SHINY AWARDY THINGS

My shiniest writing career moments include:

• Naturopolis collecting some stickers: 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.

• A satisfyingly mathematical pattern of results in the CYA Competition in recent years:

  First place in the 2022 CYA Competition (pre-school picture book division) for my super-silly manuscript, The Boy with the Hair.

  Second place in the 2021 CYA competition with my non-fiction picture book manuscript Glass Clouds (about Australia’s first female commercial pilot, Deborah Wardley).

  Third in the 2020 CYA competition with an earlier version of Naturopolis.

• Shortlisting in the Just Kids Lit PitchIt competition in 2021, pitching my picture book Daddy-Short-Legs.

• 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!)