Alice Pung is our first Summer Read author to blog from 22-25 November.

Alice was born in Footscray and grew up in Braybrook. She is a writer and lawyer, whose work has appeared in The Monthly, Good Weekend, The Australian, Meanjin, The Age, The Best Australian Stories 2007 and Etchings.

Her book Unpolished Gem won the 2007 Australian Newcomer of the Year award. Alice is editor of Growing Up Asian in Australia, one of the books on the Summer Read shortlist.

In this anthology, new and well-known Asian-Australian authors share their courageous and often humorous stories of leaving home and finding their feet. With authors spanning several generations, these stories show what it is really like to grow up both Asian and Australian.

As part of the free Summer Read events across Victoria, Alice will be appearing at:

• Footscray Library on Wednesday 11 February 2009 at 7pm
  For more information and bookings phone 9688 0289
• Mill Park Library on Monday 23 February 2009 at 6.30pm
  At this event Alice will launch the Mill Park Writers Group
  For more information and bookings phone 9437 8189

What Alice says about summer reading

 ”I spent most of my adolescent summers in dark corners of the Footscray Library reading MAD magazine. I especially loved folding the back-page cryptic artwork (which could only be done in dark corners, as librarians don’t like their books origamied). At the end of every summer I emerged anaemic, but filled with blissful fits of hilarity.”

The thought of summer immediately triggers happy memories for many. Relaxing long hot days, with time to laze around and read for hours on end, sun on bare flesh, trying to shade the pages so you can read the words without glare from the strong summer sun and finally making yourself put the bookmark in and stop because you are getting burnt from reading too long. The feeling of total indulgence.

What memories do the words ‘summer’ and ‘reading’ trigger for you?