Sorry.

This has been a shameful lapse in blogging. It's been a pretty straight month, though, nothing much to report except a night out with Harry at the Pilobolus Dance Company's show, and the QUT talk, which was good if modestly attended. The 15 people who did come were very responsive, though (meaning, they kindly laughed at all my jokes).

A weekend in Sunny Corner, one day rainy, one day sunny—that was good, too.

And then, this weekend (which I should have reported on on Thursday, rather than today, eh) was the Sydney Writers' Festival, and so much writerly stuff happened all at once that it nearly blew my head apart. Oh my goodness, there is this world, too!

So, I was on three panels: 'Children's Literature for Adults' on Friday at lunchtime (nipped down from the bank to be on that one—felt so conveniently local!) with Visiting International Publisher Sarah Odedina and Visiting International Children's and YA Scout John McLeay.

Then yesterday I did 'Don't Tell the Teenagers!' with Tobin Anderson and Mal Peet. I had thought both Tobin and Mal might be slightly terrifying (just finishing Octavian Nothing II as I am and being all awed and impressed, and having seen only Tobin's earnest author pic, and being in the middle of Mal's smart and worldly Exposure, with his rather fierce author pic on the back flap), but they were both delightful, and the panel was another hour-that-whipped-by.

Later (after a lunch the highlight of which was the venerable MT Anderson telling the Silliest Joke in the World), I finished off with 'It's All Formulaic', which was about genre vs. literary fiction, and John Flanagan (of the Ranger's Apprentice series and a new crime novel) and Laura Lippman (a mystery author from Baltimore whom we'd already met at the Richmond Grove Wine and Words dinner on the Thursday night—oh yes, there was that, too, for eventfulness) and I tore apart anyone who would dare criticise our various specialties, for their snobbery and ignorance. So that was jolly.

Now I'm off to the bank for the last week, before I go back to being a writer for a couple of months. At work, though, we're going to have a launch of the documentation I've written, which has never happened before, and is a bit nerve-wracking. I expect someone to leaf through the folders of processes and publicly point out an error—that person shall have no scones, I tell you. Anyway, that happens tomorrow, after which it'll be all end-tying-up and farewell lunches and anticipation of freedom. *beams*