SHINY AWARDY THINGS

My shiniest writing career moments include:

• The Truck Cat collecting some stickers in 2025: CBCA Notable (Picture Book) - (actually…stop press!), make that a CBCA Shortlist (Picture Book) as well as an ABIA Award Shortlist (actually stop press, an ABIA win!… and my heart rate is frankly still recovering). It was also shortlisted in the Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature as part of the NSW Literary Awards.

• Naturopolis collecting some stickers in 2023: CBCA Shortlist (New Illustrator) and Notable (Eve Pownall Award), as well as Gold in the international Nautilus Book Awards.

• Being shortlisted alongside some big kidlit names in the inaugural SCBWI/Larrikin House picture book manuscript competition.

• Winning first place in the 2022 CYA Competition for my super-silly manuscript, The Boy with the Hair (soon set to become a bona fide real book, Bolidlocks, through EK Books!).

• In 2020, I was awarded an Australian Society of Authors Award Mentorship.

• But it probably all started with that first time I ever got to read out my story to the class and realised that my words could make other people feel things. (How amazing!)