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Katrina McKelvey started life in a little country town in New South Wales, where she was fortunate to be able to soak up the charming facets of nature. Nowadays, Katrina is soaking up the well-deserved praise for her gorgeous debut picture book, ‘Dandelions’. Having had embraced the pleasures and joys through her roles as mother, […]

May was packed full of exciting book events, a number linked to the Sydney Writers’ Festival. My SWF week began with the evening announcement of the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards at the Mitchell Library. It was a great opportunity to catch up with people and meet new authors. The other awards evening I attended was […]

This is NOT Mary Pope Osborne's Treehouse.  You will see what I mean when you visit this site.
This series is so BOY that I - not being a BOY - had trouble reading the first book.  Andy and Terry started with a 13-story treehouse.  Then they added 13 more stories in the second book, The 26-Story Treehouse.  Can you guess the title of the forthcoming book?*

This treehouse does not have magic time-traveling powers.  It DOES have the scariest roller coaster in the world and a baby dinosaur petting zoo, 2 or more swimming pools, and an anti-gravity chamber.  Among other things.

Check them out.  Click here.

* Here's a hint:

The  2014 Brisbane Writers Festival had an inspiring launch on Thursday night when author/publisher Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, What is the What – about the lost boys of Sudan) told a full tent  about the genesis of McSweeney’s publishing company and its 826 Valenica Writing Centres. The tutoring behind these pirate, […]

Brian lives in Queensland these days, even though he still calls himself a New Zealander. He was down in Sydney on a publicity tour for his Sci-Fi books.

His Recon Team Angel series is capturing a dedicated audience of fans.  However I love Brainjack. It’s taken off in Texas would you believe.

It was good chatting to him at The Hughenden in Sydney, over coffee. The last time we caught up it was for a SCBWI catch up there.

Also caught up with Linsay Knight who has just edited a fabulous series of Stories for5, 6, 7 and 8 year olds – 4 books with stories written by some of Australia’s best authors – funny, sad, clever, smart and more – by Andy Griffiths, Paul Jennings, Jaccqueline Harvey, Ursual Dubosarsky, Sophie Masson, John Larkin, Bill Condon, Belinda Murrell – a feast of our best authors. Published by Random House – it’s great from Christmas.

Duncan Ball was a fabulous MC with hundreds of kids, 40 schools, the best of Australian kids and young adult authors and illustrators at the annual Bookfeast in Sydney’s West.

The Q & A Session was fun with witty comments by:-

Andy Griffiths author of ‘The Day My Bum Went Psycho’

John Heffernan author of “Charlie Carter” series

Deborah Abela,of Max Remy Super Spy fame

Richard Newsome, journalist and author of ‘the Billionaire’s Curse’

John Flanagan of Ranger’s Apprentice series.

It was a feast of authors and illustrators – Oliver Phommavanh, Moya Simons, Anna Feinberg, Belinda Murrell, William Kostakis, Sadami konchi, Jacqueline Harvey, Gabrielle Lord of Conspiracy 365 success and more, more, more …..

With more than 30 schools  Villawood North to Haberfield – and the kids were fantastic.