A month....

The last month has been eclectic to say the least - filled with festivals and edits, covers and the obssessive mania of a new novel.

I spent my birthday back in Melbourne filming a segment for the Melbourne Writers' Festival.  Then it was back to Sydney to deliver a workshop on writing historical fiction for the Sydney Writers' Festival. 

Finally I headed to Bellingen for the Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival where I spoke on panels about crime and historical fiction. 

        With Claire Scobie, Irin Dunn, Omar Musso and Melanie Casey at BRWF.   

When I wasn't gadding about, I was finishing the final edit on A Murder Unmentioned (Rowland Sinclair #6). 

Early in May, Pantera Press did release an unproofed-unedited version for booksellers, before the text was edited at all.  I have a copy but I haven't opened it.  Now that the book has been edited, I'm a little afraid of what I'll find leafing through what was essentially a printed manuscript.  Much less anxiety-making was the bottle of wine Pantera released in honour of the book!

Whilst in Sydney, the charming Scott Whitmont of the Lindfield Bookshop presented me with a magnificent montage of the real people who have inhabited Rowland Sinclair's world from time to time.  It was a delightful, thoughtful gift... but then Scott is a delightful and thoughtful person.

   

I also attended my very first Sydney Writers' Festival launch party with Pantera Press and caught up with Ashley Hay (fresh from Premier's Literary Award People's Choice glory) P.M. Newton (whose latest book Beams Falling is being acclaimed in every corner) and Kate Forsyth, (who I panelled with last year).  My very favourite thing about writers' festivals is the opportunity to catch with old friends and like minds.

The new novels I'm working on are absorbing every other moment one way or another.   Neither is a Rowland Sinclair novel.  I don't need to start working on next year's Rowland Sinclair release till about December really.  So I'm taking a chance by stepping out of my usual genres.  When I first started writing, I didn't ever think of myself as either a crime writer or a historical fiction writer... I just wrote what I wanted to write, told the stories I wanted to tell.  It just so happened that at the time they were crime and historical novels.  I'm going back to that "write anything potential" in the few months I have up my sleeve, and just seeing what comes out of it.  It may work, it may not but it'll be interesting finding out!