...from time at the beach, up the country and visiting family. While I was away I finished one short story, realised that the back end of another needed chopping off and rewriting, and eyed another drafted one from an amiable distance.

I also received an email from my two wonderful editors at Allen & Unwin, with extensive-but-not-frighteningly-so notes on The Brides of Rollrock Island (possibly not to be called that any longer, but we'll see—bloody titles...). And when I got home, an annotated...