I’ve been thinking these last couple of weeks about how a book needs a great antagonist. And how sometimes it takes a while to find the right one. For the Continue reading

Back on April 5 I mentioned that I wasn’t getting much work done because the daily news was so overwhelming. Over the course of the month, that situation grew even Continue reading

Have you ever had a secret that you absolutely couldn’t tell anybody until a certain date? And you couldn’t wait to tell people about it, but at the same time Continue reading

The nicest thing that has happened recently is that Ella and the Ocean has been shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s literary awards – specifically, the Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Continue reading

When you write to an author, do you know how much we treasure your letters and emails? An email from someone who has read my books and loved them always Continue reading

Writing books is, on the whole, a solitary thing. For me, that’s one of the pleasures of it, the days with no company except Harry, my cat, and the various Continue reading

When I was a kid, we lived in Launceston and my grandmother and aunts lived in Hobart. So every school holidays we hopped in the car and drove south. It Continue reading

When my country is on fire, is writing children’s books still a useful thing to do? This is a question that has been puzzling me over the last couple of Continue reading

Writing a story set in a particular historical period is tricky. You have to get the details right, which means a lot of research. And while some writers love research, Continue reading

Last week I talked about how important it is for writers to take notice of what’s going on around us, because that’s where so much of our inspiration comes from. Continue reading