YA Fiction Author Rises From Down Under

Gregory Victor Babic

has just broken into young adult fiction with The Profile.

Tenth grader, Danni MacCormack just received a Medallion for Journalism award, and is about to take on the most enterprising endeavor of her young life. Her single mother Ellen, and grandmother Mabel, are bursting with pride.

The story begins in Middlewood, Australia a sort of ghost town waiting for a divine intervention. A town whose heart otherwise seems to be beating its last. The town is a twitter when the surprise guest speaker of the Annual Speech Night, Mr. Dean Lawrence Polking, arrives. He's a homegrown boy turned magnate that has returned to invest in Middlewood High School, and his old stomping grounds, with the grandest architectural retail structure the world has ever seen.

Curious, Danni decides to interview him, but there's a catch: Dean Lawrence Polking has never granted a personal interview ever. The story really gets going when Danni and her friend Kitra make a bet that neither wants Danni to lose.

After studying all the information gleaned from several sources spanning decades, Danni discovers a possible inroad. A personal interview will be granted to the individual who discovers the meaning behind the initials of Mr. Polking's company, HRL. What takes place after that is a fascinating toller coaster ride that rendered the book unputdownable. The charming and quirky characters were so believable, that as I read, I watched the whole thing unfold as if watching a movie.

The book is a bit rocky at the beginning, but by the time Danni makes her bet, it becomes a fast-paced read. Find out how this tenacious girl keeps moving forward in the face of daunting circumstances, and what she discovers along the way.

I enjoyed this book immensely! As most of you know I am not a big reader of fiction, but this read almost like a movie. Bravo, Mr. Babic, I look forward to you next work!

Gregory Victor Babic

A Grand resource

It has been a joy to discover Australian author, Gregory Babic’s book, Words to Inspire Writers. As a huge collector of quotes and verses, a 300 author 1,100 quote tome was one just I couldn’t pass up. I've been reading through the gi-normous book of quotes amassed here. My heavens! What a vast body of work! It truly is impressive.

As a book of days with three quotes per day, Babic has designed the passages to carry writers through three stages of a daily writing process: the preparation and planning stage, the creation stage, and “…the Post-Writing or Celebration Stage of Publishing and Marketing.”

I like being surprised daily by the vast number of brilliant authors, spanning thousands of years, from whom Babic has gleaned priceless gems of wisdom. The index in the book’s finale is worth double its weight in gold, and truly simplifies finding favorite authors and quotes. It seems impossible to peruse such a fine volume and not come away inspired and enriched. I’m happy to reference Words to Inspire Writers and recommend it to friends and writers.

It takes two to speak the truth—one to speak, and another to hear.
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

"A good book contains more wealth than a good bank."
Roy L. Smith

I'm tweaking the latest play that I co-wrote with Jack Bunny. It has been really a lot of fun working on this project with such an accomplished mentor. Who knows, maybe it will sweep the country and be playing on a stage near you! We'll keep you posted.

Authors Choice

If you could have lunch with an author living or dead, who would you choose? Why? What would you ask them?
I realize there are people who are totally inaccessible to their fans. After giving this careful consideration, I thought Maurice Sendak would be interesting to talk to. Not about his illustrations, or his writing.

“Did your faith to influence your work? What are some important things that you would want people to know about you? What do you view as the most important aspects of your career as writer/illustrator?”
Then I remember reading Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion and The Year of Magical Thinking. Her words reach right into my heart and make themselves at home. And after I set the book down, the words swim around in my head like a school of fish.
I found myself thinking about her stories and her life and the smooth molasses way she poured them out. I kept going back to them again and again... For weeks I pondered her life without her writer husband John. I found myself worrying about her.

“How are you doing now, Joan? What are you working on?”