Dear 16 Year Old Me

I’m going to be doing some author visits to schools in the next few weeks and it’s got me thinking about being a teenager and being an adult and whatever happens to us in between. There were times when I was writing my YA novel that I questioned the voice...

A Box of Novels and Some Soda

  There are two most excellent new things in our house right now. 1. A box of freshly printed copies of my new novel, The Opposite of Geek. 2. A bottle of freshly brewed cherry soda. First things first. I’ve already revealed the cover of the book and talked...

The Charm & Cheek (of a Yoghurt Pot)

We recently had people over for brunch. I chopped fruit for salad and mixed batter for corn fritters the night before. I made punch. I made sure the floor was clean. Ish. (Hey, I have small children, shrug) But the simplest thing of the entire brunch-a-rama, excluding...

Rain

I do love a rainy city. I lived in London. Then Vancouver. Now Auckland. All three cities renown for rain, rain and more rain. Sideways rain, constant rain, sheets of rain, musical night rain. Rain that upsets all the playground plans you had or the picnic date, the...

Sweet Little Something

An end of week ritual – a wordless post, a personal photograph that captures a moment to be savoured, relished and preserved for looking back on. One photograph from Hannah, in the Southern Hemisphere and one from Ria, in the Northern Hemisphere. Feel free to...

Wherein There is Culture

So, I love this word, culture, for several reasons. I have a degree in anthropology–reason number one. But I also love culture because it means stories. You can’t talk about a person’s or a country’s culture without getting into a nice mess of...