Hours of fun...

I am thrilled to report that I am part of the WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival 2014, happening August 28-31. You can check out the programme here. I'm one of the writers involved in the 'Read Aloud Schools Programme' along with Jackie French, Donovan Bixley, Dylan Horrocks, Laini Taylor and Anis Mojgani. Excuse me if I am a little giddy about all of this. I am part of the free storytelling on Saturday for 8 to 12 year olds at 11.30am on Saturday and for young children at 1pm. And then I get to debate the truths of writing for children with Gavin Bishop and Tania Roxborogh at 2.30pm. You can be sure I have some opinions on this. Hours of fun. Bring it on!

It was fascinating to see a report on the contribution publishing makes to the NZ economy. I was surprised by the results. We make a real contribution ($330million total sales). Educational publishing and trade sales to educational institutions and libraries constitute 24% of total sales. And children's and Young Adults books will take a respectable share of trade sales. I would love to see the numbers drilled down to the different categories of books: children's and YA, adult fiction, non-fiction etc... For a small country these seem like robust figures. I have all sorts of thoughts and questions and need more information to find answers, and comment meaningfully. A key thought is that money is still being made in publishing. I shall not give up my day job yet. Ha ha, the day job is writing, and it doesn't pay well but I still feel hopeful. Oh who am I kidding. What else am I going to do. To all those people who say, 'what you do is not who you are,' I say, 'you are obviously not writers.' Sheesh.

And as my new book The Song of Kauri slowly eases it's way into the world, here is another lovely review with some Q and A from yours truly. And there was a bit of a thing on me in the Otago Daily Times last Thursday.