Dawn Meredith - Author

I had a ball on Saturday at my local library. As one of the local authors and illustrators invited, I ran two short workshops on writing. There were lots of other activities to do as well, such as drawing workshops, talk like a pirate competition, treasure hunt, puppet making and book buying/borrowing. Everywhere you looked, kids were excited about reading, drawing and expressing their thoughts in writing. Ahoy, there, ya scurvy lads!

with judge Clare Stuckey. photo by Denzo Guiney A lovely shock I can hardly believe it! I am so amazed and gratified to announce that at the recent Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators conference in Sydney I won the SCBWI Andrea Pinkney Writer award! Apparently I beat some of Australia's best children's authors to win - wow! The award is a personal critique of my work-in-progress, a YA paranormal crime novel, with Vice President of Scholastic USA Andrea Pinkney next month. What do publishers actually want? At the presentation dinner, I was so shocked when my name was called. I am a published author of children's chapter books, but after 20 years and 7 novels completed I am yet to have a novel published. This award means to me that my work can stand on its own two feet. This was the novel which I had decided to write as I wanted to write, to introduce the character and her dilemma in my natural 'voice', which has taken me 20 years to figure o...