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Nette is one of Australia’s finest writers on relationships between children and each other as well as relationships with adults. Her work it is intuitive, gentle but assertive in defence of the child. Her most recent books have been for younger readers and middle primary readers and are about young children negotiating school dynamics and finding a place in the world.

All her books are about the search for identity. Her newest release is Sprite Downberry, a young adult read from Harpercollins. Her work is sold internationally and is in translated into several languages including French, Spanish, Korean and German. She is consistently listed in the CBCA Notable Titles collections and has been won awards with picture books and young readers in the CBCA Book of The Year. Her work has been shortlisted and several of her books including The Web and Proper Little Lady have been continually in print for twenty years.

Recent Releases.

Sprite Downberry – this is a young adult read which deals with a young girl who is her mother’s carer. It is a story of a girl who undertakes a difficult journey to self-discovery.

Adventures of a Late Night Swearer – Speedy Simpson is best at everything and this, ultimately, is his undoing. This is a great read which involves some zany descriptions, a how-to section for making up new words and a wonderful story about a boy and a monster who teaches him a lesson in liking himself.

Living Next To Lulah – A gothic story of ghosts and secrets and friendship.

Session Information.

Author Talks.

Nette is happy to share the origins of her work, to look at the different ways to capture image in stories, to show and tell some of her collected manuscripts and processes and to simply enjoy working with the students on the problems that they would like her to solve.

Teacher Directed Sessions.

There are occasions when Nette has been invited to ‘who-dunnit’ days, and to work through picture book making or to share character development….I’m very happy to work with teachers to present a workshop that would be tailor made to the needs of their pupils.

Workshops

Level 1.  (Classes 1 – 2) – ‘You’re Making It Up!’   45 minutes.

After a brief introduction and talk about some of the books, students are shown how
students are shown how to use one of Nette’s stories as a model for their own story telling.
Students will not need to bring sheets but teachers might want to have a bit of scribble paper with them to jot down the sequence of works that the children develop.
There is always a time allowed at the end of the session for questions about books that Nette has written or the students own writing problems.

At the end of the lesson students will be able to go back to their classroom to make their picture book either

• as a group
• as a class
• individually
• pairs – one writer, one illustrator

Level 2 – (Classes 3 – 4) – ‘Help. I’m Stuck!’-    45 – 60 minutes.

After a brief introduction and talk about Nette’s books, students are invited to share some of the problems they experience with their own writing. These invariably centre around:

• finding ideas
• getting stuck in the middle
• getting stuck at the end.
• Punctuation.

Using a narrative structure and imagery, the students are taken through a map of making a draft of a story. They can see how there are many paths open to them and how an idea can trigger many other ideas.
They work through one group story in the session but, as there are many other stories jotted down as we work, there is opportunity for other stories to be developed later on.
This session is primarily about story structure with a brief reference to the role of punctuation.
There is always time allowed at the end of the session for questions about the author, the author’s books or children’s own writing.

At the end of the session students:

• have a map that can be used for drafting stories
• will be able to go and complete the story drafted during the session either individually or as a group.

Level 3 – Years 5 -6 – “It’s All a Bit of a Game Really!”

After a brief introduction and talk about Nette’s books, students are invited to share some of the problems they experience with their own writing. These invariably centre around:

• finding ideas
• getting stuck in the middle
• getting stuck at the end.
• Punctuation.

Using a game principle and introducing the concept of antagonist as one who is acting against the protagonist, students are shown how to develop a map for drafting their stories. They will be able to see, prior to beginning their writing, where the pitfalls of their story-telling might be, how the story is resolved, how to maintain tension and cliff-hangers and how to adjust the events as they are needed. This is an intensive lesson which can be presented as:

• a demonstration – 45 minutes
• workshop -      45 minutes as demonstration

40 minutes writing time
20 minutes sharing. 
During this time there will be a 20 minute break between the demonstration and the writing time and similar brief break between the writing and sharing time.

The ‘sharing time’ at the end of the workshop session is from one student to another. This level of sharing is to meet the immediate gratification needs that all writers experience at the end of their work. It is not intended to be an editorial time – the editorial work would be best done at a later time when students have been able to distance themselves a little from their work.

At the end of the sessions there is always a time for questions about books, authorship and students’ own writing problems.

Primary Level for Resistant Writers.  – 45 minutes.

This session is aimed at students who don’t want to write. It uses minimal text and illustration to tell stories. Students often become involved in wanting to add more text once they have seen the potential of their stories.

Write Me A Story With Ten Words.

After a brief introduction and talk about Nette’s books, students are invited to share some of the problems they experience with their own writing. These invariably centre on:

• finding ideas
• getting stuck in the middle
• getting stuck at the end.
• Punctuation.

Students are taken through the structure of narrative using a visualisation and process which allows them to experience story making without the problem of adding words (essentially this is a group story making session which empowers them with the structure of narrative as set out in the work sessions for 3-4). Because of the needs of the students (who may not like the idea of story writing), this part of the session is strongly driven by the author.

Once students have completed the structure and have accepted that narrative has a structure that needs to be evident, then we move to making stories from a two word basis.

At the end of this session students can make their own 8 page books:

• individually – being the writer and the illustrator
• as a team – one writer, one illustrator
• as a group – scribes and illustrators

The is always a question time at the end of the session.

View Nette's website.

Reviews of recent books.

"Nette Hilton ’s sweet and gentle book about standing up for yourself is, as usual warm and well imagined. The novel is great for early readers to help them build confidence with a familiar school scenario."
- Star of the Circus Magpies

"This is an enchanting story, thoroughly satisfying on many levels. Easily negotiated by newly independent readers, it is a story with a realistic setting and, more importantly, a story complete in itself…Hilton manages to create a thoroughly convincing narrative with wholly believable characters…"
- Star of the Show  Magpies.