{"id":176107,"date":"2025-06-27T08:56:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T22:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=176107"},"modified":"2025-06-27T08:56:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T22:56:12","slug":"get-to-know-amelia-mellor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2025\/06\/27\/get-to-know-amelia-mellor\/","title":{"rendered":"Get to know Amelia Mellor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Amelia<\/a> is an award-winning author specialising in children’s fantasy fiction and is most well known for her series The Grandest Bookshop in the World. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her latest series Oceanforged<\/a> begins with The Wicked Ship<\/a>. Set in an island nation on the brink of ruin, following an orphan named Cori who finds the magical gauntlet of an ancient dynasty of heroes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were lucky enough to ask Amelia some of our burning questions!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. To begin with why don\u2019t you tell us a little bit about yourself \u2013 where were you born? Raised? Schooled?<\/strong><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    I was born in Melbourne, and from the ages of three to six, I was educated in the Steiner system. It allowed for lots of imaginative play and we were encouraged to do things for ourselves, such as polish our shoes with shoeblack like it was the 1800s. But I also remember being frustrated with the emphasis on loose abstract drawing and painting. I just wanted to paint fairies and animals that looked like fairies and animals, but we had to work on soaked watercolour paper, so it always turned into an anodyne pastel blur. And looking back on it, I know it didn\u2019t satisfy my scientific curiosity or my love of reading. Just before 2000 hit, my family moved to Red Hill on the Mornington Peninsula, where my three younger siblings and I had the freedom to explore and play in the bush. The Mellors\u2019 attendance Red Hill Consolidated School was fifteen consecutive years \u2013 which meant about fifteen identical Christmas concerts for my poor parents. In Grade Six I got a scholarship to Toorak College in Mount Eliza, and although I went through all the usual stuff a nerdy teenager endures, it was a perfect school for me \u2013 all-girls, with an academic focus. I was never in the cool crowd (or wanted to be), but I got on with the other creatives and achievers and I liked being in the school musicals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2.    What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was three. At twelve, I was writing on the school bus on my laptop every day, and sometimes at recess, too. At eighteen, I watched my first play \u2013 commissioned by the drama teacher \u2013 being produced and performed by students from the younger year levels. And I\u2019m thirty-two now, so thirty was pretty recent. By then, I already had The Grandest Bookshop in the World and The Bookseller\u2019s Apprentice published to huge acclaim, and I was drafting The Lost Book of Magic and brainstorming the Oceanforged Series. The why <\/em>runs so deep that I\u2019m not sure I can explain it. I love language and storytelling, and always have.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    4.    Please tell us about your new book.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The Wicked Ship is the first part of my new five-part high fantasy series, Oceanforged. It\u2019s inspired by my interest in maritime history, adventure travel and the natural world. The main character is Cori, a selfish, reckless, greedy orphan ragamuffin who becomes the Chosen One of her country when she tries to steal a magical gauntlet from an ancient vault, and it irremovably bonds to her hand. This instantly makes her a target for pirates, monsters and the corrupt Prime Council whom she\u2019s one day destined to overthrow. With the help of a sullen farm boy who communicates with animals, and a cheerful but accident-prone student witch, Cori embarks on a quest to collect the other pieces of the magic armour and restore her homeland\u2019s Age of Glory before the arrival of a calamitous solar eclipse. It\u2019s ideal for readers aged 8+ and I\u2019m thrilled that it\u2019s the Kids\u2019 Book of the Month!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    5.    What do you hope people take away with them after reading your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I\u2019d like to leave readers with the sense of having discovered something new or explored something familiar in a new way, whether that\u2019s the magic in my stories or the real-world inspirations behind them. It is a compliment if a reader thought one of my books was weird, and the highest compliment if they loved <\/em>that it was weird. Weird is stimulating. Weird prompts curiosity. I like to play around and find my own space in an idea. If a surreal scene or unexpected turn of the plot provokes surprise or curiosity in the reader, that\u2019s perfect \u2013 especially if it prompts the kinds of questions that The Grandest Bookshop in the World <\/em>did, which drove readers of all ages to seek out information about Cole\u2019s Book Arcade! But it\u2019s also nice to hear that they simply enjoyed the ride. Fun and entertainment are important, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    6.    Whom do you most admire in the realm of writing and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I really look up to Terry Pratchett. He was curious about the world and furious about its injustices and hypocrisies. He had a simultaneously funny and wise way with words. He asked interesting questions about why we tell the stories we tell \u2013 something I\u2019m trying to do with Oceanforged<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    7.     What advice do you give aspiring writers?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I tell kids and other beginner writers to keep practising and writing what they love, and I often compare writing to playing a violin \u2013 you\u2019ve got to spend thousands of screechy, messy hours training before anyone really wants to hear it. I advise adults to work out what their story is selling, because their struggle is more often to do with querying and publishing. Writing a book is a huge achievement, but it has to offer readers something enticing to stand out both in the slush pile and on the shelf. Adults should, of course, keep practising and writing what they love as well. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Amelia is an award-winning author specialising in children’s fantasy fiction and is most well known for her series The Grandest Bookshop in the World. Her latest series Oceanforged begins with The Wicked Ship. Set in an island nation on the brink of ruin, following an orphan named Cori who finds the magical gauntlet of an ancient dynasty of heroes. We were lucky enough to ask Amelia some of our burning questions! To begin with why don\u2019t you tell us a little bit about yourself \u2013 where were you born? Raised? Schooled? I was born in Melbourne, and from the ages of three to six, I was educated in the Steiner system. It allowed for lots of imaginative play and we were encouraged to do things for ourselves, such as polish our shoes with shoeblack like it was the 1800s. But I also remember being frustrated with the emphasis on loose abstract drawing and painting. I just wanted to paint fairies and animals that looked like fairies and animals, but we had to work on soaked watercolour paper, so it always turned into an anodyne pastel blur. And looking back on it, I know it didn\u2019t satisfy my scientific curiosity or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[4,34],"tags":[12894,2615],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176107"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176119,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176107\/revisions\/176119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}