July 19th, 2024 Silence Broken!

Tan-tan-tara! She lives!

Sorry to have been so silent forso long. Mortifying. It’s the longest time between posts I’ve ever been guilty of. I’m knuckling down to the task right now in the unlikely event that you’ve been wondering if I were ill or dead. (I mean, who reads websites these days? But just in case…) Anyway, I’m neither ill nor dead, just slacker than usual about my website, and busy with real life and other important happenings.

The best news for me—and Judy Horacek, and it’s literally hot on the press as I type, is that our new book, Meerkat Mayhem, which has taken many years to evolve, is now done. It’s at the printers at last. The pictures are wildly funny. Only Judy could have pulled them off. I hope my words match her artistic hysteria. Publication in November. So long to wait. I’m counting the sleeps.

Back to the present. 2024 happens to be anniversary heaven. The noisiest of those anniversaries so far this year, and it’s on-going, has been the celebration of the 20th anniversary of Where is the Green Sheep? Exciting times, considering last year was the thrilling 40th anniversary of Possum Magic, illustrated by Julie Vivas.

Judy Horacek, the sensational illustrator (of Green Sheep, in this case) and I have been busy with media appearances, alerting the world to the longevity of this very simple book. It’s been given a gold cover for this auspicious year:

Much to the delight of my own grown up family, for heaven’s sake, a sticker book of Green Sheep has been added to the celebrations:

And soon a crinkly cloth book of Green Sheep is being released for babies and toddlers. Hurrah!

Earlier, when I mentioned that Green Sheep was a simple book, I wrote ‘simple’ with my tongue in my cheek. People who know nothing about writing a book might look at Green Sheep and think: ‘I could do that.’ My reply is: ‘Give it a go!’ And then understand why it took two intelligent women working together for eleven months to create a ‘simple’ book of 190 words, 188 of which were —and are —only one syllable: ‘quietly’ has three syllables and ‘asleep’ has two. The rest have one. The rhyme scheme is ABCB, which means the second and fourth lines have to rhyme. But the first two lines: AB, are pairs of like things, and the second two two lines are another, different pair of like things. Here’s an example of that tight set-up to show how the connections work and where the rhymes have to be:

Here is the sun sheep.

And here is the rain sheep.

Here is the car sheep

and here is the train sheep.

So! Three cheers for the children’s authors and illustrators you adore.  ‘Simple’ is never that simple. We work hard to keep children happy.

It’s also the 40th anniversary of Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge (note Wilfrid, not Wilfred), illustrated by Julie Vivas, with a special celebratory edition coming out in September. Have I ever written a better book? Not sure. The hairs on my arms stood up when I’d finished it. Even now, I have a catch in my throat when I read the last page aloud. The title, in case you didn’t know already, was my dad’s full name. He had re-trained as a librarian at the age of 66 so he loved, loved, loved it: he had his very own ISBN number! But many years later, by heart-breaking chance, he died of Alzheimer’s, which is the theme of the story of Wilfrid.

Yet another book, Sleepy Bears, illustrated by Kerry Argent, will have its own celebratory edition later this year: 35 years. So affirming. I used to whisper the last verse by heart in the dark to my grandson when I was putting him to bed. It calmed both of us:

Sleep my sweetheart, sleep my bear,

Your cradle swings in the evening air.

Moonbeams touch your precious face

And stars float by with gentle grace.

Sleep my sweetheart, have no fear:

Sleep my darling, I am here.

I’m very grateful for these anniversaries given that the lifespan of most books for children is a couple of years.

At this point, it looks as if 2025 will be pretty boring in comparison to 2024, unless something spectacular and unexpected happens. However, 2026 should be better as it will be the 80th anniversary of Mem Fox, so to speak.

At the moment I’m working on three books at once. I’ve never done that before. (One is already contracted.) It’s both relaxing and confusing. When I get stuck with one, I move to another, and then go back and check on the first and probably cut most of it, and then I go to the third book and play with that for a few days until it gets too hard, and then I move back to the first one, and so on. Sheer madness, really. I notice I’ve used the lovely word ‘hubbub’ in two of the three books, so one of them will have to go. But which word will I choose instead?  ‘Noise’ has only one syllable, and ‘commotion’ has three, whereas I need a two-syllable word, so it’s back to Roget’s Thesaurus yet again. You understand, do you not?— that writing a picture book is never plain sailing. It’s a nightmare. Word-and-syllable choice is everything. The plot is minor, and often there’s no real ‘plot’ anyway.

Other lovely things have happened since I last wrote, some of which I’m sure I’ve forgotten, forgive me, because I’ve been so recalcitrant about keeping to up to date. I have a busy family life going on in the background, which never stops. Any excuse…

I won’t forget the thrilling two days I had with the South Australian Premier’s Reading Challenge in four schools in two cities to the north of South Australia: Whyalla and Port Augusta. In each case the entire school came to my presentation, which was different each time, according to the vibe. All my old teaching skills had to be re-born, fast, faced as I was with over 300 children on each occasion, aged between 5 and 12. Keeping the age groups with me, all quiet and agog, was quite something. I found it daunting, I have to confess, but it was so good for me to be challenged like that, and I hope as rewarding as possible for the children, all of whom were delightful and respectful. I loved it. I slept particularly well each night— I mean, I died! I’m not 38 any more.

Below, pictures from the schools I visited: magic children in magic hats, divine teachers in wonderful T-shirts, and cute kids in front of an amazing ‘Welcome Mem Fox’ wall, which isn’t very clear but was spectacular on the day. Thank you to everyone!

Visiting schools is so complimentary I should do it more often. Pardon the lack of names. You will know who you are. Thank you for making me so happy!

Another unforgettable experience was an hour-long Zoom presentation for an organisation in Hawaii: Read to Me International. I had spoken to them on two different occasions, live, in Hawaii, many years before and had loved them and admired the work they were doing. So I said yes to the invitation. (I’m not travelling overseas any more. My lungs quail at the thought of long-distant travel.)

My Read to Me speech wasn’t a normal Zoom meeting. Zoom is fine, in normal circumstances. But I’ve never ever given a presentation sitting down, and I’ve given millions. Hmmm. So that was problem number one. And secondly, I found I couldn’t hold my picture books and turn the pages comfortably from a seated position. This meant organising a neutral background in my house (a bedroom— I can’t bear being distracted on Zoom by the paraphernalia in people’s houses) where I could organise things to my satisfaction. I set up an amusing pyramid, by placing a stool on a window seat, my laptop on top of  the stool, the mouse on another stool next to it, and the microphone on top of a cushion on a third stool. It was homely and wildly unprofessional. Thankfully, no one saw the hysterical set up. The third problem was the crazy time difference between us: Hawaii is 18 hours behind central Australia. At one point it looked as if I’d have to speak at 4:30 my time in the morning. No way! It was 8am in the end, thanks to a kind US-based speaker agreeing to change his time slot.

I never feel nervous before a speech. I’ve usually spent weeks preparing it, re-writing it, and even speaking it out loud, so I know it almost by heart by the time I have to deliver it. But I was beyond nervous about Hawaii. I couldn’t give in to the terror that it might all, literally, fall apart, that the pyramid would fall down, mid-session, which kind of felt certain. In the end it worked. I didn’t let myself down, nor the delegates, nor the two divine organisers, Dannah Bates and Lynne Waihee, whose patience I had severely tried by panicking in the lead up to the event. Both said very lovely things afterwards. However, if you happen to be reading this and thinking an hour-long stand-up Zoom presentation by Mem Fox might be a nice idea for your own organisation, think again. That was a once-in-a-lifetime event.

On the home front, the  family is well, and me too, except for a minor dose of Covid. I’ve joined another brilliant fitness class, totally different from my other brilliant exercise class, neither of which I’ll give up until I’m in my coffin. So, even as an ancient chronic asthmatic, I can still breathe, balance, bend, stretch, lift 6kg weights and survive bursts of aerobic activity, and do all the other tedious things that fitness freaks go on about. It’s OK. I can see your eyes rolling from here. And hear your stifled yawn. Listening to people talk about their fitness is worse than listening to them talk about their family history. (What a pity my fingers never get fit enough to update the website a little more often. Hah, hah.)

If anyone from a Dymocks bookshop is reading this, I’m very much looking forward to seeing you and speaking at your annual conference in Adelaide on August 14th. I have a few funny stories, only for you. I you hope don’t die of cold as you walk from your hotel to the convention centre. (To my readers in Alaska, when I say ‘die of the cold,’ it’s relative. This is the southern hemisphere I’m talking about.)

So that’s it! I won’t let it be so long next time. August 15th is going to be exciting but I can’t talk about that announcement yet.

Lots of love from me, ‘freezing’ away in mid-winter Adelaide.

Mem Fox xxx