What I wish was on my pile

Publishing is a very strange profession.  We make judgements each day about what is worth publishing and what is not and frequently the ones we reject turn up somewhere else where they are loved and supported and made into books.  So why is something rejected? Well, in our case we reject work that just isn't original enough, or literary enough, or funny enough, or serious enough, or clever enough.  Or possibly all of the above. Just as all readers do, we read with the hope that something magical will happen –- we won't want to stop reading. Lunch or coffee or that walk you meant to take today will just be forgotten in the absolute pleasure of a wonderful, captivating story with characters that capture you and settings so real you can walk there instead.

Where are those stories, by the way?  Please would all the writers who have one like that in their bottom drawer get it out now and send it to us? Just this week we have taken on three stories from the unsolicited pile. It does happen. Three writers who took a chance and sent their manuscript to us, fingers crossed, along with a self-addressed envelope just in case.

More than anything I wish we could publish some more writers with different ethnic backgrounds -- there must be some great children's writers out there with a different point of view, surely? 

On  a different note, I spent Easter with my family on the Mornington Peninsula -- very nice.  Heronswood Garden was just beautiful and I spent way too much time in the garden shop, as usual. Rolled about loudly on the lush green lawn (hmm, avoid cliches ...) with my grandson looking variously for his ears, nose, knees and belly button. What fun to play like a child. I thought about picture books as I read to him that weekend. He likes anything mechanical: trucks, fire engines, ambulances, but discovered when I tried to take him to the fireworks night that he doesn't like 'fire cracks'.  Now there's some very original and evocative language I like ...

A note from your Conductor xx