The above picture was taken on the day I was re-writing my picture book. I was working off the existing manuscript on my laptop screen and then writing (by hand) on paper the elements I wanted to keep, thus leaving a very different book than it was before. I can only do this with…
This shot was taken during the opening keynote at the Problogger Training Event. During his talk, Darren asked the audience to think about what their biggest challenge or obstacle in blogging currently was. A word popped into my head by complete surprise, and you can imagine my even greater surprise when it flashed up onto…
School holidays are fast approaching. If you’re like me, this means that you will be inundated with questions such as “What can I do?” and “I’m bored”. However, thanks to this giveaway nanoblock, that situation will be resolved. nanoblock has been in Australia for almost three years. If you’ve stepped in a gift or games…
In preparing for writing my novel again, I’ve been listening to a lot of the music I was listening to as a teenager. It’s actually been quite an emotional, even somewhat cathartic, exercise. I might write more in-depth about it at some point, but today I thought I would cobble together some ‘noteworthy’ mentions. These…
The weather is warming up, and as I was feeling temporarily inspired and hopeful, after coming home from standing in line with other people as we exercised our democratic right to vote, I decided to get into our vegetable garden on Saturday to do some well-needed weeding and tidying up. As you can see, I…
In an effort to read the posts I mark ‘Saved for Later’ in Feedly, in what I hope will turn into a regular feature I’ll be pulling out the best, most interesting, weird, disturbing, compelling, important or all of the above to share with you. The 50 Funniest Movies Ever Made – special mention to…
It was recently National Book Week. Unlike many schools in our area and over Australia, the school the kids’ attend did not have any kind of dress-ups, or parades, or any sort of concerted effort to acknowledge the event – at least, not that was communicated to the parents. I’m not going to turn…
It’s now officially spring! Hooray! Another thing that’s special about September is that it’s almost October – and this October is the fifth anniversary of the release of Surprise! Can you believe it? Five years. Incredible. Over that time, I’ve seen it on bookshelves around the country (and overseas) – in libraries, and in the home. I’ve…
I’ll begin with Night Games by Anna Krien for several reasons. First because I think it is an important book on an important subject. Second is everyone I know who has read it loves it. Third is because I have a crush on Anna; I think she’s terrific. Taken from The Monthly: Krien’s new book,…
