Her first picture book remains one of the bestsellers at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre in Katoomba. So it was hardly surprising that the centre's director Paul Brinkman was a natural choice to launch the second book penned and illustrated by Leura's Alison Jane Rice.
Arty Barty's Magic Paintbrush is a rhyming picture book printed in the Mountains. Mr Brinkman said it was "great to see so much creativity in the Mountains".
"Her earlier book is one of our bestsellers ... it's wonderful to sell something locally produced," he told the Gazette.
The book was launched at Everglades Historic House and Garden over the weekend, one of the headline events of the Leura Gardens Festival's 50th anniversary.
It tells the story of a shy boy - "wired a bit differently" - whose decision to follow his own creative path is rewarded with a magical birthday present that leads him on a campaign to save endangered wildlife from poachers, Ms Rice said.
"The book is all about acceptance and looking after our endangered wildlife".
Ms Rice has had a long history as an environmental campaigner, a seed planted as a child.
In 1961, her uncle, Sun photographer Robert Rice, photographed her cuddling a lion cub at Taronga Zoo.
She's been obsessed about wildlife ever since.
"That's what planted the seed," she said. "It all started at the zoo."
She grew up to gain global attention for her work with her home-based business, Botanical Theatre, drawing attention to art and the environment and raising children's interest in both subjects.
This year she received a letter from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge thanking her personally for her original watercolour of Prince George and copy of her first picture book, which she handed to them while they visited Taronga Zoo in Sydney. They all shared a love of the bilby, she said, and she was "thrilled the book now resides in Kensington Palace, probably in Prince George's nursery".
"I'm on the right track, that's what makes me happy."
A public exhibition of the drawings from the book will be on display at Everglades until Sunday October 26. The book is also for sale at the Cultural Centre.