Samantha Bound for Success
Paula Xiberras
Last year I had the pleasure of a chat with the unique and wonderful author Samantha-Ellen Bound. A woman of many talents, who loves reading classic children’s books of the 50’s and 60’s and whose own books will one day, undoubtedly, become classics of children’s literature.
We chatted about the latest book in Samantha’s ‘Silver Shoes Dancing’ series ‘Broadway Baby’.
Samantha grew up in Devonport but is a young renaissance woman that is going places quickly, both literally and metaphorically. The desire to be a writer was there from an early age and the self-assured Samantha left school at 17 to follow her dream which was achieved in writing her first book ‘What the Raven Saw’.
Samantha believes that being a writer also means you have the freedom to set up shop wherever you wish and this is what she did when she moved to Melbourne to continue her craft.
Samantha could have concentrated on being a professional dancer but chooses to write about the art for her young audience and also employing the field of dance as a vehicle for helping children deal with the challenges and emotions of growing up. Samantha has such a love of children’s literature, she tells me she would love to return to primary school!
Samantha brings to her writing about dance, a strong technical background and includes a dictionary of dance terms in the book. Refreshingly Samantha makes her protagonist Ellie appealing to girls because she has flaws and experiences many of the emotions they feel. Ellie even gets jealous! Yet, at the core of the novel is friendship sustained by the four main girls.
Another refreshing aspect of Samantha’s writing is that she realises the majority of dance books for youngsters are about ballet, when the theatre of dance encompasses so much more. It was her intention in writing ‘Silver Shoes’ to showcase in her stories, genres sometimes ignored such as jazz and hip hop.
Samantha is working on her jazz teaching degree and still loves to perform when possible as well as pursue her writing career.
‘Broadway Baby’ is out now published by Random House.