feel free to share them around!
