I love reading romance. I’m currently reading The Million Pound Marriage Deal by Michelle Douglas and love it. 
 
Crime is another of my favourite genres. Michael Connelly and Michael Robotham are two of my go to authors. I devour everything written by Jane Harper. 
 
But, there are some books I just can’t bring myself to read. I love Stephen King’s book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I’ve read it three times, but I can’t bring myself to read one of his fiction books. I’m too scared.
 
At the recent Byron Writers Festival, I listened to Ginger Gorman discuss the world of online trolls and her incredible journey researching this phenomenon. I immediately purchased Troll Hunting and had Ginger sign it. I’ve picked it up a number of times to read, but just wonder if I can face learning about the inside world of online hate. I teach Social Media Tactics at university, so feel it is a book I should read, but do I really want to know about this world?
 
What about you? Are there genres of books you can’t read or don’t want to read?

​I’m heading back to Will and Sophie’s story and will leave the trolls for now.

Happy Mother’s Day
 
To all the mothers out there, I hope you had a lovely day last Sunday (Happy's Day in Australia).
 
I slept in…bliss.  With my daughter and puppy in tow (husband was off surfing), I walked to our local café along country lanes in the autumn sunshine. My husband met up with us for breakfast. After brekkie, I treated myself to a mother’s day special – a little chocolate cupcake. No calories on Mother’s Day!
 
The café has a lovely vegetable and herb garden, which inspired us. So my daughter and I walked home and planted a herb garden. I then her gave encouragement while she made a papier mâché mushroom for her school art project. We then snuggled up on the couch, with the fire burning and watched rom coms while my husband went to band practice.
 
Later, my daughter cooked us an amazing dinner (flavoured with the newly planted herbs) and we all watched Jane the Virgin in our PJs on Netflix while the rain pattered on our tin roof. A low-key day. A lovely day. A perfect day.
 
How about you? Did you have a great day yesterday?

It’s the end of an era for me. I’ve been involved with Byron Writers Festival for eight years. Four of them as a volunteer Board member of which two of those were as the Chair of the organisation. At the conclusion of the 22nd Byron Writers Festival on 5 August, I stepped down as Chair.
 
It was an honour and a privilege to help lead the organisation for the past two years. I’ve worked with, and met, amazing people. One of my favourite encounters this year was with a luminary Australian novelist and playwright last Saturday night. I drove him back to his hotel and before we got in the car, he wanted to check that I’d completed my HSC! I think he was checking I was old enough to drive. Oh yes, over thirty years ago. I loved him for that question.
 
The role of Chair has been a wonderful but a very busy one.  There were some weeks when I was working over 20 hours a week. So, with a new full time job, it was simply unsustainable. Also, I think with a change of leadership, comes a change of focus, which I think is good for a community not-for-profit organisation.
 
This year’s Festival was extra special as we had a good representation from romance and women’s fiction including Rachael Johns, Christine Wells and Victoria Purman. They were wonderful and the hilarious Mandy Nolan brought out the best in the panel they were all on together.
 
Next year I’ll be able to walk around the gorgeous Festival site and enjoy it from a patron’s perspective. I can’t wait. Hope to see you there.

As many of you know, I’m the Chair of the Byron Writers Festival. A few weeks ago, we launched our Early Bird tickets and revealed the following first line-up of guests. These include: Manal al-Sharif, Anne Aly, Jessie Cole, Michelle de Kretser, Robert Drewe, Eskil Engdal, Jane Harper, Tom Keneally, Miriam Lancewood, Hyeonseo Lee, Tracey Moffatt, Oliver Phommavanh, Tanya Plibersek, David Ritter, Tim Rogers, Kjetil Saeter, Lemn Sissay, Gregory Smith and Sarah Wilson. The rest of the program is still under wraps.
 
Have you read Jane Harper? I’m a huge fan. Her first book The Dry kept me up reading late into the night. The Dry is an international bestseller and has been optioned by the production company behind the film Gone Girl.  More sleepless nights followed with her second story, A Force of Nature.
 
This week, the full festival program goes on sale and then I can tell you everything. And, maybe, just maybe there might be something romantic in the air.  
 
So, Byron is the place to be from 3-5 August where you will enjoy the wisdom and musings of the 140 writers, thinkers and commentators. 
 

Do you go to the movie theatre anymore? With Netflix available why go to the cinema anymore when you can snuggle up on your own comfy couch with a glass of wine and binge watch so much good stuff.

My daughter insisted we go to the movies last night for a girl’s night out. For us it isn’t a five-minute trip to a Gold Class. Our closest cinema is 25 minutes down the freeway. But, off we went.

We went to see Love, Simon. It was just wonderful. A great movie. I cried twice. My daughter three times (I must be heartless). We then went to dinner by the seaside and it was lovely eating spaghetti marinara breathing in the salt air. Made that comfy couch seem the lesser, lazier option.
​
So which is better? Well I’ve decided both are good. After a hard week of work, that couch and I are soul mates. But, heading out for dinner and a movie, hasn’t really lost its sparkle.​

I’m celebrating. I’ve handed in my last assignment on my Graduate Diploma in Leadership through Coaching and Mentoring.  It has been a hard road. Trying to fit in study around Chairing the Byron Writers Festival, teaching at Griffith University, writing books, learning piano, keeping fit and I think I have a family around here somewhere, has been really tough.

But I’ve always loved learning new things. I’m a big believer in the concept that you should never stop learning. One of the interesting concepts I learned about is a Growth Mindset.  

The concept of a growth mindset was developed by psychologist Carol Dweck According to Dweck, “In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort.” 

Alternatively, “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” 

There’s a great animated YouTube clip which explains this very simply.

I certainly had to use my growth mindset to become a published writer. I went to as many romance writing workshops I could find travelling to Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane to do so. I went to every Romance Writers of Australia conference and read lots and lots of ‘how to books’. Of course I also read voraciously in the genre. I knew when I set off on this journey it would be hard, hard work and that only dedication and resilience (I had four books rejected before I was published!) would see me through.

But, I got there in the end. 

What do you think of the concept of a growth mindset?

Byron Writers Festival, of which I am now the Chair, wrapped up in August (yes, this post is a little late). The Wednesday night (before opening on Friday) the equivalent of a cyclone hit Byron. We arrived early on the site on Thursday morning to find one marquee collapsed, another marquee ripped, lots of the signage blown away and a large proportion of the site flooded. Many people thought we wouldn't open the next day, but we were determined.

Our team worked around the clock (with pumps, gravel, hay and crusher dust) and we opened the gates as scheduled at 8am the next morning. We told everyone to bring their gumboots. And what a Festival...the whole event was magic.

I drove Annabel Crabb to the Literary Dinner and she is a delight. I sat next to Leigh Sales at dinner. She is easiest person to talk to in the world. Just like talking to a friend. I thought I’d be intimidated and searching for intelligent things to say to such an extraordinary media icon, but she is so down to earth and friendly. Meeting P.J. O’Rourke was also a bit of a highlight. And, there were so many more.

I chaired two sessions. Contemporary rural romance author Charlotte Nash was wonderful to interview. I so loved her book, The Horseman. And, Lucy Clark had almost the whole marquee in tears as we discussed the content of her book, Beautiful Failures. I was a little intimidated when Kerry O’Brien sat down to listen!

All in all, we pulled off a miracle.

I'm chairing the Romance session at the Byron Writers Festival. Following are all the details:
​
Romancing the Festival
 
Byron Writers Festival 2016 will reveal the realities of writing romance with multi-published author Charlotte Nash.
 
Facilitated by Festival Vice-Chair Jennifer St George, the Romance session will explore this popular genre and discuss the realities of being or becoming a contemporary romance author. The incredible popularity of rural romance in the Australian market will also be examined.
 
Nash, the author of four rural romances including the best-selling The Walker-Bell series, came to romance writing after completing degrees in mechanical engineering and medicine and a working series of eclectic jobs including building rockets, traversing Pilbara mines and scrambling over Newcastle ship-loaders.
 
Nash used these diverse work experiences to build her romance novels. ‘It's a natural pairing – romance is part of everyday life. I started writing in science fiction because of my technical background, but I found romance stories just as fertile a place to migrate my existing knowledge.
 
Nash’s latest release is The Horseman. Set in the high country, this is a passionate love story of a young doctor and a legendary horseman whose lives become inextricably linked.
 
Nash grew up obsessed with horses. ‘I had the fortune to spend a great deal of time riding and simply being within that culture. Those abiding childhood memories and iconic images of the horse in Australian culture - The Man From Snowy River, Phar Lap, The Lighthorsemen, The Silver Brumby series underpin my these passions.’
 
‘My horseman, Craig Munroe, and his world emanates from these life threads. Peta, my doctor heroine, comes from my adult post-horse life, a more rigid and somehow colder place. The story is symbolic of the two worlds meeting and making mutual sense.’
 
St George says many people are unaware of the enormous popularity of the genre. ‘Romance fiction generated over $1 billion in sales in the US alone and represents 13% of the adult American fiction market. An annual survey by Romance Writers of America also shows that 16% of those buying romance books are men.’
 
Nash’s four novels, Ryders Ridge, Iron Junction, Crystal Creek and The Horseman, are published by Hachette Australia.
 
Romance writing isn’t Nash’s only writing passion. She has been nominated for Ditmar and Aurealis awards for her speculative fiction.
 
The Romance session is on Festival Sunday. The Festival is being held at Elements of Byron from 5-7 August with Workshops commencing on 1 August. Visit byronwritersfestival.com for more information and tickets.
 

​Wild For You brings together Daniel, the owner of a Tasmanian wilderness walking company and Madison, a New York fashion designer. Madison has left behind her glamourous life for one week to rediscover her mojo. Little does she know that she’ll end up walking the stunning Cradle Mountain trail alone with hot hiking guide, Daniel. But what could possibly happen in those cute log cabins in the woods?

I walked the Cradle Mountain Lake St Claire wilderness trail a few years ago and it is the inspiration for this story. I walked with Cradle Mountain Huts Walks. The company has been running guided walks for over twenty-years and of course, they have huts.  Huts mean hot meals, hot showers, warm cabins and chilled wine. All this delivered by young, fit guides who take care of everything. Food tastes oh, so much better when you’ve trekked at least twelve kilometers and someone else has cooked.

Madison had to do all the things I had to including carrying her own pack. If she wanted clean clothes she had to wash them in the shower each night for which you pumped your own water.

There were so many highlights on the walk, but for me the greatest experience was climbing Tasmania’s highest peek, Mt Ossa. It stands at 1,617 metres in the middle of the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park. Making it to the top does involve a lot of scrambling over huge boulders. The view is worth it even if you are a little intimidated by the climb (will all those boulders slide further down the mountain as I climb up?!?). From the top, a quarter of Tasmania is visible and not one man-made thing (well there’s an old disused mining road to the east, but we ignored that). When Daniel and Madison climb the mountain, they are in for the unexpected.

The guides on our walk were lovely, knowledgeable and fit.  They were passionate about conservation and taught us lots of interesting ecological facts. We visited a myriad of beautiful waterfalls; explored a disused mine shaft featuring one lonely spider and lots of cave crickets (ugly little critters); held Fairy’s Aprons, sweet little purple flowers; splashed in freezing rivers and lakes; ambled through ancient rainforests and learned about the wonderful array of native fauna and flora. A number of these sites feature in the book.

Pre-order Wild for You now at Amazon, iTunes, Kobo and other e-tailers. I hope you enjoy it as I loved writing this story.