Back home

...after a month long trip to England, where I was mostly being a poet and sometimes having a holiday. It was a totally brilliant time, and I've come back to the chaos of my desk deeply refreshed, if also deeply jetlagged - for those who haven't done it, Melbourne is a very long way away from Europe, and you never feel it more than when the plane seems to be poised endlessly over Central Asia... There's no getting away from the fact that it's a horror flight.

I had lunch with Walker, my English publishers, always a pleasant thing to do, and kept bumping into Pellinor fans even though I wasn't doing Pellinorish things, including the enterprising Lsle (did I get that right?) in Norwich, who hunted me down at the New Writing Worlds festival, even though I wasn't reading, with a much-thumbed copy of The Gift. That was lovely, and also unexpected. My editor wants me to write a book of short stories, along the lines of Ursula Le Guin's Tales of Earthsea, and I have to say that idea has its charm - I reread the short story I wrote last year, Two Friends, while I was away (my editor also, oh horror, made me do some work and edit it) and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I'll keep you updated on when that will appear... I couldn't face writing another novel of Edil-Amarandh, but some short tales might be a really fun thing to do.

Also, (I confess, to my considerable astonishment), Penguin is organising an Australian tour. The initial dates unfortunately clashed with some dates I already have at the Melbourne Writers Festival, but they are on the case with Books Alive! and if they can reschedule I'll be popping up in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and... Warnambool. So any Warnambool fans take note. Are there any? Please come if there are.

And a story that warmed the cockles of my heart. My son Josh was book browsing in town yesterday, checking out The Singing and loyally contemplating turning the covers face-out (all my family and friends seem to do this), when an excited young man with a back pack rushed up behind him, grabbed The Singing with a whoop, and rushed off to the counter. Now, that makes an author excited!