|
A huge thank you to everyone who has pledged to children's book Bruce Goes Outside on the Kickstarter page, and to everyone who has shared the link - as of today, we are 50% funded! That means we're one paw step closer to turning Bruce Goes Outside into a real book. Pre-order your copy on the Kickstarter page. Below - check out some of the illustrations from the story.
0 Comments
I think I must be the luckiest writer in the world because I have not one but TWO books available for pre-order now!
Music by bensound.com.  Lockdown was no barrier for award-winning Port Chalmers writer and illustrator Kathryn van Beek, who has two new books available for pre-order from Thursday 18 June.
“Lockdown didn’t make too much of a difference to me because I would have spent my evenings and weekends inside working on the books anyway,” Kathryn says. “Being a bit of a nerd worked in my favour!” Both books will be launched in August in collaboration with The University Book Shop – but that’s where the similarities between them end. Bruce Goes Outside is an illustrated children’s book. The second in a series about Dunedin’s most famous cat (Bruce, who has 74,000 online fans), the book shares messages of kindness and standing up for what’s right. The first book in the series, Bruce Finds A Home, was selected for the Little Landers Literature programme with The Highlanders, and is described by NZ Booklovers as “a wonderful addition to any child’s bookshelf”. Quality approved by the children at Port Chalmers School, Bruce Goes Outside promises to be just as delightful, and can be pre-ordered here on the Kickstarter website. Kathryn admits she never thought a story about going outside would be so topical. “After lockdown I think we can all relate to Bruce’s joy, fear and excitement as he explores the big, wide world.” Pet is an illustrated collection of literary short stories that is definitely not for kids. Described by Steve Braunias as, “Hectic, chatty, very modern New Zealand, very, very readable,” the dark and humorous stories explore our relationships with children, lovers, and other animals. Pet can be pre-ordered here on the PledgeMe website. Kathryn has been honing her craft as a short story writer for years – winning the Mindfood Short Story Competition and the Headland Short Story Prize along the way. “It seemed strange not to acknowledge the global pandemic in the collection, so at the last minute I sneaked in a micro story about lockdown,” Kathryn says. “In a nod to all the birdsong I’d been hearing, I illustrated the story with a soaring welcome swallow.” Kathryn says that both Pet and Bruce Goes Outside have been labours of love. “I’d actually started working on Pet before my life was turned upside-down by finding Bruce as a day-old kitten on the side of the road almost five years ago,” Kathryn says. “I’m thrilled that I’m finally able to share both of these books with the wider community.” Exclusive rewards are on offer for those who pre-order, including quality art prints and beautiful book plates (printed locally in Port Chalmers by DigiArt and Design). People can also choose to donate copies of Bruce Goes Outside to support the fundraising efforts of the Cat Rescue Network Dunedin, a charitable trust committed to helping stray and abandoned cats and kittens. Get your copy
Bruce Goes Outside is proudly supported by Pet Doors R Us, Olive’s Kitchen’s Moggy Daily, and BlackCat Education.  I think I might be the luckiest writer in the world - I have not one but TWO books coming out this August!
Pet Pet is a dark and humorous short story collection that explores our relationships with children, lovers, and other animals. In these 18 stories we meet a girl in a standoff with the neighbourhood goose killer, a druggy who turns possums into pop culture icons, and an emotional support animal gone wild. Visit Goodreads to learn more. Bruce Goes Outside Kate’s tiny kitten wants to go outside. He struggles with the cat flap, annoys a bird . . . and ends up on the wrong side of the fence. What will Kate do? Bruce Goes Outside follows on from Bruce Finds A Home, which is based on the true story of Bruce the Cat. Visit Goodreads to learn more. I wrote and illustrated both of these books, which have both been labours of love. Bruce Goes Outside took me about two years to finish ... and Pet took a few more years than that! I hope you enjoy them. Pre-orders will be available soon ... watch this space!
After waking up to an orange sky on January 1, I didn't think 2020 could get much more dystopian - but I wasn't counting on a global pandemic.
Life is pretty good in my 'bubble', but it's also filled with contradictions. I'm flat tack with my paid work, and bitterly envious of everyone who seems to have time to bake bread and learn new crafts ... but I'm also so grateful to have a job. I'm following 'the rules' to protect my health ... but in my efforts to stay two metres away from an oncoming pedestrian, I slipped on some slime and smashed both my elbows (I had just had surgery on one of them). I'm experiencing the little griefs that come with being on lockdown ... but I'm so lucky to live in a country where most of us won't lose people we love. Being in the midst of a shared, global experience, trying to simultaneously acknowledge my personal disappointments and my privileges ... it's discombobulating, to say the least. It also feels hard to help. I cared for a self-isolating family member for two weeks, I've taken a couple of older neighbours under my wing, and I've made a donation to a local food bank ... but it doesn't feel like there's much I can do to be of practical use. My Bruce Goes Outside picture book (which I've worked on, on and off, for about two years), and Pet, my collection of short stories (which I've worked on, on and off, for many more years than that) will still be published this year ... but quite when, or quite how I will celebrate their releases, I'm not yet sure. I hope that in-person friends and snacks will be involved. I decided to illustrate each of the stories in Pet with a little black and white thumbnail image, and working on these in the evenings has been a welcome break from the computer screen. Above are two of my favourites so far - a kitten and a couple of possums. The stories are relatively dark, so I'm trying to make the pictures as cute as possible as a counterbalance. I have also applied for funding to turn Pet into a podcast series. If my application is successful, perhaps that will be a little way in which I can support others - even if it's only by giving them the ability to take a mental break from COVID-19 for a little while. (I know I am appreciating podcasts for that reason at the moment!) He waka eke noa. I hope you're all doing okay.
The next Bruce the Cat book, 'Bruce Goes Outside', coming soon!
 As a valued stakeholder of 'Kathryn van Beek: writer', please find your copy of my 2019 Annual Report below. The report is structured as follows: submissions, disappointments, successes, a tribute and a summary.
Submissions My goal was to make 100 submissions to journals, competitions, funding bodies etc, and I came close this year with approximately 81 submissions made. These 81 submissions yielded 9 successes and 38 declines. Twenty-three submissions still await their fates, and I withdrew 11 submissions after the stories were accepted elsewhere. Disappointments Of those 38 declines, I would say that 35 were 'oh well' moments, while the other three led to full-blown 'what is the point in going on I should just impale myself upon my pen' crises. I am also disappointed in myself for not finishing the illustrations for the second Bruce the Cat book (working on them now!). Successes
A tribute to David Writing the 'Best Book in the World' piece was one of the highlights of my year, and a real testament to the wonderful man behind the series - talented journalist and really nice bloke David Loughrey. Unfortunately David passed away recently. I don't know what to say except David, in the short time that I knew you, you really enriched my world. Thank you. Summary ... and hopes for 2020 Though I didn't get the exact feather in my cap that I really wanted this year, I did pick up a bunch of other very nice feathers. In 2020 I hope to publish both Pet and Bruce Goes Outside (my second children's book), and get a little further along on my doctorate of professional practice. A huge thank you to everyone who has supported me this year. I love Aotearoa's literary scene - everyone I've met has been so generous and kind. Wishing all of you a happy and successful 2020.  I had a really special morning on Saturday reading Bruce Finds A Home to the kids at Blueskin Bay Library. We heard another reading about a lost cat needing to find its home, and some lovely volunteers from Dunedin Cat Rescue came along and talked to kids too. Then the kids coloured in some Bruce colouring sheets. They did a great job of colouring in the sky, with beautiful Dunedin sunrises making quite an appearance, along with a wonderful Matariki star cluster.
I bought a fundraising catnip toy for our cat Jager (Bruce's 'big sister', and also a rescue cat) and she's was absolutely delighted with it.  Litcrawl event photo by Rhys Muir A writer's life is filled with ups and downs, as my spreadsheet of writing acceptances and rejections attests to. News that the short story collection I'm working on has been rejected, in part because someone thought it was a grab-bag of stories for both adults and children (it's not, and that's not even a thing!) made for a grumpy Saturday morning, but my frown turned upside down later in the day when issue 14 of Headland was released - complete with my short story, Speaking in Tongues. (If you like, you can check it out here. It's just $8 for Kindle, and you don't actually need a Kindle - you can just download the free Kindle app onto your phone, or read it on your computer.)
While I've had some bruising rejections lately, overall 2018 has been a pretty amazing year for me on the writing front. I published my first children's book, Bruce Finds A Home, and I got to visit local primary schools with illustrator Robyn Belton as part of the Little Landers Literature programme (thanks, Dunedin City of Literature!). One of my pieces of flash fiction was published in the Bonsai book, and another appeared on the North and South website. And of course, I had the incredible experience of undertaking the Creative Hub / Earthskin residency at Muriwai. Just writing this paragraph makes me feel incredibly lucky! Another wonderful experience I had this year was also courtesy of the Headland team. I was invited to read my story Frangipani at Wellington's Litcrawl event as part of the Best Stories: Headland session. It was my first time at Litcrawl, which is an incredible mini literary festival that you should definitely try to get along to next year if you can. From being greeted at the airport by a lovely volunteer holding a sign with my name on it, to being put up in a sweet hotel, to being driven back to the airport by celebrated author and cool dude Brannavan Gnanalingam (whose thought-provoking novel, Sodden Downstream, I had just read) ... the whole experience was magical. The highlight was undoubtedly catching up with the Headland team and with fellow writers Iona Winter and Caoimhe McKeogh, who are all total goddesses, and I'm looking forward to attending Iona's book launch in Dunedin this Friday. So, what next? Well, I'm still working on the collection of stories (for grown-ups!) and I expect that will take a while to complete. I'm also working on the next Bruce the Cat picture book for children. I changed the pencils I'm using for the illustrations, and we're having a bit of trouble scanning the images, but I'm sure we'll get it resolved one way or another. And I have another project or two simmering away, which I should be able to tell you more about next year. But in the meantime I'm looking forward to finishing work for the year in a couple of weeks, and to spending long afternoons reading beneath the Pohutukawa tree. I hope you have a relaxing holiday planned too. Thank you so much for your support this year - it means the world to me. |
AuthorA graduate of Victoria University’s Institute of Modern Letters, I am the winner of the Mindfood Short Story Competition and the Headland Short Story Prize. My short stories have appeared in The Sunday Star-Times, takahē, Fresh Ink and Bonsai. My debut short story collection, Pet, will be available from August, and is being released as a podcast. I have also written and illustrated two children's books about my rescue cat, Bruce. Archives
June 2020
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
