May 02, 2014

A productive week filled with excitement!

Life as an author is never dull that’s for sure. I spent Monday this week with the English faculty at Pennant Hills High School, working through strategies for teaching writing on their Professional Development Day. They are a great team and I came away feeling really excited about how motivated and enthusiastic they were -no mean feat given it was their first day back after a term break.

My other big goal for the week was to finish the manuscript for Clementine Rose and the Famous Friend. It’s the seventh book in the series, so seems a way off in the future as we’ve just last month released Clementine Rose and the Seaside Escape which is number five. Clementine Rose and the Treasure Box is set for released in July then Famous Friend will be out in October. Many hours later and after the usual helping of self doubt, I pressed send yesterday and am now hoping that it passes muster.

There’s no break between books as I’ve already started plotting the eighth story in the series and plan to have it finished by the end of the month.

In amongst all the writing and usual emails and other weekly tasks I was thrilled to learn on Tuesday that Alice-Miranda in Paris has been shortlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards in the Older Readers Category 8-14. It’s such a huge honour to be there alongside Anh Do, John Flanagan, Nikki Gemmel and James Phelan.

This morning the REAL awards shortlist was announced and Alice-Miranda In Paris is there too but on the Younger Readers list. I guess that’s a good thing, that the stories are read by young and a little bit older!

The REAL (Reading and Enjoying Australian Literature) awards are the shortlist used for YABBA, KOALA, KROC and COOL, the children’s choice awards in Victoria, NSW, NT and ACT. You can see all the books that the children have selected below.

It’s incredibly rewarding and humbling to be recognised for doing something that I love – especially given that the books are not just my doing. So many talented people work with me to create them and quite honestly they make me look much better at this than I really am!

To all of the fabulously talented authors and illustrators who have been shortlisted and the teams behind them, congratulations!

The icing on the cake was finding out this morning that a young writer I’ve been mentoring for the past year has just had a story accepted for publication. I have had great faith in Corinne since we started working together – she’s a star on the rise and to play a small part in helping her get there is incredibly rewarding. We are definitely planning some celebrations!