Crikey! I won a RITA!

Well I'm back in town, there's a story about the RITA in the local paper, I've been interviewed on the local ABC and it's finally sinking in that I won!

But I can still see myself standing there on our Tarzali hillside in my gardening clothes, one gardening glove ripped off so I could press buttons on my mobile, and reading Marion Lennox's message: You won! x x x x x

Gorgeous and generous Marion, who was a double finalist and within a hair's breadth of entering the Hall of Fame (if she'd won her 3rd RITA) took the trouble to text me the message as soon as it was announced at the awards ceremony. And then later, as soon as the ceremony was over, she rang me with editors Kim Young and Meg Sleightholme, so I felt totally included.

And lucky.

And blessed. Very grateful to have this wonderful job, to write stories I love, to have wonderful writer friends, sympathetic and clever editors and to have my husband's support to do this job as fanatically as I wish.

Actually, Elliot inspired my favourite scene in Claiming His Family, a scene where Erin, Luke and Joey sit in the middle of a paddock and wait for a line squall of rain to wash over them.
Elliot used to do this with our kids when they were little. They'd sit on our front footpath and watch the rain coming across Townsville from the west, hear it drumming on the rooftops as it approached, smell it hitting the dust. They would squeal and try to run inside, but he would urge them to stay there (in summer) till the rain reached them and then they would squeal and dance with excitement.
Living in the dry tropics certainly teaches you to enjoy and appreciate rain in a way many people wouldn't understand (-- although in these days of climate change, it's SE Queensland that's dry.)