It’s well and truly time I wrote another blog post, and what better time to do it, than two months in from publication and before the year’s end? Except all the official articles on blogging tell me I should be posting much more regularly – like once a week, or at the very minimum, once a month. Still, I’m a beginner, so I hope you’ll excuse my under par posting frequency (particularly those of you who are up there with the blog officials and agree more blogging is necessary), and see that I have your best interests at heart (at least, the best interests of those who signed up for news and up dates), because if you’re anything like me, an inundation of communication means an overflowing inbox… and no-one likes that!

That said, the first two months of published authordom has meant there are one or two pieces of news which I could legitimately share, hopefully without boring your socks off.

I’ll start with the launch itself (because the release date sort of came and went without fanfare). Having never organised a book launch and not having been to many either, I’ll admit to being a little nervous about it all, but it turned out to be a lovely celebration enjoyed by most who came. (I say ‘most’ as insurance… there could have been the odd adult feeling sad they were too old for the Lego activities – it’s important not to make assumptions.) But on the whole, I think it went smoothly.

The venue, as it turned out, was perfect, if unconventional. Bricks4kidz was just the right sized space for milling, mingling, eating, launching and the conduction of Lego-based science experiments. I was delighted to be joined at the signing table by both my publisher, Kathryn Duncan, and Marjory Gardner, illustrator of Marlow Brown. Marjory’s ability to whip out a signature-drawing on request in the same time it took me to sign my name was amazing! We had quite a crowd of on-lookers mesmerised by her talents.

Charlee Patrick, coordinator of literacy at Orchard Grove Primary School (and also two times class-teacher for my son, Jonah) launched the book with aplomb. I’ve included a little of what she said on the book page here, with some quotes from three children in her class in response to a class reading of the book, in case you’re interested.

So, if you were at the launch, thank you very much for coming to help celebrate, and if you weren’t, I will include a few pictures of the afternoon in due course (ie, when at my own computer and not away for Christmas and New Year, as I am now!)

Soon after the book launch I attended the YABBA ceremony as a rookie author. For those of you who don’t know, YABBA stands for ‘Young Australians Best Book Awards’, and are much coveted by Australian children’s authors – with good reason. The books put forward for these awards are chosen entirely by children and coordinated by a fabulous team of teachers, librarians and lovers of children’s literature. Being completely new and unknown, I was there more in the role of observer, but it was fun being amongst well known authors and illustrators like Terry Denton, Meredith Costain, Sally Ripping, Felice Arena and James Hart, and seeing the excitement of the young readers getting books signed by their favourite story creators.

Over the last couple of months there have been a handful of pleasing book reviews. I’ll include the links to a few here in case you’re interested.

• Reading Time
• Educate Empower
• Buzz Words
• One More Page Podcast

I’ve also done my first school visit as an author. Admittedly it was to the school of my niece and nephews (to whom the book is dedicated), Linden Park Primary in Adelaide, but you have to start somewhere. And it was great fun! Emily’s class had already read the first few chapters so when I arrived they were keen for me to continue. It’s been a while since I’ve been in front of a class of year ones, but I loved it. It was very rewarding to see how much they were into the book, and how enthusiastic they were to explore Marlow’s hypotheses themselves. (What would wriggle faster, I ask you: a long worm or a short one? Class 12 had lots of theories on that!)

While in Adelaide, I also did an interview with Tracey Grice, a teacher librarian, for her podcast ‘Writers Read‘. This podcast is a passion project of Tracey’s and has been running now for a couple of years. She’s interviewed all sorts of interesting writers like Tristan Bancks, Marianne Musgrove and Jackie French, so it was an honour to be interviewed by her as a brand newie. Apparently her podcast is listened to in over thirty countries.

I love reading aloud (as many of you know), and being the ‘Writers Read’ podcast, reading a section of Marlow Brown: Scientist in the Making aloud was obviously part of it. I’m not sure I fared so well with the interview itself. There were so many things I thought to say afterwards... And one or two spots where I thought, in the words of Hagrid, ‘I shouldna said that!’ I loved having the opportunity and experience though. And Tracey and her husband, David (who does the sound and all the tech stuff), are delightful people.

My final Marlow news for the year is that, having spent much of 2019 working on the second book in the series, I have finally submitted it to Celapene Press. Hurrah! So Marlow Brown: Magician in the Making has taken a big step forwards, and it’s time for me to start pondering Book Three story ideas. If you’d like to see Marlow try her hand at something in particular (Engineering, Prime Minister, helicopter piloting), let me know by leaving a comment below, and I’ll add it to the ideas pot.

Well, I think that just about brings us up to date. Next post will be a Recent Reads blog. Until then, I wish you all the best for 2020. May the new year be full of fantastic stories and creativity for us all.

Kesta