Josie Montano is an award-winning author of over sixty books from picture books to Young Adult novels and has twenty years of experience in the publishing industry. She has been internationally published and writes fiction under the name Montano, and non-fiction on Autism under the name Santomauro. Josie also dabbles in freelance having had a variety of differing articles and regular columns published, a play that trod the boards, technical handbooks, narrative scripts as well as co-edited an international journal.
Josie is also a Script-Writer & Film producer, having recently produced her first short film during COVID-19 - titled The Great Salami Breakout - An Italian themed comedy/drama based on a family road trip to Gippsland (see separate tab)
She has been short-listed for a variety of literary awards and acquired achievements over the years, including a residency with the May Gibbs Children's Literature Trust as well as booked as a presenter with Out of The Box.
She grew up in rural Australia within a strong Italian community. From the age of nine, she self-published her own books for borrowing at the school library, and received her first rejection letter from Golden Books when she was thirteen.
HOW TO CREATE A PODCAST
Josie offers a tailored 'How to Write a Podcast' session. Utilising her skills and experiences as a creative writer, she shares and focuses on the key aspects of a podcast framework. From idea, tagline, intro, content and outro, this is a rich and relatable workshop for students learning to create their own podcast.
INSPIRING P.O.W.E.R WRITING WORKSHOP
Either as a 90 minute workshop or whole day (3 hours contact time with same group)
Are your students stuck for ideas or lack story development in creative writing? This workshop caters for aspiring and developing writers and can be tailored to suit the needs of the class/school as either a one off 90 minute workshop where Josie uses her successful P.O.W.E.R. writing workshop, students are introduced to writing hints/tips and inside information on ‘tricks of the trade’ that will assist students with ideas, how they can turn everyday events into a story, how they can bait their reader with an enticing start, to planning their story in full. Or this workshop can be extended and presented as a whole day (3 hours contact time) resulting in a story planned and fleshed out, and the confidence to write without fear across all mediums and genres of writing.
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AUTHOR’S TALK
One hour presentation.
Josie shares her life as an author, why she wanted to write, from what age, where did her motivation come from, and how did she make her dream of becoming a published author happen. She discusses her books, their themes and research involved. She also throws in some tricks of the trade, writing hints and how to create a great story opening, and if time prevails a quick writing activity. Always ensuring there is time for Q&A’s, students leave this talk energised and inspired to write!
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Testimonials
Josie was really well prepared and put the focus on key aspects of Podcasting which I know meant she had to reframe lots of her story writing info. She had lots of great advice and interesting ideas. (Customised Presentation)
Hillbrook Anglican School - February 2022Josie was very well received for her generous and genuine talk about what it is to be a writer and how to get started. The students, teachers and parents from the Fascinate writing program really responded to Josie's talk
Garden City Library - August 2018
Iris and the Rainbow Day
The Secret Science Society's Spectacular Experiment
Engelberta Finds Her Feet
Segreti Velati (Italian Edition)
Stuff they DON'T teach you at school
Snot cool
Snot funny
Snot fair
Cross-eyed Jack (Takeaways)
Little Penguin : the Life of Eudyptula Minor the Great!
Strictly Stars
The Bubble
who's wheelie the fastest?
Wogaluccis
Set for Success
Sunlight
My Family Sized Pizza
Veiled Secrets
Featured Speakers
Stop Press
Welome to Term 2
Hope that everyone has had a relaxing break.
If you haven't already secured your booking for Book Week, please get in touch - we still have availability for some wonderful speakers.
We look forward to hearing from you soon!
New Releases See all books
Touring Speakers See all tour dates
| Speaker | Location | Tour dates | Book now |
|---|---|---|---|
Perth | 05 May - 15 May 2025 | ||
Brisbane | 16 May - 16 May 2025 | ||
Singapore | 19 May - 21 May 2025 | ||
Melbourne | 25 Jun - 27 Jun 2025 | ||
Newcastle | 01 Jul - 02 Jul 2025 |
What people are saying
We had the pleasure of meeting Julie and watching her work with children at the City Cluster Mini-Writers Festival, held this year at our school. The response from students and staff, following your visit, was so positive that our school community would like to invite you back to work with the children of Newmarket State School in 2013. We were hoping to workshop all year levels (except Prep) in "narrative writing" and would love to book you in for next year if you are available.
Edwina Shaw was a guest writer at the BackTrack Shed, an alternative school for kids who don’t fit the system, in mid- 2013. Her energy, sense of fun and enthusiasm for writing were impressive - not to mention her ability to do the splits! Edwina helped the high school-aged boys at the shed to see that their stories - in their voices - were as important as anyone else's. The boys were visibly moved when Edwina did a reading from her book Thrill Seekers, and the discussion that followed the readi [...]
Peter’s visit yesterday was an amazing success, sensational and professional. The children loved Peter's drawing demonstration and I think the most important thing out of his presentation was not only the children seeing how easy it was to get a story idea, but the teachers taking notes and using it in their own lessons. A win all round. I cannot speak highly enough of Peter and would highly recommend him to any school. I will definitely be using your company again to book authors if t [...]
Kristian is a fearless mover. Watching or photographing him you can experience his unpredictable shifts and nuances through the lenses – a gypsy mover. A performer to keep your eyes on.
The Year 3s loved their writing workshop with the incredibly talented author Dannika Patterson.
We had a lovely Literature Event yesterday. Barry Jonsberg was fantastic, all the sessions went smoothly and we have had great feedback from the staff and students. Barry’s sessions had the students laughing and applauding throughout. We are now thinking about next year and would love to have Barry back. We had a great time, thanks so much.
Sarah was fabulous! Her presentation was jam packed full of useful information and I have had lots of positive feedback from everyone who attended.
It was such an inspiration and a pleasure to hear A.J. speak today. As for Hive I chose to teach it to my mainstream year 8 English last year. It was a great novel to use as a vehicle for teaching many of the concepts the English curriculum is based around. However, the thing that struck me the most was the joy my students received in reading it. I can’t recall another text that I have used in my English classroom that has had the same effect on the students. Initially, I tried to control the pa [...]
Angela met the needs of our students exactly and gave them so much valuable insight and ideas as well as actual skills in a way that was completely engaging and inspiring for them. They had so much FUN!
The students thoroughly enjoyed your presentation and were enthralled by your caricatures. We have had parents visit us to say that it was all the dinner conversation rotated around that evening as the students were so captured by your visit. I thank you once again for your time, effort and enthusiasm in your presentation.
Thank you for your help with our Writer in Residence program at Ryan this year. Your recommendation of Tristan Bancks worked well, and I could not recommend him more highly to other schools looking to run a similar program. We threw quite a challenge at him; he worked with students from Year 1 all the way to Year 9, and with teachers as well. In all of his sessions, he was organised, informative and engaging. The students were awestruck and got a lot out of it, and the teachers have been offeri [...]
Your keynote presentation and the way you interacted with the students was outstanding and I was so pleased with what you did on the day. Wonderful! We cannot wait to buy your book! It is not easy to put together an event such as this and with your support and help it was extremely successful.
Kate is a very engaging and generous presenter. The Grade 5 & 6 children were totally involved in her session - what's not to love when it involves dogs and friendship. The children couldn't wait to get home and read her book.