Honourable Mention

‘A Very Unusual Pursuit’ has received an honourable mention from the judges of the Norma K Hemming Award, who described the book as ‘a witty novel set in Dickens’s London with science under siege from mysterious events. Catherine Jinks draws the characters vividly and completely credibly, and she makes a palpable 19th century London. A beautifully written, engrossing book.’

I’m very pleased about this because ‘A Very Unusual Pursuit’ was up against several adult books, and adult fiction is usually taken more seriously that children’s fiction.

The winner of this year’s Norma K Hemming Award was Rupetta by N.A. Sulway. More details can be found at the Australian Science Fiction Foundation website.

About Catherine Jinks

Catherine Jinks portrait
In 2006, Cathy’s former school, the
Ku-ring-gai Creative Arts High School, renamed their library in Cathy’s honour.

Catherine Jinks was born in Brisbane, Australia in 1963. She grew up in Papua New Guinea and later studied medieval history at the University of Sydney. After working for several years in a bank, she married Peter Dockrill, a Canadian journalist, and lived for a short time in Nova Scotia, Canada. She is now a full-time writer, residing in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales with Peter and their daughter Hannah. Catherine is a four-time winner of the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year award, and has also won a Victorian Premier’s Literature Award, the Adelaide Festival Award for Literature, the Ena Noel Award for Children’s Literature and an Aurealis Award for Science Fiction. In 2001 she was presented with a Centenary Medal for her contribution to Australian Children’s Literature.

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