Losing Her Marbles (ISBN 0 7329 5274 3) is a children's short story I wrote and had published way back in 1998.

It was published as part of MacMillan Education Australia's “Crackers!” series that was designed for children in grades 3 and 4.

It was my first experience of having something published and actually being paid for it, and overall a very positive experience.

I still have the original manuscript, and it was interesting to see the edits made before publication.

The main edit was with regards to the word count, as the original story was a bit too long for the format of a picture book.

But one of the suggested changes was that I originally had the health-conscious sports teacher having a meat pie and sauce for lunch.  It was just a bit of ironic humour thrown in there.  But given the age of the intended audience (and perhaps wanting the book to set a better dietary example for young readers), her lunch was replaced with celery and carrots.

The book is long since out of print, although I did find it for sale on a Chinese website for people learning English and some random listings at libraries.

It was also my first “being recognised by my writing” moment, when years later a teenage girl approached me and said, “You wrote Losing Her Marbles, that was my favourite book as a kid!”