Libby Hathorn – ‘Eventual Poppy Day’

Renowned author, Libby Hathorn in conversation with Dr Margaux Dombkins on Arts Monday. Libby discusses her latest book ‘Eventual Poppy Day’ which was inspired by her own family’s experience of World War 1. In Eventual Poppy Day, Libby has combined her uncle’s war records, family folklore and her own research to portray the repercussions of a death felt down the generations.

“I set out to connect my grandmother’s day with a family of today – with all their differing attitudes and doubts about times of war”

The story follows two seventeen-year-old boys: Maurice, who is sent to Gallipoli, and his great-great nephew Oliver, whose discovery of Maurice’s WW1 diary helps him understand more about his own life.

Elizabeth Helen “Libby” Hathorn is an award-winning author of more than fifty books for children and young people, as well as for adults. Translated into several languages and adapted for stage and screen, her work has won honours in Australia, and internationally including the United States, Great Britain and Holland. She is the winner of the Alice Award, a National award for ‘a woman who has made a distinguished and long-term contribution to Australian literature’, in 2014. Libby was National Ambassador for the National Year of Reading in Australia in 2012, and is an Australia Day Ambassador each year – visiting country towns to discuss literature, especially poetry, and give workshops to writers and community groups.

Eventual Poppy Day is published by HarperCollins

More info: harpercollins.com.au and www.libbyhathorn.com

TO LISTEN TO MY INTERVIEW WITH LIBBY HATHORN: 

Thanks for your company

Margaux