Bryon Bay Writers' festival

On the 7th August I will be appearing at the Byron Bay Writers' festival- exciting.

I will read some of my poems and talk about children's poetry. Candida Baker is the festival director and once many years ago Candida was involved in a writing contest in The Age.

In fact Candida was the judge of a small competition to write like Georgette Heyer- has anyone read Georgette Heyer?  I loved her books- occasionally I do back and read one of her novels and revel in the language and Regency world.

It was a time in my life when I had been desperately holding back the urge, the compulsion to write- when my busy family and farm demanded much.  But I knew I could do this.  So I mentally set myself a rule of my own.  If you win this competition, then Lorraine, I give you permission to take writing seriously and set a little bit of time aside to do this...

One Wednesday weeks later I opened The Age and there, yes, there was my name listed as one of the three winners!   Yahoo! 
And the prize( oh how I would have loved some money) was nine copies of the newly reprinted classics of Georgette Heyer( and these are the volumes I now dip into.)

Would any readers like me to print this winning paragraph next time?  Let me know.

I now laugh at such ridiculous high stakes to give myself permission to follow a passion over which I have little control.  But now that Candida and I are hopefully going to meet at Byron Bay, I know that threads do begin to weave into a pattern- eventually.  And I also know that I'd love to write an historical romance in Georgette Heyer style- how different to poetry...