I am a writer, editor, podcaster and writing teacher... I have ten books published, including three Young Adult novels, and non-fiction for young people and for adults, and a junior fiction series of sports books. I've won awards and shortlisted in a bunch of others for writing and podcasting. I'm a founding member of the award winning all-female AFL podcast and radio show, The Outer Sanctum.
Always great fun to hang with other writers and illustrators AND ALL THOSE KIDS! The YABBA folk do amazing work connecting us with our lovely readers, not to mention a fun afternoon. Huge thanks to Camberwell Girls Grammar School for hosting us.
Hanging with Michael Wagner at the signing tables.
This is not a drill. I’m running one last workshop for 2019 at the Abbotsford Convent, November 23 and 24. Creative Writing Stage 1 is an intensive, FUN, weekend dedicated to showing you the foundations of how to turn an idea into a story.
So I turn my back for a few minutes and what happens? Some random bot slides in and turns my website into an illegal pharmacy.
Not cool, Random Bot. Not cool.
Anyway, hopefully this post will find you well and less confused, and you’ll return to my site again with more confidence that it will actually BE my site.
The latest news in my world is that I’m nearing the end of this draft of my latest YA novel, and am cramming as much footy into my small, overwrought brain as it can handle.
Other than that, I’ve got a new gig teaching Sports Media, which is both challenging and exciting, but also taking up much time, so hopefully I’ll be able to get back here more often to check in.
Just back from a lovely trip to the Big Island of Hawaii, with a brief couple of days in our old stomping ground, Oahu, too, and suffering all kinds of jet lag. Feels like the world has moved on and I’m still on holiday.
Here’s me pretending to write while staring at the Pacific Ocean:
However, according to all reports, it’s 2019, which means I’m a year older, as are you (spoiler alert), and it also means I’ll be doing more things near you than I did last year.
Which is good, right? Right?
First up, on January 17 in The Wheeler Centre, Melbourne, I’ll be running a workshop at Writers Victoria on the idea of ‘Show Don’t Tell’. It’s a line you hear a lot as a writer, but is it always right? What does it mean, anyway?
I’ll answer all these questions and more, as well as offering strategies for how to write dynamic scenes, and applying the power of specificity. Exercises, drills, and some learning. What more could you want?
For a brief intro into what I mean, I wrote about it here:
On February 9 to 10, I’ll be running a weekend workshop with the lovely folk at Australian Writers Centre, in the gorgeous, inspiring Abbotsford Convent in inner Melbourne. This is an intensive introductory course into Creative Writing, and the perfect way to kickstart your writing for 2019.
There are Many Things happening in 2019 for me — lots of exciting publishing news to announce, plus other opportunities — but will save that for when I’m allowed to go public. (And when my body clock has returned to the Southern Hemisphere.)
Hope 2019 is outstanding for you all, and I look forward to hearing from you via Twitter or Facebook – or even Insta – whenever you feel the inexplicable urge.