Gullaweer

A drought that never ends, a hidden realm, an evil lurking behind the face of innocence; time is running out for the people of Goonaderra in country Australia, and the only one who can save them is a lonely ten-year-old girl who's afraid of the dark. Ellie Johnson didn't ask for The Gift. She doesn't even know how to use it. With the help of one potty-mouthed old man, an aging magpie with an attitude problem, and a dying race of invisible beings, how can she ever hope to defeat a man with the power to destroy an entire world? Who will live? Who will die? And will Ellie's annoying little brother ever stop saying that green ice-blocks are made of boogers?

Cheryl Fitzell grew up on a free-range pig farm in Central Western NSW, Australia. She wrote her first book of (terrible) poetry at age seven. For the next 20-odd years she did everything except become a writer because everyone said it wasn't a proper job. In that time, she herded emus, answered phones, sold vinyl wall-siding door-to-door, worked as a university researcher, TV presenter and voiceover artist, learnt to weld and drive a crane, and did a stint as a bricky's labourer. In 1999, after completing a BA in Communications at the University of Technology, Sydney, someone kindly offered her a job as an advertising copywriter. After she'd gotten over the shock, she never looked back. She now runs her own successful copywriting/marketing business, and still needs to pinch herself every now and again. Cheryl has two daughters whom she thinks are the bee's knees, and a Tenterfield Terrier called Sausage who likes to tap dance and eat peanut butter, preferably at the same time. Gullaweer is Cheryl's first published book, although she's had a number of poems and award-winning short stories published, some of which have won actual awards – a fact which surprises no one more than Cheryl (except maybe Sausage).