book

Book Update

Things have been busy on the news front here, so I thought I’d put together a quick blog post to keep you (and me!) up to date on book happenings.

VASILISA THE WISE AND OTHER TALES OF BRAVE YOUNG WOMEN is available for pre-order from www.serenitypress.org. A proof copy is making its way to my letter box this very moment, and I’m so excited to hold it in my hot little hands! Here’s a photo of it from Serenity Press.

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There will be a Castlemaine launch of VASILISA at 5:30pm, December 7th at the Castlemaine library. Please come along if you’re nearby. Further launches in capital cities to be announced! Yippie!

Serenity Press has announced two more books I’ll be working on with them over the next year or so, and I’m so pleased to keep working with Monique and Karen. They are the most incredibly supportive and passionate team.

I’ll be illustrating a book based on a Crane Woman with Irish writer Sharon Blackie. She wrote the wonderful If Women Rose Rooted (say that sentence quickly five times!) and I can’t wait to illustrate her fairy tales. It’s due out at the end of 2018.

While we’re in Ireland, I’ll also be working with the wonderful Jane Talbot on a collection of Celtic Tales. If you’ve read her powerful collection The Faerie Thorn, you’ll know why I’m so thrilled to be working with her. You’ll have to wait a bit for this one though – it’s coming out at the end of 2019.

Right now, I’m illustrating a collection of short stories by Castlemaine writer Jennifer Lehmann. Her stories are beautifully and sensitively crafted, yet have a keen eye for the subject. Based around the concerns of social work in regional and remote Australia, some are darkly funny, others will break your heart a little. Keep an eye out for it from April next year. I’ll have more news on that, and a story excerpt, popping up on social media soon. For now, here’s a sneak preview from the title illustration for The Fox.

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There’s more news in the works, but for now my lips are zipped. And phew, that’s enough for now! This is my three year planner before I started filling it up…

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Cover Reveal!

I think the second last time I was on the verge of tears in the supermarket probably involved two young children, a full shopping trolley, a long checkout line, and a packet of fruit tingles. 

The last time was two days ago. 

Trying to decide between lentils and kidney beans, I looked down at my phone, probably to skip to the next podcast, and noticed an email from the wonderful Monique at Serenity Press. And opening it up, I found something that made my knees go weak and my eyes blur. I needed a moment, and I just hope not too many people thought I was welling up at the very moving array of canned legumes. 

There’s something about a cover that makes it all the more real. I know this book is going to exist. I’ve finished the illustrations and Kate and Monique are working on the last edits for the text. The book train is moving as it should. But seeing our cover and thinking of it lying on bedside tables, tucked snugly into bookshelves, held and creased by (hopefully) many hands…. gives me a thrill every time I think of it. And every time I think of it, I open my phone and sneak another look. 

And now I can show it to you! Isn’t it lovely?