My first profile is Dianne Bates, author of over 100 books for children and young adults including non-fiction, picture books, chapter books and young adult fiction. She has won critical and Children’s Choice awards and is the current recipient of the prestigious Lady Cutler Award for Services to Children’s Literature (2008). Di is active in every aspect of children’s literature – at the grass roots level she runs a regular kids book club and at the national organisational level she is a branch president of The Children’s Book Council of Australia. She runs courses, distributes an on-line magazine for children’s writers Buzz Words and is mentor to many aspiring writers. As well as continuing to write…

It gives me great pleasure to have Di as my first profile as she is my writing mentor (and hero!) – she taught me so much I wouldn’t know where to begin. But it gives me even greater pleasure to have Di as my friend. So without further ado [grin] here are Di’s answers to eight quick questions and tomorrow I will post my review of her latest YA novel Crossing the Line (soon to be released in the US).