Video transcript
NSW Premier's Reading Challenge 2025 - SWF author interview (primary) - 02. Terri Libenson

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GLORIA: Hi, my name is Gloria and I'm a student from Caddies Creek Public School. I'm here today on Cammeraygal land at The Chatswood Concourse as part of the Sydney Writers' Festival Primary Schools Day. I'm so excited to interview Terri Libenson for the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge. Hi, Terri. How are you today?

TERRI LIBENSON: Hi, I am good, thank you.

GLORIA: I have many questions, but I think I'll start with this one. Terri, you have written 9 comics for young readers like me. Why did you choose to make graphic novels?

TERRI LIBENSON: Oh, well, I've always loved cartooning. I've always loved comics. And I feel like that's my natural way to express myself, is through both writing and art, and especially through cartooning. I've done it for a long time. Before I even started these books, I used to write comic strips for newspapers, so I have a lot of practice.

GLORIA: Your amazing graphic novel series is 'Emmie and Friends'. And each one focuses on different characters with different personalities. Why did you choose to write so many different books with different characters with such different personalities?

TERRI LIBENSON: That's a great question. So after I wrote my first book, 'Invisible Emmie', I assumed I'd just write a second book with her because I had an offer to write a second book. So yeah, she was the main character of the first one. So it seemed logical, right, that I would write for her again.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realised, I think her story is just kind of done for now. Not that I wouldn't approach her again, because obviously, I have. But in the meantime, I kind of wanted to write for a new character. So what I did was I sort of compromised. I took a preexisting character from the first book, her best friend Brianna, and I brought her into the forefront as well as a whole new made-up character named Izzy, and they became the 2 main characters for 'Positively Izzy'.

And after that, I realised, oh my gosh, I really like doing this. I love switching it up. It keeps the writing and the art kind of interesting for me. And I think it's kind of fun for readers too. And I just kept going with that. So I just started making up new characters and bringing some background characters to the front. And it just kind of bombarded from there.

GLORIA: Which one of your 'Emmie and Friends' books is your personal favourite and why?

TERRI LIBENSON: Oh, I get that question all the time. And I always say it's really hard to choose one, because it's sort of like picking among your own kids, picking your favourite, which you really can't do. [chuckles]

But I can tell you some of the ones that I had the most fun writing for. I think definitely my new one, which is 'Entirely Emmie'. I had a lot of fun doing that. It was a little bit different because I took them outside of the school building and into a campground. I love drawing trees instead of lockers, things like that. And it was just more of a fun, summery kind of read.

I loved writing for-- I loved writing 'Just Jaime' and 'Becoming Brianna', those were my third and fourth books, mainly because they were very personal stories to me. And they were based off of things that have happened to either myself or my daughters.

And I loved also writing for 'Remarkably Ruby', just because she became one of those characters that, she just kind of wrote herself. And it just became-- she just became a very fun, quirky character. She just developed into that. So I love that.

GLORIA: That's good. The Premier's Reading Challenge is a fantastic opportunity for kids to read their favourite books and certificates. And all of your 'Emmie and Friends' series are on the book lists. Do you think reading graphic novels is a good way to practise reading and why?

TERRI LIBENSON: Oh, I think it's a great way to practise reading. First of all, I think that graphic novels are their own type of reading. You're using so much of your brain when you're reading graphic novels, because they're both-- you have both the writing and the art. There's fun pacing in the art. There are so many fun details.

And it's just a great way, I think, to introduce kids to reading. And I think it also becomes a gateway to reading other things too. That's what happened for me. I didn't grow up with graphic novels. They didn't really have those back then. I wish they did. But I grew up reading comics, all different kinds of comics-- comic books, comic magazines. And that just opened up a world for me because I was a very reluctant reader.

And now I read everything I read-- I still read graphic novels, but I also read just regular prose books and all different kinds. So I think it's a wonderful, wonderful way to open up reading for anybody.

GLORIA: That's good. In your latest book, 'Entirely Emmie', you have written from 2 people's perspectives. Emmie's is kind of an illustrated diary, while Joe's is a comic strip. Why did you decide to write it this way?

TERRI LIBENSON: That's a great question. So originally, when I first started writing 'Invisible Emmie', which was my first book, it was just written as an illustrated novel. So all that writing with the fun little doodles in them. But I actually have a literary agent. And I have to give credit where credit's due, he's the one who came up with the idea of dividing the book into the 2 sections, where you have an illustrated novel told from one character's point of view and the other character's represented by the graphic novel portion or comics.

So that was his brilliant idea. And I have to agree, it was great. And it actually makes it so much more fun for me.

GLORIA: Oh, that's interesting. This latest book actually came out only a few weeks ago on sixth of May. Congratulations.

TERRI LIBENSON: Thank you.

GLORIA: In previous books, Joe Lungo was a bit of a bully and made fun of Emmie. Why do you think he was a good character to write in your latest book?

TERRI LIBENSON: [chuckles] Yes, Joe is quite the character. To be honest, in my books, especially at the end of the books where I have my acknowledgments, the last few books, I've started putting out a little request for readers to tell me who they want to see as a main character. And I trust my readers.

And the one character I kept hearing about more than anybody else recently was Joe. Joe, Joe, Joe. We want to see what lies beneath Joe. So what makes Joe tick? So I couldn't agree more. I was a little nervous writing for him because I knew I'd have to write like a joke a minute. That seemed a little bit scary.

But he became a very fun character to write for. And I think it's great because sometimes you really don't know what's going on with a person. I feel like there's more to people than meets the eye. And I really wanted to show what makes this obnoxious, loud, bully type of kid tick and why he does what he does. And maybe that there's actually a good guy underneath.

GLORIA: You do all your own illustrations for your books. What part of making the book do you enjoy the most, the writing or the illustrating?

TERRI LIBENSON: Oh, boy. So I can definitely answer that one. For the writing, I enjoy the textier chapters, the ones with more words on them. That's just because I just like to go into full detail. I like to have the writing take off on its own and surprise me. So I find those chapters to be a lot of fun to write for.

But I love illustrating the graphic novel chapters. I could work a little bit larger. I can get a little bit more detailed and play around a little bit more. So it's great. I feel like I get the best of both worlds.

GLORIA: Are you planning on writing any new books, and if so, what's it going to be about?

TERRI LIBENSON: Sure. Well, right now I'm writing the next book in the series, so I've got a book 10 coming out next year. I can't tell you what it's about or who it's going to star. I'm still working on it. But I've got that going. And I'm doing a few little side projects as well.

These books take up most of the year, so it's really hard for me to work on other things, but I'm giving it a shot, so other kinds of kids books.

GLORIA: I'm really lucky that my teachers don't think this, and we have lots of graphic novels in our school library, but sometimes teachers or parents don't think graphic novels count as real reading. What would you say to adults who think this?

TERRI LIBENSON: Oh, boy. Well, like I said, it could be-- I always find that graphic novels can be sort of a gateway into all different kinds of books. And I always say, as long as a kid is reading, that's what's important. And graphic novels, there's so many different types now. There's historical graphic novels, there's fictional, you name it, there's so many different types.

And I think that's wonderful for kids. And I also think it's just a language unto itself. You're using so many different senses to read a graphic novel. It's all visual. And then you use your imagination. And like I said, there's a lot of different styles of pacing just in the visual components.

There's more than meets the eye, I think. And I think it's just a wonderful, different way to tell a story. I think all kinds of books are great, including graphic novels.

GLORIA: Thank you for letting me interview you today, Terri.

TERRI LIBENSON: Thank you so much. It was wonderful.

GLORIA: It's been amazing talking to you. I hope everyone watching out there enjoys reading your incredible graphic novels as much as I did while they work to complete their Premier's Reading Challenge.