Kim (in print)

visual arts & london stuff

On a fiction bender

Candy

Having finished the studies it's time to take up reading fiction again (!) and celebrate some success stories from SCBWI circles... OK so some of these are aimed at younger people! Still, I'm looking forward to hearing about Sarah McIntyre's Fern and Lettuce, (Sept 10) and will get my hands on one of Layn Marlow's books next week when we catch up. Everyone is buzzing about Candy Gourlay's new YA book, Tall Story, which has garnered an excellent review in the Times. Today I catch up with talented illustrator, Heather Kilgour in Charing Cross Road - the book selection at Foyles and good atmosphere in the jazz cafe makes for a perfect meeting spot.

Where Books Come to Life

Having tried a teeny bit of paper cutting, I'm in awe of this beautiful stop motion animation from Andersen M Studio for the NZ Book Council. My friend Sarah McIntyre posted this vid the other day, as tweeted by Neil Gaiman, so it's already garnered a lot of comment about the place.

The voice over is in the evocative spirit of Gee's writing, and it made me think about my own association with some of the locations mentioned... living in the inner city suburb of Kingsland, taking a shortcut each day across those tracks to work on Mountain Road, opposite the castle-like prison, (Mt. Eden), just downhill from Auckland Grammar where the boys enjoy a lofty view of the prison yard....

The selected text is so rich visually. Yeah, I love all the NZ scenery, but it's somewhat refreshing not to see a mountain/river/lake in this advertisement.  I'd only been to Auckland once as a kid, and apart from the harbour bridge, my main visual cue was the prison. Which to a kid is more like a castle, turrets and all. It's an unusual NZ landmark, and it makes a superb paper sculpture.

Oh, and as for the delicious voice over, I'm going to stick my neck out and say that's Alan Dale, (aka Jim from Neighbours, also in Lost, West Wing, Ugly Betty etc) reading the script in his native Kiwi accent.  

(OK, I could get shot down....)

Dog's Day at Book Launch

(download)

Last night I caught up with some friends from SCBWI at Sue Eves' launch of her brilliant book, 'The Quiet Woman and the Noisy Dog'. Yummy dog biscuits, (for humans) got the thumbs up from everyone, including a real dog who faced off with Sue's 'noisy dog' puppet. Not to be upstaged, 'the noisy dog' fed the real dog a treat, captured here by Sarah McIntyre. As always, The Illustration Cupboard, off Piccadilly, was the perfect venue, and it was a great chance to see original artwork from Angela Barrett's latest book on the wall.