I am still on the surfcoast at Lorne editing my novel. Yesterday was the anniversary of the devastating Black Saturday bush fires which swept across Victoria last year. I am sure everyone in this state remembers exactly where they were on that day when the temperature soared to an amazing 46.4 °C (115.5 °F). It was a terrible tragic day when lives were lost and entire towns destroyed. It was a day that none of us will forget.

I was again in Lorne on Black Saturday working on Little Paradise. When I’m on a writing retreat I lock myself away which means no radio, no TV, no news, so I was completely unaware of what was happening. If I had known how high the temperature was going to be I might have been more cautious and left Lorne early. In 1983, another devastating day of fires across Victoria known as Ash Wednesday, burnt right along this coast. I believe the house I’m staying in now was built after those fires swept through Lorne.

Luckily the temperatures have been much lower this year. But I’ve been on my guard as everybody is now. So many amazing stories emerged from the ashes of February 7th. And now new lives and towns are being rebuilt.

My heart goes out to all those were affected.

It is only in the face of tragedy that we learn the true depths of the human spirit.

My picture book The Race for the Chinese Zodiac came out yesterday. I’m down on the south coast working on my next series of novels so I visited the local bookshop to see if they had it in stock. To my disappointment, but not my surprise, they didn’t. Then later, as I passed the secondhand bookstore I saw A Ghost in My Suitcase sitting on the front table being sold for half price. It’s the first time I’ve seen one of my books being secondhanded. I was almost tempted to buy it myself as if it was a child of mine that had suddenly been orphaned and needed a new home.

How silly. Once a book is out there, you as a writer need to let it go. You no longer have control over its life. Some readers will love it, some will dislike it, some will treasure it and keep it until they grow old, as I have done with many of my favourite childhood books. And there’ll be others who will sell it to a secondhand bookshop to begin life all over again.

We writers are highly sensitive people and one of the greatest pleasures is to be told by a reader that their book was loved.

So I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the readers who have enjoyed my books and especially those who have either told me in person, or written an email to me.

Writers cannot live on words alone.