It will be lovely to see Adelaide again after an absence of some years and I plan to do some walking around the city whilst I’m there, in between being totally inspired by a plethora of national and international children’s authors.

Watch this space!

Highlights were the amazing Terracotta Warriors, the legendary Great Wall, the spectacular Reed Flute Caves (the Chinese certainly know how to use coloured lights and effects), the Three Gorges Dam (an engineering feat of mammoth proportions), the Maglev (magnetic levitation) train which glides along at 431kms per hour and the most spectacular sound and light show I have ever seen, set on acres of lakes with a cast of over 500. Oh, and the pandas of course …

Aside from watching all the movies I had missed in recent months, on our various flights, I also finished reading one novel on my Kindle and started another. As always, writing and reading were never far from my mind.

Since returning home I have been writing an article on the Terracotta Warriors. And this is only the beginning; there is so much fodder for good non-fiction in China that I could be writing about it for months!

After thoroughly enjoying this charming look at life for the older generation, I was reminded of another fantastic movie I saw recently: Hugo (based on the graphic novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick) is about a little boy who is destitute following the death of his father, and winds up (no pun intended) living in a railway station monitoring the station’s clocks. As Hugo faces a bleak future, he inadvertently causes an old man to find himself again after many years in obscurity, and as a result finds a home for himself, and happiness. The cast includes the wonderful Ben Kingsley, Jude Law and the young and talented Asa Butterfield.

To be honest, I’m an action/sci-fi sort of person when it comes to movies but I went to see both of these movies on the recommendations of friends, and I couldn’t be more pleased. In both cases I had teary momoents, something I hate to display in public, but I can’t recommend either movie enough.

And the authors of the books upon which these movies were based have wonderful imaginations and portray life not just as it is, but how it can be.  They showed me that, young and old, we can find happiness in the simplest of things, and that, as Dev Patel who plays Sunny in the Marigold film says, ‘Everything will be all right in the end. And if it isn’t, then it isn’t the end yet.’

1. For all Australians to understand the benefits of reading as a life skill and a catalyst for wellbeing.
2. To promote a reading culture in every home.
3. To aim for families, parents and caregivers to share books with their children every day.

Reading is something most of us began when we were young and which for many of us has become a lifelong habit; one we relish. We read for education, for vocation, for enlightenment and just plain enjoyment.  I love nothing more than losing myself in a good book, and losing time along with it.

But there are those, who for whatever reasons, haven’t grown up with books or learned to love them. Maybe their parents didn’t read or have books in the house when they were young and school text books are all they remember; or they spent so much time on the playing field they rarely ventured indoors; or their interest lies more in technology or electronic gadgets.

At a recent BBQ the subject of e-books came up, not that we had been discussing books at all, it just came up. One of the diners said they owned an e-reader and that they found it so convenient to carry it in their bag and bring it out when they were in a waiting room, on a bus or at the hairdresser. Personally, I would have done this with a paperback (I also own a Kindle). A friend who has never been a ‘reader’ now has a Kindle and not only does he constantly use it while travelling but he also finds himself reading more traditional books as well.

So the point is, if reading electronically encourages people to take up, or even expand, their reading, that’s fantastic and we should encourage it, especially in The National Year of Reading.

So, get into your library, your bookstore, your bookcase or on-line and let’s try to reach those three goals in 2012. And if you need any encouragement just go to the website: http://www.love2read.org.au/

What a great story, full of intrigue and suspense. But of course it’s not truth, it’s fiction, and the writer was at liberty to embellish and exaggerate what might normally have been real life events.

Last year I ‘ghost wrote’ an autobiography for a friend. Betty suffers from Retinosa Pigmentosa (tunnel vision) and has only 10% sight remaining. She also only hears with the help of hearing aids.

Betty’s story is incredible; how one person with multiple disabilities can cope successfully with the challenges of day to day life. But then, Betty literally launches herself at life. She undertakes activities most of us would describe as ‘extreme’. She has bungy jumped, abseiled and parachuted; she has walked on the ice in Antactica, pillioned on a Harley Davidson across the country and run the City to Surf a number of times.

Sounds like something out of fiction doesn’t it? But in this case, it is truth.

Lord Byron, in 1823, said: ‘Tis strange – but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction …’ Don’t we as writers experience some amazing things? Not only do we have the ability to imagine and create, but we can tap into other people’s truths and tell their amazing stories as well.

My first children’s book The Lighthouse Secret was published by a commercial educational publisher who successfully sold the Quick Reads series (each book sold around 2,000 copies) to schools and libraries all over Australia. The only reason they’re not selling now is that (1) the books are out of print and (2) when the publisher lost their distributor they too ceased to exist. I then decided to self-publish my next two books, as finding another publisher was proving to be way too difficult.

When I look back at my self-published books Across the Line and The Cyber Riddles, even though I had both professionally edited before going to print, I am disappointed with the final product: and I don’t mean the covers and general presentation of the book as the publisher Dragonwick, did an excellent job. I mean what I actually wrote. Perhaps I couldn’t have then, but I now know I could do better, because time has passed and I have learned a great deal more about the craft of writing. Mind you, this hasn’t stopped kids – who I have never met – emailing me to say how much they enjoyed my books.

So, would I self-publish again? Probably not in print form. And there are two reasons for this. (1) Cost of publication and (2) Amount of time spent marketing, which is definitely not one of my strengths. But I recently ‘self-published’ two children’s books as Kindle e-books on the amazon.com website: Jessie’s Ghosts and Time Out. I know these books are well written and would appeal to children, but I can’t find a publisher for either of them. I had an agent for Time Out who told me they couldn’t fault it, but they couldn’t find a publisher for it either. And Jessie’s Ghosts went to a publisher who, after I had done significant rewrites on her advice, said she loved the characters and the story, but not enough to publish it. You can find them both at: http://www.amazon.com/Penny-Garnsworthy/e/B007H1P67W

I know there are some really bad self-published books out there. For years I was a member of a writing group where many of the members self-published and then charged ridiculously  high prices for their books, even though some of them weren’t very good. On the other hand, others were and have sold really well. There are several reasons people self -publish including:

• The manuscript hasn’t been picked up by a commercial publisher for whatever reason. This could be that the book simply isn’t well written or the subject matter not marketable, but it could also be because the publisher already has a book on a similar topic in the pipeline.
• The author wants complete control in terms of content, design and timing. I ghost-wrote an autobiography last year which was self-published because the subject wanted it published sooner rather than later. The subject was also willing to do lots of marketing and indeed continues to do so. The book is selling well.
• The author is targeting the book to a small audience. This can happen in the case of a family history, autobiography or just a particular topic that the author knows will only interest a certain group of readers, so they only want a small print run.

I really think the main problem with self-published books is where the author hasn’t had the time, money or inclination to employ a professional editor to assess and edit their work. This is when sub-standard books can be published. But some of these authors are desperate to get published. Most writers (there are the exceptions) want to be published, and for some this process can take years and years, if at all. Some of us are lucky to be commercially published, and I mean that. Some of us submitted a manuscript to a publisher at the right time for that publisher and when that publisher was open to the ideas contained within the manuscript.

I remember the feeling of seeing The Lighthouse Secret on the shelf at a major bookstore in town and the thrill I got when people I know told me they had seen it too. So, if an author has gone down the track of trying to find a publisher (or an agent) for their manuscript and has failed time and time again, then being able to say ’I'm published!’ and see their book on the shelf of a bookstore or library not only makes them feel good about themselves but can validate their whole reason for writing. And who are we to disagree? The reader will be the judge!

So that’s what I’ve done. My collection of short stories for adults, entitled Tangled Tales, is now up and running on amazon.com as a Kindle e-book. I so enjoyed editing the stories all over again and working with the Kindle software.

You can find it at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007CE1BTQ

Penny would also like to introduce her talented friend and colleague, award winning writer Mary Mageau, who has recently released a collection of Australian short stories entitled From Back and Beyond which followed her previous collection entitled Shortz.

Find them at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0062O5PEO and http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004UB3YXK

Recently we saw HUGO at the movies, the wonderful story of Hugo Cabret who lived in a railway station. I so enjoyed the movie that when it came to choosing a graphic novel, I picked The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

It’s brilliant. Not only is it illustrated beautifully and with such detail with black and white pencil drawings, but the story is interwoven amongst the pictures, making it an absolute delight to read.

So, my first experience with a graphic novel is a success – I guess I’ll be buying more in the future.

Last year I spent a few weeks in Greece, one of my favourite countries, and so when I saw The Athenian Murders, which is set in Ancient Greece., for sale at a market I just had to buy it.  The novel is by Jose Carlos Somoza, the first of his six novels to be translated into English, and I just wish I spoke Spanish so I could read his others. It’s a wonderful story which includes another story within the story, and has a delightful twist at the end.

To further feed my habit I recently purchased a little book called WHODUNITS by Bullimore, Conrad, Niederman and Smith. I found the book in the puzzle section of a well known bookshop and it contains more than 100 mysteries for the reader to solve. I’ve only read a few so far, and I’m ashamed to admit I’m not doing too well with the ‘solving’ bit; but I’m having a wonderful time reading them!

You really can’t beat a good whodunit …

But what does scrapbooking have to do with writing? Well, in scrapbooking our writing is called journalling and for some it is one of the most important elements in their scrapbooks.

Journalling tells the story of the photographs we have taken, kept and treasured over the years. It can be anything from a few words to a few paragraphs and it details holidays and celebrations, family history, sports and hobbies, and well, just about anything on our journey through life.

Some of my students like to journal each page of their scrapbook and then they worry they won’t say the right thing, that their handwriting won’t be good enough, or neat enough. I tell them it doesn’t matter if its not perfect, or if it didn’t turn out quite how they wanted it to. Just the fact that they chose to write is important to their children and grandchildren.

And isn’t this true of writing too? We write because we love to, but also because we want other people to read our work - and if we’re lucky, the generations who follow them.