Festivals, promos and other speaking gigs

2015 is shaping up to be a busy one in terms of speaking and travelling. I’ve hit the ground running with my first school visit and a radio interview last week. And there’s lots more coming up.

The visit was to Berwick Grammar, where I got to talk to all the Year 8 boys about my writing experiences and then took a smaller master class in short story writing. They were an engaged, enthusiastic and creative bunch of students. The school has a lovely rural feel to it, has some great teachers, and it’s logo appears to be a unicorn. What more could you want? Well… chocolates! They found out it was my birthday that week, so they presented me with a box of Lindt chocies. All gone now! 🙂

The interview was on the 3CR programme Published…Or Not, which is a wonderful literary show that interviews a couple of writers each week. It’s well worth listening to. Check out the show’s webpage for broadcast times and recent podcasts (mine is the 12 Feb one).

I’ve got lots of speaking gigs coming up, including a promo tour later in the year to publicise the new YOU CHOOSE books. But what I’m most looking forward to is the 2015 Somerset Celebration of Literature. Held at Somerset College on the Gold Coast in March, it is one of the largest literary events for young people in Australia.

Over 30 authors and illustrators will be attending this event to talk about their work. And I’m lucky enough to be one of them! For a complete list of speakers and info on getting tickets, check out their website.

The festival has it’s own YouTube channel and speakers have been asked to create intro videos. Here’s my hopefully not too daggy one. Oh, who am I kidding? Here’s my very daggy vid…

There’s also an event later in the year that I’m very excited about… but I can’t tell you about that yet. I’ve got to wait until it’s officially announced. 🙂