Discussion:
R.I.P. Steph Bowe, 25, in Jan. (Australian YA novelist)
(too old to reply)
l***@yahoo.com
2020-06-09 02:47:44 UTC
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What's odd is that her THIRD book is supposedly her thriller novel, but it looks to me as though that describes her second novel better.



https://www.textpublishing.com.au/authors/stephbowe

"Steph Bowe was born in Melbourne in 1994. She began her writing career as a blogger, before publishing her first YA novel in 2010, at age sixteen. Girl Saves Boy was aptly descibed by Rebecca Stead as ‘full of the absolute truth—life is complicated’. Steph went on to publish two further YA novels, All This Could End, which was longlisted for the 2014 Gold Inky Award, and Night Swimming, a Children’s Book Council of Australian (CBCA) Notable Book in 2018, when it was also longlisted for a Sisters in Crime Davitt Award. In 2016 Steph was a May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust fellow. Her books have been translated into Spanish, Dutch and Catalan. Steph died on 20 January 2020, aged twenty-five, due to complications from T-cell acute lymphoblastic lymphoma, a form of leukaemia."

http://www.stephbowe.com
(her site)

https://m.facebook.com/stephmbowe/

https://www.instagram.com/stephbowe/?hl=en

https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/great-human-tributes-flow-for-ya-author-steph-bowe-20200121-p53t8v.html

'Great human': Tributes flow for YA author Steph Bowe

By Broede Carmody

January 21, 2020

Young-adult author Steph Bowe has been remembered as a "beautiful human" and "great writer".

Bowe, the author of three YA novels, died on Monday due to complications from an aggressive form of leukemia. She was 25 years old.

Her first novel, Girl Saves Boy, was published when she was 16 and explores a young person grappling with a life-changing cancer diagnosis.

Bowe's editor, Penny Hueston from Text Publishing, said she would be remembered as a "talented and kind" person.

"From the beginning, she was one of those writers who was a complete natural," she said. "She had a wonderful writing style and a wonderful gift for character. You were completely invested in her characters and her stories. She never said a bad word about anyone or anything, yet had this wicked sense of humour as well. I loved working with her. It's just not fair."

Bowe was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic lymphoma in April last year and underwent a bone marrow transplant earlier this month.

YA author Lili Wilkinson said Bowe was a "great writer" who had many more stories to tell.

"I'm sad we won't get to read them," she wrote on social media. "But I'm grateful for the ones we have."

Fellow YA author Gabrielle Tozer said she was "heartbroken" after learning of Bowe's death.

"What a beautiful human, what a talent," she wrote. "I'm grateful for the times we shared and I'm relieved she knew how much her family, friends and the book community adored her.

"She was so loved and never stopped fighting. Devastated."

In December, more than eight months after her diagnosis, Bowe told family and friends she was grateful for the support she had received – particularly from doctors, nurses and other hospital staff.

"It is at times like this that you realise how good people are," she wrote.

"You can really connect with people in a much more genuine way when life gets serious and it's something I'm glad to have experienced.

"In a way, it's the really terrible stuff that makes life feel all the more enriched. Every positive moment is such a source of joy."


https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2020/01/22/144360/rip-steph-bowe/
(brief remembrance)

https://www.abc.net.au/life/young-adult-author-steph-bowe-was-published-at-16/12015796
(Longer remembrance: "Why much-missed young author Steph Bowe hated hearing she was 'beyond her years' ")

http://www.kids-bookreview.com/2017/09/12-curly-questions-with-author-steph.html
(Q&A from 2017)

Excerpt:

Q: "What is your greatest fear?
"

A: "Cane toads. En masse. Like Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, but with cane toads."


https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3448900.Steph_Bowe
(reader reviews)

https://www.booktopia.com.au/search.ep?author=Steph%20Bowe
(click on the covers to read the professional reviews - but only two of the novels have them)


(video of Bowe, 14 minutes)


(another one, 11 minutes)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steph_Bowe


"Girl Saves Boy" (2010)

"The first time we met, Jewel Valentine saved my life.
Isn’t it enough having your very own terminal disease, without your mother dying? Or your father dating your Art teacher?
No wonder Sacha Thomas ends up in the lake that Saturday evening…
But the real question is: how does he end up in love with Jewel Valentine?
With the help of quirky teenage prodigies Little Al and True Grisham, Sacha and Jewel have a crazy adventure, with a little lobster emancipation along the way.
But Sacha’s running out of time, and Jewel has secrets of her own..."


"All This Could End" (2013)

"What’s the craziest thing your mum has asked you to do?
Nina doesn’t have a conventional family. Her family robs banks—even she and her twelve-year-old brother Tom are in on the act now. Sophia, Nina’s mother, keeps chasing the thrill: ‘Anyway, their money’s insured!’ she says.
After yet another move and another new school, Nina is fed up and wants things to change. This time she’s made a friend she’s determined to keep: Spencer loves weird words and will talk to her about almost anything. His mother has just left home with a man who looks like a body-builder vampire, and his father and sister have stopped talking.
Spencer and Nina both need each other as their families fall apart, but Nina is on the run and doesn’t know if she will ever see Spencer again...."


Night Swimming (2017)

"Imagine being the only two seventeen-year-olds in a small town. That’s life for Kirby Arrow—named after the most dissenting judge in Australia’s history—and her best friend Clancy Lee, would-be musical star.
Clancy wants nothing more than to leave town and head for the big smoke, but Kirby is worried: her family has a history of leaving. She hasn’t heard from her father since he left when she was a baby. Shouldn’t she stay to help her mother with the goat’s-milk soap-making business, look after her grandfather who suffers from dementia, be an apprentice carpenter to old Mr Pool? And how could she leave her pet goat, Stanley, her dog Maude, and her cat Marianne?
But two things happen that change everything for Kirby. She finds an article in the newspaper about her father, and Iris arrives in town. Iris is beautiful, wears crazy clothes, plays the mandolin, and seems perfect, really, thinks Kirby. Clancy has his heart set on winning over Iris. Trouble is Kirby is also falling in love with Iris…"



Lenona.
l***@yahoo.com
2020-06-10 19:26:54 UTC
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And I will have to read "All This Could End."

While I'm reasonably sure Bowe never read a certain 2004 American novel, since it isn't that well known - it's "See You Down the Road," about "Irish Travelers" in the southeastern U.S. - it's fascinating how few YA novels there are about modern-day kids who are deliberately RAISED to become criminals. (You'd think those would sell pretty well, right?)
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