That's Why I Wrote This Song Launch

I'm just home from the launch of the lovely Susanne Gervay's new YA novel That's Why I Wrote This Song. The launch was held at the iconic Bondi Pavillion. Susanne's daughter Tory wrote the lyrics of the songs on the novel, and has recorded, with her band Not Perfect, two songs from the novel. They've also got a video clip, which I blogged about last week, and it was apparently played on Rage this weekend past, which is pretty incredible.

The book was launched by Byron Williams, a member of musical collective The Herd and a youth worker with WAYS. Byron spoke really well—he talked about the importance of music to young people, the intersection of music and literature and how "the word" is no longer confined to the physical form of the book, but is available online, through music and through technology. He spoke of the importance of literature addressing the issues young people deal with every day, and how important it is for young people to know that those issues are recognised and valued through the literature written for them.

He also spoke about realism in fiction, and in Susanne's book, saying how she got the party scenes exactly right. Byron often goes out on Saturday nights in the WAYS bus, delivering pizza and water and cordial to young partiers in parks and at house parties, and he said that reading the party scenes in the novel made him think he was at work—"Does this kid need water? Those two are OK, I'll just leave them in the corner to hook up". Very funny, and very engaged with the world Susanne has tried to recreate in her novel.

Susanne paid loving tribute to her friends and family—especially Tory, for whom she wrote the book—in her speech. She spoke of the struggle it was to write this book—being the "oldest chick in the audience" at rock concerts as she researched the novel, and the fact that she put her writing career on hold to get it written (this is Susie's first published book in about four years—a long time in publishing).

A highlight was the presentation of a really beautiful portrait of Tory to Tory, painted by Jules Sevelson, the husband of Susanne's great friend Moya Simons. Alas, the portrait was whsked away for safe keeping before I could get a photo of it.

And as always, book launches are a great opportunity to catch up with old friends, and tonight was no different.

Best of luck, Susanne, for you and your book. Cheers!

"Not Perfect" perform.                                                             Susanne and Tory sign their book.