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DURING FEBRUARY I’VE BEEN…

BUSY WITH… Promotion for Beneath the Shadows. So far I have visited three gorgeous independent bookshops and four libraries proudly supported by Dymocks, and met lots of lovely people. I have only noticed one person nod off briefly during my talks (FTW!), and I think I managed to speak fairly coherently to a brilliant turn-out of 80 at one of my local libraries, Joondalup, on Tuesday night.

THINKING ABOUT… Natural disasters – surely everyone is due for a break right now. My heart goes out to those who has been affected this past month, whether by fires and storms in Perth or the earthquake in Christchurch. I first saw the terrible news from New Zealand on twitter, and it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t a good idea to watch streaming coverage. I’ve been very interested in the subsequent debate about how the media should/shouldn’t report such events, I think it’s a really important issue but a difficult one to resolve. If you are interested, check out these two articles by Jonathan Green on ABC’s The Drum, and the response from Lyndal Curtis on the same site.

READING… I am alternating between Lauren Oliver’s Delirium, and Thich Nhat Hanh’s Peace is Every Step (I’m a big fan of the Buddhist monk/Zen master genre!). I’m also desperate to get back to The Distant Hours by Kate Morton.

WRITING… I’ve been working on an article about London-inspired books and films for the holiday goddess travel book that will be out later this year (www.holidaygoddess.com). It’s been a wonderful piece to research, and as a result I now have an extra-long list of books to read and films to watch.

PLAYING… I’ve been building a lot of towers in my spare time, with an array of multi-coloured blocks. I’m busy trying to teach my daughter to understand that ‘per-pol’ is not the default colour of everything, and loving all the new words she comes out with every day.col-md-2

Happy New Year everyone!

For me and my family, this month has been a blur of Christmas preparations, culminating in a wonderful week in Singapore. You can’t fail to get into the Christmas spirit there – it seems everyone has wholeheartedly embraced the festival, and the kids are treated to all sorts of rides, shows and activities. The schoolchildren singing carols in our lobby on Christmas Eve were particularly special. My only low-light was seeing shark fin soup in so many restaurants on Orchard Road. We’re shark fans in our family – in fact, two of the highlights of my life were seeing hammerhead sharks on a dive in the Galapagos, and swimming with whale sharks in Exmouth, WA. Many ocean and conservation experts tell of the plight of sharks and the ecological disaster that is unfolding as they begin to disappear from our seas. Turning the tide seems a daunting task but a critical one.

The New Year has also brought me a new-look website, a new blog … and, soon, a new book! Beneath the Shadows hits the shops in just a few weeks time, and I’m excited, nervous, and busy working on promotion. There will be a dedicated web page for the book on the Random House site that includes a short film, a trailer, an extra chapter, and background to the book, which will be going live in just a few weeks. In addition, I am doing events in the west in February and the eastern states in March – all details will be advertised on my site.

The wonderful team at www.holidaygoddess.com have a beautiful travel book coming at the end of this year too, and I’m very excited to be part of that project. Plus, there’s an idea that I hope to turn into a book draft by the close of 2011. Phew, it sounds busy – but then that’s just the way I like it.

From now on, I will be blogging regularly on writing, reading, and life in general…and I hope to have some guests dropping by to say hello too. Please follow me on facebook or twitter for regular updates.

Wishing you all the very best for 2011.

Sara F xcol-md-2