Bestselling Australian author
I found out this week that I am a finalist in the Aspen Gold Readers’ Choice Awards, run by the Heart of Denver Romance Writers. I am thrilled for two reasons. First, it really is an honour to be included on a shortlist that includes so many fine writers And secondly, because I have been…
It’s August and the sun is shining (well – occasionally) and that means I am to be found on most weekends camping in a field listening to music with fifteen or twenty thousand of my closest friends. I always know it’s festival season by the sudden appearance of that strange and rarest of creatures –…
It has recently occurred to me that I don’t listen to audio books any more. I used to listen to them am lot, when I lived in Australia; mostly in the car. My introduction to quite a few classics was via a voice telling me a story as I drove long distances from the small…
I did something amazing this weekend. I wrote two words. Those two words you can see there on the left. Those two words of course had been preceded by about 70,000 other words. I have finished book number eight. Well, when I say finished… This first draft has to be re-read and polished. There are…
Last weekend, I joined a couple of hundred other writers for the annual Romantic Novelists Association conference. This year it was close to home at Queen Mary University in east London, but in the past I have travelled some distance to attend the conference. I’ve also made my way to other such events overseas. Why?…
I’m a bit late blogging this week – blame the Romantic Novelists Association conference and all those lovely people who ‘forced’ me to spend four days talking and attending workshops and eating chocolate and drinking red wine. Shame upon you ladies and gentlemen. Normal service will be resumed next week – but in the…
I was totally thrilled this week when my website – this very website – won the Viewers’ Choice vote in the West Houston RWA Romancing the URL contest. Because I also run the RNA website, and because of my somewhat uber-geek background, a lot of people ask me what makes a good website. Well, now…
I have recently had the most expensive meal I have ever eaten. I mean seriously expensive… and seriously good too. I had of course heard about Michelin starred restaurants. I never quite understood what a car tyre and a chubby marshmallow man had to do with excellent food – but when friends suggested an outing to…
This week I almost but not quite managed to accidentally on purpose bump into James Bond. I was working at Pinewood movie studios – and Daniel Craig was too. The latest Bond film – Spectre – has been in production there. A couple of my (female) colleagues came into the office all agog because they’d…
If you’ve been hearing high pitched excited squeals coming from the general direction of West London this week – well that was me. On Thursday I got a call to tell me that Flight To Coorah Creek is a finalist in the Romance Writers of Australia Ruby Award (Romantic Book of the Year Award). I…