INTERVIEW: Sally Rippin Tells Press Gang About The Next Billy B. Brown Book

Sally Rippin is Australia’s highest-selling female author. She’s written over 100 books for children and young adults, including the iconic Billy B. Brown series. Find out more about Sally in this Q&A she did with the Granville East Press Gang.

Press Gang: If you would be a character from any book, who would you be and why would you be?

Sally: I think I would like to be Polly from my books Poly and Buster because she’s a magical witch and she can fly on a broomstick and she has a best friend who’s a feelings monster, who’s such a lovely friend. So I think I’d love to be Polly. 

Press Gang: What advice do you have for kids who want to improve in their writing? 

Sally: Well, if you love reading, then reading can be a really, really good way to come across more and more words. So to make your vocabulary bigger. Reading can help you understand how words sound and look on the page and also help you understand the way that a writer can put together a story and make you feel things differently. 

But even if you’re not a big fan of reading, there are lots of other ways that you can get good at writing and that can just be really coming down to lots and lots of practice. You might want to listen to audio books or you might want to read comics or just find the things that you like. because I think if you like something then you’ll become good at it because you’ll just want to do it all the time.

Press Gang: Can you tell us about the Billy B Brown series? 

Sally: I first started writing them in 2009 because I think the first ones came out in 2010 from memory. So that’s a little while ago now. And I started writing them because I wanted to write stories that were a little bit like what I was like as a girl. So I like to play soccer and climb trees, but I like to dress up as well. And I found that there were lots of books that were like boy books or girl books or books about fairies or books about pirates. But I wanted to create a character that liked all those things just like I used to when I was young. So that’s why I started writing Billie B Brown. 

Press Gang: Will you write more Billy V. Brown books?

Sally: I am writing more Billy B. Brown books. I’ve just written two more. I can tell you about the first one, because it’s finished. But the second one I haven’t finished, so it might change a little bit. The first one is about Billy and her friend Jack visiting the snow for the day. Snow is pretty exciting the first time you see it. I was about your age the first time I saw Snow and I thought it was the most exciting thing. And so I wrote a story about Billy visiting the snow.

Press Gang: Why did you choose to be a writer? 

Sally: I love books. I love everything about books. I like how they introduce me to the way that other people think. I like that I learn about other people in the world by reading their stories. Um, I like that they can make me laugh or make me cry. And I think books help you understand what it’s like to be somebody else in the world. And I feel like that’s a really nice thing to be able to do.

Press Gang: Who is your favorite author?

Sally: I think it depends what mood I’m in. So when I was young I used to read a lot of Roald Dahl books because I think he’s got an amazing imagination. When I was a little bit older I used to really like Judy Bloom. I used to read all of her books. 

I like different authors for different moods. Sometimes I want to laugh or sometimes I want to learn something or sometimes I might even wanna cry.

Press Gang: What is your favorite book?

Sally: I really like the picture book Where the Wild Things Are. Some of you might know that one. I like that one because it talks about what it’s like to go into somebody’s imagination and you go into Max’s bedroom with him and he goes off on a wild adventure. 

But we know that really, he is just going into his imagination and even though he’s done some things that have made his mother upset, at the end of the story you find out that she still loves him. So that’s what I like about that story.

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