The Blue Stealer

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.
The Blue Stealer is a blue heeler dog who belongs to a dubious character named Freddy "Fingers" Wysell, a thief who settles briefly in Doggeroo. Blue is also a thief. He acts as lookout and accomplice for his master, but gets little attention and no affection for his loyalty. Jack Russell is angry with him initially, but soon he pities the Blue Stealer as a dog with no toys, no dog bed, no food bowl and no love. Blue's life of crime comes to an abrupt end when he falls out of Wysell's van. Jack fears this might be the end of the road for Blue, since he is manifestly unsuitable for a pet, but Blue ending is happier than that. He goes to live on a farm where kind training, occupation and good company will help him to become a nicer dog.

The Blue Stealer appears in "The Blue Stealer", Number 10 in the Jack Russell: Dog Detective series.

Auntie Tidge Russell

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.
Auntie Tidge is the salt of the earth. She is a big, generous lady with glasses and a smile as big as her heart. She loves her nephew, Sarge, and his dogs, Jack Russell and Preacher. Her affection easily stretches to Caterina Smith, Sarge's intended, and Caterina's harum-scarum dog, Red. Her kindness is also tinged with practicality, as when she adopts Foxie the street dog, and sets about teaching him to be an acceptable member of society. Auntie Tidge's real first name has never been revealed, but somehow she has remained single.

Since moving to Doggeroo in the wake of her nephew and Jack, Auntie Tidge has fully involved herself in the town. She cooks for stalls, knits for charity, minds houses and pets, does a little dressmaking and helps run the new Doggeroo Fowl Society. She could easily be a busybody, but her genuine kindness and shrewd intelligence keep her just this side of the line.

Auntie Tidge appears in all the Jack Russell: Dog Detective series. The illustration is by the wonderful Janine Dawson.

Eden Raven

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.
Eden Raven is one of three main protagonists in "Shadowdancers", published in 1994 by HarperCollins Australia. She is the younger and, she feels, the less valuable of the Raven sisters, overshadowed by the brilliant, beautiful and wilful Pirimba. Eden has wiry, uncontrollable hair, heavy glasses and a stocky build. She compares herself unfavourably to Pirimba at every turn. She is aware of this tendency, partly because of her analytical friend Tiv's comments. "She's the beauty, so you decided to become the buffoon". Because Pirimba is wilful, athletic and graceful, Eden has become obedient, reliable, and stolid. A natural observer, she doesn't particularly mind her life in the shadows, but when Pirimba is hurt, and finally slips into a coma, Eden feels survivors' guilt. It is a long climb back to normality as her family disintegrates around her, but she finds solace in an unexpected friendship with the graceless Craig Day.

Eden and Pirimba were both named for places in New South Wales; but though Eden kept HER name, Pirimba was originally called Merimbula. For some reason, the editor disliked this name, so she became Merimba and then, pinally, Pirimba.

Eden appears only in "Shadowdancers", but Craig is a character in "Amy Amaryllis".

Tess Toad Tummy

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.
Tess Toad Tummy is a sweet little dog with a penchant for stealing bath plugs... and eating them. She belong to Mrs Gamble, and trots merrily and larcenously through Baker's story in "Soggy Doggy Dot Com". Tess Toad Tummy is named after our own little dog Tess, who also used to eat bath plugs in her youth.
Soggy Doggy Dot Com was published in 2000 by Barrie Publishing in the Momentum series. I wrote it under the pseudonym of Patrick Farrell, and it is one of my favourites. A related title is Creature Cottage.

Preacher Russell

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.
Preacher is the son of Jack Russell: Dog Detective and his lady of choice, Jill Russell. Preacher's arrival is foreshadowed in Book 6, The Sausage Situation, in which Jack is off to spend some time with Jill. In the next book, The Buried Biscuits, Jill has a litter of four puppies, and in Book 8, The Kitnapped Creature, Preacher is living with Sarge Russell and Jack. It's a bachelor establishment, for the time being, and Jack takes on the training and bringing up of his son.

Preacher is happy, friendly and enthusiastic. He looks up to his dad and Sarge, and loves to go back to see his mum. He models himself on Jack, and occasionally shows shrewdness in his comments. He has a wilful streak, and makes friends with Fat Molly Cat, going against Jack's wishes. As the books continue, Preacher grows from a puppy to a young dog and by the time Book 11, Inspector Jacques, rolls around, he is slightly bigger (and a good deal heavier) than his father. He is, as Jack puts it, a "pawtly pup". A bad experience with children damages Preacher's confidence for a while. That's something he will have to work through.

Preacher is named for, and modelled on, our own dog. That's OUR Preacher's photo on the cover of The Kitnapped Creature. The Jack Russell stories are published by Scholastic, and by Kane Miller and Bolinda Audio, and beautifully illustrated by Janine Dawson.

Estelle "Tell" Clancy

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.
Tell Clancy is fifteen, an intense girl with kind but somewhat distant (and estranged) parents. Much of Tell's attention and affection is directed towards her best friend, the withdrawn genius Camena de Courcy. When Gerhardt Watchman, a new boy at St Boniface College, takes an interest in Camena, Tell is immediately on her guard. There is something not quite right about Gerhardt.

Because Tell has always acted as Camena's emotional support and filter, and because she compares herself to her friend, she underestimates her own appearance and intelligence. She has no idea of her own strength of character, nor that she is potentially telepathic. Tell is a survivor, and she needs every shred of her strength to survive the adventure that begins at Trinity Street and which will take her far away, with no hope of return.

Tell is one of my favourites among my characters; another of the strong-minded teenagers I created during the 1990s. She appears in "Trinity Street", published in 1997 by HarperCollins Australia.

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About Sally's People

Dreadful David

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.
Dreadful David is a character I created back in the early 1980s for a picture book of the same name. Young David, an energetic child or two or three years old, was very loosely based on my son, but David's exploits are mostly invented. "Dreadful David" was illustrated by the wonderful Craig Smith, published by Omnibus Books in 1984, and is still, amazingly, in print as of 2009. It was my twelfth published book, but my first picture book and, not knowing what I was doing, I made a lot of tactical errors.
Here are just a few of them:
David was very young. (The received wisdom is that child readers prefer protagonists older than they are themselves.)
The story was told in rhyme.
David was a naughty little boy, and thus a bad role model.
David was a naughty little boy, and thus a stereotype.
Granny smacks his bottom.
For some mysterious reason, none of this mattered, for David is fondly remembered by many readers, and still goes down a treat with children to this day.

The Dragon Mode Hero

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.
It always comes as a surprise to me when I realise some of my characters, even major protagonists, don't have names. Sometimes this is because they are first-person narrators, and star in short books, so no one has the opportunity to address them by name. Sometimes it's because they go by nicknames, imposed by themselves, or by others. For example, the protagonist/narrator of "Call Me Fizz" gives herself that name in the course of her story. But what is her actual name? She says she's "Annie Average", but is that her name, or a description? Another character goes by three different names in the course of her story... She is Annabel Jackson, who prefers to think of herself as Annabel Falmouth (her maiden name) but who introduces herself as Anna Bell. Then there's Sam, from "Shakedown", who uses the ambiguity of this name to fool most of the people most of the time.

The Dragon Mode hero is an example of the first, less complex kind of unnamed protagonist. He is a lively, noisy small boy with a vivid imagination. He seems to have little use for proper names, as he refers to his brother, mother and the cat by role names. Only his teacher is dignified by her actual name, and at that he probably thinks her first name is "Ms". This pragmatic treatment of the real world contrasts with his rich inner existence in which he can slip into "dragon mode" and become his inner dragon. Our hero's dragon is brash, noisy, and clumsy, but ultimately out of place in the suburbs. Only in the sky can he express himself without troubling others. Far from being angry, the people in the street admire his dexterity in the air.

This lively youngster appears in "Dragon Mode" (ISBN 978-1-921042-57-7), published by New Frontier in 2007. He is wonderfully brought to life in illustrations by Chantal Stewart.

Miriam Moses

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.

Miriam Moses sprang into my mind at some point in the 1990s. I loved her so much that I wrote her whole story in four days of frenzied keyboarding. She finally achieved publication in 2008.

Miriam is a young woman in her late teens or early twenties. She is utterly ordinary and utterly extraordinary. In remission from cancer, she decided quixotically to run the length of Australia for charity. Miriam's odyssey is a picaresque tour of the great continent of Australia, south to north. On her way, she touches the lives of many and diverse characters. Miriam always has an effect on them, but she will never know the ends of their stories. As she runs, outpacing fear, doubts and the dreaded Big C, her lifeline is a tenuous mobile telephone contact with Harry Mercury of Mercury Shoes.

Miriam appears in WILDERNESS, published by Eternal Press in 2008.

Scholar Ankooria

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.

Scholar Ankooria is the teenaged son of Lord Toombs. He is a reluctant besieger of Castle Torm, a red-headed conner (scholar) as his name suggests. His father hopes Scholar will make a dynastic marriage with Tegwen of Hasselsjo, but Scholar has his own plans.

The heir of Toombs Castle is quiet and withdrawn, the clever offspring of an ambitious lord and a long-dead Ankoorian mother. The only thing he loves, beside his studies, is his spellhound, the lovely Tace (Tah-chee), whose name means "silence". Faced with death and battle at the siege of Torm, Scholar is sick with misery and anxiety, so when the chance comes to help a girl-child in her escape from the castle, he takes it. But there's a catch- she must take his precious Tace away from danger.

Scholar is another character who has more power than he understands. His name reflects his nature, while his braided red hair hints at a less than common destiny.

Scholar Ankooria is a major character in Candle Iron, published by harperCollins Australia in 2000. Candle Iron is the third in a loose series that comprises "Amy Amaryllis", Shadowdancers", "Candle Iron" and "Wintersong".

Sarge (Sergeant Russell)

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.
Sarge is an old-school country copper, a friendly, laconic bloke who takes his job of policing Doggeroo quite seriously. The thing is, he takes it seriously by NOT taking it too seriously, finding it better to blend in as a friend of the townsfolk rather than look for trouble. Sarge first appears in "Dog Den Mystery", Book #1 of the Jack Russell: Dog Detective series. At the beginning of that book, Sarge and his dog, Jack, are transferred from the city to Doggeroo. Sarge likes his new posting and so does Jack, especially when Sarge's Auntie Tidge moves into the same street.

Soon Sarge is part of the town, playing steward at the dog show, helping out at thye Dog and Sausage day at the school, teaching kids about road safety, and catching the odd crook along the way. He makes friends with Caterina Smith, the wealthy owner of Uptown House. Soon romance is on the horizon...

Sarge is pictured by Janine Dawson as a happy-looking bloke, especially when he's mucking in with his friends and the dogs. The Jack Russell: Dog Detective series is published by Scholastic.

Aurora Quinn

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.

Aurora is fourteen years old. She is talented and pretty, and longs to know more of the world beyond the island where she lives with her parents and younger brother and sister. When Josh visits the island, she longs to be friends, but he is her cousin and brings danger of a peculiar kind; of all the people in the world, Josh is one of the few who know Aurora Quinn should not exist.

Aurora herself is dangerous. She could kill Josh, or any other human, with one blow. If anyone knew the truth about her they would be afraid, and Aurora's family would be torn apart. What do you do when you have been brought up by a species that is not yours? Aurora doesn't know. She looks human. She feels human. And Polly and Keith are the only parents she has ever known.

Aurora appears in "Aurora", published by HarperCollins Australia. Originally, the story was called "UFO", but editorial advice was to change the title. Through Aurora, I explored what it means to be human, through her mother, Polly, I wondered how far a parent might go to protect her child... and through Josh I looked at truth and justice, and the rights of society vs the rights of the individual. Mind you, I didn't know I was doing all that when I wrote it. I thought I was writing about a baby found in the wreckage of a UFO.

Pirimba Raven

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.

Pirimba Raven is fifteen, beautiful, self-willed, athletic, and lucky. That is, until she skips school one day. This leads indirectly to the accident that leaves her quadriplegic. Suddenly, independent Pirimba must rely on others for everything, and there's little hope she will ever improve. When she begins to dream of dancing, it almost drives her mad, but still the music lures her into astral travel. Suddenly, she is free of her ruined body and living as someone else, a Valourn (acrobatic dancer) named Pirry of Midpoint. Pirimba knows nothing of the land of Rargon or of the strange encampment of Valourns, but she has a mentor. As she learns to live and to dance, danger threatens, and then comes the hardest choice of all. The real Pirry begins to stir deep in Pirimba's consciousness. Can she stay in Rargon and share a life, a vocation, a body and a love with Pirry, or must she return to her real identity?

Pirimba was the first of my teenaged characters to face real terror... and the first to face an ambiguous ending. I thought it was pretty obvious, but readers didn't necessarily agree.

Pirimba appeared in "Shadowdancers", which has one of my most beautiful covers, painted by Greg Rogers. I am lucky enough to own the original. Shadowdancers is related to the other titles "Amy Amaryllis", "Candle Iron" and "Wintersong".

Allyso Tormblood

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.

Allyso Tormblood is fourteen, but she looks more like eleven. Her childish appearance is a source of annoyance to her; as niece of easy-going Lord Merritt and the heir of Castle Torm, she feels entitled to a little respect. Allyso has plenty of friends at the castle. Her uncle's democratic ways ensure she mixes comfortably with housemaids, stewards and visiting lords. She is a reasonable person who expects the best of people, and mostly she is right. That's why it feels so odd when she takes a strong dislike to the latest visitor to Castle Torm.

Then disaster strikes, as her premonitions prove correct. Suddenly, everyone at Torm is dead, or dying, and Allyso is the only one who can help them... and only then by daring the well-way, a tight underwater passage developed by some of her small ancestors.

Having escaped the castle, Allyso faces a long and dangerous journey across country and into time.

Allyso's first name is a partial anagram of my own first name and surname initial. This reflects my own childhood as a small, young-looking person who expected the best of others. Castle Torm is named for "tor", a rocky outcrop.

Allyso appears in "Candle Iron", published by HarperCollins in 2000. It is one of my favourites, a semi-sequel to "Amy Amaryllis" and "Shadowdancers". Though I always wanted to write two direct sequels (to be called "Candle Stone" and "Candle Way"), life got in the way!

Corrie Guise Heinicke

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.

Corrie Guise Heinicke is fourteen when we meet her treading water in the dark in "Under the Waterfall". She is a typical Australian teen... or she would be, if it wasn't for her younger brother. A car accident when Corrie was eleven has left Ethan with some brain damage. Now Corrie finds her wings clipped as she has to "wait for Ethan" and avoid activities that are impossible for him to join in. On a family camping trip to Jindabek Falls, Corrie minds Ethan while Mum and Dad go for a walk. Longing for just a moment of privacy and peace, Corrie dives under the waterfall, and finds herself in the world of Sisterin, where she must depend on a boy named Athen Bard for her survival. Athen is the spitting image of her diabled brother, and worse, Corrie soon learns that his elder sister Corrayo died in a coach accident when she was eleven.

From bored and exasperated teen, Corrie moves to a helpless fear and on to a determination to survive, not only for herself, but for the boy who looks like her brother. But someone is out to kill her.

Under the Waterfall was published by Devine Destinies in 2008.

Rosanna Hopestill

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.

Rosanna Hopestill, protagonist of "Translations in Celadon", is a shy teenager who attends St Boniface's College. She is plain and ordinary, and the only thing that makes her stand out from her peers is her habit of s'imagining, a kind of creative visualisation. Rosanna drifts on the edge of college society, drawn to Asher Phillips, the golden boy of her year, but repelled by his dark-eyed foster-brother, Rafe. She admires Sari Roberts, who is everything she is not. Rosanna is one of my most powerful characters, but for much of her story she is unaware of her power. Manipulated by Sari, Rosanna builds a perilous world named Celadon.

Translated into a dun mare named Hrosannah (or Horse Still Hoping), Rosanna can no longer see the world through human eyes. Sari, Asher, Rafe and Sari's lumpish friend, Suzanne, are also translated, into princess, groom, werewolf and wisewoman. In these guises they play out their destinies.

Five went travelling Celadon, but only two came home.

"Translations in Celadon" was published by HarperCollins Australia in 1998. It has always been one of my favourites.

Others of my characters who are unaware of their power include Tell Clancy of "Trinity Street".

Amber Dale

Sally's People are characters I invented for books, short stories and poems. Their creation spans the last three decades of the 20th Century and (so far) the first of the 21st.

We first meet Amber Dale in "Down River", which I wrote in the late 1970s. She is twelve then, a pretty and self-assured red-head who is a contrast ot Kerry, her stocky shaggy-haired sister. Amber has charm and magnetism, and effortlessly attracts Kerry's friends. She can be snappy and autocratic. She has a very brief appearance in "Time Off". and is the protagonist of "Winter-Spring Garden". Her self-assurance takes a beating when a lingering illness takes her out of the loop of many activities, and faces her with a challenge she can't win. Amber was the first of my characters to change through experience in this way.

In "Another Good Friend", she faces another challenge. Now fifteen, she joins a script-writing team for a school play and has to deal with an unrequited crush on quiet Dominic while fending off the exuberant Herrick. Another challenge hits in "All the Sea Between", in which she competes for the lead role in the school play.

Amber's latest appearance to date is a little odd, as she appears under the name of "Linnet Valerian" in a book named "Peri". I wrote the story and then an editor asked me to edit it so it would fit an existing "Surfside High" series. Since this series is set in Queensland and Amber is Tasmanian, I simply renamed the characters. Thus Dominic became Duncan, Helen became Debbie, and Amber, Linnet. I often wondered if anyone would comment on the similarities of the characters... but no one ever has.

Anna Bailey Kelly

Sally's People are characters I have invented over the course of nearly forty years. They feature in my books, stories and poems. This blog profiles these characters, more or less at random. If you would like a character profiled, send me a Comment!

Anna Kelly, nee Bailey, is the first protagonist of my book, "Anna's Own", published in the mid 1990s under my pseudonym, Tegan James.

I named Anna to reflect her times. She is a 19th C servant, the daughter of a deceased schoolmaster and a barmaid. Many names popular at that period are common now (it's the early 20th C names that sound dated to us), and to me Anna was simple, pleasing, neat and restrained, rather like the girl herself. At fourteen, Anna receives promotion to temporary lady's maid... and attracts the wrong kind of attention from her mistress's brother. Her terrified reaction brings her to trial for attempted murder, and a sentence of Transportation to the colony of New South Wales. Anna is a survivor, quiet, self-contained, loyal and implaccable. Through love and loss, fire, epidemic, disgrace and other crises, she survives. I had it in mind to write a sequel to be named "Shepherd's Rest", but although Anna's story was popular with many readers (the local swap shop owner told me she "couldn't keep it on the shelves" and the library copies were almost always all out), it didn't sell enough copies for the publisher to commit to a second book.

C'est la vie, but I have always regretted that.

Justin Archer

Sally's People are characters from my books.
Justin Case Archer is the eldest child of the eccentric Archer family. He first appeared in a short story called "Lorelei", then in the book "Five Easy Lessons" (1989) and later in "Kayak", "Three Missing Days" (aka "Ex-Spelled"), "Three Loony Months" and "One Weird Week".
Justin is eleven in the first book, and thirteen in the last one. He is a lively, self-opinionated and intelligent boy, who always thinks he knows best. He tries to control his peculiar family, but since he's a bit peculiar himself, doesn't have much success. His name, first name + Mother's maiden name (Case) plus Father's surname (Archer) leads to several jibes from his siblings. Whether vying with his mother for the best use of a correspondence course, accidentally using a wishing ring, or slogging it out with Nanna's vegetable vampire, Justin is never short of an idea. I had a lot of fune with him, not least because his quirky mind and his appearance were based on my son, James!

Amy Day

Sally's People are the characters I have invented for my books and stories. I began inventing characters in the 1970s, and continue to do so.

I created Amy Day in around 1990, when I needed a young main character with a very simple name. Since two single syllable names can sound abrupt and jarring, I went for two syllables in the first name. "Amy" is about as short and simple as I could get with two syllables. "Day", the surname, is similarly simply. It's not quite an anagram of "Amy", but it shares two letters and a strong vowel sound.

Amy Day appears in the book "Amy Amaryllis", which was published by HarperCollins Australia in the early 1990s.

When the story begins, Amy is thirteen. She lives in a comfrotable Australian suburb with her parents Mike and Jan (two more very simple names) and her elder brother, Craig, and her crazy red setter, Reg. Amy is unremarkable except for two things: she's a swimming champion and has a surprising imagination. During the long summer holidays, she finds herself alone and almost confined to the house because the local bullies are out to get her. To while away the time, she invents a girl who is like, yet unlike, her. Amaryllis Loveday lives in a land of castles and crags, magic and danger. Amy has short blonde hair. Amaryllis has long golden tresses. Amy wears baggy tee-shirts and shorts. Amaryllis wears cloaks and robes. Amy is an ordinary girl. Amaryllis is an aristocrat who would never be afraid of bullies.

Amy writes about her alter ego in a special green-covered book, and thus begins her wild adventure.

There is just one book about Amy, but she is mentioned in "Shadowdancers", a related book set in the same reality.

The book cover was illustrated by Bruce Whatley. It shows Amy and Amaryllis standing back to back, with Amaryllis' castle in the background.

Welcome to Sally's People.

Welcome to Sally's People! This odd blog has one function; to share characters I have created for my books. I've always been fascinated by names and naming, and by how names interact with personality. Each entry will give a brief description of a character, how s/he was named, and the role s/he plays in my book(s). Where possible, I'll include the cover of a book that features this character.

Thanks in advance for spending time with Sally's People.