Prize-winning children's author on a roll

BY any measure, it was an unglamorous start to a literary career. Two years ago, Aaron Blabey, who had just turned his back on a flourishing acting career, started work on his first children's book -- writing on a toilet roll.

BY any measure, it was an unglamorous start to a literary career. Two years ago, Aaron Blabey, who had just turned his back on a flourishing acting career, started work on his first children's book -- writing on a toilet roll.

Blabey was staying at a friend's house in Adelaide and scribbled down his ideas on toilet paper, the only paper he could find, as the rest of the household had gone to bed. "I was getting frustrated and I thought, 'Well, that will have to do'," he recalls sheepishly.

Yesterday, with a theatrical flourish, the former actor unfurled the same roll of loo paper as he accepted his Book of the Year: Early Childhood prize at the Children's Book Council of Australia awards in Melbourne. The CBCA awards are the country's most prestigious for children's literature, and this year attracted 453 entries.

"It was delightful news. You never expect that sort of stuff," Blabey, 34, said of the win by his book Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley, adding that he avoided thinking about the prize once he was short-listed.

"I was an actor for a long time, so I have been through that experience before," he said. "The less thought you give to it the better, or you'd drive yourself mad."

In 1994, Blabey was 19 and just out of school when he starred in the ABC mini-series The Damnation of Harvey McHugh, a performance that earned him an AFI best actor award and a Logie nomination. In 2000, he was nominated again for an AFI best actor award for his role in the TV drama Stingers. He has also appeared in local films (The Human Touch, Erskineville Kings, Mullet) and in theatre.

In 2006, he retired from acting because "I came to dislike almost everything about it ... I was exactly the wrong kind of person to be an actor. What it came down to for me was having zero control over your future."

Painting and writing kids' books allows him to determine when and how he works, while acting had involved waiting for random jobs to turn up.

Having quit acting, Blabey turned to painting, but now works on picture books full-time. His second picture book, Sunday Chutney, required almost 40 paintings, which are on display at the Dromkeen gallery at Riddells Creek outside Melbourne.

Other key winners at yesterday's awards included Sonya Harnett, whose lyrical novel The Ghost's Child was Book of the Year for older readers. Hartnett recently won Sweden's $800,000 Astrid Lindgren prize for children's and youth writing.

Carole Wilkinson's Dragon Moon was Book of the Year for Younger Readers and Matt Ottley's graphic novel Requiem for a Beast was Picture Book of the Year.