"What should my resolution for 2026 be?", I mulled as I cooked dinner last week. *Relentless Positivity* were the words that flashed in my mind. Not being an optimist by nature, I was somewhat excited by the prospect of experimenting with a different mental mode for the ensuring 12 months but then, I read the news ... It's not going to be easy, I realised. The world events inspired me to get clinical about positive thinking; what it means in practice and how to deal with a mi

If you had to pick one word to describe 2025, what would you say? I'd hasten a guess that no one opted for steady, calm or indeed normal ... Perhaps it was fitting then, that for the final Willow the Wonderer book I left the external world behind and delved instead into the worlds that lie within —  our inner worlds after all are places we can condition and control. Even as the writer, it can sometimes take a while to articulate the essence of the work you have produced. The

Life is ebbs and flows - but how to navigate it all? A video popped up on my tiktok feed recently - featuring a middle aged school teacher sitting at his desk correcting assignments, with the following caption: "My students are asking me, how come I have an email address with my actual name?" His response (sanitised version), "Because I was around for the birth of the email ..." Who else remembers being alive in the late 90s - at the dawn of the internet? A fad for kids and n

Our strange predicament Eight billion people, hurtling through space on the same piece of rock, have ended yet another trip around the sun seemingly, more divided than ever. You have to wonder, how can this be, especially now when we are more connected to each other than we've ever been? Misinformation, disinformation, algorithmically driven feeds (so we all see a slightly different version of reality), inequality, old and new prejudice ... the list of possible causes goes on

Late on Tuesday 12th of August, as the digital screens flickered and refreshed, the latest avatar of our online store came into being. A sprinkle of 'internet magic' later, all our book and gift sets appeared with an extra book - the fourth in the Willow the Wonderer series. We had quietly launched The Gift . New customers purchasing the books online were probably oblivious to the fact. Existing customers, some of whom had bought the first book in the series four years ago,

Let me state it right at the start - The trope we refuse to repeat in children's storybooks is: Boy meets girl - they fall in love - and they live happily ever after…   Replace the genders as you please ... but you get the gist. This trope is not only common but also persistent and pervasive - in books and across every popular art form like movies, music/songs, etc. Prefer to watch a video of this blog? Click or scroll to end. What's behind its enduring appeal? Let's be hones

Reeta and Darren - Sketching out the first Willow the Wonderer storybook Autumn is the perfect season for reflection Summer has come and gone and autumn is taking hold of our not-so-small island paradise of Australia. The chapter on 2024 is not only underway but has almost reached the half way mark. Yes, it is scarely two months away! The cooler change forces us indoors, creating the space for instrospection and reflection - and that is where my mind has mostly been these pas

2024 has a nice futuristic ring to it, does it not? To my ear at least it sounds like the distant future we grew up hearing so many fantasies about has just now come around, and landed right at our doorstop. But does it feel futuristic? To those who have lived through several decades at least, it surely feels futuristic - what with the internet and the miniturisation and digitisation of all things in our lives, it's hard to deny that much in the way we live has changed.   Ind

Willow the Wonderer: Space Odyssey Space Odyssey has officially launched - and with that our Willow the Wonderer picture book series is now three books strong. As I pen this blog, many books are already on their way to little wonderers all around Australia. A brand new addition to their Willow the Wonderer collection and hopefully, repertoire of life's wisdom. It's all the stuff that celebrations are made of but getting into a celebratory mood this past week was not possible