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Evacuation Road is a CBCA Notable!

/ HM Waugh / 3 Comments

I am so excited and proud and happy and grateful to announce that Evacuation Road has been listed as a Notable Book in this year’s CBCA Book of the Year Awards. A huge thanks to everyone at the CBCA, to all of the hard-working judges, and of course my publisher Rhiza Edge.

I’m so proud of this book, and I love that the judges connected with Eva and her race across a continent. There were so many brilliant Australian YA novels published in 2021, and I’m honoured – right into the heart of me – that Evacuation Road was selected as a Notable.

It took a while to sink in

Imposter syndrome is totally a thing. Sure, I was waiting excitedly for the Notables List to be published. But not for myself, no.

I wanted to see if my writing friends got selected.

Imagine my shock when I opened the download and my name jumped out at me. My first thought? I must have downloaded the list of entries. Of course. So I went back to the website.

And there was my cover staring out at me.

I didn’t trust what I was seeing until I’d verified it through someone else!

(And my writing buddies? They all got listed too. Best. Feeling. Ever!)

The fact behind the fiction – why sometimes your backup plans need their own backup plans

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Three weeks to go until Evacuation Road comes out! I’m so excited, and I’m loving how many early reviewers are really connecting with Eva and her story!

This week I’ll be looking at one of the important foundations for the book. Resilience. Getting back up when you’ve been knocked down. Making new plans when your original plans die a terrible death. And then devising even more cunning plans when your back up plans fail as well.

And, sometimes, throwing all your plans in the proverbial bin and coming up with a entirely new aim that at least gets you out of there.

I did a lot of this sort of thing as I travelled around South America, and one of the best (and most enjoyable) examples involved a train called Death, somewhat monotonous food, and a few phantom buses. It was my first blockade (of many) and it went like this …

Firstly, follow your dreams. Always. No matter how hard.

And a dream I had? One that had grown and flourished for years? It was to take the so-called Death Train, which ran from Quijarro in the very east of Bolivia to Santa Cruz, kind of in the middle. It could take anything from sixteen hours to days and days, apparently. Traversing amazing countryside. I really wanted to experience it.

(And that wasn’t a death wish or anything. It wasn’t the Death Train because it was super dangerous to ride in. More because either lots of workers died laying the line, or because it had once been used to transport people sick with Yellow Fever and/or the bodies of those that died in the outbreak.)

Anyway I planned it out and I got there. Quijarro. Nice and early in the morning on a Friday. Went straight to the train station. Butterflies in the stomach. This was it.

Except it wasn’t.

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The fact behind the fiction – why sticking together is way better than the alternative

/ HM Waugh / 1 Comment

In four weeks my next book ‘Evacuation Road’ will be out in the world, and that calls for a super celebration countdown! So every week I’ll be bringing you some of the actual events that inspired some of the story.

Let’s start it off with a bang. One of the big mantras that Eva and my other characters learn to live by as they race for the last flight home, is “Stick together”.

It’s something I learned the hard way. How? Glad you asked …

Getting kidnapped is not recommended

I don’t think anybody is out there just aching to be kidnapped (though thinking about this has me coming up with some great story ideas!). And I was no different.

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Evacuation Road is off to the printers!

/ HM Waugh / 3 Comments

Every book has a set of milestones, and sending it to the printers is definitely a great (and mildly terrifying) one for me!

After all the months and years of writing and editing, the submissions, the rejections, the happy acceptance, the final edits and the typesets… now ‘Evacuation Road’ is becoming an actual book. One I can hold in my hands. I’m so excited!

Think end-of-the-world road trip. Think danger and humour, friendship and fear. All against a ticking clock.

Evacuation Road is out in August with Rhiza Edge. I hope you all love it!

Five teens.

One week.

Half a continent.

Eva is far from home when everything goes wrong. And it only gets worse after her evacuation bus leaves her behind, stranded with classmates she barely knows. The chase is on. But South America is big, and the old rules are changing quickly.


This is the road trip Eva never knew she needed.


This is the race for the last flight home.