It was exciting seeing the young intern who started working at the NSW Writers Centre emerge as the new Director of the Emerging Writers Festival in Melbourne.
Sam worked with me on the Kids and Young Adult Literature Festival – he was great.
The EWF is doing amazing things from the festival to the wellness retreat for writers – love to go there.
I joined authors Paul Collins and Meredith Costain and George Ivanoff.
Congratulations Sam Twyford-Moore!
This was a welcome party amidst the hectic schedule of talks and interviews for ‘Gracie and Josh’ partnering with Variety the children’s charity
What’s Melbourne mean to me?
The city of literature.
Brilliant creative friends
My welcoming publishers – Lisa Berryman from HarperCollins – thankyou for a great dinner
Paul Collins from Fort Street Publishing – thankyou for your hospitality
Hazel Edwards who gave such a beautiful launch speech for ‘Gracie and Josh’.
Thankyou to the fabulous authors and illustrators who came along to the launch on a long weekend
Special thanks to Meredith Costain and Niki Horin for the editorial inspiration for ‘Gracie and Josh’
Serena Geddes – what can I say? She captured the joy of Gracie and Josh who jump from the pages of the book.
VARIETY the children’s charity – I love VARIETY and Kathryn the marketing manager for Variety Victoria gave such a special speech about helping kids – ‘Gracie and Josh’ is helping them too.
Excited to catch up with the talented Jen McVeity -and hear her Highlighting Writing tours.
Corrine Fenton – the award winning picture book author who leads SCBWI Victoria – love what you are doing for kids writers and illustrators in Victoria – the retreat sounds amazing
….. so many friends …. radio interviews especially loved being in the ABC Tardis ……and so much more!!!!!
Boy versus Beast hijacks the computer game worlds – it’s fast furious, fantastic with brilliant digital games. But you have to read each chapter first.
The author Louise Park is a hugely successful and innovative writers. Kids love to read her books.
Paul Collins fantasy author of the Quentaris series and publisher of Ford St Publishing, and Director of the speakers’ agency CreativeNet, gave us the good ‘oil’. We now know the 12 steps to writing fantasy.
Deb Abela, Sophie Masson – well, they already write brilliant fantasy – and the novice me ,had fun writing out joint fantasy. Hint – it has an ICE MOUNTAIN!
The teacher-librarians joined in. It was a wonderful conference with lots of ideas and commitment to reading.
Judith Ridge introduced WestWords – the innovative reading community for young people in Western Sydney. So many fabulous programmes from the LethoPark Mob Anthology with indigenous kids to creating picture books with kids and illustrators in libraries
Brilliant presentationson the future of reading by Meredith Costain.
Brilliant writing activities presented by the talented Deborah Abela
and more, much more.
Thankyou to the Penrith, Mt Druitt, Blacktown, Windsor Teacher Librarian Professional Learning Group for organising this fantastic conference.
Authors and illustrators piled into Bendigo Catholic College for a festival of literature.
Special bravery award to exhausted but brilliant Meredith Costain who came to the festival after a week touring the Outback doing workshops, then driving to Bendigo and back for the Festival.
Second special bravery award for Di Bates who just did 2 weeks of workshops in an outback school, then happily headed for the festival. But she didn’t drive.
Third special bravery award to me for having spoken at so many schools that I’d forgotten where I was. I managed to miss my flight from Sydney to Melbourne but still made the festival. Stressful!!!!
Fourth special bravery award – putting on this fabulous festival by Paul Collins, Publisher Ford Street.
Schools bused into the campus for a day of talks, workshops, readings and books, books, books.
Schools who participated included:-
Bendigo South East
Pyramid College
Notre Dame
Weeroonga College
Crusoe College
Ford Street go where large publishers ‘fear to tread’ like:-
-F2M transgender YA novel by Hazel Edwards & transgender author Ryan Kennedy
- young adult picture book ‘The Star’ by Felicity Marshall
-the ‘green’ picture book ‘The Gladdhouse’ by Paul Collins illustrated by Jo Thompson.
I’m excited by Ford St publishing my ‘Ships in the Field’ - my first picture book.
‘Ships in the Field’ is a deeply personal story inspired by growing up from a post war refugee family. It’s funny, sad, warm dealing with loss, hope, finding a new home.
Award winning illustrator Anna Pignataro understands as we both are part of the immigrant experience.
I was moved by Anna’s beautiful illustrations & concepts in her storyboard, at our meeting in Melbourne with editors Niki Horin editor & Meredith Costain.
Thankyou Paul Collins and Medith Costain for the delicious ‘rustic’ dinner in the Victorian heritage garden home – loved the environmental water tanks, fragrant garden, porch & the Barbie dolls.
Never knew Meredith’s secret – she’s the secret author of the Barbie tales. See Barbies on the piano.
It was exciting seeing the young intern who started working at the NSW Writers Centre emerge as the new Director of the Emerging Writers Festival in Melbourne.
