s'official my darlings

The weekend’s Sydney madness was for a good reason – I’ve just become a member of the ASA committee of management. That’s the Australian Society of Authors which includes the Society of Book Illustrators (SoBI). Don’t worry I’m not going to become a “point of order”-muttering octogenarian oddity before my time! But I do love to organise things to keep my illustrator community together (notice how possessive I am?) and I have Big Ideas about more things we can do. Things that work best for us and the people we need to connect with. But more about that later.

There is also just so much coming up that I need to understand and keep up with. Things like e-books, POD, e-readers, web-based content, copyright and contract issues and that big question – how do we embrace new technology and still manage to earn a living?

So. I’m representing illustrators and authors in Australia, and most particularly, in Victoria. If you’re not a member of the ASA I suggest you have a look at them. Even if you don’t use their resources very much there is a lot that they do behind the scenes. They’re hugely responsible for ELR and PLR and countless other initiatives, and provide enormous support to creators legally, politically and in their everyday working lives. I’m spruiking them but that’s because I think they’re pretty great. And if you are a member and you have problems/questions/ideas/requests then you know who to come to I’ve always been happy to help, but now it’s official.

Did you know that both ELR and PLR are permanent now? No more lobbying to keep them going! Hooray! Now we just need them to grow the pool of money to match the growing number of creators entering it…

So that’s my ASA news. I had a very full weekend of meetings and discussions and of course my friend’s reception which I managed to get back to Melbourne just in time for! Before the Sydney blackouts and baggage strikes. It was obviously fate.