Hello again after a very long silence!

After all the excitement of the Perth Writers Festival and the start of the university semester I was able to make it to glorious Cottesloe Beach on the last day of the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition last week.  I thought you might like to see these pictures of what, to me, was the most interesting and memorable exhibit.  Called 7000 Classrooms this installation is the work students at Perth's Shenton College High School in collaboration with the Hong Kong School of Creativity.  The five metre high poles connected by a single strand of rope are modelled around the image of fault line and commemorate the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.  Among the 80,000 people who lost their lives many were children in their school classrooms.   The installation extends for 200 metres along the beach and, with the passage of the sun from east to west, casts a stunning pattern of shadows on the sand.

It's a moving memorial to those lost in the earthquake and a wonderfully spontaneous and creative expression of sympathy and respect from students here in Western Australia to those in China.

    The Writers Festival has been and gone -  this year with greater success and a greater number of visitors than ever before.  I particularly enjoyed the opportunity to meet and talk with Robert Dessaix about his new book Arabesques: A Tale of Double Lives.  Robert's retracing of the steps of French writer Andre Gide, and his interpretation of Gide's life and its intersections with his own story, make this a  deeply personal and enlightening book, which is enriched by stunning artwork and photographs.

  And it was fascinating to talk with Irish author Sebastian Barry about his latest novel The Secret Scripture.  Sebastian is a wonderful story teller and our enjoyment of that event in the Octagon Theatre was enhanced when he burst into song -  with Roses Are Blooming in Picardy.

Thankfully summer has receded in the past couple of weeks and I am not sorry to see the end of it.  It has been too hot for too long as far as I am concerned and I am delighted by the arrival of mild days and cool nights and mornings.  I feel much more able to write in these temperatures and am currently mulling over ideas for another novel.  Wherever you are I hope the weather is being kind to you.