Suffer the Little Lambs

This morning we put rings on the tails of all our new lambs. It wasn't a big job, just a matter of rounding up all the sheep, catching the lambs, vaccinating them and then slipping on the rings. But it's important because if we don't do it the lambs run the risk of fly strike, and if you've ever seen a fly blown sheep you'll want to avoid it at all costs.

After we let them go there was a cacophony of sounds from all the animals - lambs seeking their mums, ewes searching for their offspring. Just listen to the racket!

A Year In The Life Of

It's a year now since my book was published. A year of interviews and articles and reviews and speeches and festivals and libraries and book groups and emails from readers. An extraordinary year really.

This photo was taken at the inaugural Melbourne Jewish Book Festival. That's me there on the left with, in the centre, Michelle Prawer from Sunflower Books who was one of the organisers as well as being terrific in the chair, and also the beautiful and talented Maria Tumarkin, author of Otherland.

A year ago I began all my sentences with 'Maybe this book will sink like a stone...'. Well, maybe it still will, but it's certainly caused lots of ripples along the way.

In this photo I'm holding forth at the Brunswick Library. That was a great session. There weren't a lot of attendees but that made for an intimate and quite intense evening.

A year ago I thought I'd be lucky to get one or two interviews, and maybe an appearance at a festival. Instead of that I've lost count of the number of interviews and appearances I've had with one more to go for the year. One day when I have time I'll add them all up.

A year ago I had no idea what to expect. I thought that getting a book published was the end of the road. This year I have learned, thanks to Nicola my wonderful editor, Emma my amazing publicist, and the rest of the hard working team at Scribe, that it's just the beginning.