Whew!

I'm back from Auckland and recovering from all that talking and reading and making stuff at Storylines.
Thanks to everyone who came to hear me read and asked a millions questions at Kohia, St Cuthbert's, Kowhai and Epsom Normal schools, and Next Page Please bookshop, and also at the Family Day.
I was asked to judge the Storylines writing competition in Auckland and it was amazing to see how many entries there were - we ran out of space on the display boards - but that made it even harder to judge.
The winners were Jamie (age group four to eight) who wrote about a dreaded pirate captain who smelled as bad as a "500 year old mustard sandwich", which is an image that's hard to beat, and Eleanor (9 -12) for her warning about the effect of floodwater on the ocean's fish. Bruce Potter judged the drawings and chose winners in each age group who happened to be sisters - although he didn't realise that at the time - so take a bow, members of the Berge family.
I wish I'd had about a dozen prizes.