It is May Day, which in the old Celtic traditions was called Beltane, meaning bright or sacred fire. Beltane traditionally celebrates the end of winter and the beginning of the summer, occurring as it does midway between the spring equinox and summer solstice.

Beltane is a time to celebrate the beginning of new life, which was why I thought it such an appropriate day to launch my new book, 'The Puzzle Ring'.

It is always a thrill to finally hold a new book in your hands, even after eleven years and twenty-two books. 'The Puzzle Ring ' has taken me almost two years to write, and took me and my family to Scotland, a place I have always longed to visit. Like every novel I've written, its pages hold the invisible marks of blood and sweat and tears as well as immense joy and satisfaction. A novel begins with an idea, a dream, a vision - and it takes an enormous amount of time and dedication to pin down something so ephemeral. It's always a bittersweet moment when that child of your imagination is finally let loose upon the world. I hope it does well. I hope people will read it and love it as much as I do. I hope it will connect with readers' hearts and imaginations, and that it will become the sort of book that lives on forever. I hope it will earn enough that I can keep on writing. One never knows.

There are three things that everyone can do to help make a book a success. Firstly, buy a copy as soon as it comes out. Even better, buy lots and stockpile them for presents for the future. The first two weeks of a book's life are absolutely crucial. If they fly out the door in those first few days, I'll make the bestsellers' list and make my publishers very happy. Even more important, it will help build a buzz about the book and draw the booksellers' attention.

Secondly, talk about the book. Not just to your friends and family, but to everyone. Talk about it online, at sites such as Shelfari, amazon.com and Facebook, or write a review of it for either traditional or cyber publications. The more people talk about a book, the better. Word of mouth is the most powerful selling tool for any book.

In an attempt to build that buzz, I'll be out and about all through the month of May and June, talking and teaching and promoting. The festivities begin with the official launch party for 'The Puzzle Ring' at Balgowlah Heights Public School on Friday 1st May. Anyone is welcome to come along! There'll be a costume parade with prizes for the best outfits, and a delicious afternoon tea!

The Puzzle Ring launch invitation

I'm also appearing at Mosman Library, the Sydney Writers Festival, and Shearers Bookshop, and teaching at the Sydney Writers Centre and Sydney University. Then in June, I'm off to Chicago for the Historical Novel Society conference (I'm on a panel discussing dialect and dialogue!), and then to the Borders Book Festival in Edinburgh and the West End Festival in Glasgow. I then go to London and south-east England for a week, before flying home. Check out my appearances page for more details!

Meanwhile, I was also thrilled last week to see a genuine hand-carved and hand-painted Gypsy caravan, donated to the Powerhouse Discovery Centre in Castle Hill by the actor Jack Thompson.

The Discovery Centre celebrated with two weeks of Gypsy activities, including two storytelling sessions with me. About ninety children appeared at each one, crammed into quite a small space, and then went on a treasure hunt to make their own Gypsy charm bracelet. It was all very exciting and fun.

Kate at the Powerhouse Discovery Centre in Castle Hill

My featured writer this newsletter is the wonderful Cassandra Golds, who has just released a new book 'The Museum of Mary Child'. It is a beautiful, haunting story of a girl who is brought up in a cold, loveless household by her godmother who believes only in Doing Her Duty. Our heroine, Heloise, longs for someone or something to love. Even if it was just a doll. One day she finds a doll - and sets off a sequence of events that will change her life forever.

This book, like Cassandra's earlier work 'Clair-de-Lune', has an otherworldly fairytale quality about it. You don't know where or when the story is set. It may not even be in our world. It is filled with magic both beautiful and terrifying, with the most extraordinary being the redemptive power of love.

I first encountered Cassandra Golds with her second book, Clair-de-Lune, which enchanted me so thoroughly that I've been on the lookout for other books by her ever since. Her books remind me of the old, old books I loved as a child by writers like Elizabeth Goudge and Joan Aiken, and it is no surprise to know that she grew up reading books by authors such as Hans Christian Andersen, C.S. Lewis and Nicholas Stuart Gray over and over again.

She has been writing stories ever since she could first hold a pen, and is also the author of Michael and the Secret War, which was accepted for publication when she was only nineteen years old, and The Mostly True Story of Matthew and Trim, a graphic novel about Matthew Flinders. She has won or been short-listed for numerous awards, and I can only wish that she could write a little faster, as I'm now dying for her next book!

Interview with Cassandra Golds

Are you a daydreamer too?
Yes! When I was about 15 I remember thinking to myself, I MUST try to do something USEFUL with all these DAYDREAMS. I guess I felt they were my vocation. That was when I started pursuing publication in earnest.

Have you always wanted to be a writer?
Yes, for just about as long as I can remember. I wrote my first story almost as soon as I could write.

Where do you write?
Most of my actual working time I spend in my office at my computer. But the most crucial things happen more unpredictably - perhaps early in the morning, or when I'm traveling somewhere, or because of something I've seen or heard, or even while I'm asleep and dreaming. (The core of The Museum of Mary Child was a nightmare.) That's when things in my head shift. They feel like seismic shifts. So I make lots of notes, wherever I happen to be. Then I write them properly and revise them later, sometimes much later, at the computer.

What is your favourite part of writing?
The seismic shifts.

What do you do when you get blocked?
I daydream! For me, the best time for inventing something is early in the morning, after I've woken up but before I get up. I try to let a story tell itself to me.

How do you keep your well of inspiration full?
I feed it (to mix a metaphor)! I'm a great believer in cramming myself with culture - books and films and music and art and poetry and non fiction and anything of interest, really. I read very slowly, on purpose - I like to read every word, and to really drink in the shape of a paragraph. I read prose almost as if it were poetry - which means, unfortunately, that I don't get through as many books as I would like - but when I do get through them I know them off by heart! Lately I've become almost more fascinated by what's NOT there - in a paragraph, I mean - than by what is. I'm fascinated by how writers achieve their effects - make you love a character, for example, or scare you, or compel you with suspense. I also think deeply, and devote a lot of energy to trying to understand - everything, really. And I try to be patient and still and wait until the bucket has dropped into the very deepest depths of the well before I draw it up and drink the water...

Do you have any rituals that help you to write?
I used to, when I first started writing seriously. I was a very disciplined adolescent, and this lasted into my mid-twenties. I used to do everything in exactly the same way - from my daily writing pattern, to the phases of preparing a manuscript. It was all very ordered and organised. But then I went through a long period when I couldn't write at all, and when eventually I started to write again, I found that the only way I could do it was to be much more spontaneous, even a little chaotic. It’s almost like I pretend not to be writing - just, sort of, playing. Otherwise I seem to start spooking myself. The way I write now is actually much closer to the way I wrote in primary school than the way I wrote when my first book was published.

Who are ten of your favourite writers?
Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, Charlotte Bronte, Nicholas Stuart Gray, Hans Christian Andersen, C.S. Lewis, Elizabeth Goudge, Joan Aiken, Lorna Hill, Elizabeth Coatsworth.

What do you consider to be good writing?
This is rather a vexed issue for me. I'm keenly aware that much of what is considered to be good writing doesn't do a thing for me. This does not mean that I believe that, contrary to expert opinion, such writing is bad. It's just that, all my life, I've been looking for something in what I read - some kind of an answer to a question that I always seem to be asking, although I couldn't tell you quite what it is. And unless I find it - this thing I'm looking for - I seem to have little appreciation for the work in question. Or at least, my appreciation is purely academic.

Even if I define good writing as something that has what I'm seeking, it's still a mystery to me. Ever since I was a child I have tended to read things I like with very intense attention, over and over again. But I still cannot work out how the writers I admire most achieve what they achieve. I always feel myself that I'm writing "blindly" - as if I have no idea whatsoever whether what I'm writing is going to say what I'm trying to say to a reader. I know how I feel about the story and the characters, but how do I go about conveying this to someone else, so that they can feel it too? Similarly, I don't know how it is that my favourite writers do it to me. It's frustrating, to an extent, but in a peculiar kind of way it's also something to live for. Pursuing this mystery, I mean.

What is your advice for someone dreaming of being a writer too?
I would say read, read, read - also see movies, look at pictures, listen to music, observe what goes on around you, find out about things and people, have adventures. (Studying dance and music and drama has come in very useful to me as a writer even though I never pursued any of those professionally.) Then think, think, think - about the world and people and what matters most to you. Then write, write, write. Write about what you care about - be yourself in your writing - and be patient and persistent. Writing is a life-long apprenticeship...

My very best wishes

www.kateforsyth.com.au