A bunch of authors and illustrators touring around Melbourne and Sydney on a mini-bus with a publicist… what could possibly go wrong? Well… aside from being mobbed by an entire school’s worth of kids desperate for the bag of lollies I was about to distribute on Halloween; and being made to impersonate a meerkat on […]
Today I ran a two-hour intensive writing workshop for kids aged seven and up, at Eltham Bookshop. It was all about structure and planning. Several of the participants were interested in using the group planning activities as a basis for their own writing, so I promised to put photos of the whiteboard plans up on […]
Do authors ever reach the point of being blasé about their careers? Oh yes, I’ve just had another book published and I’m off on tour again. It’s all so very tiring and inconvenient. Will I ever get to that point? I certainly hope not. I still get so excited every time a new book […]
On Saturday I will participating in INSIDE STORY, an international children’s book event to be held at bookstores in Australia and the USA. Each participating bookstore will host a bunch of authors who will talk about the story behind of one of their books. This will be followed by signings This is an annual event […]
Armageddon was awesome! Let me repeat that, just in case I haven’t quite made myself clear: ARMAGEDDON WAS AWESOME! For those of you who don’t know, Armageddon is a HUGE pop culture expo. Their latest event was held at the Melbourne Showgrounds this past weekend (18/19 Oct). I was lucky enough to be invited along […]
I’ve had lots of speaking and signing gigs lately — school visits, library talks and bookshop events. National Bookshop Day was particularly fun with the morning spent working the register at Dymocks in Collins St, Melbourne, in support of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation; and the afternoon spent meeting readers at Ulysses Bookstore in Sandringham. I’ve […]
Okay… so you all know about the You Choose books I’ve got coming out with Random House Australia this year? Interactive kids’ books where the reader gets to make decisions about how the story progresses — like the old Choose Your Own Adventure novels from the 1980s. The first two don’t come out until May, […]
Yesterday I went along to the opening of a brand new independent bookstore. Readers, writers, editors and publishers all came along to toast the success of this new venture. Called Notions Unlimited, it is situated at… Shop 9, Chelsea Beach Arcade, 426 Nepean Hwy, Chelsea, VIC 3196. This is a genre bookstore specialising in all […]
