Last weekend, October 17th and 18th, on Radio National's Top 100 Australian books ever (all books, not children’s books), Possum Magic swung in at No.11, thrilling enough on its own, but it happened to be the most popular picture book as well. I found it so hard to credit I had to point at myself in the mirror that night and say: ‘You wrote that.’ Even then it felt unreal. Julie Vivas, the genius illustrator, said she’d stopped being surprised …

A belly laugh is good and I’ve just had one.

‘Over a year?’ I asked myself. ‘A YEAR!’ Hah-hah-belly-laugh-hah.

Mortifying, really, to have been out of touch for so long. I’m now 80 but I won’t allow that to be an excuse for anything. Age is not disease, nor has it rendered me incompetent. It’s just that your bone-idle, ancient author has been so busy and occasionally having such a good time she’d almost forgotten the existence of a wider, very kind public. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

The pulse is good: 60 beats a minute, resting. After such a long break I thought I’d share that detail in case you’d assumed my pulse had ceased altogether and I’d taken up residence in the Great Library in the Sky. Not so fast.

So Meerkat has hit the shops! Its sales, after only three weeks, are amazing. Thrilling doesn’t get near describing this wonderful reception to the book. Long may it reign!

Much though I need it, I haven’t had a facelift myself. It’s the website. Refreshing it is a work in progress so there may be some hiccups. I hope you love what we’ve done already. I’ve worked particularly hard on the Advice to Writers. People who want to write picture books should read it to prevent themselves from making the many silly mistakes and foolish assumptions that I made when I sent off the first (rejected) draft of Possum Magic in 1978.

Sadly, the delicious 40th anniversary of Possum Magic is now over. But this year, 2024, as if the good news can’t tumble into the world quickly enough, I’ll have the happiness of the 20th anniversary of Where is the Green Sheep? (Shared with Judy Horacek, of course.) Both last year and this year there were, and will be special anniversary editions of both books. Lovely. Nice, at my age…

Sorry to have been so silent forso long. Mortifying. It’s the longest time between posts I’ve ever been guilty of. I’m knuckling down to the task right now in the unlikely event that you’ve been wondering if I were ill or dead. (I mean, who reads websites these days? But just in case…) Anyway, I’m neither ill nor dead, just slacker than usual about my website, and busy with real life and other important happenings.