There are stages in an author's life.
Stages of development: are we emerging? Established? Experienced or a newbie? 
Stages of a project: are we idea brewing? Producing that ugly and euphorically charged first draft? Are we sending manuscripts out to publishers? Awaiting their return? Celebrating, commiserating, picking ourselves off the floor and trying once more? 
There are publication stages too: the excitement of acceptance, various editorial stages, the launch stage, the honeymoon stage, the reality stage, the discouragement stage. We pass through confidence and inadequacy like changing socks; daily and with a certain stubborn necessity.
I've been writing and writing for publication for long enough now (it's about 20 years since I first started sending manuscripts off to publishers!) that I know these stages are more important than I first realised. I used to think they were just stepping stones, jumping from one to the other and if I got the order right, I'd be 'successful'. 
I look back now and I don't see it that way. No. As writers, these stages shape us. 
As we move through them and linger in them, jumping from one to the other becomes less important. Instead, the many and various stages offer space to grow  - both as creators and as individuals.  These stages shape our work. They shape our 'brand'. They shape the way we tell the stories we tell. But they also shape who we are. They become the platform from where we stand to speak, literally and metaphorically. 

I have a new book coming out at the end of this month. Published under my general market author name, Penny Jaye. It's about the cost and challenge and joy of welcoming the stranger. It's both a straight up story about a brother struggling with the arrival of a new sibling, and a metaphor about grace. It's about stages, I guess. The stages we can go through as 'the other brother' in our own story, whatever that may be.
I held my very first copy of this book the other day when my author box arrived early. I patted the cover (it is smooth and lovely). I admired once more the beautiful artwork by Heidi Cooper Smith (the end pages are gorgeous). I held all of those strange, mixed up, wonderful new book feelings in my heart and I felt the weight and responsibility of the stages I've been given. But I also felt the joy. 
I've got some grand ideas to launch this book, and some small ones. I'm sending out emails to schools and playgroups, spreading the word about my 'Book Launch Tour'. Essentially, I'm building the stage from which this story can be seen and heard. It's exciting. It's scary. It's humbling in a way I haven't experienced before. Maybe it's this story? Maybe it's where I am as an author after 20 years in the game? Or maybe this too is a stage.
If that be true, may my heart be soft and willing enough to learn all that comes my way. 

The Other Brother is due for release February 28, 2020. 

​It's on days like this - when the thoughts that chase our minds are full of accusations and inadequacies, half truths and smudged glass, when the things that make life rich are also the things that ache and dreams seem like false and sizzled things - yes, it's days like this that the foot of the cross is such a precious thing. 

Here, we don't have to be anything more than who we are. We don't have to pretend, don't have to try harder, fight braver or say the right things to all the right people. We can just be and know that we have never been loved so much as we are right now. And that, is enough. 

Days like this don't last forever, but the love of God - His call, His claim on our lives, there is no removing that. Ever. And so, in moments like this, on days like this, here is where I sit.

The Omega Writers Conference is always a highlight of my year!  
It's a small, but growing, conference aimed at encouraging, supporting and equipping Australasian Christian writers. I've attended it off and on for a number of years now moving from participant to presenter and have enjoyed getting to know Christian writers from all over Australia and New Zealand. 
The conference itself moves around, so although it had been in Sydney for the last two years this year it traveled to Adelaide and was hosted in part by Tabor College.  I was thrilled by this because one of the speakers scheduled was the award winning Rosanne Hawke. 
So I booked my tickets, paid my registration, made some plans to visit a couple of friends along the way and headed to Adelaide!

The conference was wonderful. US writer Alex Marestaing was the keynote speaker and, as we've come to expect of him, delivered engaging and powerful sessions relevant to writers at all stages. 
It was great to be able to spend the weekend talking books, encouraging one another, learning more and taking a break from everyday routines. 

Saturday evening was the CALEB Awards Night. This year, my novel Camp Max was in the running as a finalist in the Children's Literature Category.

When Camp Max was announced as the Overall Grand Prize winner, I was completely overwhelmed. Just think, a little children's novel could win the Grand Prize! I was thrilled, humbled and incredibly thankful. 
I know none of my books would exist without the support of those around me - especially my family and friends who continue to encourage me to keep writing. And this book in particular wouldn't have existed if my publisher, Wombat Books, hadn't believed it would work!

So yes, it was a great conference. And I'm home again now; back to the everyday routine but with the thrum of thankfulness to God wrapped around my heart. 

It was several years ago now that I received an email inviting me to write a chapter for a new book.  It was to be a collection of stories from mothers - who had served in mission - about what it was like to be a mother in a missionary context. I was interested, but not entirely sure what I would write. 

I think part of this was because I hadn't just been a 'missionary mother', I'd been a 'missionary kid'. To me, living cross culturally because of my faith was normal whether I was being mothered or mothering. 
But I agreed to give it a go. I found myself treading gingerly through memories and coming to sense just how tenderly God held my heart as I grew from child to adult to parent. And as I traveled from Australia, to Nepal, and back again. 

That book came out in September this year. It's called For the Joy: 21 Australian missionary mother stories on cross-cultural parenting and life. It is edited by Miriam Chan and Sophia Russell. It includes stories from mothers living in Arhnem Land, Pakistan and France. My chapter is #3. 

If you'd like to purchase a copy, you can do so from any good Christian bookstore, or just chat to me. 

It's been rather busy at my desk lately, with lots going on, so I thought I'd pop in here and write some of it down!

The 1st of July was the official release date for my first young adult novel, Out of the Cages. It was rather surreal to hold that book in my hands after the long journey it took to reach publication.
We held the official launch on the 7th July, at 7pm (Yep - 7 o'clock and the 7th of the 7th. I didn't mean to have such a 7ish event, but I did like that coincidence.)

The launch was attended by about 80 people and I was able to share some of the story of how I researched this novel and what I learned along the way. 
You can see some photos from the launch over at my Penny Jaye website. 

Camp Max has been on tour and that's been great fun! I always love taking my books to schools and sharing my enthusiasm about stories with children. It's even better when I get to focus on just the one book for the whole session, it gives me (an the kids) a real opportunity to think about the issues and characters. And Camp Max is a great book for that. 

Camp Max also received some exciting news last week: it's been shortlisted for the Published Children's Book category of this year's CALEB Prize! I'm just thrilled as this makes it the third Tania Abbey book to be shortlisted for this book (Water or Goo and More than a Mouse were also shortlisted in 2010 and 2013 respectively).  It's also lovely because I'm sharing the shortlist with Katrina Roe's Gemma gets the Jitters and NZ author Jen Gibbs' The Whimsy Primsy Collection!