Liz Ledden is a Sydney-based kids’ book author of quirky, fun and warm-hearted stories. Liz’s published picture books are Everyone Wants an Octopus Book!, Walking Your Human and Tulip and Brutus.
This zany little picture book has been out in the world for two months already! Time sure does fly when you’re talking walking. Own podcast aside (where I interviewed publishers Larrikin House and held a book giveaway) I’ve popped up on a few other fab podcasts, too!
For bookish backstory, picture book chat and all things dogs, take a listen to the following podcast episodes …
Words and Nerds with Dani Vee:
Reading with a Chance of Tacos with Ken Williams:
Jack Russell Parents Podcast (US) with Becca and Gabe:
Own pod with Kate Simpson and Nat Amoore, One More Page:
And one more podcasterly pop up – the amazing Dani Vee talks Walking Your Human in an episode of The Weekend Booktopian podcast (around the 25 min mark):
Happy listening! I don’t know about you, but my podcast feed is ever-growing and it’s honestly hard to keep up! Not a bad problem to have though. I always look forward to the next ep of my favourites, the ones that feel like a friend in your ear. People say this to us about One More Page (which is ridiculously flattering, right?!) but I totally know the feeling!
My latest picture book Walking Your Human is finally here, and it’s so exciting to see the real-life book and hold it in my hands. Yay! It’s full of all-knowing advice from a cast of sassy dogs on the best things to do on a walk. Super happy with the fun illustrations by Gabriella Petruso, and it’s been great working with team Larrikin House, the book’s publisher!
To celebrate, there’s a virtual book launch happening soon on Twitter (Tuesday 9 Feb, 8.30pm Sydney time). Here are all the details:
I’m so excited for Archie the StoryHound to help host the launch, along with fabulous picture book author Debra Tidball(THE SCARED BOOK, WHEN I SEE GRANDMA). If you’ve ever joined in a Twitter chat, it will essentially run the same way, where you join the chat/answer qs, and follow and use a hashtag – this time, #walkingyourhuman – with each tweet.
Here are a couple of things you can pre-prepare, should you be so nerdily inclined (hehe – this is so what I do for bookish Twitter chats!):
Share your favourite dog gif! We all know gifs make the Twittersphere go round, and we want to see your cutest/weirdest/funniest dog gifs to share the puppy love.
Show us your favourite furry friend! We’d love to see pics of your own reading or writing mascot, canine or otherwise. Sure, it might actually be a cat, a ferret or even a stuffed toy. Or it might just be you in a onesie!
Let’s talk walks. What’s the strangest or most hilarious thing your dog (or your human) does on a walk?
And if you were being walked by a dog, where’s the *ultimate* place they could take you?
Also, you might want to BYO snacks. Soz, but as this is virtual there’ll be no book themey cupcakes this time! Show us what you’re snacking on, or share what you WISH was on offer!
Bring your burning qs! We’ll have an ‘ask the author’ segment where you can ask anything you like about the making of Walking Your Human, writing, picture books – anything! You may even have a q for Archie the StoryHound!
There’ll also be a giveaway, where a chat participant will win a hardcover copy of Walking Your Human, plus a bit of puppy merch.
Finally, don’t forget to use #walkingyourhuman in each tweet, so anyone following the chat will see it. Hope to see you there!
P.S. Here’s the WALKING YOUR HUMAN book trailer, to put you in the mood!
Agalico – an amazing, all white teahouse and cake stop in Bangkok
Hi there! I’ve written a little guide to one of my favourite cities, Bangkok, which you can read at my new blog devoured. I’ll be in Bangkok in just over a month – hopefully I’ll come across some cool new places to share!
[Update: the purpose of this post doesn’t make much sense now – it was written before I rolled several blogs into one and was meant to redirect readers from one blog to another!]
Welcome to devoured, a new (and hopefully improved) Australia-based version of my old blog A Girl in Asia, which uncovered good eats, crushworthy cafes, places to see and stay and the odd shopping find in southeast Asia.
Sydney-based and Asian flavoured, devoured is: a pot of chai in Glebe, a trek to Fairfield for Lao food, a night at a Crown Street wine bar and a mini-break to Bangkok. It’s a trip to an art gallery and a rummage through a Lebanese supermarket in Bankstown, washed down with a strong espresso shot and a cocktail or two. devoured is part exploration, part inspiration, with lots of good things to eat and drink along the way. Read on, subscribe, comment – I look forward to having you along on this new blogging journey!
A Girl in Asia has had a little cosmetic work done – in the form of a new blog header. Once upon a time I thought my black and white bird image best reflected my blog and what it was all about (a curious little bird seeking out new finds). I guess it still does, but as it turns out the image I used (adapted from a free WordPress theme called bluebird) was not so original – also used, it seems, by Twitter!! So a facelift has been long overdue. The lantern image (which is just like my blog – a little bit Asian, a little bit girly!) comes courtesy of an illustrator named Karin Knowlton who has graciously allowed me to use her design (a big thank you!). You can see more of her illustrations on her Flickr page, and she’s soon opening an Etsy store.
Twitter seems to be getting more and more press coverage by the day – but I’m one of those people who’s still not sure I ‘get it’. I’m not sure what else Twitter can offer that interacting with friends on Facebook and posting stuff on this blog can – I wonder if using Twitter would just double up on these (particularly Facebook status updates) or even replace them? I guess one of the main ideas with Twitter is networking opportunities, and being the fledgling freelance writer I am it could potentially lead to work…or at least lead to a few new blog followers! But I’m not sure I can be bothered or if I have anything interesting to ‘tweet’ about, or if enough people I know even use Twitter. Some of my fellow blog friends have joined the twitterfest but none of my real life friends have which is one of the things holding me back (why join if everyone else is still facebooking?). Anyway, I may still succumb but holding out for now until I’m really, really convinced!
I recently found out about Vietnam 720 – a cool website with virtual tours of lots of tourist attractions, streets, markets, shops, spas etc. in Saigon and elsewhere in Vietnam. Of particular interest to me are the cafes and restaurants – now I can have a sneak peek at some before checking them out, as well as find out about others I didn’t know existed – great! There are some places I’ve blogged about featured on the site too, like a virtual tour of the mosque and new bar Amber Room – so you can get a better idea of what they look like! Apparently the site will be updated with a new virtual tour every day.
Am currently ‘home’ in sunny Sydney for the holiday season, trying to get over slight jetlag (but the baby’s jetlag is even worse :-). I probably won’t post much (if at all) til January – so happy holidays and see you in the new year!
