Pitching to a room full of people can be an exhilarating experience

I love short lists. I love long lists. I’ve been on both. My favourite short list was when I was one of six writers out of a field of over 500 that was short listed for the Terry Pratchett First Novel Award in 2013, Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now, with Shadows of Annwn, which is still undergoing rewrites. I got to go over to London and meet Sir Terry himself. My favourite long list was for the CBCA Book of the Year Awards this year, with Trouble and the New Kid. Didn't ma

What can I say? In my last post I took you on a whirlwind tour of the latter part of 2017, and promised you and exciting start to 2018 - and exciting and fabulous it was - a trip down to the gorgeous Araluen Valley for a day with Jackie French alongside a very excited and happy group of SCBWI members, mostly from Canberra and Region, but some from further afield, too. Okay, what I can say is that it was an amazing day, where Jackie shared her wisdom and gave us lots of friend

Where does the time go? Here I was, planning to keep up to date with writing about events I’ve been attending, and here it is, close to a year since my last out & about missive. Looking back through my calendar, I can see that there have been one or two SCBWI Meet & Greets and a couple of Illustrator Get Togethers, where like minded people share where they are up to with their writing or illustrating journeys. These are always lots of fun, and very inspiring. Casual events, w