The heat is still on in many ways!

Hi! But hi especially to all those wonderful people who have left me great messages at the end of this website. You make me so happy it’s ridiculous. I have answered the messages (where possible) in the guest book—so look there, not here, for any replies.

The whole point of the website is to cut down on the mountain of correspondence so I hope you will all forgive me for ignoring any requests for my mailing address or my email address. The website is the next best thing: we can still talk this way even though it might take longer to hear back from me. I am so busy at the moment I’m looking at the website between plane flights, basically. Blaggh!

I must stop rushing around Australia and the world and write some more books. Anyway, to reiterate (that’s a big word for you little kids but your tecahers will explain it) my addresses are the world’s greatest secret for the sake of my sanity. I KNOW you’ll understand! I have just spent nine hours of my precious post-birthday weekend answering my emails and letters. Sad but true. It’s great to have SOME mail, I must admit, because people do say divine things about my books.

In mid-February I spent a very happy three days at schools in Penola and Naracoorte in my own state of South Australia. Then I came home for a mad day and a half before I flew off to France to do a book signing at the Australian Bookshop in Paris. Chloë lives and works in Paris (not forever, I hope!) and she turned 27 while I was there. All the kids in the bookshop sang happy birthday to her so it was a v. happy occasion. Chloë is Associate Editor at Elle International On Line. She is in HEAVEN! She is going to the spring fashion shows this week. I am not fashionable at all. I am a slob! Well, not quite, but almost. Chloë takes after my husband Malcolm who has the trendiest socks in the world.

After Paris I went to San Diego to do more book signings for my new book Whoever You Are which has already been reprinted several times. I was at the Yellow Brick Road bookstore and at The White Rabbbit. I learnt that Whoever You Are has been taken up by the Autism Society for use in their training sessions and that special ed. teachers love it too. Hurrah! I also learnt that Time For Bed in board book was back on the best seller lists after five years. A miracle! I am thrilled, of course.

My last day in the USA was spent in Hollywood with agents, producers and film execs. Very tiring, sometimes ENRAGING, but exciting too. It’s all to do with Koala Lou but I won’t say anything else at this point!!! Just keep your fingers crossed. . .

So I was back home 9 days after I had left and the day after my arrival I was speaking at Writers Week, a major national event in Australia, at the Adelaide Festival. Amazing. And no jet lag, thanks to Melatonin. During Writers Week I met Louis de Bernieres, the author of my currently favourite adult novel: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. In the USA its title is Corelli’s Mandolin. A divine book. My other recent rave adult book is: The Reader by Bernard Schlink.

On my birthday, 5th March, which was the Thursday of Writers Week, I spoke to hundreds of kids in the morning, including a great kid called Jack Dale whose birthday it was too. In the late afternoon there was a mavellous launch for the Australian editions of Whoever You Are. Busy busy. I was smiling like an idiot all day. It was fabulous!

The rest of my famiy survives in spite of me. Malcolm is fine. And adorable still, after 29 years! Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge (my dad) is still alive at 85 and my mum is fighting fit at 83. And I still have divine friends whose love and support amazes me, especially as we see each other so little due to the busy lives we all lead.

I hope that’s brought us up to date for another month. See ya! Mem xxxx