The Aurealis Awards were great fun, even though Sara didn't win. :( Garth Nix was the presenter, and he did a masterful job of it. He was entertaining, telling funny stories without slowing the pace of events, of course, but he also managed to be personable without overshadowing the event, the other presenters, or the nominees.
Afterwards I told him that although I hadn't read any of his books, I recognized his name because I'd seen him on bookshelves in America. He was quick with a quip: "Well, that's the first step."
He also had a good insight into why YA is such a growing market, pointing out that more and more adults are reading them. He said that YA novels have all the traditional elements of a novel, which I took to mean that people who buy a YA novel know they'll get the conventions of a novel - you know, plot, character arcs, resolution, that stuff. The kind of stuff you don't necessarily find in literary or experimental writing. As I'm a big fan of that stuff, I'll have to rethink my relationship to YA.
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