I live in Australia, but I travel a lot, mainly gathering ideas for new books. I also spend a lot of time in libraries, and sometimes in the field, because my two main areas are history and science.I have learned the hard way to choose my locations: a recent book needed some stuff on tardigrades ("water bears") and one easy way to catch them is to use a small hand-held vacuum cleaner to grab them from trees--these are very tiny, about 0.4mm long if they are big, so effectively invisible.I live on a main road, and without thinking, I wandered out and started vacuuming a tree. It worked, but I'm afraid I got some odd looks, some of them from drivers who should have been watching the road better.I write for both adults and children, though I seem to get more awards for the stuff I write for children.Current interests: Australia 1850-1867, gold, fences, bushrangers, odd inventions and quack cures.I have two blogs, neither of them an RSS feed. I'm a bit too busy writing to stay up to speed.Writing: http://oldblockwriter.blogspot.com/Travel: http://mcmanly.livejournal.com/