My experience with My Sister Rosa showed me, once again, that I have a much easier time of it if I sell my novels after I finish them, not before. I'm lucky that I'm in a position where I'm able to do that.

If you're ever invited, fellow YA authors, go. It's the first YA con I've been to that was overwhelming populated by teens. Wonderful!

The new prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, while a vast improvement on his predecessor is not doing much, if anything, to slow that process done.

I started writing a novel from the monster's point of view. It has its own difficulties but, I'm ashamed to say, it's much easier writing from a psychopath's point of view than from that of their empathetic opposite.

We still have disgraceful policies on asylum seekers and Aboriginal Australians continue to die in custody.

The acclaim for Razorhurst means even more to me than usual because, let's be honest, Razorhurst is weird.

I've never read a book [ Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon] like it before. Big and sprawling with a million points of view, including sea creatures. It's about an alien invasion that starts in Lagos, Nigeria but, really, that's just the starting point.