Yesterday I went to the reopening of Melbourne’s Chinese Museum, which has been closed for refurbishment for some while. I am always happy to visit the processional dragons that live in the Museum, and now they are all housed together in the new Dragon Gallery. It was also a great opportunity to see the Millennium … Continued
Today is the 94th anniversary of the Battle of Fromelles which was fought during World War I. You might have heard about the discovery of a mass grave of soldiers who died in that battle and their recent reinterment. Fromelles is a village in France near the battlefield. In a few hours, a new cemetery … Continued
Hazelwood power station is still there. Still churning out 650,000 black balloons full of greenhouse gases per minute. The other day I made a small donation to Environment Victoria to help them with their Replace Hazelwood Campaign. Straight afterwards, I went out and there was a brand new billboard above the Dim Sim factory just … Continued
For those of you who live in Sydney, or might be visiting in the near future, I recommend a visit to the Mythic Creatures Exhibition at the Australian Maritime Museum. I can recommend it because I saw the exhibition when it was in New York. It has displays about dragons, unicorns, mermaids and other mythic … Continued
I know I said I’d written the last blog on my writing process, but today I went into black dog books to have a look at the dyelines of my book Sugar Sugar. This is really the last stage before printing. The printer sends a copy of the book on sheets of paper as it … Continued
This is the sixth and last blog in a series about the way I write a book. After the 3rd draft, there might be a 4th draft. By this stage I’m getting impatient to get it over and done with. The internal design has been submitted by the designers, changed, because we weren’t quite happy … Continued
This is the fifth in a series of blogs about the way I write a book. So the day after I sent in my second draft, I got sick. That gives you some idea of the intensity of working on that draft. Fortunately, the third draft is a lot easier. I got back comments on … Continued
This is the fourth in a series of blogs about the way I write books. It’s been a while since I wrote the last one…that’s because I’ve been writing a second draft! So after I send off my first draft to my publisher, he reads it, my editor reads it. And they write their comments … Continued
I spent Sunday protesting outside the Hazelwood Power Station in Victoria. According to Environment Victoria it is Australia’s dirtiest power station, producing 17,000,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases every year. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) goes one step further and says it’s one of the worst in the world. Here are members of my climate change … Continued
It has been a loooong time since I wrote a blog. This is because I have been overseas for a month and then suffering from horrible jetlag. I went to UK to do some research for a new novel. I went with my daughter Lili and she is blogging about some of the things we … Continued