First up, my thanks again for all your emails and messages; it’s lovely to hear from you and I’m delighted that you’re all enjoying The Janna Mysteries so much. I’m also interested in your comments about Janna’s love life. Keep reading!!!I’ve been busy lately. I’ve now sent in to my editor at Random House the…
I’ve been off the air for a while with school holidays and grandchildren keeping me busy, not to mention working on Sage for Sanctuary, Book 5 of the Janna Mysteries. But one of the really fun things I’ve done is conduct a ‘writing fantasy’ workshop at the Children’s Bookshop in Beecroft, Sydney. It’s run by…
Once again, my thanks for your emails. If you haven’t had a reply from me, please email me again from a different email address as sometimes my replies to you bounce back at me.Exciting news! I’ve found the ‘perfect’ title for Book 5! And this is how it came about: as a ‘safety net’ while…
My apologies for taking so long to write the promised post about Godric and Hugh. I know some of you are disappointed not to find any mention of them in the new book (Willows for Weeping) so I thought I’d set out some of my reasons and strategy for why I’ve done this.As well as…
My thanks to all of you who’ve written to let me know how much you’re enjoying The Janna Mysteries; it’s always heart-warming to receive your messages. Please know that I always reply to your emails, but sometimes, for some reason, my service provider won’t accept the address and my email bounces back to me so,…
Thanks to all of you who are writing to me asking when Willows for Weeping will be in the bookshops and where you might find it. The answer is that Willows is now out and should be in every good bookshop already, along with all the other ‘new look’ Janna Mysteries. If you can’t find…
A lot of readers seem very confused as to how to pronounce Janna’s name. It’s ‘Anna’ with a J in front (as in J for Jack.) The name comes from Janna herself, who as a small child, was unable to pronounce her name (Johanna) properly, and shortened it to ‘Janna’. Readers have found some weird…
Whew! It’s been an action-packed couple of weeks culminating in a fantastic conference over the weekend for ‘children’s book writers and illustrators’ (SCBWI) at the Hughenden Hotel in Sydney. Organised by Susanne Gervay and Chris Cheng, the conference was a huge success, attended by authors from all over Oz and NZ, plus publishers, and also…
AT LAST! The long and eagerly-awaited next instalment of The Janna Mysteries, Willows for Weeping, will be launched on Saturday, 23rd Feb at the SCBWI conference at the Hughenden Boutique Hotel in Paddington, Sydney. Willows for Weeping is Book 4 in The Janna Mysteries. In this novel, Janna says farewell to friends and mentors at…
I recently received an email from Hayley, a 12 y.o. girl who, to her credit, is writing a historical novel for a creative writing competition. She wanted some advice about researching medieval time, and about writing in general. Based on her questions and my answers, I’m about to put a new page on my website…