Going on a Bear Hunt
Going to the theatre is always a joy, especially when you have such a delightful performance to take in with some of your favourite little people in tow.
Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen has long been one of my favourites, with such beautiful rhythm in the language, wonderful imagination, and to-die-for illustrations by Helen Oxenbury.
The story was brought to life with much energy and fun at the Canberra Theatre in early May, to the delight of a packed house of children and their adults, and was well worth the trip out.
NOTED Festival
I had intended to take in much more of the Noted Festival this year, but the dreaded lurgy left me tired, listless, and not much fun to be around for the most part of it, and I missed out on some great events. Luckily, I was up and ready for Kids Corner, because I was facilitating Sticky Notes, where budding young authors and illustrators were invited to contribute to a book to be loaded up onto the Festival website.
There were lots of great story starters provided by the festival organisers to choose from, and a healthy collection of kids enjoyed writing, drawing and sticker-ing their way through them over the course of several hours. Heaps of fun!
CBCA Story Creators Night
I was highly honoured to join this year’s speakers for the CBCA Story Creators Night, where I was in the esteemed company of past Book of the Year Award winners and Notables. As I said in my address, being the only one there without any stickers on my books, I was hoping someone had a crystal ball and had seen a stickery future! I really enjoyed listening to everyone’s talks and have some more books on my to-read list (which never seems to get any shorter, no matter how many books I read!).
Emma Allen, Robyn Siers, Anthony Hill, Merrilee Chignell, Stephanie Owen Reeder
Cate Whittle, Gina Newton, Tracey Hawkins
Getting Social with SCWBI again...
This time our visitor was Sunny Coast SCBWI member, Aleesah Darlison, who was in Canberra to do some school visits, make a presentation to the Zoo Keepers conference, and run a couple of writers’ workshops... what a great excuse for a night out!
Here we all are out at The Duxton at O’Connor shops: Nicole Godwin, Aleesah Darlison, Tracey Hawkins, Grace Bryant, and Shaye Wardrop.
Super Charge Social Media
… which leads me into presentation by Aleesah the following evening at Dickson Library: Super-Charge Your Social Media Skills.
I always want to know more about how to connect with the book community – whether readers or writers – and Aleesah had lots of info to share. I’ve got pages of notes to go back over, but, in the meantime, I’ve chosen the goals of keeping my website and blog up to date and posting more regularly to facebook.
Wish me luck.