Gosh, where has the time gone? It’s been NINE months since i updated my News page. If anyone has visited my website in the last year they probably assume I’m dead or have become a monk in a monastery without internet somewhere … or maybe become stranded on a desert island .. or been abducted by pirates … or aliens … or … boy you people have weird imaginations!!

Anyway, one of the main reasons for my web-ly silence lately is that in July last year I was elected President of the New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN). Since then I’ve been very busy with all sorts of presidential activities.

But some exciting things have happened and I’ve also done some exciting things.

For a start Melu WON the Children’s Choice award at the Book Awards. Woo-hoo!! thanks to everyone who voted for me!

Then I attended the adult Book Awards and presented the prizes for Best First Book. I went to Australia to the Australian Society of Authors’ Congress in Sydney. I attended the Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement and I went to New York to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) conference where I met heaps of other writers. Great fun!

In the meantime I’ve also written the first two episodes of my new junior series . It’s still a bit of a secret since it’s won’t be in the bookshops until 2015, so I can’t tell you too much about it except it’s set in the MIddle Ages. The amazing Donovan Bixley will be doing the illustrations, so it’s  going to be loads of fun!

Oh, and I  was also one of the 22 writers who were invited to  explore the back rooms of Te Papa (the National Museum of NZ) and write something about an item. The book The Curioseum is in the shops now. Here’s a link to a review – The Curioseum