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In the Dark

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Thrilled to announce the sequel to Dog Gone is in the world. In the Dark will have its first launch at the 2017 Melbourne Writers Festival as a part of the event Hot off the (Small) Press . If you’re out and about at the festival do come along and help us celebrate – it’s a free event. Or add it to your MWF wishlist so you don’t forget!  2.30pm Sunday 3 September at Beer Deluxe. Celapene Press will also be re-issuing Dog Gone in December so stay tuned for news of a dedicated double launch once it’s out! I pulled the letter out of my pocket and looked at Grandpa’s writing. … I should give it to Mum – it was hers after all. … But how could I? I’d have to admit going down into the cellar. … Now that I’d come this far, I’d have to read what he’d said. I stood in the moonlight and began. A forbidden foray into an old cellar leads Ish to unearth a startling discovery. When he opens his late Grandpa’s undelivered letter to Mum, Ish is sucked into a vortex of secret
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Kookaburras

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It's four days, now, since you've visited. The garden is a ghost town without you, the quiet too stark a contrast to your exuberant activity and noisiness. My ears are continually on high alert for signs of you. I miss your full-throated guffaws heralding the family's arrival into the tree outside my kitchen window, or the fence surrounding the fernery – all four of you sitting in a row like swallows on a wire. Regarding me with your 'Well, we're waiting' attitude. Oh, Noisy One, first out of the nest but last to learn independence, I miss you most of all – your continuous caw, caw, caw, calling for fast food. I miss stepping out the back door to greet you with freshly cut strips of steak – only the best for a growing family – and watching you take the meat up in your beaks, ‘killing’ it before tossing your heads back and swallowing with gusto, you, Noisy One, always managing to score the biggest meal. I miss looking, in turn, into four sets of int
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An ordinary day

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Today, before my shower, I vacuumed and dusted the whole house taking advantage of night-owl teenager sleeping elsewhere swept balcony and installed new outdoor setting disposed of old outdoor setting pruned overhanging plants beside balcony ate breakfast at new outdoor setting on balcony washed, ironed and put away clothes for four people potted new plants in hanging baskets re-organised fernery to accommodate new hanging baskets watered garden read and answered emails and cleaned out inbox wrote book review completed Pilates exercises and walked dog. It was the best day. I loved all of it. No shower (a scheduled swim didn’t eventuate), no make-up, no deadlines (Okay, the truth: one deadline – but the review was straightforward and the words, bless them, rolled out from under my fingers like silk). The day was relaxed and dreamy. Unhurried. With time for thinking. Such an ordinary day. I want more days like these. There – my New Y
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Blown away

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Torrential rain sheets past the window of our unit. The tops of the palm trees around the pool, swept to extreme angles by the storm, look like dancing ghouls in the grey of early morning; the howling wind provides a haunting musical backdrop. One of the shade sails to the side of the pool has become partially untethered and flaps about wildly, periodically sending an enormous spray of water into the air as a fresh gust rockets underneath it. Amazingly, the pool furniture is still in neat rows around the perimeter of the enclosure, apart from one rogue daybed, wedged awkwardly between the pool and spa. We are on the top floor of our holiday accommodation, a three storey building, around a kilometre from the beach. The storm – the tail end of ex-tropical cyclone Oswald – after raging all night, is showing no signs of abating. The morning news service reveals that SES personnel have worked throughout the night and that gusts of well over 100 kilometres per hour were recorded on the Go
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Cobwebs

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Here is what happened. When I tried to wrench open the doors of this blog to actually post something, the handles refused to move; the whole thing was glued together with an amalgam of months-long dust and neglect. Everything covered in cobwebs … So in keeping with the season I have done some Spring-cleaning. BIG sorry to faithful followers. But I have negotiated my way through two more units towards my Masters, started another blog – Ruby Rainbow Reviews – and have completed a first draft of the sequel to Dog Gone . Working title of novel for older readers is Fish and I’ve been having fun trying to distil the storyline into one sentence. Here’s one possibility: One ill-begotten moment of deceit leads Ish to unearth a terrible truth and now he must live with the consequences … Anyway, it’s been so much fun working with Ish and Molly again. Sometimes I feel as if they are real people living in a parallel universe. One day I was so involved in writing a scene, when
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Queen Charlotte Track

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When a friend hurts her back and loses confidence about walking the Queen Charlotte Track on her own in New Zealand, what else is there to do other than bravely volunteer to keep her company? So, armed with a roll of strapping tape and no preparation - other than the usual walking up and down the millions of steps at our house - and with no time to wear in a pair of hiking boots, I set off with a new pair of cross trainers hoping like hell it wouldn't rain. Here's the result.
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