Sweet 2016

Happy 2016 to you!

1. Above is my reading pile/s for Perth Writers Festival Schools and Teachers Days. Luckily I've already read a couple in that list, and it is proving a pleasure to read the rest.

2. If you're free on Saturday 16 January, come to the State Library of WA for free writing/reading workshops for kids - details here.

3. 2016 is already looking exciting writing-wise: I have started the year doing an edit for a novel I first drafted last year, and will be out at the beginning of next, and the calendar is filling up with lots of fabulous things, including the Asian Festival For Children's Content in Singapore in May (thank you, writingwa and Department of Culture and the Arts!). More of both forthwith.

4. I spent the first day of 2016 swimming in the clear, shark-less waters of Yallingup with cousins and kids. The evening before, we saw these folk for the hills. A visiting Irishman suggested that the sight of them to us must be ordinary: we put him straight. The elegant strangeness of a kangaroo can never be ordinary.

5. I wish you all a year of books, and the open-minded curiosity they create.