November Update
Book Fair Australia was a huge hit, thanks so much to the organisers for this great fair. 2023 was only its second year, and the turnout was very satisfying. It was a terrific mix of authors sharing their work, writers wanting to learn about the craft, and readers seeking new novels. Some readers arrived with wheelie bags, ready to buy everything on the floor!
The interior was spacious with plenty of room for people to browse and gather – and a children’s storytime area in the centre. It really was a fun family-friendly day out!
The online panels are online and available for viewing on their site – you can go there and watch the interesting panels about the art of writing and publishing.
I was a guest of the show, and I’ll definitely be back. I sold completely out of ‘White Tiger’ and had to take a number of orders for when new stock arrived.
Inari supervised the delivery of new stock of books for me.
While I was in Sydney I caught up with Queenie Chan, who is unfortunately too busy doing advanced academic study to illustrate a new story I’m thinking about, that will be a side-story from ‘Serpent Princess’. We went to a Chinese medicinal soup place in Burwood called ‘Supreme Soup’, and it was fabulous.
We both had the same soup: pork bone with pear (it was delicious), and then left to right we shared pork mince with preserved vegetable, broccoli with a spicy sauce, and soy scallops with vermicelli and shallots. The small dishes are a savoury seaweed mix. So good!
That’s all my appearances for the year done now, and I can take my time to finish ‘Serpent Princess’, the Simone spinoff. This book is so close to complete that it’s ridiculous, and I’m adding many words to it every day, and it’ll be done soon.
The Patrons have been reading it, and I hope enjoying it, and there’s some classic hard left turns and major plot twists. What I’d really like is for this novel to be readable stand-alone, without reading the rest of the Dark Heavens books, and I hope I’ve succeeded.
When it’s done I will probably just send the high-level patrons a draft copy of the completed novel, to see what they think. There’s been many sidetracks and out-takes on the way, and a great many of the words (most of which I’ve shared!) will have to come out because as it is, it’s way too long.
Wish me luck to get this completed soon – because I have ideas for where Emma’s story will take her next.