Danger Dan is going places!

Happy Horse-picious Year, everyone! How did you spend your CNY? Ours was filled with way too much eating, as usual!

First piece of news: the first issue of Danger Dan is now available at bookstores! A kind reader sent me this pic from Kino Ngee Ann City.

Popular bookstores has been dragging their feet in getting our books on their shelves. Bah. Support Kino, you guys!

Apart from that, Lesley-Anne and I have been busy. What we didn't expect was that the launch of Danger Dan would generate so much interest from all quarters. I mean, the launch of my first book, The Good, the Bad and the PSLE, was a relatively quiet affair.

But Danger Dan, true to his character, created a buzz the moment he was officially released. Maybe it's the novelty of a mother-daughter writing duo. Or the fact that Lesley-Anne is only 16. But the excitement started rolling from the get go!

First, we received full-page coverage in Young Reader Club - a magazine subscribed by students.

Then out of the blue, Lesley-Anne received an invitation to be a speaker at the All in! Young Writers Media Festival organised by the Book Council. Her session is on 22 February 2014 and she will be part of a panel with two other young writers. For the event, she was interviewed by Straits Time IN (the newspaper for students). Here she is being photographed with another of the speakers, Munirah Jaafar.

And that was just the start! Lesley-Anne has also been invited to speak at the New Word Order series at the Arts House on 5 March 2014, again with two other young writers.

In addition, we've begun to receive requests for school talks and other even more incredible invites which I will reveal in due course. All this, in addition to starting JC orientation, has kept Lesley-Anne super busy. In fact, her schedule is crazier than mine at the moment! My priority right now, is to ensure that she doesn't overwork herself and maintain a good balance.

Due to the positive response to Danger Dan, Epigram Books has decided to release Book 2 earlier than initially scheduled. So I'm pleased to announce: Danger Dan Tackles the Majulah Mayhem will be hitting the bookstores sometime in March!

Meanwhile, if you or your kids would like to hear from Lesley-Anne and the other panelists how they became writers, feel free to sign up for the above talks. The All In! Festival costs $30 to attend the full day seminar on 22 February (sign up here) and the New Word Order event is free (you just need to register here).

For someone who tends to shy away from the limelight, all this is a little overwhelming for Lesley-Anne so I'm keeping a close watch. But I'm glad that for now, she seems to be enjoying this new path that has opened up. How proud am I of her? Proud as heck! And this introvert is delighted that she gets to do the talks instead of me :D

Afternote: I just had to show this picture cos it makes me laugh! Lydia from Epigram Books (who designs all the graphical elements in the Danger Dan books) had collected the standee and decided to pose for some photos. I'm sure she and her cool dude attracted some attention!