A bag of cats ...

I finally sent off my last piece of non-fiction writing on Monday - a report - that was on my list of to dos. It's taken me two and a half months to reach this point, and I tell y'all my mind is a bag of cats right now. I decided to take a few days off but I am not yet feeling rested - too many cats up there, I tell ya.

Over the weekend I got to read my poem Pet Lessons and a couple of others at the launch of Takahe 110 at The Open Book in Ponsonby. You can read my poem here or check out all the goodness here.  Despite some nerves, I enjoyed reading my poetry aloud. And I loved hearing the work of others. The whole event felt warm and inviting and supportive. Note to self 1: attend more poetry reading events. Note to self 2: write more poems. 

I have sent a couple of picture book manuscripts off into the ether (fingers crossed for these babies) and am waiting on edits for another in preparation for its publication hopefully later this year. Now I want to work on a couple of longer projects but I am finding it hard to settle in to it. The end of daylight saving doesn't help. Is it just this year or is every autumnal 'fall back' accompanied by this amount of sleep adjustment? It also doesn't help that the nights are unseasonably warm. I also navigated my first school visit for the year, talking to Year 7s and 8s at St Kentigern Boys' School on Monday. It was a fun session with such lovely students. I have another booked in for July at a primary school and a couple of creative writing workshops earmarked for May. It's good to have a mix of things on the schedule because I think I work better when time is somewhat limited.

I was excited to see some lovely reviews of Sun Shower on the KiwiReviews site here:  

I think what first drew me to Sun Shower was the quality of the illustrations. Isobel Joy Te Aho-White has done a superb job in capturing the essence of the differing landscape patterns of Aotearoa New Zealand with the weather variations unfolding in the sky above. 

The text contains a powerful message about diversity, cooperation, and friendship. Melinda Szymanik has started with a scientific concept and presented it in a context that even very young children can understand.

I was apprehensive as to whether my 10-year-old would stay interested in the story, but knew my 7-year-old would stay till the end, but to my surprise my eldest was captivated, and it even opened up conversations about other weather patterns and how they are formed. I recommend this book as a cute story to show that even though people maybe opposites, they can still get along and still create something special.

And the book is currently hanging out at the Aotearoa New Zealand stand at the 2024 Bologna Book Fair, along with many other superb local titles. I hope some international rights get sold!!

Ready for the 100 day challenge?

Happy New Year! I can't believe we're just about to say hello to March. The last few months have galloped by and seem to have been all about poetry and non-fiction for me.

I received a lovely email from Roi Faineant Press while I was away over Christmas accepting all three adult poems I'd sent them - Double Happy, Plum Jam and The Politics of Pockets - which was a wonderful surprise to end the year on. You can read the poems here. I also received a copy of Volume Ten from Paddler Press in Canada which has one of my poems in it - The Night is Singing. And another three children's poems of mine have been published on the Dirigible Balloon site, most recently The Talk in the Trees which you can check out here. I still feel very much in my infancy as a poet so these results are very encouraging. I feel so slow writing poems - I wish I could speed up. There are a steady stream of publishing opportunities and I never seem to have sufficient new poems to submit - more on that in a minute.

Despite the earlyness of the year I have already been busy with a brace of projects - current status? - two down (I have penned a profile on the wonderful Feana Tuʿakoi which will be in the next Magpies Magazine, and I wrote an article on 'translation' for The Sapling), one to go. There are other small jobs hovering round the edges as well. As is always the way, because I have these jobs on the go, my mind has been busy working out a solution to an old abandoned junior novel. Of course, as soon as I am done with those other tasks my brain will lose interest in the junior novel. I'm wondering if I can trick my brain into maintaining that excitement. It really is a very fickle organ sometimes. Perhaps it needs some specialist training.

To that end, and apropos of my comment earlier about never having enough poetry to send out, a small dedicated bunch of us are running a project which we hope will help build a lovely daily poetry writing habit and result in a good swag of poems. If you are a keen poet you might like to check out the 100 day Poetry Writing Challenge over on The Poets XYZ page on facebook, starting March 1st. I hope I see you there!!

PS: My picture book Lucy and the Dark, illustrated by Vasanti Unka and published by Puffin (Penguin RH) has been shortlisted in the picture book category of the 2024 NZ Booklovers Awards (you can see all of the finalists here ) woohoo!!!, and it is also off to Germany, hopefully for publication there later this year.