Dress-ups and acceptances

The Rowden White Library 70th birthday party of course went swimmingly, with about 400-500 students (and post-students) turning up to dispatch massive amounts of cake and booze:

And staff in their costumed best (we each came as different sections of the library):

Alice Pung made a nice speech about how we are great (yay us), and of course we all sang 'happy birthday' to the Rowdy. There's something nicely absurd about 500 people singing "Happy birthday dear library...". We're still finding rogue helium balloons hiding in corners. More photos here.

Then I got a cold (which sucked), then I got 2 poems accepted at pageseventeen and 1 at Westerly (which does not suck). So now I can feel a little bit writerly when I go the the Melbourne Writer's Festival tomorrow morning to see Kate Atkinson and other randomly chosen sessions (o! the joy of a volunteer's free-entry lanyard).

Comin' over all judgemental

This year I was convenor of the
Premier's Literary Awards Young Adult Prize, which was a somewhat crazy amount of reading to attempt when you're suffering from morning sickness and pregnancy-related tiredness that requires sleep during all the times when I normally read (ie. on the train, during my lunch break, on the train, after dinner).

Yet somehow it was done! Now I have to find room for 65 extra books on my shelves. Although I probably don't need another copy of The Stone Key - anyone want one?

The shortlist was announced today. I think we chose good, go judging team. The winner (not tellin') will be announced on September 1st.

But more importantly, I had to choose a photo to put on my judge's bio - which I thought would be easy enough, until I discovered every recentish photo of me either stars me pulling faces:


or with a silly hat on:
or with bits of Paul's hair on my face:
Finally settled on this one (after cropping out the ubiquitous wine glass).

Phew.