Appearances and other things

I've been locked away working on the follow up to Fire in the Sea, but am now emerging blinking into the glare for a couple of festivals. Over the next fortnight, I'll be popping up as part of two excellent programs.

The first is Reading Matters -- a wonderful conference about all things YA, where I'll be appearing alongside such notables as Vikki Wakefield, Libba Bray, Gayle Forman, Andrew Flanagan and Garth Nix. Full details are available here and I'm told it's not too late to book yourself into some sessions! I'm very excited to be part of this conference and would be delighted to see you there.

I'll also be going on a tour of regional Victoria with some of the Reading Matters team. So, if you're in the Geelong area, keep an eye out for an event at Waurn Ponds Library on June 3.

The second festival thing is an old favourite of mine -- the Emerging Writers' Festival, which began last night. It's a rare festival in that it really is for writers, rather than readers. No matter what stage you've reached in the writerly journey, there's bound to be an event for you. This year, I'm actually appearing as part of the Reading Matters team as a YA writer, facing off against an emerging writer. This will involve me reading 5 minutes of a new piece of fiction, which I hope to write very, very soon. Tickets are available here.

My last bit of news is that Fire in the Sea will be available in US bookstores from February 2014. It's taken a while, but I'm delighted that it will finally be landing on American shores. You can pre-order your copy from Amazon here. (Or you could ask your local bookstore to get one in, which would be even better!)

As for the sequel, I hope to have more news about that in the coming months.

Cheers!