Richard Newsome, the author of The Billionaire Trilogy, has been receiving the rockstar treatment from kids up and down the east coast.

The first instalment in the series, The Billionaire’s Curse, won the inaugural Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing and the second book, The Emerald Casket, has just hit the shelves. Nine to twelve year olds all around the country are already hanging out for the final book, to be published in 2011.

Richard has been in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne visiting schools and bookstores such as Riverbend Books, Coaldrakes, Pages & Pages, Shearer’s and The Little Bookroom. Along the way he’s tangled with the tough questions (‘What’s a villain?’) and been given the heads up on the next big thing in kids' fiction: ‘Owls—possibly even skeleton owls that fly and rattle in the night and scare the bejeesus out of people.’

Richard will be attending the Christchurch Writers' Festival in September, and we know there are many NZ readers eagerly awaiting their chance to meet Richard too.