Wired for sound

On Tuesday I was interviewed on national radio for the first time. I'm not quite sure how it happened: I got a call from the producer of Books and Arts Daily and next thing it's early in the morning and I'm waiting nervously to go into the ABC studios to talk about YA lit and sex (my special topic, I know).

I was joined by the mellifluous and marvellous Margo Lanagan and the superb and savvy Steph Bowe, as well as Samantha Bowers, delicious fictish blogger. You can listen to it here. 

The experience was a delight, notwithstanding that I'd been sitting in Caffissimo beforehand muttering to myself, 'Why do I say yes to these things?' (Because doing things that scare the bejesus out of you is good, I reminded myself afterward.)  Twitter has changed public discourse, and for these kinds of topics the change is for the better. I had, for example, the pleasure of being introduced to Jodi McAlister's fascinating research on virginity in romance.

In other news, there is exciting writing afoot with my Losing It launcher, Patricia McMahon. When I can share some of it, I will. In the meanwhile, I had forgotten the satisfaction of the fattening wodge of draft text, and the thrill of taking ideas to new places. 

In other other news, I went to my first Anzac Day parade this year, to see my Dad march (he's the one in grey). (If you want to read about Australian soldiers in Vietnam, read Barry Heard's Well Done Those Men.) He's only started marching in recent years; I was proud to see him, and wished I'd gone to see him before. 

In other other other news, you gotta love dogs. And random thongs.

Fabulous in February

This is what I love about Perth Writers' Festival: hanging out with my favourite writers, and meeting a few new fabulous ones, like Ambelin Kwaymullina (The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf) and Emma Chapman (The Good Wife): I highly recommend both debuts to you. I also got to go fan-girl over the proximity of Margaret Atwood at the opening party (and I swear, fainting ten minutes afterwards was a coincidence.) Helen Merrick, fellow KPS alumni, also great to meet you.

With AJ Betts and Vikki Wakefield

With Dianne Touchell and Vikki Wakefield (Vikki and I have been called upon to do a double act at a couple of festivals: she's my magic charm, I reckon, as the sessions with her are always cracking. She reckons she's my curse, as seeing her has coincided with the contractions of lurgy (Melbourne), fainting fits (Perth) and Claratyne-induced hyperactivity. I maintain the magic charm is the more accurate description: I can faint and phlegm-up anywhere, any time.)

This is what I love about wine cruises after writers' festival sessions:

And this is what I love about Perth:

Darn, it's December again

1. Months have passed with no blogging, but lots of day-job, writing gigs and general rushing about. It was with some surprise that I noted the arrival of December: it's been an awfully long time since I've had such a dramatic, intense year. I've learned how to shoot a gun and handle a python (thanks Tam and Kitty!); drank cocktails in Singapore (thanks SCBWI and ArtsWA!); managed difficulties of a magnitude I had not previously imagined; and seen new parts of this remarkable state. Writing? Not so much. Sometimes life demands what writing needs.

2. In other recent news, I've been learning to keep my balance ...

3. Had encounters with Hugh Jackman...

4. Been here ...

5. With these people ...

6. Tried to make the most of those champagne-and-caviar moments, when they happened ...

7. And in between times, I've been trying not to let the lizards and snakes in.

8. May your 2013 bring you peace, love and grooviness. And for you to keep zen if peace, love and grooviness are elusive, unpredictable, or intermittent.  Warmest wishes to you all.

Eight in October

1. October was the eighth month in the Roman calendar, which seems about right, as it does not seem possible that we're heading toward the round-up of 2012.  Mind you, so much has changed this year, for better and for worse, that it seems more like the work of eight years, not ten months.  So much crammed into a dizzyingly short time.

2. October is the month of this.

3.  I've been doing gigs all over the place recently, fitted around the day job: for Wanneroo and Cockburn libraries for Book Week, at Hampton High, St Mary's, Wesley (my first ever boy's school, incidentally).  I also had the delight of going to Melbourne for two days for the Melbourne Writers Festival, which was wonderfully captured here by the wonderful Danielle. I also got to meet with my fabulous publisher and Losing It editor at Penguin before I succumbed to a virus and became filled with mucus and self-pity.

4. I have half-moved house (I know, long story), and recently planted herbs in pots in my new place. It gives me great pleasure to gaze out on them morning and evening, to stir them into sauces, and watch the new growth push upward and outward.

5.  Last year, my birthday resolution was this.  This year, my intention is to become more Zen, in the sixties sense of the word.  Or, to put it another way, less this:

And more this:

I'll let you know how I go.

6. Even without a telly, I've been enjoying Rake, Scott and Bailey, Puberty Blues (what a script! what a brilliant set of performances!) and Call the Midwife, post series one and two of the highly addictive Game of Thrones.  I'm a bit less organised with my reading: if anyone's got a good book they reckon I should read, do let me know.  (Beside Dianne Touchell's Creepy and Maude, which I'm looking forward to getting stuck into this week.)

7.  Dog. Does. Not. Like. Dogwash.

8. I've properly started a new project, at long last. It features ABBA, the Olympics and Countdown. I'd forgotten how much effort, aside from creative effort, is necessary for historical fiction.  It's delightful to be at the plotting stage, where everything is possible, and hardly anything committed to paper.

Arise, August!

1.  So many people launched fabulous books in July.  I went to the launch of  Meg McKinlay and Kyle Odgers'  new book Ten Tiny Things, which I'd been tantalised by in Rottnest, and James Foley's In the Lion, which I'd been tantalised by in Singapore.  I adored them both.  I didn't end up at the launch of Jon Doust's To The Highlands, which I also can't wait to read and have heard some hysterically funny parts of, but I have every confidence it will live up to the anticipation it is generating.

2. Also, AJ Betts won the Text prize for Children and Young Adult Writing.  I've heard some of the early draft of this book, and I assure you, it is ten types of wonderful (and ten types of moving).  I don't know if it's our splendid isolation, but Western Australia is coming into its own this year.

3.  I am delighted to be going to the Melbourne Writers Festival.  I need Melbourne like oxygen, and its writers festival is full of ideas and perspectives that are good for the soul.  I also can't wait to appear with Vikki Wakefield, who I already feel kinship with.

4.  I am scribbling bits and pieces.  I have no expectations about what they will end up as, but the process is deeply pleasurable.

5.  Cheers!

No More Beer and Skittles

Oh, I know, it's been ever such a long time.  But I've been busy.

Dianne Wolfer, Naomi Kojima, Yoko Yoshizawa, Leonard S. Marcus, me, James Foley and Norman Jorgensen at Ku  De Ta, Singapore

* At the end of May I was lucky enough to visit Singapore to present at the Asian Festival of Children's Content.  My first session was with the dynamic Cynthia Liu on realism and imagination; the other was with fellow Western Australians Dianne Wolfer and Norman Jorgensen on Light Touch, Gritty Themes.  I had absolutely no idea what to expect: given that most delegates were from Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and China, as well as a few from the States, the UK and Canada, I wondered how we would communicate across cultures, with our vastly different assumptions about and experiences in the world.  It was therefore fascinating to see how love of reading and books united us.  The fact that most of us grew up on the same diet of English language books (Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, even the Little House series) provided a shared language; passion for getting kids reading did the rest.  

We often whinge in Australia about how hard it is to make space in the curriculum for reading and particularly reading for pleasure; compared to what some of our Asian colleagues are up against, in highly competitive cultures that put a high value academic, maths-based achievement at the expense of what we call humanities, we have nothing to complain of.  Despite their difficulties, I met scores of teachers and others determined to make space for literature in Asian schools.  I salute them.

Just out of interest, the gritty themes session - which I was the most concerned about re cultural divides - was standing room only: we had 120 people attend. I talked about Bye, Beautiful and Losing It: I did note the shock on some people's faces as I explained what Schoolies Week is.  That's one tradition I'm sure the audience was pleased not to share with us!

The only quokka-free zone on Rotto

* In June we had our annual Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators retreat at Rottnest.  I started playing with a couple of projects, including one with Patricia McMahon.  After feeling creatively exhausted for a while, in part as a result of Real Life events, it was deeply satisfying to be among my people, and to actually feel inspired, rather than tired.

* If you happen to be a young Queensland writer, you might want to enter this.  Good to see that state is still doing something to support writing, although it's still heinous that it cut out its Literary Awards.  I sincerely hope the government has a good re-think about that one.  

* I am doing dry July for the first time: my team is Drinks Paused for a Cause, and you are most welcome to donate.  So there'll be none of this:

Losing It unleashed

Having a book launch involves as much organisation, angst and 'why-am-I-doing-this-again?' fretting as your average wedding.  Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating, but really, a launch is not for the faint of heart. Once upon a time publishers used to organise launches: in these uncertain times, those days have gone the way of three-book contracts.  A launch is the author's business.

So the first thing I did when organising the launch of Losing It was to say, 'Help!'  

Help came in the form of the superlative Patricia McMahon, who did everything from script her four teenage co-launchers to coordinate the platters to supply her very own husband for security and clean-up duties.  

Help also came from the team of The Literature Centre, who provided the venue, books, glasses, moral support and wine-toting (thanks Mailee!).  The Literature Centre is second home to many of us writers, and first choice for book launches (of which mine was one of four for May: the author-organised nature of these things is clearly not putting many of us off!) 

I am waiting for some more photos of the four gorgeous girls who played my four characters: in the meantime,  see below.  And if you want to know why you should never have sex in a Yaris, watch this.

And if you want to know why I wrote Losing It, read this, which also features my daughter's first published photograph.  I'm not sure why it got a mention on the Australian Christian Lobby site, but hey, I hope all their readers buy a copy.  I'm sure they'll find it worthy of, er, discussion.

Lots of Losing Its.

Lesley Reece, still luminous from her BHP Billiton partnership launch that same morning.

Patricia McMahon: 'Take the shot, then put that camera down.'

My wonderful supporters #1.

My wonderful supporters #2.  There was a lot of love in the room that night, in both directions.