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Pamela Rushby Pamela Rushby i(A47738 works by)
Born: Established: 1947 Queensland, ;
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Pamela Rushby grew up and was educated in Ipswich, Queensland, apart from a period spent in Penang, Malaysia. She worked as an advertising copywriter, a publicity officer and a pre-school teacher. Rushby studied ancient history, journalism, art history, and writing and producing for television. As technology changed, she also wrote and produced multimedia texts.

In 1993, Rushby was awarded a Writers' Project Grant from the Literature Board of the Australia Council to travel to Egypt and Jordan and work on archaeological excavations to research a children's novel. She retains her interest in the area and its history, being shortlisted for the Text Prize in 2018 for an historical children's novel on the practice of mummy parties. She won a Churchill Fellowship in 1994 to travel to Canada and study educational television at TVOntario. In 2006, she received the May Gibbs Children's Literature Trust Fellowship.

The author of three dozen children's books, picture books, and plays, she has won the Davitt Award and the Ethel Turner Prize (NSW Premier's Literary Awards) and been shortlisted for many more, with particular success for her 2014 novel The Ratcatcher's Daughter.

She is the mother of Allison Rushby.

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • Pamela Rushby has also written school readers.

  • For information about this author's works for children not included in AustLit, see Australian Children's Books by Marcie Muir and Kerry White (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1992-2004).

Personal Awards

2019 recipient ASA Mentorship
2016 highly commended Scarlet Stiletto Awards Best Story with a Disabled Protagonist For 'Meryet and The Mystery of the Plundered Tomb'.
2012 recipient May Gibbs Children's Literature Trust Fellowship

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon The Mummy Smugglers of Crumblin Castle Newtown : Walker Books Australia , 2020 18936933 2020 single work children's fiction children's fantasy

'A crumbling castle, a moat full of crocodiles, a catastrophe of kittens, and let’s not forget the villains and the mummies! This rambunctious story has it all.

'1873 England Orphaned Hattie goes to live with her great uncle and aunt in their crumbling castle in the English Fens. There, Great Aunt Iphigenia hosts flamboyant mummy-unwrapping parties to save her home from ruin – until the mummy supply runs out. On a dangerous search for more, a thousand miles up the Nile, Hattie is haunted by these ancient souls and tries to free them with unexpected consequences. A potent blend of fantasy and history, this rambunctious story has it all!'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2021 shortlisted HNSA Historical Novel Prize Children and Young Adult
2018 shortlisted Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing as 'Hattie, or a Thousand Miles Up the Nile'.
2021 shortlisted Davitt Award Best Children's Novel
2021 shortlisted Book Links Award for Historical Fiction
2021 CBCA Book of the Year Awards Notable Book Younger Readers
y separately published work icon Princess Parsley Lindfield : Scholastic Australia , 2016 9462205 2016 single work children's fiction children's

'Could there possibly be anything more absolutely, mega embarrassing than being called Parsley? You bet. After a disagreement with the local council, Parsleys dad decides to set up his own principality, making 12-year-old Parsley - Princess Parsley! How about that for making you popular in your first year of high school? But it's the way Parsley approaches being a princess that really causes a stir, and a lot of laughs.' (Publication summary)

2018 commended SWW Book Awards Children

Hilarie Lindsay Children's Books Award

y separately published work icon Lizzie and Margaret Rose Parkside : Omnibus Books , 2016 9174494 2016 single work children's fiction children's

'London, 1940. Bombs are falling and 10-year-old Margaret Rose survives a deadly raid, but her family home is destroyed. In faraway Townsville in Queensland, her aunt is ready to take her in, although her 11-year-old cousin Lizzie is not so sure. But first there is a long and dangerous voyage to a strange country, also at war. Margaret Rose knows it's not going to be easy, and Lizzie is not about to make it any easier.' (Publication summary)

2018 winner SWW Book Awards Children

Hilarie Lindsay Children's Book Award

2017 CBCA Book of the Year Awards Notable Book
Last amended 8 Sep 2021 13:22:31
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