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 the head honcho of SCBWI plus a publisher from the USA, Julie Romeis of Chronicle Books.
A highlight for me (of course) was the launch of WILLOWS FOR WEEPING! It was mega exciting, with my family and heaps of friends present as well as conference attendees. The champagne flowed, the nibbles circulated and it was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with everyone. It was lovely that so many people from Random House were there: Linsay Knight, head of children’s books; Zoe Walton, commissioning editor; Yae Morton who does PR and publicity for RHA; and Sarah Hazelton who does a terrific job behing the scenes keeping everything running smoothly. Zoe spoke for RHA, and then Laurine Croasdale, a great author and good friend, said some wonderful things about Willows and the Janna Mysteries series, and officially launched the book. I’m already getting great feedback on it, including the thumbs up from Janna (her real name!) who says she loved it and asked if it could go into audio. That would be nice!!
I’ll write some more when I come back down to earth!
