Matthew Reilly and Sandy Curtis are two authors I met in Brisbane during the first writers festival I attended. Both were very approachable, my son Lachlan must have made an impression on Matthew because he was remembered the following day and Matthew even remembered the names he signed in the book we had purchased. He is a special guy. I first read ‘Temple’ after listening to Matthew in an interview I was so impressed by his energy and the excitement he feels with his stories I ran out and bought his books, his candour when discussing himself is very appealing too. www.matthewreilly.com this is an awesome website and well worth the visit.

Sandy’s books – which I also enjoy, include the titles ‘Deadly Tide’, ‘Black Ice’, and ‘Dance with the Devil’, her books are crime, action, romance, drama and suspense; they have been translated into German. The German covers are quite hilarious. www.sandycurtis.com  Sandy is now a friend of mine and we speak regularly on the phone and email. Sandy has come to Innisfail and held workshops for the writers group, she also coordinates the Bundaberg WriteFest. www.bundywriters.com

Authors Gary McKay, Helen Reddy, Ida Buttrose and Wendy Harmer were the drawcards at the writers’ festival I attended on Norfolk Island.

Gary writes non-fiction books and I learned he is a master with indexing and other things I am hopeless at. The first book of Gary’s I read was about Cyclone Tracy in Darwin. I really didn’t think I would find it possible to enjoy reading about something so horrific especially since my family had just been through something similar. Do you know what? I thought it was one of the best books I have ever read - about anything.

Most of Gary’s other books are war related or commissioned works, recently he completed a book about Caloundra Surf Life Saving Club for their 75th anniversary.

Wendy Harmer is not only a very funny comedian she is an incredibly talented writer. I’ve read all her books – both the books for kids and her chick-lit (or chook-lit as she has had it called), I have enjoyed every one of them. Books about a fairy in a park named Pearly and then there is the chook-lit… I won’t go into details but let’s just say things happen at weddings in toilets.

Who would have thought these people would be so friendly. Their company was most pleasurable; I even was invited out to dinner with Wendy and her family. We were entertained by using the placemats as drawing paper and playing ‘Mr Squiggle’.

For anyone looking for a wonderful holiday destination I can recommend Norfolk Island, it is a beautiful place with the most exciting history that’s all around you and there is a special circular gallery with the most gorgeous art work, as an artist myself I can honestly say the work in there is totally awesome.

Channel Ten’s ‘State Focus’ programme interviewed me about my books. I had to go to the studio and talk to a woman who was a voice in an earphone. I had to sit on a chair balanced on a box in the middle of the newsroom – people were going about their daily work all around me. It was really quite a challenge to concentrate on what her questions were and give reasonable answers. About six months later Channel Seven phoned to say ‘Queensland Weekender’ would like to do a feature on me. They came out to where I live and filmed www.agforceqld.org.au/HPvideo.asp go to this link then scroll down to 1st March 2008 weekender 4.

Morris Gleitzman… well what can one say about an encounter with Morris – a few words spring to mind: toad, snot and fart. Morris once spoke about living in Ingham – North Queensland – near here. He was young and had a summer job pulling pins from between the cane train bins. A dangerous job to say the least, many a man loses fingers pulling the pins when not concentrating. Morris had an audience while he worked, imagine one man in the centre of an extremely strong circle of light and all around the dark edges sit toads, watching, and waiting, for the unsuspecting young man to lose his fingers. While working and living up here Morris could see the fierce determination the ‘locals’ had in ridding the area of the dreaded cane toad, swerving all over the road in order to run them over. Hunting them at night with golf clubs - this is where he first got the idea for ‘Toad rage’. www.morrisgleitzman.com

WINQ – Writers Innisfail North Queensland. This is the writers group I started in 2007. The first ‘group photo’ was taken at our Inaugural meeting. Since then we have held workshops, written a book together, socialised and was asked to speak about writers groups at the Inaugural Tropical Writers Festival. Busy, busy.

You can find more out about WINQ by visiting www.bookcreatorscircle.com.au heading to creators/writers and finding Jacque Duffy.

General Cosgrove and his team came to visit the ‘If Walls Could Talk’ exhibition. The exhibition was held in the Innisfail RSL dining room opening on the first anniversary of Cyclone Larry, the exhibition created quite a lot of talk around town. The General and his men were most impressed with the artwork and stories, it’s a shame even the general couldn’t shift the Bingo Ladies out of the exhibition space on the Sunday ‘Feast of the Senses’ day. Bingo Ladies play their bingo rain, hail or shine I recon they would play on during an invasion of the body snatchers actually I think those ladies may have already been snatched.

Over 500 school kids came to visit the exhibition and completed work sheets. On one occasion a gentleman named ‘Lofty’ was visiting when a group of kids came in to have a story read to them. He just happened to be the character in the particular story that was chosen by the children. As the story was being read I introduced the kids to the man in the story so they could put a ‘real’ face to the words. Watching and listening to him point out things in the artwork and elaborate on the story as I read it was an awesome experience.