First blog of a new year and it’s shaping up to be quite an exciting and interesting one. (The year that is, not the blog. Sorry. Didn’t mean to get your hopes up.)

In a few weeks on February 1st my new picture book ROBBIT THE JOB-HOPPING FROG will be officially released. YAY! Very excited for readers to meet Robbit.

Robbit’s story is beautifully illustrated by the very talented KATRIN DREILING.

It was also inspired by one of her fantastic original drawings entitled Frog Goes To Work.

Check out more of Katrin’s wonderful artwork at:

Instagram: @katrinartworks

Facebook: Katrin Dreiling Illustrations

Wegpage: katrindreiling.com

This year I will also be finalising another picture book which is due for release by Scholastic Australia I think either late 2025 or sometime next year. Don’t want to say too much about it at present except that it will definitely be a BIG SURPRISE.

Apart from the two picture books I have some other writing projects in mind for this year, plus some exciting travel plans. More about all those in future blogs.

Finally – if you’d like to see what I looked around 9 years ago (and who wouldn’t?) BOOKLINKS Travelling Suitcases videos are now free to access here https://www.youtube.com/@BooklinksQld

As well as mine there are great videos on Narelle Oliver, Jackie French, James Maloney, Gregory Rogers and Kerry Argent. These videos were created back in 2015 by Pamela Rushby.

It’s quite strange to see how much the various rooms in our house have changed over the last nine or so years. Even our front door is now different! (Strangely, I haven’t changed a bit. Talk about Dorian Gray!)

Also hilarious to watch me pretending that I can type with more than two fingers!

If you have any random thoughts, questions, observations, requests, suggestions for blog topics, etc I’d be happy to hear from you. There’s a comment link at the bottom of the blog.

Cheers (oh and happy new year!)
Michael