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 Bruce Finds A Home: Auckland book launch
11am, Sunday 11 February Dorothy Butler Children's Bookshop 1 Jervois Road, Ponsonby Join the event on Facebook. Bruce Finds A Home: Dunedin book launch 10.30am, Saturday 17 February UBS (University Book Shop) 378 Great King Street, North Dunedin Join the event on Facebook.  Alicia Young is pretty much the worst pseudonym I could have chosen. I didn't even google it. I was walking through the fog of infertility treatment and probably not thinking clearly. I wrote a short series about undergoing IVF and having a miscarriage, and it was published on The Spinoff under Alicia's name.
Alicia came out again recently when our PM revealed that she is expecting and I knew that a certain group of women (and their partners) would be juggling some mixed feelings about the announcement. The piece must have tapped into some kind of zeitgeist as it was picked up by The Herald Online and was printed in The Herald the next day. It felt weird and exposing and a bit self-indulgent to share such personal feelings, but the comments I received made me feel as though I did the right thing. "It was refreshing piece you wrote and I just wanted to say thanks. You helped me." "Thank you for putting some of this into words. Know that you are not alone there are many of us feeling as you do, and we are grateful that you have had the courage to write this." "Oh god, yes it hurts. I think she'll be due around the week as I was." "Thank you for writing this."  There will be TWO book launches for Bruce Finds A Home in February 2018 - one in Auckland and one in Dunedin.
Bruce Finds A Home: Auckland book launch 11am, Sunday 11 February Dorothy Butler Children's Bookshop 1 Jervois Road, Ponsonby Join the event on Facebook. Bruce Finds A Home: Dunedin book launch 10.30am, Saturday 17 February UBS (University Book Shop) 378 Great King Street, North Dunedin Join the event on Facebook. Both events are free, and everyone is welcome to attend. At both launches, free activities for kids will include colouring-in and face-painting. And of course, copies of the book will be signed and pawtographed. I hope to see you there!  I've just returned from a flying visit to Auckland where I signed (and pawtographed) the books that are going out to Kickstarter backers!
The books will be sent out shortly, and then the next big milestone will be the general release - and the book launch - in February. A huge thank you to everyone who has supported me and the development of this book over the past two years.  A long time ago in a land far away, I used to write plays. Then I went and wrote songs and played in bands for a while. Then I got a job and did all that stuff. And over the past few years I've been getting into writing short stories, writing articles, and most recently, writing and illustrating a children's book.
But every now and then one of those plays pops up, and I was contacted recently by a young woman who is studying my play Indiscretions (published in Playmarket's No8 Wire) as part of her high school coursework. Then yesterday another play of mine, Painted Lips, was mentioned in an article about the fabulously talented Michelle Langstone and Caroline Bell-Booth. It's kind of nice to get a reminder of my old work, at a time when my new work is starting to take off. Well this is exciting - these are advance copies of the #Brucethecat book Bruce Finds A Home!
Thank you so much to Mary Egan Publishing who have done such a brilliant job on the production, and of course to all our Kickstarter backers - we literally couldn't have done this without you! We're on track to send our books to backers in November as promised. If you didn't pre-order a copy, don't worry - they'll be available for sale through my website a bit later (I'll be sure to let you know when). Woop woop! Video music by Bensound.com.  I've just returned from three amazing days in Auckland at the Storylines Hui - a conference for children's book writers and illustrators. Here are some notes from the sessions I attended...
Workshop: Great ideas and writing texts for picture books with Kyle Mewburn Kyle took us a high-octane roller-coaster ride of his tips and tricks:
Workshop: Illustrating children's books with Gavin Bishop Gavin took us through his journey into children's books, which began with a degree in fine arts. Listening to his story was an absolute delight. Here are some of the pointers I took away:
Pitch slam We all had the opportunity to pitch to publishers and agents if we wanted to. I pitched to three publishers. I need to work on my pitch, but I really appreciated the chance to meet the publishers and hear their feedback. Literary banquet I'm including a line about our conference dinner because our table won third prize in the 'design a label for a bottle of wine' competition! We won for 'The Little Yellow Swigger' (other possible label ideas included 'The Wine in the Meadow' and 'Duck Drunk'). Workshop: Illustration for children's picture books with Vasanti Unka I love Vasanti's work and her workshop was really useful. Some top takeaways include:
Workshop: Writing catchy poetry for children with Paula Green I entered the workshop with some serious FOMO (David Elliot was giving a workshop at the same time, which I missed) but Paula's session was an absolute delight.
The conference finished with a wonderful speech from Joy Cowley, who spoke about the power of books to affirm and empower children. It was a fabulous hui and I'm already looking forward to the next one! Other tips
 I'm on holiday!
Which means - over the next two weeks I'll be writing and sending away a submission or two, continuing to fulfill my custom Kickstarter rewards (I've done the custom videos and have just got the custom illustrations to go), trying to squeeze in as much reading as I can, and preparing to go to the Storylines Hui in Auckland this weekend! Storylines is a network for children's book authors and illustrators, and at the Hui I'll have the opportunity to hear from legends like Tessa Duder, Joy Cowley, David Elliot and more. I'm also going to meet some local publishers and pitch a new idea to them. Wish me luck!  Today marks the beginning of the last week of the ‘Bruce Finds A Home’ Kickstarter campaign!
As of today we are 89% funded with eight days to go and feeling cautiously optimistic / freaked out / a bit sick / incredibly grateful for all the support! We’ll be pulling out the big guns over the next week (well, by ‘The Big Guns’ I mean a couple of Facebook ads, contacting every internet cat under the sun and hosting this crowdfunding workshop / closing event at Port Chalmers Library). I also have a story on OH! Baby today, and we have a story coming up on I Iz Cat, which is billed as “probably the best cat website on the planet”. We’ll send a supporter update and the “Bruce Mews” newsletter out over the next few days and encourage people to share the campaign (though I must say, people have been AMAZING about sharing it so far). One of the loveliest things about this project has been getting so much support from friends, family, colleagues, Bruce fans and other people from all over the world. It’s been incredible. Lately I’ve struck up some conversations with two awesome bloggers in America. It’s amazing how many wonderful, helpful people there are out there. It’s also been interesting keeping an eye on the other crowdfunding campaigns that I’m aware of at the moment (notably Gecko Press and Bachelorette) and I hope they meet their targets too. Well I’d better get onto contacting all those internet cats… I’ll update you next week once it’s all over and let you know how we got on! |
AuthorMy short fiction has been published in Headland, Hue and Cry, Pot Roast and Aerodrome. I'm an award-winning playwright and zine creator, and my play Indiscretions was published by Playmarket. I have contributed articles and creative non-fiction to The Spinoff, The Sunday Star Times, The NZ Herald and more. I also manage the social media for my cat Bruce, and I wrote and illustrated a children's book, Bruce Finds A Home, based on his exploits. Archives
September 2018
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