Expanding Carlie’s Repertoire

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Most of you know I write in multiple genres, and that I use pen names so my readers have a fair idea of what they’re picking up. This way, if they’re not into romance, they know Madeleine Torr is not for them. If they’re too grown up to read young adult and tween age fiction, then they know not to pick up Carlie, and so forth. Anyway, up to now, I have only written chapter books as Carlie Simonsen, and now I want to release young adult fiction so, instead of launching yet another pen name, I decided that Carlie could be the name on those as well. After all, she’s had a little practice in this field.
Anyway, the earliest work I have in this genre consists of three complete novels. Without giving too much away, they are as follows:
Anna and the Rock Dragons: which was written and revised between 1991 and 1993, and then rewritten between December 28 and 31, 2014. You could probably call it urban fantasy, given it features dragons, but most of Anna and the Rock Dragons is set in the Australian bush, while Anna is on school holidays.
Orb Wielder: which was also written and revised between 1991 and 1993, and then rewritten between December 31, 2014 and January 5, 2015, is more traditional fantasy, drawing on the much-used trope of a group of near-teens crossing from this world to a fantasy world to deliver a treasure to its rightful owner.
Pyrie: which was conceived in June 1994, and written between July 25 and September 2 1994 in response to a magazine competition. It was edited and rewritten between January 5 and 10, 2015, and will be edited again before it’s released. It is a piece of speculative fiction about how a teenage girl uses her imagination to deal with the threat of being molested by her father. Definitely for older readers and definitely a departure from the usual type of fiction Carlie and I write.
And now, Carlie and I are working on a fourth novel, a science fiction story called Andromeda’s Pledge, but I’ll talk more about that later. It’s good to be getting back to writing that I loved and gave up on because I just didn’t see a market for it. I have wanted a reason to finish for a few years now, and now I have it.
After that, we promise to get back to the next book in the Wheelchair series, and I promise to write some teacher’s notes to go with them.
 



















Location: Canberra ACT 2601, Australia

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