Delighted to see an excellent review, by Brenton Cullen, of my latest middle-grade novel, The Key to Rome, in Good Reading Magazine. Pretty chuffed that he highly recommended it!

There’s an absolutely beautiful review, on the Book Muse website, of the new reissue of Cold Iron (Brio Books in the Untapped list) by a wonderful reader who loved it as a young reader when it was first published back in the late 90’s, and loved it just as much now on rereading–the best tribute ever. Thank you so much, Ashleigh!

Here’s an extract:

I was just as enraptured by this book as I was when I first discovered it at fourteen, and I think the Shakespeare connection was richer because since then I have read A Midsummer Night’s Dream and many Cinderella-like fairy tales throughout my studies and reading journey. It is a book that is magical and whimsical, and hopeful – filled with the delight of friendship and doing anything for the people you love. And there is a bit of a love story in this – the love of friends. Malkin and Tattercoats drive the story, and it is their friendship that made me fall in love with this book. It was one of the first young adult books I read where the female friendship was celebrated above all else throughout the story and journey to the ball at the palace, and that allowed the women to speak for themselves. I quite enjoyed that it gave the women – Malkin and Tattercoats – agency in a world where they usually didn’t and allowed them to drive the story. It showed that women across history had voices even if men tried to deny that voice to them. It is reassuring to read these stories and know that there were women that spoke up in times when they were expected to remain silent.

You can read the whole review here.

I am absolutely delighted to be heading off in a few weeks, in early May, to Bendigo for the fabulous Writers’ Festival. Over the three days of the Festival, I’m going to be contributing on three fantastic panels with some wonderful fellow creators! On the Friday, I’ll be talking about fairy tales; on the Saturday, on historical fiction; on the Sunday, on children’s and YA books. I’ll also much enjoy catching up with old friends and meeting new ones and finally connecting, in person, face to face, with my wonderful French Fairy Tales co-creator, Lorena Carrington.

I loved the last BWF I attended, and being in Bendigo too was a real pleasure: and this time promises to be even better. Can’t wait!

Check out the full program of the 2021 Bendigo Writers’ Festival here.

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t’s the 6th of January, Twelfth Night in old tradition, and I thought it would be a good day to post something about what’s coming up for me, book-wise, in 2021, both new releases coming out and new projects I’ll be working on this year.

So first of all, I’m soon going to be celebrating the release of my first YA novel in three years. This is The Ghost Squad, which is coming out with MidnightSun Publishing on 1st of February. I am so excited about the publication of this novel, which already got a fantastic advance review before Christmas! Over the next few weeks, leading up to the book’s release and beyond, I’ll be posting some things about the book, its story and characters, but for the moment, you can check out the little introductory video I made about it.

I also have another book coming out this year, a chapterbook for young readers called Four All At Sea, a sequel to my 2020 chapterbook, Four on the Run. Like the earlier chapterbook, it will be illustrated by the wonderful Cheryl Orsini, and will be published by Christmas Press in September this year. Cover reveal coming up in next few months!

And I’ll be working on several new projects this year. This includes a wonderful new mystery project cooked up in collaboration with the fabulous Lorena Carrington which will follow up on our French Fairy Tales book: watch this space for details! And a short audio novel for adults, A Turn off the Path, whose writing has been funded by a generous grant from Create NSW, and which I’m starting work on this week. I’ll be documenting the writing of the novel on this blog: watch this space too for more details! As well, I have ideas for a couple of picture book texts, and the glimmerings of an idea for a possible sequel to The Ghost Squad…I don’t think I’m going to get bored 🙂

There’s a lovely review of Four on the Run on ReadPlus, review is by Kathyrn Beilby. Here’s a short extract: This is a perfect read aloud for Junior Primary students as it is short and will appeal to children who could easily imagine that vehicles may be able to talk. Those younger readers who are […]

Lovely review for Four on the Run at ReadPlus — Christmas Press

Today, on the wonderful group blog Writer Unboxed, to which I contribute every two months, there’s a post of mine on a difficult subject, based on my own experience: in a time when you’re on high alert for fires, what do you put in the prepared ‘getaway’ bags other than the obvious essentials? You can read, and comment on if you like, the post here.

I graduated officially as a PhD at a ceremony at the University of New England last Saturday, and yesterday I picked up from the univesity printery another official mark of my PhD study: a hard-cover copy of my thesis, both novel and exegesis, elegantly bound in a wibalin finish, in an ‘Oxford Leaf Green’ colour, with silver lettering. It cost a bit so it was something of an indulgence, I suppose 🙂 but worth it to me as a permanent reminder of a wonderful three years.

My thesis by the way is not available to access officially as I’m exploring publication options but if you are interested, you can read online articles I wrote which are based on chapters in the exegesis, see below:

Mapping the Undiscovered Country: a brief introduction to contemporary afterlife fiction for young adults, published in The Looking Glass: New Perspectives on Children’s Literature, Vol 20, no 1, 2017.

Angel Time in the Undiscovered Country: The Cultural and Philosophical Context of Contemporary Afterlife Fiction for Young Adults, published conference paper I presented at the 2018 Asian Conference on Ethics, Religion and Philosophy in Kobe, Japan.

No traveller returns: the liminal world as ordeal and quest in contemporary young adult afterlife fiction, published in Papers: Explorations into Children’s Literature, Vol 26.1, 2018.

Great to see that Two Rainbows has just been released as a video reading by Story Box Library! The reading is by Tiffany Speight. You can see a lovely teaser trailer for it here.