The trees are turning ... the trees are burning. No, it's no longer bushfire season, but the flaming colours of autumn in the Hills are a reminder that this year too is slipping past with unnerving speed.

It's been a busy six weeks, which included Writers' Week with its stimulating guest speakers - the Helen Garner session was really valuable. Then an Easter trip to Canberra for a family gathering, and also reunions with many old friends. On the way home, a stop in Albury where we met for coffee with Paul Grover, editor of Studio journal, where I've had poems published for the last six years. Always a pleasure to be in the company of so many good writers, and a special treat to meet and talk with Paul after all these years of email contact.

Now it's back to routine, with final decisions to be made for the cover of Bystanders, and the tricky question of text on both the front and back to go with the very dramatic image that has been suggested by Wakefield. I never like decision-making, and these are so crucial. Lots of planning to do for both the launch and also general marketing and PR for this book, which is meant for such a wide variety of readers. 

Good news from Poetica Christi, who tell me that they will publish both my 'Sestina of Childhood' and also 'Two Vignettes of Childhood' in their forthcoming book based on the theme of 'inner child', news that really pleased me. Also that this year's Friendly Street Reader will once again include one of my poems - since I started serious publication of my writing there has been at least one of my poems in this annual Reader each year - very encouraging. As was last week's InDaily, where two of my poems, 'The Glass half Empty' and 'Stratification' appeared.

And the other exciting news is that the Christian vampires book  - yes, you heard me! A book of stories and poems about Christian vampires! - by the Literati writing group is now in print. Something in the Blood - a great title, isn't it! - will be launched by Dr Lynn Arnold on Friday, May 15 at 6.30 at the North Adelaide Immanuel Lutheran Church. All welcome. Do come, if this very novel concept intrigues you.

It's February. It's summer. It's hot - and I'm happy. I love this weather, even the 40 degree days. But then, that doesn't mean that I'm anti the cold weather. In fact, I really enjoy the minus 30 weather of Siberia in mid-winter, or the Arctic Circle, when there's almost total night. Am I just a creature of extremes? Or do I lack discrimination? Maybe both.

So summer is rolling on, and I seem to have done very little new writing. The hectic socialising of the Christmas two months meant of little - let's be accurate - NO spare time, with non-stop house guests, and months of housewife/hostess activities. It wasn't writer's block I was experiencing, but it was Writer Deprivation. It's amazing that I actually did manage to write two poems in amongst all that cooking/washing/ironing ...  But so good now to be getting back to my desk and writing again.

The two Studio reviews of Passion Play appeared in the latest issue of the journal, and gave me great joy. They are both now on the 'reviews' pages of the the Passion Playsection of this web site, if you'd like to share my pleasure in them. I suggested to someone that I'd like them on my tombstone; she pointed out tersely that I'd need a mausoleum to fit them. Too true. 

My other main activity at present is preparing for the publication of Bystanders - the new book Wakefield Press is releasing in May, ready for the June 4 launch by Lynn Arnold. I hope very much that all friends and anyone interested will come to that event at the West Torrens Council Library Auditorium  - but do let me know if you'd like to join us, just for catering numbers. I'm interested to see responses to this new book - my sixth, but the first full length prose publication. Up to now, my published fiction has all been shorter pieces, mainly short stories. At least my non-poetry-reading friends are feeling great relief about the new book ...  Strange, that!

It's hard to believe that two months have slipped by since I last posted on this web site, but Christmas has come and gone with its nine weeks of non-stop house guests. Lovely to have them all, as offspring came from interstate and other friends from overseas, and the months went by in a seemingless endless stream of meals cooked and washing and ironing, but oh so exhausting. I can see why my writing life has languished in the morass of living. Maybe a holiday from writing wasn''t a bad idea, no matter how frustrating. But now this other life resumes ...

Flowers & Forebears has had a great response. So many people buying multiple copies to send as small gifts or in lieu of Christmas cards. I had two re-printings done by Ginninderra Press and am once more almost out of stock. What a great idea of Stephen Matthews and Brenda Eldridge to create this series of Pocket Poets, and how good for the poetry world to establish a whole new reading audience through these small non-threatening volumes. Check out the sample poems that I am about to put on this web site, and you'll see why I say that flowers have a wonderful power to evoke memories.

Meanwhile, enough publications of my poetry have reached my mail box during these two months to keep me on track. Poems published in the last two months in magazines like The Mozzie, Tamba, Poetry Matters, InDaily Poets' Corner, Poetry Monash, have all reassured me that there is a writing public out there that I can connect with, and lovely incidents like the lady who came to me in tears after a poetry reading in the Adelaide Hills to say how much she had been moved by my poem. It's moments like  these that keep me writing when frustration sets in.

I'm waiting eagerly for the next edition of the journal Studio to arrive  - I've seen an advance copy of the two reviews of Passion Play that it will contain, and they are heart-warming. I definitely will post a link to these when they come. Meanwhile I'm working hard on organising for the publication and promotion of my next book, the sixth, to be released by Wakefield for a June 4 launch. More of this in another post on this page.