Despite my sore back I was immensely glad I went to Stephen Scourfield’s book launch at Crow Bookshop in East Victoria Park.

Stephen is the travel editor for the Western Australian, a daily newspaper in Perth. His day job, he explained, entailed 15 trips per year including a few “little ones” on top of that. Now that sounds like an awesome job, doesn’t it?

Yes, if it wasn’t for his daily routine, which looked something like that: leaving hotel at 7.30am, exploring various locations, returning at 8pm, having dinner, writing up 1000 words, which takes him around four hours, sleeping. Wash, rinse and repeat the next day. Please remind me of his schedule if ever I complain too much!

On top of his travel writing he also fits in his literary fiction work – hec, how does he do it? During the book launch of his second novel Unaccountable Hours (he mentioned his third novel is already in the make) it was lovely to get a sense of what influences this writer. There was his passion for string instruments and landscapes. His meticulous notebooks (he even admitted to cross-referencing them), which he never ever throws out. Wow! I don’t have notebooks, but hey, I’ve got two blogs (I know, not the same thing).

As I said, my hobby is to listen to writers. This ‘Book and Wine’ event (oh yes baby, there was free wine tasting!) was organised by writingWA. If this sounds like something fun to do AND you live in Perth subscribe to their newsletter as there’s more author talks like this coming up!