September/October/November (Spring 07)

Man Eater is out. You’ll find it in a book shop near you. If not, you can order a copy from the nice lady behind the counter. Tell her there really should be copies on the shelves (next to Roald Dahl), because Extreme Adventures are really cool and all your friends want to buy them too. Or you can buy signed copie directly from me – click on Books 4 Sale page for more details.

Man Eater was launched at Kinglake West Primary School in October. It was MASSIVE! There were no classes that day. Instead, reading recovery teacher Chris Brandon organised a community African Day to celebrate the new book. It was like going to Tanzania! Instead of having classes, the children made bead collars and drums and learned African songs; Melbourne singer-songwriter Ruth Rogers-Wright taught them a three part African chant which they performed at the launch; there was a performance by King Marong and the Kuukuah drum and dance group; there was face-painting; there was art work; there were posters; there was a nearly life-size elephant made from corrugated iron and a giraffe as big as a, well, giraffe; there was an African lunch; there was an MP; there was a publisher; there was a man from Melbourne Zoo; there was an author; there were readings. Man Eater was well and truly launched!

Then I went home and walked the dog.

Flowerdale is beautiful in spring. Everything is green (except the flowers), our gardens are growing, the cicadas are singing. Oh dear, the cicadas! They have been SO noisy that for four weeks I wasn’t able to go outside without wearing ear muffs or stuffing cotton wool in my ears. I feel a bit sorry for Holly (our 7 month old whippet) who spends most of the day outside – hope it doesn’t affect her hearing. Mind you, she enjoys the cicadas; not listening to them, eating them! Wings and all. Eeew!

Speaking of questionable food, would you eat whale meat? It’s a delicacy in Japan, even though the International Whaling Commission has banned commercial whaling. The Japanese cheat by pretending they kill whales (up to 1,000 every year) for research. But really it’s for food. Why am I writing about this? Because in the next Extreme Adventure, Sam Fox joins the crew of a pirate ship. Not real pirates, but anti-whaling activists trying to put a stop to the slaughter of whales in Antarctica. Along the way Sam and his little brother Harry (remember Captain Amazing in Spider Bite?) are involved in a plane crash, they’re chased by a leopard seal, and nearly get eaten by a pod of voracious killer whales. The book is called Killer Whale and goes on sale in March 2008.

On another note, Puffin (my publisher) have put together a fantastic new website for the Extreme Adventures series. It includes hot-off-the-press info, action packed games and very cool competitions. The site can be found at: www.puffin.com.au/extreme.

Hope you have a great Christmas!

June/July/August (Winter 07)

Man Eater is coming. I received my first pre-publication copy last week. It looks terrific (see Coming Soon page for a sneak preview of the cover). Everyone at Penguin thinks it’s the most exciting Extreme Adventure yet! But I’ll leave that for you to decide … It’ll be in shops from 1st October.

Winter has been cold in Flowerdale. We had some whopper frosts and one day in July it actually snowed! Luckily we have lots of firewood to keep us warm. Holly the whippet pup has a favourite spot – right in front of the fire! It’s my favourite spot, too, but unfortunately my study (where I write) is right down the other end of the house – a long way from the fire. A very good place to write about Antarctica. Which is exactly what I’ve been doing. Killer Whale, Extreme Adventure number 7, is finished. Well, the first draft, anyway. My publisher reckons it’s pretty good but I still have to do a lot of editing and redrafting before it will be ready for publishing.

The most exciting thing that’s happened this winter has been the publication of Pool, my new fantasy novel for young adults. It’s in shops now. Here’s what one reviewer said about it:

“Rarely these days do I come across a story that draws me in so
completely I can’t put it down. Pool is one such story…D’Ath
has created a tale that oozes mystery from every page. This is
storytelling at its best.”

I hope other readers feel the same!

August is always a busy time for authors because of Children’s Book Week. Here are some of the schools and libraries I’ve visited in the past few weeks: Scotch College, Hawthorn Library, Darebin Library, Marist Regional College (Tasmania), School of the Good Shepherd (Gladstone Park), Ballarat Library, Bacchus Marsh Library, Daylesford Library, St Mary’s School (Alexandra), Our Lady Help of Christians School (Eltham), Luther College (Croydon), Viewbank Primary School, Joonalup Library, Clarkson Library, Wanneroo Library, Duncraig Library, Vincent Library, Coolbellup Library, Melton Library and Irene McCormack College. It’s a wonder I have time to do any writing at all! But it was well worth the effort. Here's what someone thought of my presentation:

"It was the best talk I've heard in my 10 years of living."
Student, Vincent Library, WA.

Man Eater is coming…

March/April/May (Autumn 07)

I’m famous in Mount Gambier, South Australia! Children recognise me on the street, in supermarkets, at the library, almost everywhere I go. Why? Mostly thanks to McDonald Park Primary School, who have adopted me as their favourite author. Last year I spent a week working with the children across all the grades, then they put on a fantastic launch for Scorpion Sting (see my Journal Entry for August/September 2006). In March 2007 they invited me back, this time to launch Spider Bite. What an event it was! If you are scared of spiders, you would NOT want to have been there. There were huge scary spiders all over the school, and spider hats, giant spider webs, spider songs, spider poems, even a spider cake! Once again Mayor Steve Perryman was the guest of honour. He put a brand new copy of Spider Bite in a miniature hot air balloon and it sailed away in the wind - which is exactly what happened to Sam Fox in the book. (Except the balloon in the book wasn’t tied to two metres of string!)

I’m also famous in Annadale, NSW. Here’s part of an email from Fraser (9), who attends Annadale North Public School:

“I didn’t like reading much until I read Shark Bait but now I’ve read all the Extreme Adventures and I want you to write more. Please please please write more!”

Well, the good news is I’m going to write at least 5 more Extreme Adventures. After Man Eater (in shops on October 1st 2007), there will be Killer Whale (April 2008), then one set in the Amazon Jungle (with killer piranhas, shocking electric eels and a humungous anaconda), one set in Tasmania (Tasmanian devils, giant tiger snakes, deadly ants and a kidnapped Crown Prince), and one in northern USA (wolves, mountain lions, rattle snakes, grizzly bears and who knows what else!). So Sam Fox is going to have lots more adventures yet!

Readers who have grown too old for Extreme Adventures (fifteen years and over) can look forward to my Young Adult novel, Pool, to be released on 1st September 2007. I gave a brief outline of it in my last Journal entry and you can check out the cover on my Coming Soon page.

I’ve moved house! I no longer live in Bendigo, where I’d been for 22 years; now I live in the mountains north of Melbourne at a little place called Flowerdale. We own a house on the bank of King Parrot Creek. As well as king parrots and cockatoos, there are wombats, wallabies, lyrebirds and wild deer in the hills behind our house. And snakes, too – last week I nearly trod on a two metre long copperhead. Luckily I didn’t have our new puppy with me. She’s a whippet, her name is Holly, and she likes chewing things – particularly my shoes. But I wouldn’t want her trying to chew a snake!

Moving house takes a lot of time and energy - we’ve got SO much stuff! – so I didn’t get much writing done this autumn. But finally we’re settled in and I’ve got back to work. I’m halfway through Killer Whale and hope to have it finished in July. It’s REALLY exciting! And so is Man Eater, due out in October. Only four months to wait, Fraser!

December/January/February (Summer 06/07)

Spider Bite will be in bookshops from Monday 5 March. Artist Sam Hadley has done another wonderful cover illustration, and my editor Tegan says it’s her favourite Extreme Adventure of all time! I wonder what you think. For a squiz at the cover and a bit of info. about Sam Fox’s latest death-defying escapade, go to my Latest Release page.

Speaking of covers, there’s a new (wacky!) cover for Scorpion Sting. Take a look at the Justin’s Images page.

How were your summer holidays? Authors don’t have holidays (lol); I’ve been busy at my computer working on Sam Fox’s next adventure, Killer Whale, set in Antarctica. I’ve only done four chapters so far, but already he’s survived a plane crash, nearly fallen into a crevasse, been chased by a leopard seal and had a very close encounter with a killer whale. Poor Sam – if anyone needs a holiday it’s him! He certainly leads an exciting life. That’s why I write books about him – I like exciting books, and so do lots of my readers, according to the hundreds of emails and letters I receive from them.

Here’s another exciting piece of news. My third Young Adult novel will be published later this year. It’s called Pool and is about a public swimming pool with sloping water. One end is higher than the other. So if you jump in at the high end, you swim (or float if you’re lazy!) downhill. As you’ve probably guessed, it’s a fantasy novel. But unlike most fantasies, Pool is set in the real world – in 2007 Australia – and the characters are normal, everyday people. It will be published by Ford Street Publishing, an exciting new company in Melbourne.

On a sad note, my dog Pepper (you’ll see her in the Meet Justin pages) died in December. She was a cheerful, enthusiastic little companion for twelve years. I miss her.

October/November 2006

‘What’s the hardest part of a book to write?’ a student asked me at Dromkeen early in November.
    ‘There are two hardest parts,’ I told him. ‘The first page and the last page.’
    I spend almost as much time writing and reworking those two pages as I spend on all the others combined. Why? Because if I don’t get that first page EXACTLY RIGHT, it might be the only page a prospective reader will look at. I don’t want them to close the book at the end of page one (or halfway down!) because it doesn’t engage them. Ideally, the first page should be so interesting/ exciting/ engaging that the reader won’t be able to stop reading when they get to the bottom!
    Writing the last page, an author faces a different challenge. Now the reader MUST stop reading. The story’s finished. But for the author it’s not quite as simple as writing ‘The End.’ The reader has taken a journey with my characters through all the preceding pages, now it’s up to me to make the good bye a pleasant experience. Good byes aren’t always easy, particularly if you’ve grown fond of a character. That’s my challenge: to end the story in a way that will satisfy my readers but not leave them feeling disappointed on any level.
    So beginnings and endings are hard work. Particularly when you’re writing a series like Extreme Adventures where the action is non-stop. It’s action all the way, even on the first and last pages. But these two pages must also do other things: introduce characters, set the scene, kick-start the plot, hook the reader (Page 1); farewell characters, resolve plots and sub-plots, close the story arc, and keep the reader happy (Final page). It takes a lot of work to get it right.

I’ve just finished the final page of Extreme Adventure number six, MAN EATER. No way am I going to spoil the story by letting you read that now, but to whet your appetite, here’s the first page:

1
DEEP TROUBLE

There was a low trembly rumble, like the sound of distant thunder.
    Or like a diesel engine starting up. The bus was going without me!
    Quickly I adjusted my clothing and stepped out from behind the big, fat-trunked fig tree where I’d gone for privacy. And stopped in my tracks.
    Shishkebab!
    The baby elephant looked startled, too. I guess it had never come face to face with a human before. Only three metres separated us. It flapped its oversized ears and lifted its stubby, pink-tipped trunk in my direction.
    Please don’t trumpet, I prayed.
    Because the calf wasn’t alone. An adult elephant stood in the shadows behind it. The calf’s mother. She was massive. As big as a dump truck. With tusks longer than my arms. It was a miracle she hadn’t seen me – I was standing in plain view. She was busily picking up fallen figs with her long prehensile trunk and lifting them one by one to her mouth.
    Instead of sounding the alarm, the calf tested the air for my scent. I backed slowly away, keeping a wary eye on the mother, then slid round the tree …

Extreme Adventures, MAN EATER will be published in September 2007. And I’m about to start the first page of Number 8, KILLER WHALE.

August/September 2006

Scorpion Sting is out! You should find it at your local bookshop now. (If it’s not there you can order a copy at the counter, or buy an autographed copy through my website.) It was launched on September 6th at McDonald Park Primary School in Mount Gambier. Mayor Steve Perryman was the special guest (apart from me!); there were skits and art work by the children in Ms Carter’s Year 5/6 class; one of the parents, Mrs Kerry Probert, made a sensational scorpion cake; there was a model scorpion 3 metres long (!) built by two students, Thomas Trevorrow and Josh Borona, with a bit of help from Mr John Magary; and every student had a scorpion biscuit to eat at the end of the celebrations!

Here’s what two readers say about Scorpion Sting:

“It’s awesome. I’ve read it twice already.”
Andrew (13)

“It’s so exciting you don’t want to put it down.”
Oliver (12)

I’m really excited about the response to the Extreme Adventures, and am getting emails from readers all over Australia. Lauchlan (turning 9 in December) writes, “They are the best books in the whole world.” And Courtney (13) of West Australia, says, “I have a problem. I like your books so much that anything else I read doesn’t seem so fun and exciting.”

One question readers keep asking is, “Do you have to read the Extreme Adventures in order?”

The answer is, No. The series doesn’t continue from book to book like Harry Potter; each one is a complete story, but Sam Fox is always the main character. You can read them in any order. If you haven’t read any yet, why not start with Scorpion Sting?

Happy reading!

June/July 2006

Guess what! I’ve got two new books out: The Skyflower and Robbie and the Dolphins. Take a look at my Books page to find out more about them.

It’s winter in Bendigo but I’ve been escaping the cold by visiting schools and libraries in Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia, where it’s warmer. In fact, I’ve been away so much I’ve hardly done any writing. It’s a little frustrating because at the moment I’m halfway through Extreme Adventure number 6, which is set in Africa. And Sam Fox is in deep trouble. Not one, but TWO leopards are stalking him – and he’s right in the middle. Will this be the end for Sam? I’ll let you know next month.

Meanwhile, Extreme Adventure number four, Scorpion Sting is hot off the printing press. I got my first copy last week, but it won’t be in bookshops till September. Look out for it – it’s REALLY exciting! Here’s a tiny sneak preview:

First I’d seen the Min Min light, now there was another weird light. On the front of my shirt. It was pink and round, about the size of a twenty-cent coin. And it was moving. As I watched, dumbfounded, it came wobbling slowly up my shirt front, then stopped on my chest, slightly left of centre. Right on my heart.
      I looked at it for a moment, then the truth hit me like a hammer-blow.
      Holy guacamole!
      I hurled myself sideways. And not a second too soon. As the little pink light went skidding off the edge of my khaki shirt, the deafening crack-crack-crack of automatic gunfire shattered the silence of the desert night.

May 2006

Shark Bait, the third Sam Fox adventure, was released this month. Here’s what one reader said:

“These books keep readers on the edge of there seat and make people stay up all night to see wat happens next your a fantastic author and are very funny and good with children. your now up there with emily rodda on my best author list u might even get to the top after shark bait and scorpian sting keep up the good work.” Ollie (12)

The children at Hillcrest Christian College on the Gold Coast helped launch Shark Bait in a special assembly at their school. It was a HUGE event, with giant posters made by the children, an enormous cake featuring the Shark Bait cover, and there was even TV coverage! Thanks heaps to everyone at Hillcrest Christian College for helping celebrate the arrival of my new book. For photos of the book launch, click Here.

March/April 2006

Here’s a recent email from a reader:

“My name is Matthew Peel and I am 8 years old turning 9 on April the 10th. You came to my school, St Kilians last year and told us about your books so Mum let me buy Infamous and Crocodile Attack. I read Crocodile Attack first and couldn’t put it down I read it in 1 week it’s the best book I have ever read. I enjoyed it so much that my Mum then read it and she couldn’t put it down it was so exciting. Now my sister Sophie is reading it and my Nan is going to give me some money for my birthday to buy more of your books.”

It’s great to hear that readers as young as Matthew are enjoying Crocodile Attack. It’s only been out a few months and lots of you are saying it and Bushfire Rescue are my best books ever. All I can say is Wait till you read Shark Bait, which is in bookshops now. (If it isn’t, go to the counter and ask why not. You can order a copy through your bookshop or directly from me – see my Books for Sale page. I’ll sign it, too, and write a message in it just for you!)

I’ve finished Zoo Crash, number five in the Extreme Adventure series. It’ll be out early next year. And this last month my editor Tegan and I have been working hard preparing number four in the series, Scorpion Sting, for its September release. For a sneak preview of the very exciting cover, go to the Coming Soon page.

Next week I’m flying to Queensland for the launch of Shark Bait at Hillcrest Christian College in Burleigh. If you live on the Gold Coast, Dymocks Pacific Fair will have huge stocks of all the Extreme Adventures on sale and some of them will be personally signed. I’ll tell you all about the launch next time I write.

January/February 2006

Jambo (‘Hullo’ in Swahili)

I’m just back from Africa. My girlfriend Ryn and I went on a wildlife safari in Tanzania and Kenya, researching my next Sam Fox book. It was awesome. We saw about a million animals, including elephants, lions, cheetahs, hippos, baboons, giraffes, zebras, antelopes, hyenas, warthogs, crocodiles, ostriches, jackals, mongooses, vultures, hyraxes, one leopard and a very sleepy black rhino.

One night in the Serengeti National Park I was woken by a lion roaring only about 500 metres from our tent. At that camp we weren’t allowed to visit the toilets alone after dark - we had to take someone with us to stand guard in case a lion or leopard crept up on us (so most of us held on until morning!).

Another camp, on the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, had two men with rifles patrolling the perimeter all night in case leopards, hyenas or giant bush pigs came visiting. I went for a shower early in the morning and had to wait because a massive bull elephant was drinking out of the water tank!

Needless to say, I got lots of great ideas for a Sam Fox story set in Africa (and for another series I’m not telling you about). I can’t wait to get started. But first I have to finish ‘Zoo Crash’, where Sam and his little brother get carried off in an out-of-control hot air balloon over Sydney. They’re about to crash in Toronga Park Zoo, so I might get to write about lions and hippos and elephants even before I start the African book...

For a very scary photo of me in Africa, click here.

December 2005

Merry Christmas!

Thought for the month: why do we say Merry Christmas, when we don't use 'merry' in any other context, apart from laughingly describing an elderly relative who's had too much to drink? Does it mean we should all be getting drunk at Christmas - those of us who are adults, anyway?

Well, they say this is the silly season. It's certainly been quite hectic, and I have spent very little time at my desk. But in the few days work I have managed to put in between christmas shopping and getting merry, I've made a start on the 5th book in the Extreme Adventures series. I think I might have mentioned it a month or two back: it's set in Sydney and involves a runaway hot air balloon that crashes in the Taronga Park Zoo. The characters in this one - apart from Sam Fox, of course - are his little brothers Jordan and Harry, who are 5 year old twins, and their dog, Myrtle. All of them get carried away in a balloon without the pilot, and there's a Sydney funnel-web spider in the basket with them!
I've written four chapters so far, and in typical Extreme Adventure style, the action is frenetic! I think this one might be even MORE EXCITING than Shark Bait!

It's going to be called Zoo Crash.

Meanwhile, Sam Hadley the cover artist has done the final cover for Shark Bait. It looks terrific. Check it out on the Coming Soon page.

Happy (not Merry) New Year, and have a safe time over the holidays.

November 2005

I haven’t spent much time at my desk this month. Mostly I’ve been visiting schools to promote the Extreme Adventures series. It’s fun reading nail-biting excerpts from Crocodile Attack and Bushfire Rescue to classrooms (sometimes multi-purpose rooms or assembly halls) full of children. Two of the scenes which work best are Chapter 20 from Crocodile Attack, when Sam and Nissa are attacked by the mother crocodile on her flooded nest, and Chapter 7 from Bushfire Rescue, where Sam is hiding under a bridge from the cattle rustlers and a huge bird-eating spider crawls onto his hands. At the end of both these chapters, everyone in the classroom (multi-purpose room/hall) is sitting on the very edge of their seat!

Also this month I’ve been doing some more editing of Shark Bait. It’s due out in March, and many readers of the first two books in the series are already asking me what it’s about, so here’s a sneak preview:

Shark Bait

Chapter 1
Run!

No other fish on the Great Barrier Reef is quite as cute, nor as inoffensive, as the tiny orange and white clown fish. Yet I blame a clown fish for what happened. One made famous right around the world thanks to a movie.
‘Nemo!’
I looked round in surprise. The Japanese boy was waving at me. Up to that point, we had mostly ignored each other. We had both been too busy exploring the narrow shelf of reef exposed by the low tide. Besides, there was the problem of communicating.
‘Nemo!’ he called again, and pointed down into a shimmering tidal pool.
I made my way towards him, skirting a colourful coral garden and being very careful where I placed my good foot. The Reef might be a ‘natural wonderland’, as all the tourist brochures say, but a whole range of dangers lie in wait for the unwary: stonefish, stingrays, fire coral, blue-ringed octopuses and deadly sea wasps, to name just a few. But little did I suspect, as I wobbled up to the Japanese boy crouching on the coral shelf at the very tip of the island, that the greatest threat to our safety that afternoon had nothing to do with the reef. It would come from the sparkling aquamarine expanse of the Coral Sea behind us.
The Japanese boy was wearing yellow inflatable water-wings over his T-shirt. It wasn’t a good look. But who was I to judge? I had one foot encased in plaster with a huge black rubbish bag taped around it, and split-tennis balls jammed onto the ends of my crutches to help me walk on the reef.
‘What have you found?’ I asked, laying my modified crutches on the coral beside me as I crouched to look.
He removed his wrap-around sunglasses and pointed into the water. At the bottom of the pool, partially obscured by a semi-circle of yellow plate coral, a pair of clown fish nestled among the fleshy tentacles of a large mauve sea anemone.
‘Nemo,’ he repeated.
He knew no English, I knew no Japanese. But we had both seen the movie.
‘Nemo,’ I said, returning his smile.
The sea breeze ruffled the boy’s short spiky hair. Without his sunglasses he reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t think who. He looked only about ten or eleven, much younger than me. But that didn’t matter; it would be good to have someone to hang out with besides the twins. My family had been at the resort for nearly a week and we were all growing a bit tired of each other’s company. The Japanese boy and his parents had the cabin next to ours. We were neighbours, but the language barrier had kept us from introducing ourselves. Until now.
I tapped my chest. ‘I’m Sam.’
He gave a little bow. ‘Oai dekite uresii desu, Sam,’ he said shyly. Then he touched his own chest. ‘Watashi no namae wa Michi desu.’
It sounded complicated. ‘So you’re called ... Michidesu?’
‘Michi,’ he corrected me.
‘Glad to meet you, Michi,’ I said.
He bowed again, and for a moment Michi and I smiled at each other. Then, because there was nothing else we could say, we turned our attention back to the fish. They were cute, all right, and very much like the ones in the movie. But soon I would wish we had never laid eyes on them. If we hadn’t been so preoccupied with the two Nemo-lookalikes, we might have noticed the danger before it was too late.
Michi saw it first. Suddenly he gripped my arm and yelled something in Japanese. I reached for my crutches and struggled upright. Holy guacamole! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Something weird was going on. The horizon had changed - it looked higher than it had a minute ago. And much closer!
Michi started talking flat out in his own language. Most of it meant nothing to me, but one word snagged in my brain: Tsunami.
Then I said an English word - Run! - and Michi didn’t need a translation either.

October 2005

Another month gone. It was my birthday on the 4th and not a single reader sent a card! Well, I didn’t expect any really because most of you don’t know my home address. But I received an excellent present from my son Tim and his wife Tara - a gift certificate to take a ride in a hot air balloon! I haven’t been up yet, but when I do I’m taking my pen and notebook with me, because Sam Fox (of Extreme Adventures fame) will be stuck in a runaway hot-air balloon in the next one I write. So as well as being an adventure, my balloon ride will be research.

Speaking of research, guess who’s going to Africa? (Clue: a very talented, handsome-tho-slightly-balding author who writes REALLY exciting books.)

My girlfriend Ryn and I are going to the Serengeti next year to get up close and personal with zebras, lions, elephants and hippos. Then I’m going to write an Extreme Adventure set in Africa. If you’re familiar with the series, you might be able to imagine some of the nail-biting close calls Sam Fox will have in that one! Send me your ideas if you have any, and maybe I’ll be able to include them.

If you’re wondering if I did any writing in October, the answer is yes. I finished my Quentaris book, The Skyflower, and am very happy with the way it turned out. I’ve sent it off to the series editors, Michael Pryor and Paul Collins, and am waiting nervously for their comments.

Also I rewrote a couple of chapters of Shark Bait, the third book in the Extreme Adventures series. My editors didn’t like the second-last chapter where a whale rescues Sam from certain death, so I cut out the whale scene and replaced it with something MUCH MORE EXCITING! Phew! Sam Fox certainly leads an action-packed life! (Alex Rider’s is dull by comparison.)

Meanwhile, the artist Sam Hadley has started work on a cover for Shark Bait. Just preliminary pencil sketches so far, but as I promised last month, here’s a sneak preview. Click here.

September 2005

It’s been another busy month. There was a launch for the Extreme Adventure series at The Gasworks in Saint Kilda, which was lots of fun for everyone involved. Eight lucky people won free books and two girls and two boys from the audience helped me with the count-down, then did a very passable imitation of a fire-engine’s siren.

I also visited 12 schools in the Bendigo area to talk about my new books. The smallest was Eppalock Primary, which has a total of 42 children. I spoke to the whole school for an hour and one boy (I think he was a Prep) fell asleep on the principal’s knee! I’ve never had an audience member fall asleep before. Maybe it proves that, even though my children have grown up I still haven’t lost the touch of reading bedtime stories!

Apart from schools and book launches, I managed to do quite a bit more work on my Quentaris book in September. I’m now three quarters of the way through and am really enjoying the experience. It’s turning into a very exciting story - not quite so action-packed as my Extreme Adventures, although because it’s fantasy I’m able to use mythical creatures, which is great fun (for me, but not for my characters!). The book’s title has now changed to The Skyflower, instead of ‘sky flower’. And now my editor at Lothian is beginning to discuss cover ideas with me. This is always a very exciting part of writing a book, because when the covers start taking shape the book begins to seem real, rather than just a bunch of words on your computer.

Coincidentally, my Penguin editor has also been talking with me about covers this month. Sam Hadley, the artist who did the excellent covers for Crocodile Attack and Bushfire Rescue, lives in England, and he’s about to start work on the covers for the next two Extreme Adventures: Shark Bait and Scorpion Sting. In a week or two I should see some of his preliminary drawings, and I’ll put them on this site as soon as I have them.

Speaking of covers, some students at Big Hill Primary School in Victoria have designed some mock covers, complete with blurbs, for forthcoming books in the Extreme Adventures series. They’ve come up with some excellent designs and titles. Here are some of my favourites: Dingo Danger, Trembling Talons, Rattlesnake Terror, Jumpin’ Jellyfish, Devil’s Bite, Mysterious Night, Snake Scare, Polar Bear Scare, Eagle Edge and Funnel Web Frenzy. Here’s the blurb from Underwater Mania, by Lucy Parks and Lauren Harvey: Life’s never simple with Sam. He gets swallowed by a whale, stung by a jellyfish, and still has time to get electrocuted by an eel. But will he get to the beach before the scuba divers? Great work, guys. If ever I get short of ideas for more Sam Fox adventures (or covers), I know who to ask!

August 2005

August was a busy month for me. At the moment I am halfway through writing a book for the Quentaris Chronicles fantasy series, edited by my friends Paul Collins and Michael Pryor, and published by Lothian. My book is called ‘The Sky Flower’ and is due for publication late next year. But first I have to write it (!), and there have been a lot of interruptions recently.

Early in the month I was away in New South Wales visiting schools and libraries. Then I had two days at the Melbourne Writers Festival, where I was on panels with James Maloney, James Valentine and a couple of other authors. That was good fun and I met lots of my readers (and signed heaps of books). From the festival I flew to Perth for six days of talks to school groups in libraries as part of Children’s Book Week. I visited 12 libraries and spoke to over 1,000 children - and gave away 1,000 Extreme Adventures bookmarks. I enjoyed the experience and everyone was very friendly, but by the end of it I was very sick of hearing the sound of my own voice! It was nice finally to come home to Bendigo. Pepper was very pleased to see me!

But I only managed a couple of days writing before I was off again visiting schools - mostly in and around Bendigo. This time to publicise the Extreme Adventure series, which went into shops on August 29. It’s always exciting when your books are finally released, and this time there were TWO! I feel very lucky to have two books come out together, and I’m very excited about Crocodile Attack and Bushfire Rescue. Their covers are awesome, and everyone who’s read them reckons the books themselves are just as exciting as the covers. So maybe in this case you CAN judge a book by its cover!

September looks like being quite busy too. There’s going to be a lot of publicity for the new books (I call them my babies!), with school visits etc., and even a launch and a book signing or two. But I’m hoping, later in the month, to get some quiet days at my computer. I’m up to a very exciting part of The Sky Flower and am really looking forward to seeing what happens...