From my study

My study looks out onto a rather wild tropical-looking garden. The Italian pillars that hold up overgrown wisteria vines, and the Balinese stone figures have no trouble sitting side by side. I've positioned my desk so I look out across the most formal paved sandstone area, into the 'jungle'. There are palm trees in preponderance, lots of bushes of the take-care-of-themselves variety, as well as a fair number of hydrangeas that I favour.

When it's not too hot, I sit outside to do my editing where the sound of a reticulating fountain, which my landscape gardener brother gave me as a present a few Christmases ago, is always so soothing.

I love to travel but it is always wonderful to sit here at my desk again and look out into this restful garden and note what's in flower and what's not and plan the next section of my garden. But travel I do and I must admit to a certain restlessness if more then six months go by without some sort of journey.

A trip to China in April 2001 was full of surprises. The city of Shanghai looked more like New York than Sydney as we motored in from the airport. My book The River - a picture storybook set by the Yangtse River with Stanley Wong's impressively 'Chinese' illustrations gracing its pages - was launched at the Linking Latitudes Conference, as a special event at the art deco Peace Hotel, a fabulous location.

A return trip in December 2001 confirmed my good impression of Shanghai, with its museums, restaurants and oh so wonderful markets, as an energetic and thriving city. And a short visit to Beijing, this time under snow, only makes me want to return to spend more time. Though I did see The Forbidden City, I still have not been to the Great Wall planned for a repeat visit, and the Entombed Warrior site is a must.

Continuing trips to Asia, in 2003 I visited South Korea, enjoying the city of Seoul where I was on the lookout for a story for the series of six Asian stories I plan to do. A visit to the Tokebi Theatre for their play Tokebi Storm, which was peopled by wild drummers, has inspired me with a drum story.

In 2004, a magical visit to Vietnam meant I went from the north, beginning at Sapa and visiting villages of the hill tribes there, to Hanoi with its fabulous temples, then further down to a seaside resort at Hoi-an that has a resident elephant, right down to marvellous, chaotic Saigon (or Ho Chi Min city as it is now called). I’m now corresponding with a school girl from Sapa who is keen to improve her English. It was great to meet her family.

The most recent trip to the United States in 2004, was to be present at the opera version of my picture storybook Sky Sash So Blue which was staged in Birmingham, Alabama. Composed by Phillip Ratliffe and directed by Lea Wolf, it was an amazing interpretation of my story and illustrator Benny Andrew’s marvellous artwork. A visit to the Civil Rights Museum whilst in Birmingham was both sobering and inspiring, reminding me that it was not so long ago, that African Americans had to fight for the right to attend the same schools, even the same restaurants as white people.

The opera Sky Sash So Blue was well received and is now funded for 2005 as well. After a short stay in historic Savannah we visited Boston and went to nearby Salem where we visited house of writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne. This was a wonderful setting for many of his novels. And I was to find out that his name was once Hathorne (the same as my name with an‘e’added). He added the ‘w’ because he was ashamed to be related to the hanging judge of the Salem Witch Trials whose name was- you may have guessed it- was John Hathorne. Then on to New York and my favourite museums the MOMA recently revitalized with a stunning new addition and revamped interior; and the Metropolitan Museum. Looking at works of art both contemporary and from the past, always seems to inspire me to write! Perhaps that’s really why I like to hang out at museums in whatever city I visit.

A trip to Tokyo, Japan in 2007, helped me enormously with a wonderful project I’m undertaking in schools both here and internationally, called 100 Views. It is inspired by the Japanese artist, Hokusai’s One Hundred Views of Mt Fuji. I devise a way with the school that students can undertake a hundred views of their own community, and celebrate it with poetry, artwork and a Festival! See 100Views.com.au