I record this podcast on Gaetigo Country. I'd like to pay my respect to the traditional.
Custodians and I'm recording o Urando Country, part of the Cooler Nation. Let's go.
I know you're gonna dig this X like I've been given like an extra sprinkle of something.
You've got layers, Yeah, I got layers.
I was just thinking, I'm like, we're just such beautiful storytellers.
You make a lot of sense to that girl. No, I'm done.
Let's be too honest to go.
Well, we've had her on first things first before, but welcome back the incredible male who is the co author of Brook and Mel's new book, Melseywood.
So I've had there's a little ex bachelor, ex rugby league player, hot Ossie Laraken.
Hunk of a man, hummingbird, No, I mean honey badger.
Wrong guy is in your DM Mel, Would you like to explain to us please?
You're not the only bachelor ex bachelor passion, not even me.
Guys, Oh, we need the details because this is wild what's been happening.
He's in my dms because I spent some time on TikTok, maybe giving him a bit of a growl like the aunties might off for you know.
Not possibly calling him out, Yeah, giving a bit.
Of a call out, maybe going a little bit viral for calling him out.
Truly.
Okay, let's play the video that we're talking about.
As we all know, there's this BookTalk boy and he's a nice guy. Absolutely nobody is denying that. But he has already got a platform. He is an ex rugby league player, an ex bachelor and he had a lot of follows on Instagram before he arrived on BookTalk And if you've been on TikTok for a minute, you will know that he joined in April. And yesterday it was announced that the BookTalk Boy had signed a multiple deal with the Trea Publishing, which is an imprint of Simon
and Schuster. There is a queer woman of color called Zekway. She recently also signed a multi book deal with a Trea Publishing and guess what, she has not had the same red carpet treatment that Luke has had. Aside from a couple of announcements, we've heard crickets about this one. There's mean, no hype, no marketing push, no big pr And why why is that so? Because the publishing industry does not treat everyone equally.
For context, guys, So this hotbook dot guy throws out this video gets one hundred and something thousand likes and a lot of people talking about it, but Meles called him out.
I have yeah, I know that there are a lot of people that were kind of upset when he first went mega viral. I suppose in terms of Australian book talk, which seems a really weird thing to be talking about going byral But I.
Can understand why he went viral though. Sexy man talking about literature. I mean, that's a massive turn on. I'd be sharing a bed, fucking They say what's the sexiest thing in a man's hand? Some say, some say a vacuum, I say a book.
He didn't even have the book in his hand. Maddie reading one fucking book in his life and he gets a hundred and no.
I've literally got girl. It sounds like me with my seventy five hard challenge. Every time I read those ten pages of the book, I think I'm better than everything. I'm like, I am the smartest man in the world.
Bro.
When I close that book, I'm like, Wow, I'm so intelligent, and I can.
Doubs On this book. Top guy seriously has been like like girls literally throwing and like accusing it as a as a like to date him pretty much right, like putting their dating profile like Hi, I'm blah blah blah, this is where you can find me, or like some girls like wow, I'm all of a sudden interested in books. This is frustrating as fuck, and it's funny, but it's frustrating because it's like one guy reads one book and literally girls are throwing themselves at you.
It's like asks you to you know what the patriarchy is, You should just send them this. So Mel tell us about the d MS you obviously called this book talk viral video.
Go you girlfriend, like you know, you're not there for your own you know, dating intentions. You're like, fuck, this is a great opportunity to message him.
Yeah, well actually he messaged me.
Oh he slid into her DM.
He slid into my DMS because I was on someone else's video saying, oh, there's no way this man will want to talk about books with me, because she'd made a video as well, saying similar sorts of things that the comments were gross, and then women were also coming for each other because of course when there's a man involved, we are all over again.
Fuck you now, yeah, great words, they're coming for each other. Yeah, okay, all right, we're going back to the note. Not so PG days. No, But I want to know what made you like what was the first message you sent him? And what has that conversation entailed.
He just messaged me and said he'd like to talk about books with me. And I went back to him and I said, look, I'm not actually mad at you for getting followers. It's more the fact that the people there are so many people on book talking like to talk myself up. For example, I being an Aboriginal person and on the internet in any form is not a picnic.
So I was literally writing down that comment you said about I want to talk books with you. I was like, great pick.
Up, Yeah, aweso great, I'll put it in my keep going.
Yeah.
So I said, I wasn't really mad at him. It was more about the people that saw him pretty man oka accent in a tractor talking about books, and he got all of those followers, and he's getting attention, and that means he has influence on BookTalk. And we know like to get nerdy with you. We know studies show that BookTalk and social media, but book talk in particular is the biggest book selling influence in the world at
the moment. So if you can get picked up on book talk and go viral, then your book is going to sell out. You will get book deals, you will get all of the sorts of things that authors really want. Unfortunately for someone like me and like it does sound
a bit like sour grapes, but I get in. I get furious when people have a platform and then all the books that they are talking about are the popular ones, the ones that already have shelf space, endemics, the ones that already have thousands upon thousands of readers, that have worldwide deals, which are oftentimes problematic storylines or from problematic authors, whereas there's every single indigenous author out there is scrabbling around to tell our stories and get them out there,
and we don't get that much attention, Like it takes a lot of energy to get one booktoker to hold your book up on BookTok and say this was a good book, go and buy it. In Australia, our market is so small. So it was just it was more that he'd gotten the influence that I have sort of craved because I know what I want to do with
that influence, which is educate and sell our stories. And you know, by if you know, the trickle down effect of that is that then kids like the kids that book works with at school will be able to see more Indigenous authors, more Indigenous stories, and be able to dream of maybe telling those stories in the future. And it will be easy for them because I see it as my responsibility to make way for the next lot
of people coming up. So I was furious at the followers, but I also said to him in the DMS when he said, I'd love to talk about books with you, and I was like, great, here is your reading list and tell and I'm really I actually am quite good at finding recommendations. If someone says I like you, then finding something else for someone to pick up. So my
biggest area of expertise and interest is romance. But I can tell this guy that he should pick up a fantasy book by say Lisa Fuller or Lista Rose or someone like that. So he said, to his credit, he has said he will pick them up. And then I went on and did a big recommendation video and tagged
him in it. And we'll see what happens. But I think that it's just that so many people are throwing around these likes and follows and they're worth nothing to someone who maybe already has a platform, who's maybe you know, like him, has developed his platform by being on the Bachelor, by being a rugby player, by all of those sorts of things tangently. And then there's the rest of us.
Who is our actual job to be on these social platforms scrambling around for my you know, huge three thousand followers. You know, it's just it gets really frustrating.
Well, let's take this notion and put him to the side. Enough talking about hunk book talk man, Let's talk about you. Well, I want to know, you know, where are you from? Who's your mob Let our listeners give a little bit of insight into your journey as a writer.
Yeah sure. So my name smells Saywood and I'm a big and ball and Woka Walker woman. So my people are from around gumd Windy Way, which is on the Queensland New South Wales border and Woka Walker people. It's a big area up in Queensland. But my grandmother specifically was from Gainder, which is a little town sort of northwest of Marborough. Uh and so up in North Queensland.
So yeah, that's where my people are from. But I and I live in just outside of Brisbane, in a little city called Ipswich, which Brook has been to visit.
Now love Ipswich.
What do you think of Ipswich, Bro.
I actually really liked it. I was like, this is I don't know, it just kind of reminded me a little bit like Perth in a sense. It's like quite small and like, yeah, I don't know. I just laid back, Yeah, laid back by a lot of a lot of the Yeah, yeah, yeah, a.
Lot of mob. It's a it's a it's a really great place to be if you come to Brisbane. We're just thirty minutes west and it's a nice place to visit.
Yeah.
I live in Ipswich, but my day job is as an academic at the University of Queensland. So I teach about the writing and publishing industry and that's where my background is. I used to be a book editor. I used to work at actually book and my publisher, yeah.
She was used to work at HarperCollins, who obviously if you know, I've signed with them with their books that we've we've created and my memoir. But they're great. I mean, I don't know what it was like to work for them, but I love getting paid by them.
Yeah, I love that.
Yeah. So yeah, I worked there for a little while, but then I went into into academia and book publishing.
Yeah, we're writing a book.
We've written a book.
I'm sorry, I've gone back in time. Girl, You've done it. It's published, it's out, I promise.
I'm having deja vu a little bit because we had we've been in studio before, we have, and it was in Perth, which was so crazy because we went for the Barbie premiere. So I feel like I obviously I spent so much time with you and getting to know you and I have this relationship with you. But for the listeners, like this has been such a journey for
you of writing. You've published three books. So You've got Burn, which was your first, and it's about a young indigenous boy who lights fires, which you would love to do.
What well, I would love to see it made into a TV series. Actually, I think that's my.
Who would you cast? Can I ask who would you cast to be the main carriage?
So hard because you think about how long it takes, like both of you know how long it takes to get a film up and running. All the kids that you would pick because like Andrew is seventeen, sixteen, seventeen, and so all of the people that you would peak for it are going to be in they're like thirties. Probably matter what today the way.
You Okay Thomas, whether or would be a fabulous don't you recommend it? You should read this book. It's amazing. And then you wrote a romance novel. I did, yes, give us a little bit of insight into that romance novel.
So it's called Love Unleashed, and it's about a big and bull girl called Brinn who grows up fairly similarly to me on the north side of Brisbane and wants to go to New York to work for a big literary magazine or the publishing industry. And so when she finishes UNI, she gets on a plane and heads off to New York and tries to get this job, but everything sort of falls apart for her and she ends
up working in a doggy daycare. So it's kind of cute and funny, but it's more a romantic comedy that's you know, things don't magically work out, which I think was a little bit more realistic when you're a black fellow reading a book where someone might go off to a big city where you don't sort of magically have.
Money fantasy well that you yeah, yeah, it's sort of a happy ending kind of It does have a happy ending, absolutely, but it doesn't sort of work out the way that you would expect it to in a rom com You know, she should have got the job and had the kind of carry Bradshaw life.
But she doesn't really get that, but she gets good stuff. It does work out in the end.
What inspired you to have that reality aspect to it? Is it so that mob felt like the story they were reading maybe they could connect more deeply to Yeah.
Absolutely, it was a big So. The funny thing about this book was that it was my PhD, which people don't actually realize that you can write a book. But it was eighty percent of this big academic work that took me four years to do, and the book was the main part of it. And so what I was trying to do, like in academic worlds, you're trying to answer a question, and my question was a lot around.
Is the publishing industrry ready for a book with an aboriginal heroine that doesn't follow all those typical things but still has the happily ever after, which is critical for a romance book. And so Brinn is aboriginal, she's queer, she's fat. She comes from a family that is made up a little bit differently. Her mom had passed away. She lives with her stepdad and her half brother, but of course we don't say things like half brother, right,
it's just her little brother she's got. One of her best friends is her sister cousin, and so she has this really strong connection back home. So she's not running away from anything, she's running towards things. But also I love that vision, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that and her mum, and it was her mom's dream for her to go to New York and do those things. So she's kind of fulfilling her mum's wishes as well to go over there. But yeah, and then she discovers things
about herself while she's there. And I think oftentimes, and I think, when you're reading a book where someone goes overseas, their dreams come true and they want to stay overseas and everything magically works out. And I think for MOB that's a bit more complicated, right, Like it is possible to live overseas and enjoy living overseas, but very far. Yeah,
it's far, and we are so deeply connected. Like I often think about you Brook, you know, when you're not having a good time, going home is really important for you and being on country and that is recharging and things like that. So it was it was stuff like that that I thought about her, you know, feeling that string that connects you home.
It's also like, you know, New York is like you know, something that we see quite often on our TVs, and it kind of does feel a bit of a fantasy and not real. So when you think of New York, you're like, oh, like, I could never. And I think that's the narrative or like the story. A lot of MOB actually tell themselves a lot if they don't feel like it's achievable, and I think they constantly will be like, oh no, I could never, Yeah, never, I could never
do that. I could never go there. And I think it's when you start believing in yourself and your self worth is so high, you start believing that anything is possible, and just getting on a plane as possible. Because I kept telling myself about New York Maddie knows this. I was like, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it, and then I just fucking did it. Yeah, and I was like, this is the best thing I ever did.
I came back.
It's so crazy. I came back to myself more so in New York than I actually ever have in some ways on country. I know that sounds really weird, but when I'm on country, it's like about rest. But when I'm in another country by myself, it's liberation. It's like doing something that's you don't think is possible and then you're doing it and it's crazy. So I really connect with Brin's story because it's like she's just doing the thing. Yeah,
she's just doing the thing. And I think we need to tell our young people just do the thing right. And I know that sounds so simple, like it's just so needed. So like our book, A good kind of trouble, a lot of people think, oh wow, that's what is it? Like they're intrigued, which is great. It also kind of sucks that sometimes you have to put a cover that's so click baity to get people enticed to.
Do it, right, Yeah, how could you come up with that title?
Well, we just wrote the story and then we're kind of like like, well, Stella's bad news in some sense, and it's like.
It is a chapter title as well, which I completely forgot about when we were having a conversation about what it was going to be called, Like, I don't I don't know. I was like Jamie, Yeah, well we had Jamie and Stella. It said Jamie and Stellar book one all the time the whole time we were writing it.
So it's kind of crazy because like now we're kind of coming up with the next one, and it's like do we stay on the line of like a good kind of something else or do we completely change it? But I like consistency, so I'm like, we need to come up with something else. But it's a different point of.
View, A bad kind of good? Did man just do it?
Did you just give up?
What is it?
A bad kind of good? People like, wait, this is confusing, but I like it.
Yeah, they're like, what, like, but.
It's it's something for our young people. Yeah, it's as much as it's for melan I to to love and to care and to nurture. It's the same time, it's just for young people to read and see themselves and to feel seen, right, And I think we're going to see that at my work, which is myts which is with the young Indigenous kids that travel from home their
community to Melbourne to get an education. Now, this our second book, is kind of the Mits experience, but it's from Stella's point of view, which is the good kind of trouble who comes to town and Jamie's flips Jamie's world. So it's crazy because like when making this story, but it's so interwoven into like and so connected with real experiences. It's crazy to think, like these young kids will read this and then just understand that this could be a thing that they can actually.
Do, which is crazy. Young girls admits do they read? Have you seen a culture of reading at the school?
Yeah, every Tuesday morning we do reading Hour, so from like eight thirty to nine or like eight fifteen to nine we read with the kids. And this is to encourage obviously their literature and numerous as well, but it's just to like have that first thirty minutes of school where they get to kind of have their own time, just you know, reading books or they read with one of the teachers. But the material that they're reading is you know, like a diary of a wimpy kid Captain Underpants.
They're quite comical, so they're like not they're actual like comics, not real reading. And that's the kind of thing that you know, because it might because they're behind in their like literacy, but it's not to say that they can't learn so quickly, like I've seen these kids evolve very very quickly. Yeah, with just the muscle memory of reading every single day. Yeah.
I do a lot of school visits. So my first book Burn because it's got a young person in it, I actually get to go all over the country and talk to kids at schools. And my favorite school is in Queensland. It's also in Ipswich, which is also an indigenous school. It's an indigenous independent school as a school course is it is called Himbi Yumba. Yeah, it's a
really nice school. I enjoy going to visit. There have been a couple of times now and just going in the classroom and seeing the kids that this book and the book that Brooke and I wrote a good kind of trouble is for means so much and Burn is probably a little bit higher than the literacy level of some of the ones that I go in and see. But they love seeing themselves on the page. They love seeing that they can relate to things, and they give
it a red hot go. And then I still get these beautiful emails from their teacher where they've done an assignment to write a character that is out of Burn, and many of them choose Andrew the main character to extend his story out. And their understanding of where this kid comes from is so much more nuanced and mature than a lot of the adult readers, just because it is based in their experience. And you know, the original experience is not the same.
No, absolutely, it's different. I wanted to ask you, Mel, you know you've been working with book now for a little while. What is that relationship look like? Has it evolved over time? Is that like a group project at us? It's like, Nah. What I mean is like give insight into your dynamic as writers and collaborating because not every author has the opportunity to collaborate. And I think it's really powerful that two First Nations women are working together
and putting out these books. So what does that look like and how has that been for you both?
Well, I'm so glad that I in the start, when I was signing, I guess with Harper that I wanted to collaborate. I didn't want to just do something solely one because I'm not obviously the most experienced writer, Like I wrote my memoir, but mostly it was voice recordings
and getting that story down and that's quite factual. But in terms of narrative writing, like I'm my strength is just telling and orally, so I obviously knew my strengths and I wanted to collaborate with someone who had a similar vision really pretty much, and like it was kind of like we laugh about it now because obviously we do talks and together about the books, but we say, like it was kind of like a book Tinder, like we kind of got, you know, we swiped a few
times and then we're like, boom compatible.
If only Tinder was so successful.
Oh no, we're gonna go two years three, Well, actually so much longer. Yes, So we've known each other since twenty twenty two. Yeah, I've come across your content in twenty twenty two, when your name was sort of put and with that first meeting like together was actually probably one of my favorite memories of ours. We sat in my back terrace and we just talked for hours.
Yeah, supposed to just be a coffee. We'd never we texted a bit, but we hadn't met before, so we're supposed to just be a coffee. I was in Melbourne for a couple of days, had a few had some free time, headed over to Brooks, so you just haven't have a coffee and work out what the plan was. And I think brook was dropping me back at my hotel like six pm.
It was so late.
That's wonderfact.
It's like a five hour day. Yeah, like what they say, Yeah, a date that didn't didn't end. And I think our friendship has just evolved from you know, I think that instant sort of connection, and I think it's really hard to make friendships like that. It can be. Yeah, I think even if regardless if we weren't working together, I think we still would have been such great friends.
I think so yeah.
Yeah, And I think like over time there's not been a point in our work relationship or even our friendship that we've not supported one another. I think I think that's the best thing about a collaborative process. We both also say like we would if anyone gets the opportunity to collaborate, Yeah, the best thing.
It's so much fun. And you're right, Maddie, so many writers don't get the chance to do that. But how nice it is not only to imagine that story together, but also to go out and talk about it together. And we've been waiting for it for a while, Like we did when we were in Perth for the Barbie premiere a few years ago, we did talk about it. This actually being on this podcast was probably our first public actually about it together. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and so
we did. We we have talked about it to people separately, but actually just getting booked to go on writers festivals together and sharing the stage with someone like I. Both of us have done a lot of these festivals with our books beforehand, and they're so scary and isolated and isolating.
You walk into these rooms sometimes, as you know writers, we have our heroes in those rooms, and you walk into the author green room and I think someone really famous is there, and you I kind of lose my mind a little bit and think what am I am?
I allowed to be here? It's weird that I'm here, but walking into those spaces having someone that is a close friend with you just orderomatically makes you more relaxed because of someone like yeah, if I'm I'm having a bit of a meltdown, then books there for me.
And yeah, it's lovely likewise, and you know, I think we're both quite experienced in our industries in you know, like I guess I've never done book festivals, and Mels all over it, and I like rely on her in those cases to explain, you know, who's who, and like so I understand it for our you know, for our book and like vice versa about who's who. But Mel's all over it in terms of influence the world, Like must admit she knows stuff before I actually do. And
I'm like, how the hell. I'm like, girl, She like she's updating me on stuff and I'm like, oh fuck, I have no idea what is going on. We We're both looking each other like the Jojo see world drama what And it's just so nice because like I don't know, it's a work relationship turn friendship turn into family. I think, like that's the best way to describe it. And I think we're hoping. Yeah, we're hoping that we continue the
book writing. We would love obviously our book a good kind of Trouble to be a sequel, something that stays around for a little while and we can kind of keep that legacy of writing together until we're old and gray and then we're like, oh, okay, we can't write about young.
Well I want to ask you both, what is it that you want, you know, both Blackfellows but also non Indigenous Mob to take away from this book once they read it? And is it specifically for young people or any ages can tackle this book?
Any age can read anyone. Anyone would love it.
We've both had lots of people come up to us, adults come up to us and say, this is the book that I wish I'd had when I was a kid. Yeah, it really really is. And it's because it's not you write it is a book for MOB. But and that is our probably you know, like if your heart's on Mob, that's who our first audience is all the time. But it's also a book about queer young people and queer young people who are just out at school. Like there's
not it's not a coming out story. It is Jamie is the only out kid at their country school, and so it's it's that story, you know, like where maybe maybe she is a little bit brave to be the only one out a huge school, but also she is showing that it is okay to be that way. And I guess that's no one sees different no one, no one sees her differently. She's still a deadly footy player,
she's still really popular in all of those things. It's just this thing about her and I think that's kind of how we all want to be right like that, It's just part of our identity, not our whole identity.
Yeah, yeah, I definitely, you know, connect with that on so many levels. But I also think like it the book kind of shows other things that we should normally, which is like fine family dynamics. Like Maddie and I know this quite well, is that our family doesn't always aren't always blood and they're not always the most either reliable or they might not show as like parental figures in our life, but we love them dearly. There's still
so much love there. Or our dynamic is that we stayed with aunties and uncles and that's what sort of Jamie does, is that she stays with her uncle and Annie, and she has little ones which is her sister's children and like or her cousin's children, sorry Treasure, and it's like that's the dynamic we grew up in. It's not that real conventional nuclear family, which I think is more realistic.
I know we love books to you know, escapeism and fantasy, but I think sometimes it's nice showing the real parts and the real actual dynamics and the truth of that because I think people like to feel, want to want to feel seen, but also want to feel like what they're experiencing is also like in quotation.
Normal, yeah, And I think we're also as blackfellows as well. And this is also for the wider audience as well. And another reason why I wrote Romance too is that so many of our books and stories and the things that the people in power, so whether that's publishers or movie makers or whoever else are seeking about our stories, oftentimes they want the hard one, right, So they want to hear about the tragedy of the stolen generation. They
want to hear those things. And I'm not saying these things are not important and I are not legacies that we pass down and it's not trauma that we all carry in our blade. They are very sacred and these are important stories and they do change people's hearts and minds when they read these things. But also, can't we just have a silly book like books, silly romance novel. Can't we just have a book where everything works out? Can't we just see a snow shot a real life that's not necessarily our.
Anita highest do that?
Beauty Likely Williams has written a play as well that has done that.
I've heard about that I really want to see.
I feel like we were having a similar conversation, which is so good about like let us dance and dress in the clothes that we want to dress like. It doesn't always have to come from this, you know, yes, And I love you know, yeah, we love I'm learning to love the fluffy And I think Mel does a great job with like helping me with that beautiful and I think, you know, we've been on this journey together. Oh my god, I use the word journey again.
Oh my god, what's wrong with the word journey in.
A bachelor's school of public You think I'll ever get rid of that word?
And I'm so over it.
But Anyways, Well, I want to know.
Look, speaking of Journey, what's on the Horai and for email, what's next?
Well, Brooke and I have this sequel coming out next year, so we're sort of deep in the editing trenches.
A character called Maddie.
We could probably.
Boring name, don't do it?
Could probably change it, I guess, No, I do not. It can be the horrible boring Cord. Yeah, I could a big sergeant. Now she just nice.
And I am working on another romantic comedy right now as well. Do you have a name for it or it is called the next chapter at the moment? Okay, that's exciting.
Yeah, I love the next world life.
You know what, I want to be sure the best for the next chapter published. I love I would. I'm actually thinking. I've pitched a few ideas to the team and there's one idea that I really want to do, and it's a kid's book or around choice and understanding that every choice that we make leads to the places
that we end up. So it's about, you know, making sure that young kids really at the beginning of their life understand that they've they've they can be really in control of their future, and you know, create a path that they want for their life instead of what they've been given. So it's all around choice and you know, this career Kid's Choice is currently the title, but I think you know, there's there's there's much more, definitely, because
there's also consequences to choices. And one of the things in this book is not right or wrong. You know, there's no right or wrong, but if you make a choice that might affect somebody else, for instance, if you don't share something, or if you're being a selfish person, or if you make a decision that could have negative effect on someone, you need to understand that consequence, you know.
So I think it's also about understanding every choice that we make in our lives has a consequence, and what are we willing to uh, you know, what are we willing to do with our own lives to make sure that those consequences an't always negative?
But oh I love that.
Yeah. So that's my little my little book that's sort of in the very early pitching process.
What age group do you think?
Young? So I'm thinking, you know, six to ten.
Yeah, that's like a picture book or yeah, yeah.
And there's also it's it's a picture book, but there's also sort of what do they call pop ups, and you know, you don't know that you don't know the consequence until you make the decision that It's also are adventure, so it's like you might start with a certain choice that you make and then you follow that choice throughout the book and you get to a different you can if you choose something different at the beginning, you can get to something different at them that there's many ways
you can read this book to a children's to a child, so it's not a you know, a one, one and done kind of book. It's there's multiple options that you could really go on as a journey, which I love. So yeah, that's my little first book. I think that that will hopefully be green lutin.
Hopefully publishers.
Don't take my idea. People listening, I.
Feel like you'll do it. I feel like you'll do it. You never say things that you don't do so well.
I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time to come in, Mel, like I know you know you flew in and you're here for the book launch, so I hope that all goes well and if our you know, lovely listeners want to support both of you. How can they find the book?
The book is in all good bookstores at the moment. We particularly want to shout out if you're in well, actually anywhere Amplify Bookstore. They're in North Melbourne, but they're also they started as an online bookstore and they only cover writers of color, so it's a really small specialist bookshop. But yeah, if you want to support them an independent bookstore, but you can also buy it anyway.
Yeah, it should be in the young adult ya children's books, yes section, but yeah you can also find Mel's other books, which is Love Unleashed and Burn and then hopefully the next chapter coming soon.
I love that you can make us. Yes, we'll put all of these in the show notes so that our lovely listeners can click through quite easily. But thank you so much. Mel. That's all we have time for today. On first things first, if you love what he leave us, are rating in a little review, and if.
You want us to cover anything on the next pod, reach out via our socials. You can find Mel at Little Red right, and my handle was at Brooked Up one and Mattie's handles at It's Maddy Meals.
Bye.