Catch-Up

"No new posts" I was asked.
"Are you away?" I was emailed.
No was the answer. It was just that last week was a very busy week ... and also I wanted to leave PaperTigers and their new project at the front of the blog for just a tad longer.

Much of last week was spent involved in the BUSINESS of writing and tied up in meetings, with:-
* Linsay, my wonderful publisher, sorting out new writing projects for me to sink my teeth into;
* a colleague from Goulburn with whom I am working on an animation project; Me writing an animation you ponder ... well I never throught that I would write a libretto either ... but i have!
* my web designer - yes, the website for Pa' Christmas Star is underway. That will be live later in March and people will be able to download the complete package for the musical and then come Christmas 2010 (oh yes we are already planning for that) we hope that somewhere in the world the musical will be staged.
* finalising a few SCBWI projects (annual reports, inaugural voting awards, organising our 3rd international SCBWI Australia and New Zealand conference) too ...
* and finishing off creating the book trailer for the marketing collective of SCBWI folks ... just in time for the USA summer holidays! Need a Good Book to Read These Holidays?

Yes ... it was a busy business week.

More will be posted on these over the next few days.

Spirit of PaperTigers Project

Following on from my note yesterday the folks at PaperTigers have just announced today a wonderful new initiative that they will be implementing each year -- the Spirit of PaperTigers Project.

From the website:

The Purposes of the Spirit of PaperTigers Project (SPT)

To donate a selection of books which reflect the aims of PaperTigers, putting them into the hands of children in areas of need in different parts of the world:

Many organizations are doing excellent work in getting books to children through schools and libraries in areas of need, and our efforts are not intended to replicate their work. The specific focus of this SPT project is to select a set of books published each year because their content, focus, and outreach express the goals of reading and literacy, as well as encouraging curiosity among young people about the world around them.

There's a lot more information, including the books chosen this year for the Spirit of PaperTigers Project at the website. Do have a look.

Paper Tigers & Reading to Kindy

The folks at Paper Tigers (and especially Aline) sent to me an email late last year that included the following:

If you want to report back on your reading Christmas stories to the kindergartners, I would love to post your notes to our blog as part of our "religious diversity in relation to end-of-year celebrations" focus. I know this is a busy time of the year, but if you're up for it, we would be honored to share your classroom visit with our readers.

Up for it? Of course I was, although in the hurly burly of gathering the 12 Days of Christmas that appeared on this blog I forgot to post the link. So here is my piece at the PaperTigers blog site.


I should also mention too that the folks there are creating a wonderful project - but more news on that real soon!

Asian Festival Children's Content

I am thrilled to say that I have been invited, and of course accepted, an invitation to speak at the First Asian Festival of Children's Content (AFCC) in Singapore in May 2010. This is sponsored by the National Book Development Council of Singapore.

The goals of the Asian Festival of Children's Content are to:

· Develop the writing and the illustrating of Children's stories and content.
· Promote publishing of Asian content.
· Provide the world with access to such material created in Asia.

Visit the the website (www.bookcouncil.sg) for more info.

And my friend Holly Thompson, the SCBWI Regional Advisor for Tokyo will also be there too!!!

Target participants are writers, illustrators, librarians, teachers, publishers, editors, translators literary agents and producers of media of Asian children’s content. So if you have nothing to do around that time of year ... come on along!

Pa's Christmas Star - a musical

There's a lot to the world of being this children's author - it's not all kids books! I have also written the libretto to a children's Christmas musical - called, as you might have guessed, Pa's Christmas Star.

This all came about early in 2008 when I received an email that contained the following words and a whole lot more:

I am trying to find a collaborator to work on the book, and you came to mind right away. I'd love to work with you on this project if you're interested.

Of course I was interested and so began the exchanging of numberous emails and then a frantic few months of transforming my unpublished picture book manuscript into a 45 minute musical - and that included creating the words to ten songs, a whole lot of spoken parts and the stage directions.

And this past week here in Sydney we had the joy of getting together with Beth. We of course did the tourist thing (this is us standing at the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains), chatted just a smidge about the musical and we ate heaps!

Beth is on the music faculty at Northwest Vista College in Texas, (the daughter of Professor Jill May from Purdue University which is where I used to work) and of course a composer. And Beth's website is here.

I'll have more news about the musical very soon and hopefully this coming Christmas there will be on stage somehwere in the world Pa's Christmas Star.

and this is more of Beth doing the tourist thing ...

12 Days of Christmas, Day 12 - ME

And now the final day, the 12th day of Christmas .... and this is all mine:

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A Vivid Christmas-Eve Memory

I rushed to bed. Me? Never. But on this night, a quiet, nothing-to-do-except-wait night a job had to be done. A discovery had to be made.

I lay in bed, still as a stone, not making the bed creak. Tonight was a night for silent waiting, waiting, until the loving family voices ceased their chatter. It was hard this waiting. It was dark. My eyes were heavy with excitement.

I counted to 100. It was time. Climbing off my creaky steel-tubed bed I tip-toed down the hallway. It wasn't easy, this sneaking down the hallway, dodging the tables and creaky floorboards but I did it and no one heard me!

And then I squatted, waiting for THAT man to come down the chimney right next to me by the fireplace. I counted to 100. Nothing. Maybe a window was open. I checked. All our windows were locked as usual. Maybe a door remained unbolted. I checked them both; front and back. Closed.

If I couldn't see him arrive, I would catch him emptying the sack. I hid behind the lounge, a perfect hiding spot, right in front of our silver Christmas tree. The biscuits and milk and carrots were on the table just where we left them. I waited. Not a sound. I counted to 100. Nothing.

Was that a noise, a creak on that floorboard? My eyes were wide. I counted to 100. No one entered the room.

My eyelids were heavy. I took a sip of his milk. I counted a little and took another sip and then counted some more ... but I never made it to 100.

My head snuggled on the back of the cloth covered lounge.

And that's all that I remember of that Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning my sisters entered.
"Santa's been" cried one.
"The milk's gone" cried another. I jumped up from behind the lounge ready to yell but instead saw the presents wrapped beneath our tree ... but the biscuit and the carrots remained untouched.

I never did discover THAT man. But he came every year – and still does!

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I hope you have enjoyed the 12 days of Christmas memories ... and maybe it has sent off some of your own reflections and memories too!

12 Days of Christmas, Day 11 - Hazel Edwards

For the penultimate day of our 12 Days of Christmas for this year we have Hazel Edwards. Hazel is a wonderful creator of books for readers of all ages ... but especially for children and young adults. In 2009 she was appointed 2009 Nanjing-Australia cultural exchange author, nominated for the Astrid Lindgren memorial award and recevied the ASA's 2009 Medal.
Hazel's latest picture books include Plato the Platypus Plumber (part-time)’ and the new Hooray! There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Having a Birthday Party. She also has cowritten the young adult novel f2m;the boy within.

Hazel offers us a beautiful reflection of her early Christmas traditions carried on today - as well as a Christmas postponed!

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Memories of Christmas

• Christmas was catching up ‘with extended family’ time.
• And food! Family Christmassy recipes handed down, by e-mail now
• Aunty Violet’s shortbread triangles
• Christmas pudding with ‘old pre-decimal sixpences’ which you could swap for ‘real’ money
• Ham on the bone with mustard sauce, and then recycled into sandwiches for Boxing Day cricket picnics
• Silly hats
• Bad cracker jokes
• Trying to fit batteries into toys
• Assembling bikes with bits missing
• Candle carol services in the park

Timing was complicated on Christmas Day because as a teenager, we lived behind our country ‘General Store’ which was open seven days a week, except for Christmas Day and Good Friday. Our Christmas meal was cold, not just because of the 30 degree heat, but because often we’d had to chauffeur elderly relatives long distances.

My mother’s family were tee-totalling Baptists which meant no alcohol. All the oldies loved my ‘butter’ sauce, which ignited with a blue flame really well on the Christmas pudding, and then they had an afternoon nap, after the traditional game of cricket.

And they loved playing games, whether chess, crib, Monopoly, Scrabble or beach cricket. That’s a tradition we’ve continued, with a New Year’s Day extended brunch (10 am until dusk) and cricket match in our park opposite, with flexible rules, elastic team numbers and a million umpires. Height, skill, age and the ability to run, don’t matter. We’ve even had a wheelchaired relative batting with a 5 year old who runs in lieu. Next door, a line of plum trees remained from the old orchard. Those plums ripened about Christmas time and I made icecream served at the cricket interval after the chicken and drinks.

Once I had my own family, my mother ‘handed over’ Christmas to me, including the tree which had been in the shop window. I was fond of that ‘folded down’ stick, and every year we all decorated ‘the stick’ on that first weekend in December – until my family complained. Last year (2008) we bought a new lights-attached tree. It’s quicker, but not the same. The youngest child gave out the Christmas gifts from the tree with some of the gifts being hand-made or experiences. Our children went to the hospital Christmas morning to do the ‘rounds of the patients’ with their father. It was expected that you ‘did’ things, not just ‘got stuff’.

But my most memorable Christmas was the postponed one I had in the Antarctic. Because the polar ship became beset, the Norwegian captain gave all the crew a crystal iceberg ornament.

That was memorable.

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Jump to Hazel's website to find out more about her Antarctic expeditions and also the books that flowed from that trip.

And now there is just one more memory to come for this Christmas Time.