Innovative, extraordinary, fabulous, exciting – what am I talking about?
READING, READING, READING!!!!!!
The National Year of Reading 2012 has taken author ambassadors all over this beautiful country
- from the outback to the capital cities.
It has brought my much loved writing organisations together as they celebrate the power of reading to open the way to personal fulfillment, community, literacy and fun and love.
Partners include:-
SCBWI – www.scbwi.org
Room to Read – www.roomtoread.org
Monkey Baa Theatre – www.monkeybaa.com.au
Books in Homes – www.biha.org
and more
As one of the ambassadors, I have had the privilege of
-speaking to 1000s of kids, teachers, librarians, parents, grandparents
- bringing the message of NO to School bullying through ‘I Am Jack’ from the ocean to the desert
- sharing my refugee background through the joy of finding home in ‘Ships in the Field’
Having so many adventures and I’m going to shed a tear on 12th November when I go to Canberra to farewell this extrordinary year of reading.
THANKYOU to the wonderful librarians of Australia for a remarkable year.
ww.love2read.org
Loved flying into Armidale in country New South Wales, over green rolling fields with cows and sheep grazing as an ambassador for the National Year of Reading.
My lucky role was to speak to kids and teachers at Armidale Library and to speak to the girls of PLC Armidale in the afternoon.
The kids and fantastic librarians from St Mary’s primary School came along. There were some wonderful I Am Jack fans.
Enjoyed beautiful Armidale with its churches, wrought iron buildings, trees and gardens.
My afternoon with the girls of PLC was especially warm. They embraced ‘Ships in the Field’ and their answers about war and dislocation were insightful. Thankyou girls and librarian linda Kolevas.
Thankyou for my welcome from Library manager Ian Greenhalgh and librarian Merril Newberry and new children’s librarian Trini Angeles.
Beautiful Anna Pignataro dropped into The Hughenden on her visit to Sydney and we got to hang out.
I am in love with her evocative illustrations.
Anna has so many commissions by Scholastic, Little Hare and other publishers but we love working together and she’s committed to the companion book of ‘Ships in the Field’.
Do you want to guess the title?
‘Elephants Have Wings’ watch out for it in 2014.
Anna and I are proud to be SCBWI creators.
Dmitry Kuznichenko layers his art with European culture and Australian sensibility in his evocative work. He joined the SCBWI Christmas party to connect with children’s book writers and illustrators.
It was great to see co RA SCBWI author Christopher Cheng with authors Wendy Blaxland, Jan Latta, Jenny Blackford and Frances Plumpton literary agent and head of New Zealand chapter of SCBWI.
I gave a preview to everyone of my first picture book ‘Ships in The Field’ illustrated by Anna Pignataro, to be released Feb 2012.
Courtney Severini, jazz singer and pianist entertained everyone and it was a wonderful celebratation of the end of the year.
Having so many adventures and I’m going to shed a tear on 12th November when I go to Canberra to farewell this extrordinary year of reading.
