Blog
Smiling – the cheapest medicine on earth
People often say to me: “You’re always smiling.” I love this compliment, even if they say it with a perplexed look. Maybe that’s because it might seem like I don’t have much to smile about. There are serious health problems in my family and someone I care about a lot is suffering pain from a very…
You won’t remember me…
Whenever my writing life encounters a road block or a pothole, I draw my support and motivation from a stockpile of emails from readers. One of the rewards of being a kid’s author – and it’s a biggie – is the emails they write. Funny, quirky and always honest. When they like what they read, they…
Read Like a Writer, Write Like a Reader?
One of the things I love about social media is it makes my brain buzz. Read like a Reader, Read Like a Writer About a week ago I wandered into a conversation going on in Jen Storer’s Duck Pond Facebook Group about whether writers should read. Jen has written a thought-provoking blog post (Want to Be a Writer? 6…
How to Make Time to Write
I didn’t plan to attend Allison Tait’s Make Time to Write session when I was at the Sutherland Writer’s Unleashed Festival in August. I figured I knew all I needed to know about that subject. I manage to make time to write despite five part-time jobs (which somehow always add up to more than one full-time job!),…
Bye, Bye Book Week Month
It’s the 30th August and Book Week Month is almost over. This time it spills in to September with five days in sunny Ipswich next week for the Story Arts Festival. But the long days of travel (including one 15 hour day) and the early morning starts (4.45 am more than once) are…
Annual ISC CBCA Children’s Literary Lunch
Last Wednesday I attended my ninth Illawarra South Coast Children’s Book Council Literary Lunch. I’ve only ever missed one. This is one of my most favourite events on my kidlit calendar. Eighteen tables of keen primary school kids and their librarians. My table this year was a group of energetic, enthusiastic and very hungry kids from Mount…
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