I’m off to Cairns tomorrow to visit schools in the area and to hold writing workshops in the Cairns Library. I’m really looking forward to meeting the students at Babinda, Gordonvale, Caravonica, Trinity Beach, Yorkey’s knob (such a fantastic name for a school) and White Rock.

I love this area of Australia and it is my dream to live there one day. My latest book The Hidden Monastery is set in and around the rainforests of the Daintree.

It’s been very cold in Melbourne so I’m looking forward to soaking up some of the warmth of the north.

Have you ever been thinking of someone, then hey presto they ring you? Or every time you look at a digital clock the time is exactly 11.11 or 1.11 or 2.22 or 3.33 or 4.44 or 5.55, and often all within one day? Is it mental telepathy, tapping into another dimension, gremlins playing with your mind, or are they simply coincidences?

As we go about our daily lives, we are too busy to notice these quiet, inexplicable happenings. But if you are still for a moment as an author often is, strange things do occur. This is one of them.

One day, when I was writing The Garden of Empress Cassia, I was sitting at my laptop thinking about my main character – a Chinese Australian girl called Mimi – when the phone rang. I picked it up and said hello. There was a pause on the other end of the line then a gruff male voice spoke to me in Chinese.
That was unusual enough, but it was what he said that sent chills up my spine: He asked in Chinese, ‘Is Mimi there?’ My stomach lurched. This guy wanted to speak with my main character! Hold on a minute, I thought. This is crazy! My character is made up, well sort of because she is loosely based on me, but she is definitely not a real person. Or is she? Could it be possible to write a character into a living, breathing, real life being? I wondered.

I was brought back to my senses when the man asked again, ‘Is Mimi there?’

I replied in Chinese, ‘You have the wrong number. What number did you want?’

It turned out that there was only one digit different. What are the chances of that happening? You live in Australia, you dial a wrong number but speak in Chinese and ask for someone called Mimi. The person on the other end of the line can also speak Chinese and is at that very moment, thinking about her fictional character of the same name?
It was too weird to be a coincidence.

After the man hung up, I was still shocked and amazed. Who was this Mimi he was trying to call? Mimi is not a common name and she was Chinese as well.

I decided to call her number. But as the phone rang I had second thoughts. What would I say to her? ‘Excuse me, but..um.. I’m writing a story about a girl called Mimi and I was wondering if um.. you were actually her. Nah, this is ridiculous!
I hung up before anyone could answer.

I have just received word that The Garden of Empress Cassia will be published in Korea. It has already been published in England and Spain. Each of the covers for these two editions have been different to the Australian version so it will be interesting to see what Korea does with the book.

At the end of this month, I will be travelling to Cairns at the invitation of the Cairns Library. I will visit schools in the area to talk about books and writing as well as conducting writing workshops for adults. I love Cairns and was up there last year for a holiday. Not only am I looking forward to meeting new people and being surrounded by the  lush green tropics again, but it will be so good to get away from our frosty Melbourne winter for a while.

I am working on my new novel, Little Paradise. This is a book for young adults and takes place in Australia and Shanghai, China, during and immediately after World War Two. My main character’s name is Mirabelle and her passion is art. She is sixteen and especially loves designing clothes.
It’s important to research properly when you write a novel so I am reading books and interviewing people who are in their 80s now because they were teenagers during World War Two. Out of all my books this has been the hardest one to write. Writing a novel is full of choices. And that’s the hard part. I have so much factual information about that period of time, I have to constantly ask myself, ‘Is this piece of information good for the story?’ And then I have to weave it together with things that come out of my imagination.