Sunday, May 23, 2010

Literature Live! And Other Literary Firsts

Nina Rycroft, illustrious, industrious and totally ingenious illustrator, via Video conference from Blaxland Public School (above).


Susanne Gervay, Jeni Mawter and Laurine Croasdale (above) reviewing our VC practise session.

Literature Live!, that's the name of the video conferencing festival that several authors/illustrators and myself are putting together with e-lit.

We had our first training session today, connecting Blaxland Public School and Balgowlah Heights Public School. I'm happy to say all the technology worked, the children were absolutely brilliant and all went well. Our next training session will be on 7 June. We should be polished professionals by the time we're ready to go live to schools across NSW on Thursday 22 July for our Literature Live! Video Conference Festival. We're all thoroughly enjoying the process and the opportunity to connect with classes that we wouldn't otherwise be able to 'visit'.

Lots of ideas flowed throughout the day. The whole experience was fun and exciting. And, if that wasn't enough, it was also my first 'public performance'.

In other news this week, there are several other firsts:

My first author interview appeared in Focus Magazine, which goes to all residents in the Manning Valley and Great Lakes areas. You can view the interview by clicking on this link: http://focusmag.com/fb/mgl/pdf/7.pdf

Susanne Gervay, Director of the Kids & YA Festival on 3 July at the NSW Writers' Centre, sent through a copy of the program - and I'm on it! That's my first listing in a festival program, another milestone crossed off.

Alphabet Soup magazine has accepted a short story of mine, titled, The Summer Swoop. My first story to be accepted by them. It will appear in the November 2010 issue.

And, although it's not a first, it's still a great delight to see my work published in The School Magazine. My story, Magali of Istanbul, appeared in the June issue of Touchdown. Noela Young illustrated the story, which I was absolutely thrilled about. Her illustrations are so clever, complimenting the story perfectly and bringing the street scape and architecture of Istanbul, in Turkey, beautifully to life.

Well, I think that's enough for one day, signing off now...

The Week In Review

This week has flown by! As usual, it's been busy and exciting and I hardly know where to start.

On Wednesday night, I attended the SCBWI quarterly meeting at the Hughendon. Hosted by Susanne Gervay and Chris Cheng, the SCBWI meetings are always ultra-informative and loads of fun. Jacinta di Mase, my literary agent, was in Sydney for the Writers' Festival, so dropped by. There were about 12 of us on the night, a slightly smaller group than usual, but wonderfully intimate.

Serena Geddes, the illustrator of my twins series, now titled Totally Twins, brought along her rough drawings for the second book in the series, 'Model Behaviour'. Things are shaping up nicely and it was wonderful to see the work in motion. Serena is a talented artist, to be sure, to be sure.

On Thursday, I received a surprise in the mail. The June issue of Touchdown - The School Magazine arrived and in it my story, 'Magali of Istanbul' was published. The illustrations were by the wonderful, the amazing, Noela Young. The story has a twist at the end, but Noela sews the seeds of clues in her pictures which perfectly compliment my story. Thanks, Noela!

For the rest of the week, I've been working on the program for our video conferencing training program, which is being run through e-lit. Several well-known authors and illustrators are involved in the program, including Susanne Gervay, Jeni Mawter, Sue Walker, Laurine Croasdale and Nina Rycroft. I'm very lucky to have the opportunity to work with such wonderful professionals. At the end of June we hope to bring a video conference called 'Literature Live' to a large number of schools across NSW. But, for now, we're still learning to conquer the technology.

Tomorrow is our first training session, where we will be linking up Balgowlah Heights Public School and Blaxland Public School. Wish us luck and I'll keep you posted on our progress!

TTFN.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Dreaming About Bats... And A Tiger In Between

Last week I received the roughs for my next picture book, Warambi. It's a story about a Little Bentwing bat who loses her home. Andrew Plant is the illustrator for the project and after seeing his roughs, I've been so excited all I've been dreaming about for days is bats!

I'm such an animal lover, I can't help writing about them. Maybe it's something that comes from growing up in the country, maybe it's just something that's born inside me, but I can't help myself. I'm constantly amazed at the beauty of animals and how special they are. And I constantly feel the need to share the knowledge of this beauty with others, by writing about them.

Today, I took my two year old daughter to Taronga Zoo. Although the zoo is a huge construction site, with so many enclosures shut down and under renovation, there's still a lot to see. One special exhibit is the elephants, with two babies on display. Very special. And when I saw the tiger up and about and sitting right near the front of his enclosure, I just had to take a photo.

This shot is so close up! I was actually only a metre away from this beautiful, giant cat. Luckily, a thick sheet of glass was separating us, not that you can really tell from the photo.

As for my other writing projects, I'm currently completing a submission for the Manly Arts Festival. I'm coordinating a storytime session for preschoolers on Saturday 11 September and workshop sessions for Sunday 12 September. It's going to be lots of fun, but right now, it's also a lot of hard work. Deadline is looming tomorrow.

I'm also finishing off a manuscript, which I'm being mentored on by Kate Forsyth, as part of the ASA Mentorship prize, which I won in 2009. Polishing, polishing... and I'd better get back to it, so TTFN.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Kate Forsyth & Belinda Murrell Book Launch

Well, this one is going to be a hard act to follow! I have never seen so many people in a bookstore before, but then, we are talking about Kate Forsyth and Belinda Murrell, two wonderful fantasy writers, two lovely people, and of course, two sisters.

Friday night at Berkelouw Books, Balgowlah was buzzing! I'm guessing there were well over a hundred people in the store, sipping champagne and beer, browsing books and chatting. We were all there to help Kate and Belinda launch their two newest creations, 'The Wildkin's Curse' by Kate and 'The Ruby Talisman' by Belinda into the big, wide world.

The evening kicked off with an introduction of both books by Kate and Belinda's brother, Nick, a short welcome and thank you speech by Belinda and Kate and a reading from their books. Then followed some more chatting and champagne sipping. And lots and lots of books being signed by these two very talented sisters.

I had the pleasure of chatting to other authors like Susanne Gervay, Karen Robertson, Sue Murray, Felicity Pulman and Laurine Croasdale. I also met Cassandra Golds for the first time.

My launch for Puggle's Problem, my picture book to be released in July 2010, will also be held at Berkelouw Books at Balgowlah and I only hope it does half as well as Kate and Belinda's! Well-deserved, girls, and congratulations! I know you will have a busy month ahead but I'm sure it will be fun, too.

Laura Harris speaks at CBC Northern Sydney Sub-Branch Meeting













Lindy Batchelor, CBC Northern Sydney President (top), the crowd that gathered to hear Laura Harris speak (above).
On Wednesday night, 26 April, the CBC Northern Sydney Sub-Branch met at the beautiful new Abbotsleigh Library at Abbotsleigh Girls' School, Wahroonga. Not only was the venue entirely delightful, so was the company.

We had around 45 people in attendance, one of our biggest meetings yet. Everyone had come from near and far (some as far as the Central Coast!) to hear Laura Harris, Children's Publisher at Penguin speak.

Laura regaled us for over an hour about her experiences at Penguin, what she looks for in a manuscript, how she deals with unsolicited manuscripts (of which she receives around 3000 per year) and the delight she feels upon discovering the next big thing.

Oliver Phommavanh, a soon-to-be-published Penguin author, and a stand-up comedian, was there. Laura told us of her delight at reading Oliver's manuscript when he submitted it through his agent, Brian Cook. Having been in the same writers' group as Oliver for several years now, and having read through many versions of his story titled 'Thai-riffic' I can attest to how funny and clever it was from the very start and how much of a stand-out it was. AND, how much work Oliver has put in these last few months to bring it up to the standards required by Penguin.

Following Laura's relaxed and insightful presentation, we moved on to our AGM where the usual positions of office were up for nomination and election. Lindy Batchelor, our esteemed President, has decided to stay on for another year (phew!) while Wendy Blaxland and Karen Robertson will share the Vice-President position. We had a few new volunteers for positions on the committee, including Antonette Diorio who will be our Secretary, Laurine Croasdale who has agreed to be our Communications Officer, and Poona Bowden, who will help out with the organisation. I'm staying on as Minutes Secretary.

Lots of laughter and chatting followed and a fun night was had by all!