Adelaide & second Supanova

Time to catch up on some pics. I stayed for three nights at the Tollgate motel in Adelaide – driving up the hills on the back way heading north, the view was spectacular, over the whole city to the sea –

I fitted in four school visits, to Seymour College, St Ignatius, Cabra Dominican and Kildare. Here’s Ruth Massie, Head of English at Seymour, getting into the Steampunk mood –

Here’s one of the prizewinners with her free giveaway copy of Song of the Slums at Cabra

And here’s Richard doing his shtick at Kildare –

Now I’m staying chez David Cornish and Tiffany, and Supanova’s half way through already. More anon!

Authors at signing

I took a couple of pics at the end of Sunday’s signing (when crowds had shrunk enough for me to get a clear picture!)

Left to right – Jay Kristoff (Stormdancer, Kinslayer), Joel Shepherd (Sasha, latest in the Trial of Blood and Steel series), Colin Taber (Ossard Trilogy, The Landing), Stacey (our guardian angel at Supanova, looking after us and shepherding us wherever we needed to be), and D.M. (David) Cornish with his wife (Monster Blood Tattoo).
Not included – Ian Irvine who’d left to catch a plane, Scott Baker, temporarily wandering, and Steve Worland installed at the Penguin counter.
And in reverse order –

Right to left – David, Stacey, Colin, Joel and Jay.
Great bunch of guys! George R.R. Martin was generally sitting round the corner from David, with his (very long) queue approaching from another direction – but not in the moment when I took the pic. (I was generally next along from Jay)

Supanova Sunday

More pics from the Brisbane Supanova – great Steampunk costumes.

I think that was Deone, but it might have been Mandy. I’m missing one photo, and I can’t tell which. Here’s Lynn (on right) and Nadine (on left)

And Tanya –

Brisbane Supanova Saturday

Flew into Brisbane yesterday. A quiet afternoon for all the authors in the signing area, followed by the Welcoming Ceremony. Yay, I got to play my steampunk guitar on stage, using my over-the-shoulder mini-amp.
Today was mostly signing. I got pics taken of a couple of the best steampunk costumes – Allison Mclelland and Ayano Itaba here

and Adrian Billiau here

There were others but I didn’t have time to produce the camera!
Only problem was that the bookshop sold out of copies of Song of the Slums – good in one way, I guess, but I wish they’d ordered more in!

Last week of Sydney schools

Super-size screen for my trailer and PowerPoint! This was at Rosebank on Tuesday. You can’t see it, but there was a waterfall-style fountain right behind the screen – in the library!

Today’s school was Fort Street (the famous Fort Street, alma mater to half of Australia’s most famous people!). So of course I had to show off Australia’s most famous steampunk guitar –

Supanovas coming up

I fly to Brisbane as a guest of the Supanova there at the end of this week, then Adelaide and Adelaide schools until the Supanova there the following weekend. All the guests and info are at this web address –
http://www.supanova.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Supanova-Nov2013_Mag_Complete.pdf
I was wrong about Tyrion Lannister, the dwarf in Game of Thrones (my personal hero) – instead it’s Cersei Lannister (i.e. actress playing her) who’ll be one of the international media guests.
The rest of this week will be non-stop Sydney school visits – today was Kincoppal in Rose Bay (actually closer to Vaucluse). One of the talks I did was in the library – and here’s the view looking out from the library

Whew! Similar views from all over the school …

2 Pics

A couple of pics, one from the Readers Cup night on the Sunshine Coast –
(The steampunk guitar on the screen behind me was an inspiration for Song of the Slums – I love it almost as much as my own guitar)
Here’s my own guitar at Friday’s school visit to Freeman College.
It was like old times revisiting Freeman and Dom Shalalo – she used to organise a big literary festival every year and invite a whole gang of authors to give talks. Squeezed out of existence by more and more demands on the timetable, alas.

More schools

I remembered to take my camera today – so after missing out on photos of Clancy yesterday, I had a few taken today at Good Samaritan College, Hinchinbrook.

And here’s a photo from the Reader’s Cup presentation on the Sunshine Coast – the winning team from St Johns receiving the trophy for their school (as well as their individual cups), along with Ann-Maree, their teacher and coach and librarian!

Money here, money gone!

Rats! My bank balance just lost over $3,000! I got a phone call today from a school bursar to say they’d accidentally made two payments to me that should have gone to someone else – and could I kindly transfer it back. Alas, it was all true, it was never my money … and I did the good citizen thing. But still, it hurts to be suddenly down $3k!

Steampunk steams in at OLMC

I did school presentations at Our Lady of Mercy College in Parramatta today – boy, was it hot in the afternoon. Had to take a different-to-usual route to avoid Picton Road that had been closed because of bush fires. Some of the library staff are really getting into steampunk at OLMC – well, Jacinta’s already been collecting some wonderful jewellery, and Gabby’s caught the bug, starting with a steampunk display and extending into costuming. Here’s Jacinta on the left and Gabby on the right – some of the jewellery needs a close-up pic that I don’t have.

A great day overall (thanks, Christine) – except that I got horribly lost on the way back! I couldn’t follow my GPS because it (Karen the Voice) wanted to take me via the highway that was closed.