Hello, I haven’t died.
It’s just that over summer (remember, you northern hemisphere people, while you freeze, we bake) the hot news is just not worth reporting: slept, gardened, slept, saw friends, slept, met politicians, slept, cooked, slept, went to the gym, slept, walked on the beach, slept, wrote speeches for 2005, slept, gave [...]

Hello, hello!
I had to let the dust settle on the Australian and American elections before I ventured back into the world and tried to breathe again. You know my feelings so I’m saying nothing else other than _aarghhïñïäê‚øÀ_¸Óõåäÿêþõ÷õøå÷ïÞÝÛçÝ’ç’áñõøÀÓöÚÚýÓargghhÜ¢[öÞ¤£¢!!!
In 1996, when I took early retirement from Flinders University, I thought life would be calmer. I thought [...]

Adelaide, Australia
Hello, again from Mem Fox. Remember me?
It’s sad, isn’t it, when websites are left to rot. They look so unloved, poor things, so dusty and so horribly faded. I’m so sorry.
Daily bloggers (how do they do it?) put me to shame but, hey, my long absence from this Hot News Space is good news, [...]

I feel as if I’ve been in the papers every day for two and half months although of course I haven’t, although it has been often. Very embarrassing. First there was the publicity for Possum Magic’s 21st birthday, and then there was yet more publicity for the launch of Where Is The Green Sheep? It [...]

Hot news! Yes! Possum Magic has returned to the best seller lists in its 21st year. I am beside myself. I feel exactly as I did 21 years ago when it hit the best seller lists for the first time and stayed there for months on end.
I would have been dismayed if it hadn’t sold [...]

Hello again, from old Mem Fox!
I turned 58 on March 5th. I should be slowing down. I mean, being 60 is only two years off and 60 is ancient. Instead I find myself living way beyond the speed limit. Age is not wearying me. Yet. And I’m proud to reveal that tomorrow at my exercise [...]

Hello, and my apologies for not updating my site in detail. I meant to do it this week but Chloe was in hospital for five days last week with viral pneumonia and motherhood comes before anything else. She is on the mend, thank God.
I am off to the USA and Canada within minutes but will [...]

Life is too exciting for words. But words will have to suffice.
On Tuesday November 18th in Stockholm I met the daughter of Astrid Lindgren, author of the famous and adorable Pippi Longstocking books. Awesome! Lovely woman. And I had a grand time promoting Reading Magic, the Swedish edition. (I discovered that its title: Lasa Hogt [...]

Hello world!
Here I sit in Adelaide at the end of the coldest October for 57 years which is as long as I’ve been alive. It’s been a mean and nasty winter.
A couple of weeks ago I flew to Anchorage, Alaska for six days – there and back – to get warm. Only joking. I went [...]

Thank heaven it’s spring tomorrow! And roll on summer! At least the days are getting lighter Down Under.

We have suffered a miserably wet, wild, and windy winter in Adelaide. It makes us wonder in awe how people in the northern hemisphere survive, year after year, the long freezing dark and gloom of their harsh winters.

Hello! You have not been forgotten!
It’s late but at last I am packed and ready to leave for my 74th trip to the USA in the morning! I’ll be at the International Reading Conference on Orlando and then at a school in West Palm Beach and then at the new library in Salt Lake City.
When [...]

My darling mother died yesterday. It was unexpected: too soon and far too quick. But my younger sister Alison and I were with her, holding her hand, breathing every anguished last breath with her, grieving in such an extremity of fear and inspiration that I will never be able to find the words to [...]

New Year, 2003
Christmas was fabulous for us and I hope it was for you too! On Christmas Day we had to lunch: four friends, Chloe, and my Italian sister Jan and her new husband Giuseppe, who are staying with us this summer. It was magnificent. One of the happiest, noisiest Christmases ever. [...]

A quiet hello
One day after September 11th last year I wrote a message of swift sympathy, understanding, and love on my website, for all my friends in America. But since the close-to-home tragedy in Bali on October 12th words have become a lump in my throat. I know I have to write something but I [...]

Hello world!
Today I begin a journey to the USA and Canada. Someone has to be brave enough to fly on September 11th so I am setting an example.
This time last year exactly, I began another journey to the USA to begin a book tour in New York on Sept 13th. I stayed in Sydney overnight, [...]

Happy July 4th to all my American readers!
Today in Adelaide it’s 11 degrees Celsius, wet, grey, windy and miserable so you can imagine how happy I am to be going to Italy next week. My ‘Italian’ sister Jan is marrying her beau Giuseppe, so we’re expecting a fabulously good time. Both my sisters are getting [...]

My angel dad, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, died in his sleep yesterday afternoon, Wednesday February 27th 2002.  He was 89 and a half, very dignified and absolutely adored.
I was insane with grief.
But he is so happy to be dead that I have promised myself to be more controlled today and to carry out my [...]

Hello, hello!
Today Malcolm and I have lived in Australia for thirty two years – I don’t count being born here and then leaving the country for twenty three years.
And two days ago Malcolm and I had been married for thirty three years. Neither of us can understand how this could be possible since we aren’t [...]

Hello one and all! Thank you for your kind messages about my darling dad.
We have a garden fertiliser here called Bounce Back. My feeling is that someone sprinkled Bounce Back all over Dad and watered him well. He has taken a turn towards Continuing Life.
My middle sister Jan, who lives in Italy, came to [...]

To all my friends in America
I am so sorry about the shocking events in America. I am so sorry about everything: the causes, the effects, the horror. My anxiety for you is huge. You must all be in a surreal mind-frame. The entire world is in hypnotised by shock and grief and sympathy. Words fail [...]

I haven’t forgotten…
Hello, hello. I’m late again! It’s way past my two-month target for updates to the Hot News Space. Apologies for having forgotten you for a while. I feel as guilty as a child who hasn’t completed homework on time.
I’ve been at home, that is, in Australia since June 25th and will be here [...]

Queen’s Birthday Holiday.
( What a joke. About Australia having a queen, I mean. Do we need one?)
Hi again!
I’m in the seventh heaven. After thee years of slogging and sweating over the birth of Reading Magic I’m happy to announce that it has behaved very nicely by appearing on bestseller lists all round Australia, immediately [...]

Anzac Day
Hello, hello!
A quick up-date–earlier than the usual two month information gap!–in honour of new website which will be up and running a week today: May 2nd , the Day of Days when Reading Magic finally hits the shops in Australia. (The USA edition will be in USA stores in late August/early September.)
I’m now in [...]

Yep, still alive!
Hello again. March 7th 2001? What? When? How did that happen?
My New Year’s resolution was to update my Hot News Space regularly but who keeps New Year’s resolutions? No one I know. So, contrary to the evidence, I’m actually still alive, still over-worked, and still (probably) over-paid, for which I thank heaven [...]

Christmas Greetings, 2000
Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year everyone!
I notice with shock and amazement that I haven’t written any Hot News since early September. Where and how did those three and a half months vanish?
It’s true that I went on holiday with Malcolm and two other friends to Lebanon, Syria and Jordan and [...]

I’m here. I’m awake!
Hi! I know. You thought I’d forgotten you, and you were right. Sometimes I ask myself if I’m living or merely working. I’ve been unusually busy, even for me, and I’m tired, tired, tired.
The cheerful news is I’m going on holiday to Syria, Lebanon and Jordan for two weeks next week, [...]

Yes, I’m still here. . .
Late, later, latest update: Here it’s the shortest day of the year. Longest day in the northern hemisphere.
Of course Malcolm’s heart surgery is the perfect excuse for the lack of an update. So I’m not even going to BEGIN to apologise this time. Hello, again!
For the past few months, [...]

Heart-stopping news
Hi, oh hi, what a time it has been! The day after my last entry in the Hot News Space my world fell apart. Listen to THIS. . .
I came home this Tuesday morning April 4th from my second trip to the USA in four weeks, if you get that time sequence. In the [...]

The slack OLD fox gets lazier by the day
Adelaide, South Australia
Hi and goodbye!
Not really goodbye. I’ve been home from the USA for only a week and am going back tomorrow. Life is a little hectic. This quick note is merely to say that you, dear reader, are not forgotten and I will be updating my [...]

haven’t forgotten you. . .
Well, hello! Remember me?
I feel I’ve neglected the Hot News Space disgracefully but Adelaide itself has been a ‘hot news space’ of sorts over the last few weeks, with summer temperatures of up to 40 degrees Centigrade—about 104 degrees on the old Fahrenheit scale. That’s hot. How can one think in [...]