This is the cover art for a book in an outdoor science series I did way back when...
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| The Wonderful Woods Acrylic on watercolor paper Steven James Petrucccio |
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By: Dianne Hofmeyr,
on 5/21/2012
Blog: An Awfully Big Blog Adventure (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: landscape, Wordsworth, Dianne Hofmeyr, page proofs, woodlands, writers' notebooks, Add a tag
What is landscape to a writer? Waterland, Wuthering Heights, Far From the Madding Crowd are novels I read a long time ago without ever visiting the terrain and yet the landscape seeped into my consciousness… strong, powerful… never to be forgotten. If we start with books read from childhood, the list might go on forever of experiencing a landscape for the first time through the eyes of a writer. And this is what makes the new exhibition at the British Library: Writing Britain – Wasteland to Wonderland, so fascinating.
As I experienced the swirls and loops and fluid flow of ink from Wordsworth's pen, Bronté’s neat and spidery hand, Katherine Mansfield’s firm script in her Suburban Fairy tale, Angela Carter’s italic in her manuscript for Wise Children, the neat child-like hand of Lewis Carroll in his Alice’s Adventure Underground and the fat cursive letters of Virginia Woolf writing her newspaper as a child – it occurred to me that I’m becoming unused to deciphering and reading real handwriting. Will our children’s children lose this skill entirely?
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By: Steven James Petruccio,
on 10/6/2014
Blog: the dust of everyday life (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: THEMED ART, woodlands, Steven James Petruccio, Autumn, Fall, Nature, Add a tag
Blog: the dust of everyday life (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: THEMED ART, woodlands, Steven James Petruccio, Autumn, Fall, Nature, Add a tag
By: Dianne Hofmeyr,
on 5/21/2012
Blog: An Awfully Big Blog Adventure (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: landscape, Wordsworth, Dianne Hofmeyr, page proofs, woodlands, writers' notebooks, Add a tag
Anyone who is slightly voyeuristic (what writers aren’t?) will find the exhibition utterly intriguing. Access to so many writers’ journals, diaries, notes, sketches, edits, proofs and musings, is the height of voyeurism. In the dimly lit quiet rooms it’s like being a ghost peering over the writer’s shoulder.
Fortify yourself. The exhibition is huge. But as writers or lovers of books, you’ll be richly rewarded. It moves from rural dreams, to the satanic mills of industry and from wild places to water lands, the city and places beyond the city to show how stories are shaped not just by the physical but the imagined physical. If you have an idea of the extent of the exhibition beforehand, you can set the pace. A break in the middle for lunch or coffee is a good option. The dim lighting, lack of bright visuals and... odd to say as a writer – the predominance of text and need to be up close to each glass case to read the words, even the stance of reading standing upright, make it tiring. But the rewards are there.
As I experienced the swirls and loops and fluid flow of ink from Wordsworth's pen, Bronté’s neat and spidery hand, Katherine Mansfield’s firm script in her Suburban Fairy tale, Angela Carter’s italic in her manuscript for Wise Children, the neat child-like hand of Lewis Carroll in his Alice’s Adventure Underground and the fat cursive letters of Virginia Woolf writing her newspaper as a child – it occurred to me that I’m becoming unused to deciphering and reading real handwriting. Will our children’s children lose this skill entirely? But it’s not just the script and inkblots that makes this all so personal. It’s the very true feeling of knowing how the writer has anguished and altered the words – drawings by John Betjeman overlaid with words, Thomas Hardy’s handwritten insertions on the proof copy of Far from the Madding Crowd, JK Rowling corrections to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. And what must come as comforting to any writer the huge red crossings-out of James Joyce on a handwritten page of Ulysseswhere the amount of red far outweighs the written word.
It’s a heady mix. Interviews with writers talking about landscape, recordings of writers reading their work, poems of Sylvia Plath, Fay Godwin’s haun
9 Comments on Writing Britain - Dianne Hofmeyr, last added: 5/24/2012
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By: jrpoulter,
on 2/3/2012
Blog: Jrpoulter's Weblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Awards, review, children, children's books, books, illustration, Reviews, Uncategorized, chapter book, Literacy, Fiction, Pets, picture books, children's literature, Animals, environment, Teacher Resource, parenting, farm, gossip, heroes, trees, children's stories, bush, grandparents, wildlife, conservation, launch, imagery, story books, junior novel, Family pet, Library resource, Australian Children's Book Awards, J R Poulter, suburbia, possums, Ipswich Festival of CHildren's Literature, Jenny Stubbs, Woodlands, Linda S. Gunn, Pixiefoot Press, Tara Hale, Aleesa Darlison, Christian Bocquee, corridors, developments, environmental conservation, eucalypts, Nooroa Te Hira, Add a tag
Blog: Jrpoulter's Weblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Awards, review, children, children's books, books, illustration, Reviews, Uncategorized, chapter book, Literacy, Fiction, Pets, picture books, children's literature, Animals, environment, Teacher Resource, parenting, farm, gossip, heroes, trees, children's stories, bush, grandparents, wildlife, conservation, launch, imagery, story books, junior novel, Family pet, Library resource, Australian Children's Book Awards, J R Poulter, suburbia, possums, Ipswich Festival of CHildren's Literature, Jenny Stubbs, Woodlands, Linda S. Gunn, Pixiefoot Press, Tara Hale, Aleesa Darlison, Christian Bocquee, corridors, developments, environmental conservation, eucalypts, Nooroa Te Hira, Add a tag
When Jenny Stubbs, Festival Coordinator Extraordinaire, told me I had a slot to launch ”All in the Woods” I was ecstatic! It was my first book to be published in the UK and a launch venue at the Ipswich Festival of Children’s Literature, Woodlands, was almost too good to be true. Jenny facilitated a link to Aleesa Darlison who agreed to MC. BRILLIANT! What could go wrong?
The Ipswich Festival is always an exciting event! It is held at Woodlands, a stunning, heritage listed venue set amongst rural fields, magnificent trees and rolling hills – what a setting for a launch! The lead up to the day, Tuesday, 13th September 2011, was a real buzz! Then the unthinkable happened… The weekend before, my throat started to get that irritating little scratch and that niggly cough that sometime precedes worse. Sunday night it started to hit! Laryngitis!
Friends, good friends can be the saving of such worst case scenarios. I spoke (whilst I still had a voice) to Tara Hale, who designed the promo poster, would she be Guest Artist “Pink” the possum [cousin of "Ink" the animal hero of my book]. Next I contacted Nooroa Te Hira, he has worked as a tour guide so I knew he would ace a reading of my book. Then I rang Christian Bocquee and asked would he help with nitty grittys like directing teachers and students to seats, distributing prizes and being event photographer! Bless them, they all ‘volunteered’ unstintingly!
Result? Fun, fun, fun! We had a ball, the book launch was a total success! The author having to use copious amounts of sign language but, hey, she has 5 kids so she speaks the lingo with hands and fingers! 
You can see some of the fun in the gallery below. [Sadly, Pink, being a nocturnal creature, was shy of the camera flash and hid!]
And the book, which was illustrated by wonderful watercolourist Linda Gunn? It had been a truly international effort – written by an Aussie, illustrated by an American and published by a Brit! The icing on the cake was a nomination for the OPSO Award!
Here is a recent review by Kathy Schneider!
Where can you get it? Here!
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By: jrpoulter,
on 9/24/2009
Blog: Jrpoulter's Weblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: children, children's books, books, science fiction, illustration, Reading, Poetry, humour, Fiction, picture books, young adult fiction, teen fiction, Writing, inspiration, fantasy, drawing, children's literature, Teacher Resource, Reviewing, children's stories, play, verse, book festivals, performance, MS Readathon, imagery, story books, SCWBI, humorous verse, nonsense verse, children's verse, narrative verse, humorous poetry, J.R.Poulter, Library resource, Australian Children's Book Awards, Awards for literature, creative writing workshops, creative arts, Dee White, The Book Garden, Book Safari, Jenny Stubbs, Cheryl Gwyther, Douglas Fussell, Helen Ross, Ipsweich, John Moffatt, Julie Nickerson, Justin D'Ath, Kristina Schulz, Lachlan Creagh, Lee Fullarton, Leonie Tyle, Lucia Masciullo, Lynelle Westlake, Miss Helen Books, Peter Taylor, Robyn Sheahan-Bright, Woodlands, Add a tag
Blog: Jrpoulter's Weblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: children, children's books, books, science fiction, illustration, Reading, Poetry, humour, Fiction, picture books, young adult fiction, teen fiction, Writing, inspiration, fantasy, drawing, children's literature, Teacher Resource, Reviewing, children's stories, play, verse, book festivals, performance, MS Readathon, imagery, story books, SCWBI, humorous verse, nonsense verse, children's verse, narrative verse, humorous poetry, J.R.Poulter, Library resource, Australian Children's Book Awards, Awards for literature, creative writing workshops, creative arts, Dee White, The Book Garden, Book Safari, Jenny Stubbs, Cheryl Gwyther, Douglas Fussell, Helen Ross, Ipsweich, John Moffatt, Julie Nickerson, Justin D'Ath, Kristina Schulz, Lachlan Creagh, Lee Fullarton, Leonie Tyle, Lucia Masciullo, Lynelle Westlake, Miss Helen Books, Peter Taylor, Robyn Sheahan-Bright, Woodlands, Add a tag
Peter Taylor, the multi-talented SCWBI Coordinator , Queensland chapter, and the Book Safari Coordinator, the inimitable Jenny Stubbs roped me in to help with the Book Safari tents at Woodlands. This was a first for me and proved to be an excellent networking and promotional activity. Opportunity abounded to talk to lots of teachers, students and other writers, illustrators, publishers and editors. In other words it was reading, hearing, viewing and doing STORIES, pretty much non stop!
Here is a pictorial overview from the days I was there – 2nd, 3rd and 5th of September. PHOTOGRAPHS: 1-3 Woodlands;
Woodlands, Ipswich from the approach road
The heritage listed Homestead with the Book Safari banner at the entrance
Why it is called Woodlands.
4-6 Editors, Presenters, Writers and more…
Kristina Schulz, UQP, Leonie Tyle, Random House, Dr. Robyn Sheahan-Bright
Julie Nickerson, Cheryl Gwyther, Dee White
Justin D'Ath's very unique book launch
7-9 Illustrators and workshops…
Behaving like Wild Things at the mask making workshop with Lee Fullarton
Lucia Masciullo shows us her new books x 2
Lachlan Creagh inspires us with his own brand of wild things
10-13 The nomads at their tents…
Peter Taylor,writer, illustrator, calligrapher and SCWBI coordinator
Author/illustrators, Helen Ross of Miss Helen Books and Lynelle Z. Westlake
Lynelle Z. Westlake using every spare minute to create!
J.R.Poulter + books, Peter Taylor not losing a moment in the background
Jenny Stubbs and Book Safari Coordinators in hand-painted, South African t-shirts designed for the festival
MS Readathon Tent
14 & 15 Jenny Stubbs and the Coordinating Team outside the Jacaranda Room; MS Readathon Tent
16 – 19 The people who keep the writers and illustrators viable – the amazing folk of the BOOK GARDEN!
0 Comments on Book Safari – the Journey to Woodlands! as of 9/24/2009 1:51:00 AM
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It sounds wonderful. Yet another reason to get myself up to London!
At the moment I'm enjoying the snowy landscapes of The Box of Delights...which I reckon must have been an influence on the snowy Buckinghamshire of The Dark is Rising decades later.
It IS wonderful Sue and worth a visit but needs time and energy. And I've never read The Box of Delights Emma but The Dark is Rising was another of those books where one has a sense of knowing the landscape before ever having set foot in it. I suppose growing up in another country has done this for me. When you see the landscape for the first time, you feel you've been there before in another life.
Last night I read a book by children's author Joan Lennon - one of her "Wickit Chronicles" and was bowled over by her descriptions of Ely and the fens.
Her hero goes punting around in the mist-covered marshes: "Away to the east the sun hung, still low in the sky, making everything spark and glint. The air was thin and bright and smelled of thin ice and the distant tang of the sea..." Wonderfully evocative (and a fantastic and very humorous adventure story).
Great description. Joan will be delighted with yr comment. She writes very amusing blogs too.
Great description. Joan will be delighted with yr comment. She writes very amusing blogs too.
Wow! Thanks so much Emma and Dianne! You've made my day!