Three days away in Sydney, and so much happened! The SCBWI Conference 2019 for authors and illustrators was inspiring, exhausting, challenging, informative and absolutely wonderful. A day of networking, learning, admiring other people’s knowledge and achievements, and so much more! And the next day there was more of the same at the Creating Creative Writers PD Conference for Teachers and Teacher Librarians at the State Library of New South Wales. It was such a pleasure to share the stage with other lovers of writing non-fiction texts that engage and enchant young readers. And the day was topped off with the announcement of the CBCA Notable Books – the long-list for the Children’s Book of the Year Awards 2019. Marvellous Miss May was there, along with four other books produced by the wonderful NLA Publishing team at the National Library of Australia. Congratulations to everyone whose books were included! You can see them here: https://cbca.org.au/notables-2019. I’ll be back in Sydney in September for another PD day for teachers and teacher librarians. Details to come!

Very pleased and honoured to have my lift-the-flap book about exploring your emotions – I’ve Got a Feeling! – included in Australia’s Biggest Child Safety Lesson 2018, presented by the Daniel Morcombe Foundation. You can access it here: https://www.danielmorcombe.com.au/australias-biggest-lesson.html. 

I’m excited to be a part of the SCBWI Creating Creative Writers Conference for teachers and librarians at the State Library of New South Wales on Tuesday 26 February 2019. As well as joining in the panel discussion with award-winning nonfiction authors Sue Whiting, Corinne Fenton, Claire Saxby and Gina Newton, I’ll be talking about Picturing the Past – using historical images to inspire creative and factual writing. Details can be found at: https://australiaeastnz.scbwi.org/events/creating-creative-writers/.