One year ago today, on 1 November 2018, my first novel came out. Nothing much happened on the actual day but, symbolically, it was momentous: my first publis...

The more manuscripts I write (I’m up to my seventh), the more I refine my process. Not that it’s a planned thing. The process is dictated by the way my mind w...

I often get overwhelmed by the number of things I need/want to do each week. There’s paid editing work, novel writing, family stuff, exercise, household chor...

I’m one of those writers who reckons you can’t write the first sentence of a novel until you know the last. The first line, I think, should say something (on...

I woke up this morning thinking,** as I often do, that I must get back to work on my current manuscript-in-progress. It’s been far too long between sessions....

I used to be quite involved with the Emerging Writers’ Festival in Melbourne. At the time, a lot of our audience tended to be younger people (under 30) but t...

Last month I wrote about the benefits and challenges that I’ve found in being part of a writing critique group. Today I’m going to look at some of the more p...

Joining a writing group is probably the best thing I’ve ever done for my writing. I’ve only ever been in one group, which I joined in 2012. I’d been toying w...

I have a running list of books that I want to read. Problem is, it keeps getting longer and I wonder if I’ll ever get through it. But I guess that’s not the ...

For the past two weeks I’ve been editing the manuscript for This Thing of Darkness. What an experience! Kristy Bushnell, my editor, has done such an amazing ...

This Thing of Darkness is my first YA novel. Before this, I’d written three adult crime fiction manuscripts that remain unpublished. The first of these crime...

Welcome to my blog. For my first blog post (ever!) I thought I’d share a bit about why I write YA. Truth is, I hadn’t intended to become a YA writer. Like I ...