Congratulations to all the teachers, librarians, authors, illustrators, Melbourne Writers Festival staff and volunteers, parents, kids and teens who made this the best Book Week ever. Thanks for all the work you do to inspire young readers to pick up a book and tell their own stories.
Here is my Book Week 2015, kicking off with the CBCA Awards above. (Pic courtesy of Lu Smith, CBCA Vic. You can see lots more pics and my wrap-up on the presentation here) and continuing with school visits and festival fun.
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| An interview with the lovely Millie from NBN about the Two Wolves and the CBCA Awards. |
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| The amazing view from ABC Brisbane studio on Monday afternoon, talking about the CBCA awards, the value of kids’ books and inspiring children to read. |
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| My first cake of Book Week. I managed to halve my cake consumption this year, thus staving off diabetes for another year. (But this caramel Minion cupcake was delicious, thanks to the staff at Our Lady of Angels school in Brisbane.) |
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| Schools interpreted the Book Week theme of ‘Books Light Up Our World’ in lots of inventive ways. Here, a planet Earth light globe. |
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| I spied my first Honour Book sticker on a copy of Two Wolves. :)) |
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| I was lucky enough to get hold of an advance copy of John Boyne’s follow-up to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. It’s called The Boy at the Top of the Mountain and I think it’s every bit as good. |
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| I spied my son reading Jack Heath’s new one, The Cut Out, which he is urging me to read and says it’s one of his favourite books. |
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| I set off for Melbourne Writers Festival, this year coinciding with Book Week. |
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| 6:28am Wednesday morning. The view from the amazing Sofitel Hotel. (We do it pretty hard, kids’ authors.) |
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| I spent most of my time at MWF speaking at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and wandering their extraordinary book store between sessions. |
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| I shared a couple of sessions with the lovely Lili Wilkinson (new book Green Valentine just out with Allen & Unwin). |
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| Write Across Victoria session with Lili Wilkinson, Skye Melki-Wegner and Elizabeth Flux, talking about how we started out and presenting the winners of Express Media’s young writers competition. |
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| Part of ACMI’s David Bowie exhibition. |
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| At the Booked Out speakers agency party with Gus Gordon and Serena Geddes. Lots of fine authors and illustrators made it along including James Moloney, Kirsty Murray, Shamini Flint, James Phelan, Andrew Macdonald and lots more. Great to catch up with Booked Outers, Simon, Lauris, Hannah, Esther and the gang who connect us with schools and readers. |
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| So good to see this bloke, Gus Gordon, the other half of My Life Tom Weekly’s brain. He’s a thoughtful, funny and talented man and I feel lucky to create the series with him and consider him a friend. |
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| I was slimed by the lovely hosts at ABC3. Thanks Grace and Tim. Am planning my revenge. |
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| Writing morning pages on the 37th floor. Looks like a Spiderman set. |
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| ‘Your Life & Other Stuff You Made Up’ workshop at Melbourne’s ArtPlay studio. Fantastic space to work in with some very creative and inspiring young writers. |
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| The best part of Book Week is bringing stories to life and testing out new material on young readers. I had a ball. Thanks to everyone who came to see my sessions and who gave such enthusiastic feedback on the day and on Instagram afterwards. It was a week I will remember for a long time. |
Next up? Sleep. Then, writing a book. I think I’ll go into semi-hibernation so that I can dive down into a story that I’ve been playing around with for about three years. I’m pretty excited about the possibilities. Who knows what might happen? I’ll let you know in February.
