Hey cHEwY gum gums!

So I’m writing this at Adelaide airport, waiting to hop on a plane back home to Sydney. It’s been a whirlwind few days, and I’ve enjoyed every moment of this short interstate tour, my first in nearly over a year. It was quite novel to be on a plane, and while I’m not the greatest flyer, it was nice to see Adelaide from afar 🙂

When I travel for school visits, there are so many perks that I like to tick off. Burger joints and afternoon jogs are a given, but if I can visit a bookstore or two or three, then even better. So I managed to visit some around Adelaide, signing copies of Brain Freeze.

Then I crashed a CBCA SA party, an event where they were previewing the CBCA Shortlist announcement video, shot in SA Museum (don’t worry, the actual announcements were cut out before the offical reveal haha). This was a chance to catch up with SA authors and illustrators, some old like Charlotte Barkla and Adam Cece and others were Instagram friends that I actually got to meet IRL like Mick Lucas. I try to catch up some author pals wherever I go, depending on how hectic my schedule is, so this was a very good coincidence.

And the actual reason why I’m here, the school visits went well. This was my first week of full-on talks after a few in Sydney scattered in Term 1. It was nice being able to talk about Brain Freeze, as well as what happened in 2020. As always, I won a few fans through my sneakers hehe.

If I ever took this all for granted…if I ever grumbled after relentless weeks of touring around Book Week, well…I’m sorry, not sorry. Too much of this can grind you down. But not doing something I love for so long made me realised how much I miss this side of author life. Fingers crossed I can make it to Brisbane in May. As they say, only time will tell.

Hope you have a choctastic Easter!

O.W