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I’d signed as an author with one of the major publishing houses. I had my dream agent, who was 100% behind me and my work. My years of hard work had paid off, crossing the right desk at the right time. All I had to do now was wait for the champagne hangover to subside….

I had an offer from my dream agent and I accepted with unbecoming alacrity. I loved Danielle’s passion for books, her depth of publishing knowledge, her razor sharp advice and her warmth. I particularly loved that she put her hand up and said I had an ‘in’ with Penguin without her and that I might…

As I write this, I’m on the verge of being an author published by Penguin Random House, and that fact is the biggest in the room. It pulses with clarity. There is no fuzziness or ambivalence. I’m an agented writer with a 2-book publishing deal with one of the major publishing houses. That’s all we…

So, I’d decided. My formerly contemporary tale of two cities actually belonged in Victorian London. This decision opened up a whole new can of story ideas. It was heady and exciting but it also required an enormous amount of research and work on top of what I’d already done. What if nobody else thought it…

The big yellow house itself Last week I went on a writing residency to Varuna, in the Blue Mountains. That sentence feels like a miracle. This is the first residency I’ve ever done, unless you count my annual winter DIY writing retreats to a modest Air BnB in Warburton; just me and a box of…