A Longish Bio about Claire Saxby
I write fiction, non-fiction, and poetry for young people. I live in Melbourne and love my city. I was born in Melbourne, wandered about Australia and Papua New Guinea for many years, then returned to Melbourne to raise my family. Now my children have flown the nest, I rattle around in a biggish house full of memories and the bits and pieces my children left here. I spend a lot of time walking, taking photos and thinking ‘What if …’ ‘What if…’ is a good question. Almost as good as ‘Why?’ I ask that question a lot too.
The answers to these questions sometimes become the foundation for a poem, sometimes a story, sometimes non-fiction.
Picture books have only a few words but they have to be the right words. The search for the best words for a picture book can take a very long time. A really, really long time.
Some stories will not be squeezed into a picture book and demand to be written as novels. The search for the right words for a novel can also take a really long time. And there’s so many more of them.
Non-fiction and narrative non-fiction stories need research.
Poems can be short or long, funny, silly, or serious. Like picture books, (and novels) the right words need to be assembled in the right order.
I love writing, even when I am gnashing and wailing and moaning that I will never get it right. I love sharing my work with young people in schools, libraries and at festivals. I love helping young people shape their own unique stories. I love talking to teachers and librarians about ways to help young people develop their ideas. I love working with a publishing company to make my story sing. I love sharing with audiences of all ages the discoveries I make while writing. My family are accustomed to me emerging from my research to say, ‘Did you know?’ and offering up fascinating titbits about shark digestive tracts, the side-effects of gorging at roadkill for eagles, the differences between monocular and binocular vision in kookaburras and the bifurcated nature of emu feathers. I hope I will never run out of curiosity to understand this wonderful world.
Books in order of publication:
Ebi’s Boat – 2006
A Nest for Kora – 2007
Snow Play – 2007
Sheep, Goat, and the Creaking Gate – 2009
There Was An Old Sailor – 2010
Freaky Fact or Fiction: Human Body – 2011
Carrum Sailing Club – 2011
Big Red Kangaroo – 2013
Seadog – 2013
Christmas at Grand Dad’s Farm – 2014
Meet the Anzacs – 2014
Emu – 2014
My Name is Lizzy Flynn – 2015
Meet Weary Dunlop – 2015
Wild Pa – 2016
Christmas At Home – 2016
Koala – 2017
Bird to Bird – 2018
Dingo – 2018
The Anzac Billy – 2019
Haywire – 2020
Kookaburra – 2020
Georgia Ward-Fear – 2020
Treasure! – 2021
Iceberg – 2021
Great White Shark – 2021
Whisper on the Wind – 2022
Tasmanian Devil – 2022
The Wearing of the Green – 2022
Secrets of the Saltmarsh – 2023
Oak Lawn Library Friends 