- One road trip to Canberra for the CBCA Book of the Year Awards announcement.
- One broken down car at Canberra airport where I stopped to pick up author Claire Saxby. Sadly, said car needed to be towed away and have a short holiday in our national capital - which meant I missed most of the award ceremony!
- One yummy CBCA ACT Book Week dinner.
- Many many hours of driving (in Pete's car) in terrible traffic and even worse weather to schools for school visits (all on the other side of Sydney to me).
- Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of smiling faces and enthusiastic young readers and writers. I am always blown away by the creativity, enthusiasm and passion of the kids I meet (and their teachers).
- One trip to Melbourne for the Book Design Awards + author meetings + a visit to Melbourne Writers festival + a little book research + beautiful sunshine.
- One radio interview with Julie Clift on ABC Broken Hill about Book Week and writing for children (while sitting on the floor in Melbourne airport - I'm all class!).
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| Graham Byrne and Claire Saxby Graham won the Crichton Award for Big Red Kangaroo |
- When one child brimming with excitement declared: "Oh my God, I can't believe the real Sue Whiting is really here!"
- When about two hundred children spontaneously, unexpectedly and joyously joined in with my reading of The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, which they ALL knew off by heart. It was a little overwhelming actually and left me a little dazed - in a good way. (I think I had a bit of a rock star moment - got the feeling of what it must be like when an audience sings your lyrics back to you.)
Did you see me trying to hide tearing up when you told the story of the 200 kids reciting along to Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy?
ReplyDeleteDid you? Didn't notice at all - shows that I was paying attention to the road after all. :)
ReplyDeleteI must say that your week is still pretty much a win. Sorry to hear you missing most of that awards event with that mishap, though. You ought to be handed a better car next time, or for it to be handed to you with much better capacities. At least everything turned out for the best.
ReplyDeleteFelicia Simmons @ Brandon Auto Repair
You’ve had a busy week, Sue! Being with enthusiastic and passionate writers, and equally-avid readers can really blow you away, and I can imagine how inspired you are to finish more stories for them. On the other hand, it's too bad about what happened with the car that kept you from missing the awarding ceremony. I hope it has been fixed by now, so that you won’t have any other trouble on your future schedules. Thanks for sharing this awesome post, by the way!
ReplyDeleteBradford Oliver @ LaCustoms
Thanks, Bradford! Car is fixed and all is well. It was quite a week. Thanks for dropping by ...
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