Time to catch up on some news! So, I was absolutely thrilled to be scanning though the Chick Lit Club Pink Thong awards for 2012 and to see Free-Falling included in the winners! My first ever literary award! Apart from the time I came second in an essay writing competition in high school. (The brief was to write an essay about road safety, the prize was a brand new bike – I wrote a rather graphically violent essay. Second prize was a bike helmet. There was not so much I could do with the helmet without a bike to go with it. I feel like they should have rethought second prize. Bitter much? Yeah, I guess.)Aaanyway, I was awarded Best Australian Debut and I couldn’t be happier! I’m still considering going out and buying myself a pair of pink thongs in celebration. That way I’d have something tangible to remind me of one of my best moments!

And what else? Oh yes, my second book has been released! It’s called Paper Chains and the reviews from Book Bloggers so far have been fabulously kind! For instance there’s this one and this one. And okay, just one more… this one too. Each and every one of them make me want to jump up and down like a small child that has just eaten three bowls of ice cream (with sprinkles).

I’ve been invited to by the amazing author Belinda Jones to be a part of a project   called ‘Sunlounger’ – it’s a collection of short stories from over 30 different authors and it’s going to be brilliant!

I was recently interviewed by the lovely Sarah Megginson for sheknows.com.au – so there’s that as well, that’s news, right?

And ‘With You in My Heart’(the alternate name for Free-Falling) came out in Germany in December 2012, which means I’ve been learning German so that I can read all the German reviews. That’s not true. I just use Google Translate. It’s faster. But that’s news, yes?

Free-Falling got a new e-book cover.

We got a new pet bird.

Okay, that’s everything.

That’s all my news caught up.Thanks for playing.

Maddie with Stripe the bird!