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Balloons, partying, Glen Street Theatre, authors, illustrators, librarians, kids’ literature enthusiasts – the Christmas party by Children’s Book Council, Northern Beaches was a buzz!

Michael Stephen-King had us moved to tears with his stories of the heart:

- illustration as his place to escape, explore, create in a confusing world where his deafness separated him

His joyous lines capture the curiosity of childhood and we love him.

Glenda Millard also brought tears and laughs with her stories of family and relationships.

She invites us all into the safety of being different and celebrating it. Love her too.

It was a night of friendship and celebration of the children’s literature community-

authors Kate Forsyth, Belinda Murrell, Wendy Blaxland, Margaret Roc, Aleesah Darlison, Laurine Croasdal, Jill Bruce, Anna Feinberg, Kim Gamble

… the iconic Maurice Saxby father of Australian children’s literature

and Margaret Hamilton publisher, writer, and Director of the illustrator’s house Pinerolo in the Blue Mountains.and so many more.

Thankyou to Wendy Fitzgerald, president of the CBCA Northern Beaches and all the fabulous people who supported this night.

FABULOUS NIGHT!

Louise Park author of STAR GIRL had me doubled over laughing as I saw a huge STARGIRL desperately trying to get through the barred front gates at the Ravenswood Festival.

STARGIRL (PanMacMillan) – made it inside with author Jeni Mawter and joined the other authors & illustrators enjoying cappuccino at the Ravenswood festival in Gordon Sydney.

Dianne Bates – Crossing the Line (Ford Street Publishing)

Aleesah Darlison – Unicorn Riders (Walker Books)

Richard Harland – World Shaker

Laurine Croasdale – IHarry (Aussie Chomps Penguin Books)

Moya Simons – Let Me Whisper You My Story (HarperCollins)

Jeni Mawter – So Gross series (HarperCollins)

Meredith Costain – A Year in Girl Hell (Hardie grant Egmont)

Deborah Abela – The Ghost Club series (RandomHouse)

Serena Geddes – Totally Twins (New Frontier )

Paul Collins – Quentaris series (Ford Street Publishing)

A Creative Net Speakers’ Agency event.

Hundreds of girls loved the day.

I loved catching up with my friends.

The love, memories, friendship washed over and into us as Australian children’s authors and illustrators celebrated 15 years of The Children’s Writers and Illustrators’ Network at The Hughenden Woollahra Sydney.

What has Literature Live! and dinosaurs in common?

It’s the Australian Museum where Nina Rycroft talented Literature Live! illustrator was investigating dinosaurs for her new project – a picture book written by Jackie French which she is illustrating for HarperCollins.

It’s Laurine Croasdale, Jeni Mawter and me – getting high tech. We’re connecting to schools across NSW about our books, writing and reaching kids everywhere.

Aleesah Darlinson out 5th Literature Live! member is launching her book Totally Twins – the 3rd in the series, so couldn’t be there this time.  It’s a terrific series published by New Frontier!

Thankyou to the terrific Karen Player from the Australian Museum who has welcomed Literature Live! and connecting schools through digital excursions.

We’ll be broadcasting from the Australian Museum in October, through Connections NSW Education Department studios in Dubbo which is great fun.

Meanwhile the fabulous Frane Lessac and Mark Greenwood are in Sydney for a writer/illustrator tour – they’re brilliant illustrator-writer team and my great friends.  We’re on a similar writing tour and cross paths from Fairfiled Public School to Wahroonga Public School, the Bush School to Penrith School.

We had a delicious lunch at t

The Literature Live! team of illustrator Nina Rycroft and authors Aleesah Darlinson, Jeni Mawter, Laurine Croasdale and I, flew into Dubbo’s Connections Studio and we beamed out to hundreds of kids and teachers across NSW.

Dugald Saunders, ABC radio personality was a funny, warm and skilled compere of the show and we all had FUN!!!!!!

Stars of the show were:-

‘Ballroom Bonanza’ and ‘Boom-Bah’ award winning picture books by Nina Rycroft

Jeni Mawter’s hilarious ‘babies’ who were part of her picture book ‘Snuggle

Alessah Darlinson’s love of animals and her new picture book ‘Warambi’ abotu the minature bat.

Laurine Croadsale Penguin Chomps ‘iHarry’

and of course my JACK books – especially Nanna’s big, bargain, glow in the dark purple underpants!!!!

Literature Live! ROAD SHOW

 We packed our bags and the Literature Live! team spoke to wonderful kids and teachers at schools including Dubbo Public School, Mosman Preparatory School, Balgowlah Heights Public School and Oxford Falls Grammar.

 It was so much fun with the kids engrossed in our show cases:-

Jeni Mawter made everyone laugh with her So Gross book stories

Laurine Croasdale surfed the beaches with her Surf School and Surf Sister books

Nina Rycroft had them spell bound with illustrations from her award winning Ballroom Bonanza

Aleesah Darlison engaged them with her Totally Twin books published by New Frontier

Susanne Gervay captured everyone with winning against school bullying.

IT WAS FANTASTIC!

The fabulous team of Aleesah Darlinson, Jeni Mawter, Laurine Croasdale, Serena Geddes, Nina Rycroft, Sue Walker and me, were joined by illustrator and Play School Star Nina Matthews to do our first professional e-video conferencing with terrific schools from around NSW from the country to the city  with the technical expertise of NSW Education educators – Michelle Lindsay and Bonnie Tratt.                 

                       Huge thankyou to Michelle & Bonnie.

Literature Live takes authors and illustrators through video conferencing to schools across Australia.

It’s been a huge learning curve, but fantastic.

Nina Rycroft designed the Literature Live logo, our t-shirts and all the design work. So apart from being a fantastic illustrator, Nina is a great designer.

Technology is zooming ahead and we’re racing as fast as we can to catch up.

We’ve discovered the smart board – computer on a screen that travels to classrooms from Blaxland Public School to Balgawlah Heights Public School – kids love themselves on TV.

Nina Ryecroft explored Ballroom Bonanza. Aleesah Darlison and Serena Geddes showed the development of the series ‘Totally Twins’ to be published by  New Frontier.

Laurine Croasdale surfed across the screen with her Surf School books, Sue Walker gave a great inter active workshop and I did bullying and I Am JACK.

Kids asked questions from the country to the surf and despite the hiccups, it worked out really well.

Thankyou to e-Lit, Val Noake and CAL for helping develop this.

Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday to you

Loathing Lola is terrific

And so -oh are you!

Note the signed 21st bear – Illustrator Penny Azar signed with her own illustrated bear. 

Special news – Sue Walker has already received a 5 star review  of her ‘Arnie Avery’ published by Walker Books. I’m launching it at the Kids and Young Adult Literature Festival, NSW Writers Centre on 3rd July.  I read the manuscript at its early stage, so it’s especially wonderful.

Network  doubled up with the LITERATURE ALIVE team of Nina Rycroft, Aleesah Darlinson, Laurine Croasdale, Jeni Mawter,Sue Walker and me.

We’re going LIVE on July 22nd with our Literature Festival speaking to schools around the country via the TV screen.

Talented illustrator Nina Rycroft created the Literature Live Logo.

e-lit with Val Noake and Michelle from Gymea Public School, is taking authors & illustrators everywhere through video conferencing.

The authors involved in this pilot are Sue Walker, Laurine Croasdale, Jeni Mawter, Jacqueline Harvey, Aleesah Darlinson and the illustrators are Nina Rycroft, Tina Matthews and Serena Geddes.

We spoke to Franklin Public School in the Riverina, Gol-Gol Public School also in the Riverina, Gymea Bay Public School and Abbottsleigh - the kids were terrific and really great at intreactive with the smart board, video conferencing and ther speakers.

Watch out for the e-Lit Literature Festival with video conferencing in June.

The May Gibbs Fellowship Trust -  www.maygibbs.org.au      

The May Gibbs Fellowship is open again for applications for residencies in Canberra, Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Writers gathered for morning tea at The Hughenden to share their news and celebrate Felicity Pulman’s May Gibbs Trust Fellowship. She’s going soon to do the fellowship in Adelaide.

She’s got a book to write for the Fellowship,  as well as do lots of writing talks in Adelaide.

Other News: Vashti Farrer has really cute new book out with Scholastic; Laurine is writing another Aussie Bites; Jeni Mawter has a rhyming picture book coming out, Moya Simons is getting ready for the launch of her new book ‘Let Me Whisper Me My Song’, David Mulligan’s successful novel ’Angels Kokoda’ published by Scholastic is being reprinted yet again.

 I’m in a team for Relay for Life – supporting Cancer Council – join in the relay.  Sponsor Relay for Life on:-

http://www.relay.cancercouncil.com.au/team.create.html?relay_id=376 

I’ll be speaking at the NSW Cancer morning tea on 15th May at Centennial Parklands.

I will confess that I was nervous about going to High Voltage ConFusion. There were several reasons for this:

• I’m afraid of cold places. And Detroit in winter is COLD.¹
• I’d never been a guest of honour before and was worried I’d be crappy at it.
• I was aware that most of the people at the con would not have heard of me or Scott and was worried that they would feel dudded of a proper author guest of honour what wrote adult sf and fantasy.

I need not have had any concerns at all. I was right that most of the people there didn’t know us or our work (unless they were a teen librarian or had teen children—there were precious few actual teens in attendance). But it turned out to be a really good thing. No pressure and no expectations. It was really relaxing. One of the most relaxing weekends I’ve had in ages.

Mostly because of Anne Murphy, our liaison. I had no idea that guests of honour get someone to take care of them. It was fabulous. Anne made sure we were fed and happy. She is the best liaison of all time. Thank you, Anne! Why can’t she take care of us all the time? We’re lost without you, Anne!

There was much fun. The Opening Ceremonies were hilarious. A picture of which below. Scalzi interviewing us was very silly and totally enjoyable. Though I was bummed he didn’t bring up unicorns or quokkas.

We got to design our own panels. Thank you so much con organisers for indulging us! And thus were able to vent about stuff that’s been bugging us for ages. Why is there so little sport in fantasy and sf? Why did our audience turn on us during that panel back in Boston in 2004? Do they really just love wheat?

Thus the wheat panel which was FABULOUS therapy for me and Scott, though audience members expecting us to follow the panel description might have been disappointed. Sorry about that! But thank you for not turning on us. You were the best audience ever. Actually, all the panel audiences were smart and engaged and awesome. Me and Scott were dead chuffed that as the weekend went on more and more folks were showing up to hear us gasbag and pontificate. Yay!

The sport panel was also wonderful. Though we had way too much to say and not enough time to say it in. I especially loved that the audience was almost entirely women. Hah! There was also a sports writer, Dave Hogg, in the audience (he really should have been on the panel) who turned out—along with his partner—to be a huge Detroit Shock fan. Go, WNBA! We had an excellently geeky women’s hoops gossip.

I’ll admit that my last few cons had left me with panel fatigue. But now I love them all over again. I wish I’d gotten to see some of the panels I wasn’t on. I heard that all of Kevin Dunn’s (the science guest of honour) were brilliant. He explained soap and and all sorts of other Caveman Chemistry. I can’t wait to read his book.

You’ll be shocked to hear, however, that the best fun was not had during the panels, but at the parties and in the bar, and just generally hanging out. The ConFusion organisers and regulars are the best people on the planet. Seriously I got into so many great conversations and arguments and teasing contests. I can’t wait to go back!²

May I share with you the three best words in the world?

Roaming Pirate Party

Thanks again, Hugh, for the photo.

I haz met the Roaming Pirate Party. They haz rum³ and pirate hats and jollity by the galleon load. Best pirates ever! I shall treasure my pirate hat and t-shirt for ever!

We got to catch up with old friends like Karen Meisner, John & Krissy Scalzi, and Doselle Young. Why don’t they all live MUCH closer to me? I miss you all already. Waahh!! Not to mention making stacks of new friends. You know who you are! Yanni! Brian! Aaron! And SO MANY OTHERS! You all made it the best weekend ever.

Hell, we even got to see a movie: Cloverfield and it were good. Very good indeed.

If anyone needs a guest of honour me and Scott are so up for it!

1. How cold? Minus a million cold! That’s how cold. So cold that I’m back in NYC and it’s freezing and it seems warm in comparison.
2. Any chance you could move it to a warmer time of year?
3. Though, obviously, being a YA author I didn’t drink any of it. Heaven forfend!