Writing Selby Sprung

I'm getting very close to finishing the sixteenth Selby book, Selby Sprung. And when I'm working hard, my office is as messy as my bedroom was when I was a kid. There are stacks of books and papers all over the floor. Jasper has found a new sleeping place, a file box filled with Selby stories. The papers in front of him are the drafts of the stories in the Selby book. I wonder if he reads them when I'm not watching.

Out and about

Disaster! My computer hard drive fried! It just suddenly quit and there was nothing I could do to rescue the things that were on it. I'd backed up most of the important things a week before the crash but some emails, were lost. So if you wrote me and didn't get answer, please write again.

I've been madly trying to finish the latest---and maybe the last---Selby book, Selby Sprung. When my computer crashed, I lost the latest changes to the stories but, fortunately, Selby rang me and helped me get the stories right. So no Selby stories were lost. I should have the book finished soon.

One thing that Selby refuses to tell me is why he wanted the book to be called Selby Sprung. Did he really get sprung? Did people find out his secret? He said that he'd tell me that last story just before the book is published. I can't wait to hear about it!


Australia has some of the most beautiful birds in the world. These are rainbow lorikeets and they're very common here in Sydney. And they're not shy. This group let me get very close to them to take this picture.




Every year in November the suburb of Glebe in Sydney has a street fair. The whole of Glebe Point Road is jammed with people listening to bands, buying wonderful food and clothing from street stalls. Here are a couple of people with their clothes painted to look like the sky.




The New South Wales Premier's Reading Challenge is a program to get kids reading lots of books. A number of my books are on their reading list so I was invited along to the launch of the program. Here's a picture of me, Selby and Snow White at the launch.

June 18, 2010

Hi everyone, I'm in the process of designing this blog and it'll be a few days before I've got it the way I want it. When I'm not playing around with things like this I'm working on the next book about Selby, the talking dog, and another one about Emily Eyefinger, the girl who was born with an eye on the end of her finger. I'll tell you more about my latest book, a book of funny poems called, "My Sister Has a Big Black Beard", later.



Here's a photo of my cat, Jasper, who likes to help me with my writing.







Read more about me and my books at my website.