News Archive

July 2010

A few weeks ago, I was very excited to get a phone call telling me I had been shortlisted for the 2010 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children's Writing. This is an annual prize awarded to an outstanding unpublished manuscript by an Australian or New Zealand writer. You can read more about the prize, and other four shortlisted authors.

It's a big thrill to be shortlisted for an award like this, even if you don't win. Sometimes you have to wait on tenterhooks for a long time to find out – but fortunately this time the wait wasn't too long. Congratulations to Jane Higgins, the winner (and another New Zealand writer.)

June 2010

My new book is now on the website! A girl called Harry is due out on June 21st. We're busy organising the book launch at the moment. A book launch is like a birthday party for a new book and it's always an exciting occasion.

I had a great time visiting Belmont School recently. The Belmont School children had some great questions to ask. Often people ask the same sorts of questions, but I love getting asked something I've never been asked before. It really makes me think about what I do and how I write.

I'm also looking forward to speaking to SLANZA - the School Librarians Association of New Zealand. I think librarians are fabulous people and I'm very pleased to have been asked to speak to their Wellington branch.

May 2010

Congratulations to all the winners of the NZ Post Children's Book Awards 2010. There's a fabulous account of the award ceremony here:

Congratulations to all the finalists, too. There is such a lot of great children's literature being published in New Zealand that just to make the shortlist represents a huge achievement.

Did you vote in the Children's Choice awards? Did you enter the writing competition that was being held at the same time? The top 50 pieces selected are going to appear in a professionally illustrated book to be published later this year. Earlier this month I was on the initial judging panel, helping to sort out some of the top entries from the thousands that were sent in. There were some wonderful stories and poems, so the book will be worth waiting for.

Next month, I'm looking forward to visiting Belmont School in Lower Hutt. A few weeks after that, I'm going to talk at a meeting of SLANZA (the School Library Association of New Zealand Aotearoa). Librarians are some of my favourite people so I'm really looking forward to that, too.

Lastly, greetings to the children in Room 11, Hamilton East School, who have been reading Enemy at the gate. I hope you've been enjoying it!.

April 2010

Recently I was asked to speak at a meeting of the Friends of the Dorothy Neal White Collection. Dorothy Neal White (1915-1995) was a librarian in Dunedin and one of the founders of children's librarianship in this country.

Here are a few other interesting facts about her life, from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: her father was a tram conductor; when she got married, she kept working for a while as Miss Neal, because the city council expected women to resign once they got married; she was a friend of the writer Janet Frame.

Her work was recognised by the National Library when it named its collection of children's books published prior to 1940 "The Dorothy Neal White Collection." You can have a look here for more information on the Friends of the Dorothy Neal White Collection website.

It is always special to talk at meetings like this, where people know about and care for children's books. I could see lots of heads nodding as I talked about some of the books that had meant a lot to me when I was young.

The New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards ceremony is getting closer. Last year, I was there as a finalist in the Junior Fiction section with Enemy at the gate. Good luck to all this year's finalists!

March 2010

Today I received the advance copy of my next book. The moment when you get to hold a new book in your hand for the very first time is always an exciting one, but it's a bit scary, too. All those hours of writing and rewriting and editing have finally resulted in a real book - a book that other people are going to read. That's the scary bit.

This book is already having its very first reading from someone in our household. So far the first reader is up to pg 256, and the second reader is impatiently waiting to take over.

The advance copy comes out several months before the book is released in bookshops, so this one will be on sale from June. I'll have more details about it soon on my Books page, although if you go there now, you can find out what the title is. For now, I'll just say that the cover looks - wonderful.

I'm working on a few other projects at the moment, including a short history of a local medical centre. This has involved interviewing a number of people who worked there when it was founded, back in the 1960s. There are some fascinating (and often very funny) stories of what medicine was like fifty years ago, as well as stories from someone who grew up in that house in the 1950s, before it was sold and became the medical centre. The booklet is being launched soon, to coincide with opening an extension that has just been built.  

October 2009

I've enjoyed visiting several schools recently. The children of Paparangi School put on an amazing welcome for me. At Northland School, my visit coincided with the opening of their wonderful new library.

I went on tour to Wanganui for the NZ Post Children's Book Awards.

I helped to organise Spinning Gold, the National Conference of Children's Book Writing and Illustration, held in Wellington in September.

I've also spoken to several writers' and other groups, including the annual Bookrapt seminar in Tauranga.

A highlight was being asked to speak at the annual conference of the Post Polio Support Society of New Zealand. These are people who have had polio in the past. It was very moving to be in the same room as people who had experienced many of the things I write about in Enemy at the gate.

What I'm Reading Archive

The graveyard book by Neil Gaiman

This book was published with two different covers (for adults and children) and it's loosely based on Rudyard Kipling's The jungle book, about a boy who is brought up by animals. Nobody Owens (Bod for short) grows up in a graveyard and is brought up by the ghosts, spectres and dead people who dwell there.

I wasn't lucky enough to hear Neil Gaiman when he was in Wellington for Writers and Readers Week, but if you want to know more about him, look at his website.

The cloudspotter's guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney.

This book makes you look at clouds in a totally new way. It explains how clouds are classified into different types, but it gives you lots of other fascinating facts as well. Where do clouds come from? How does it feel to fall through a thundercloud from 47,000 ft? What and where is the amazing Morning Glory cloud formation?

If you want to know more, go to the cloud appreciation website which has a cloud photo gallery (with Cloud of the month), cloud poetry, music to watch clouds by and even a section on "louds that look like things".