Hello again!

I meant to write this on the Anzac Day long weekend in Australia. I love a long weekend for any reason although I’m sorry soldiers had to die for this one. (Dear foreigners: look up Anzac Day on Google. It will tell you a lot about the Australian character and something of our history).

And I was going to write this in Sydney airport last week, when I had 30 minutes to kill, but the task overwhelmed me. There was so much to say, so much to tell, so much to mull over and sort out that I felt inadequate to the task ~ I was just too weary, too couldn’t-be-bothered.

My days pass with such speed, and the good news is so constant that trying to sort out what I should record and what I should leave out is hard. I question why I need to lay out my life privately in a journal, or publicly on a web-site. What’s the point? Who cares? So what? The point is I can’t bear not to communicate, not to connect with myself and with others, to explain myself, excuse myself, send greetings and be part of the crowd.

But I’m T-I-R-E-D! Should I simply say that I have rarely been as happy as I am now? That I have never been as fit as I am now? That I have never felt as useful to the world as I do now? And then should I go to bed and leave you to wonder about the details? I’d love to do that, so I could get to bed early (my favourite place is bed) but it wouldn’t be kind, nor would it be fair to all the fabulous people who have made me so thrilled over this and that, during the last few months, so here goes: watch me make an effort!

I must be getting old. My sweet Malcolm turned 60 in March with a sensational dinner which will take me several new books to pay for. I wrote a poem for him, based on the Man From Snowy River, about his love of travel. He has been on four trips so far this year, mostly on my frequent flyers, to Laos, Reunion, Europe and North Korea! With Malcolm’s it’s: “I travel, therefore I am,” and all his friends know that, so the poem was received with great hilarity, less for my wit than for the wine that was flowing. It was a fabulous evening. I’m not thinking about my 60th yet, even though it looms next year, but it will be hard to top the joy of Malcolm’s.

Two friends died recently which also proves I’m getting old: my first boss at the university, the one and only John Trinder; and the wonderful Charlotte Huck, in the USA, both of whom were great mentors. I feel I now have to stand on my own two feet, like a grown up.

On the book front, in Come Out, the children’s festival in my home city of Adelaide WHERE IS THE GREEN SHEEP? was made into a beautiful play for children aged 0-3: yep, you read it right—babies! It was adorable. They were riveted by the various sheep and interacted wonderfully, singing and joining in. It was concept of Cate Fowler, the artistic director of Windmill Theatre and she’s so magnificent, and clever, and sensitive to children’s needs I wouldn’t have let anyone else touch it. It had rave reviews otherwise I wouldn’t have told you about it. Only the best of news goes into a Hot News Space!

More GREEN SHEEP good news is that it has been short-listed for the Australian Children’s Books of the Year awards in August. Now DO remember that POSSUM MAGIC didn’t win this award in 1984, so I’m not getting my hopes up, or counting the sleeps till then, and neither must you.

HUNWICK’S EGG, my latest book, has had a splendid start, selling so many of its first hard back print run of 40,000 that Penguin is already thinking of a re-print. It was on the national best seller lists twice and in my home it was top of the lists, beating The Da Vinci Code! How’s that!? It was launched in March by Mike Rann the premier of South Australia, who did a fabulous job of saying lovely things, telling great stories, and making the kids laugh and laugh. Mike Rann is a Labor premier, which pleases me of course, and I’m proud to say the state is doing fantastically well under his government. Am I biased? Totally, without doubt, and I couldn’t care less!

Of course since I last wrote I have also met, at the Sydney Opera House, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and his gorgeous Australian wife, Princess Mary, on the occasion of my being made an ambassador for Hans Christian Andersen, in the 200th year of his birth. The young couple are such an enchanting, funny, relaxed pair that it was almost like living in a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale when I met them. We talked of diets and ironing and Tasmania (where I had just spent a freezing but heavenly birthday weekend with Malcolm and Jenny Darling my great friend and agent). Meeting the royal couple on such a grand occasion was dream-like, looking back. Was that ME? I ask myself. I loved it!

The good news that I couldn’t tell you before, because it was a politician’s secret, but now it’s OUT THERE, is that Brendan Nelson, the Federal Minister of Education has given an enormous amount of money towards the first national Read Aloud Summit in the world in Sydney, Aug.31st/Sept1st. Things are still a little flexible at the moment but if you would like any information, please register your interest in attending or giving a presentation at earlychildhood@dest.gov.au

I could not have met Brendan Nelson who is not Labor, but Liberal, but hey, he’s made sure no one has to pay registration fees and he’s been fabulous about the whole event, so you can’t judge a politician by the Party he belongs to, necessarily, which is a lesson I, in particular, have to learn, dyed–in-the-wool Laborite that I am.

I couldn’t have met Brendan Nelson had it not been for Julie Urquhart who arranged it and came with me when we met him in late January. Julie is the quintessence of a mover and shaker, and as the CEO of the Dymocks Literacy Foundation here in Australia, she recently researched how often and how much parents are reading aloud to their children in this country. The good news was the 98% of parents knew it was a good thing to do (thank you, Mark Latham!) but only 47% were doing it, and not all of those were doing it daily. So that gave a us a lot of information to take to the press and the media ran with the story for days. I was so often on tv (although I loved being on SUNRISE!) and radio and in the papers that I started to get sick of myself. Heaven knows how the rest of Australia felt!

Lastly, my darling Chloe is loving her teaching and is totally hilarious in class, from what I hear, as well as being caring and hard working (I am describing her parents here of course!!). She is also running an excellent political campaign in her non-school time and is enjoying the street meetings she holds in parks and streets in her hoped-for electorate. I am so proud of her: what a perfect Labor Party child she is!

As for me, I am traveling so much at the moment that when I get to the airport and they ask when I am flying to I say: “Now let me think about this very carefully…” I have had a very happy time in country Victoria (outside Melbourne, for the foreigners!) and at the Perth Festival and at a conference on Child Health in Sydney, etc., and am now flying off to the USA for two and half weeks to the International Reading Association convention in Texas, then to Minneapolis, Chigaco and Washington DC. I am so tired and busy that every so often the stress gets to me and I cry, or I swear at Malcolm as I did today. Poor Malcolm! He’s tough, mind you, and can easily stand up for himself.

So that’s that for another day, or several months in my case.

Hope all’s well in your world!

Love

Mem Fox xxx