Literary Luncheon - 31 July 2009

On Wednesday 31st July 2009 120 local school children and their teachers participated in the 2nd South Coast Illawarra CBCA Literary Luncheon at the Fraternity Club in Fairy Meadow. Guests were entertained by cartoonist 'Cartoon Dave' (Dave Hackett) who taught everyone to draw 'ELVIS'. It's hard to draw when you're laughing out loud!
Authors who shared lunch with us were - Bill Condon (Give Me Truth), Sarah Davis (Mending Lucille), Kate Forsyth (The Puzzle Ring), Sandy Fussell (Samurai Kids series), Richard Harland (World Shaker), Mo Johnson (Boofheads), William Kostakis (Loathing Lola), David Legge (Parsley Rabbit's Book about Books), Felicity Pulman (Willows for Weeping), Emma Quay (Cheeky Monkey), Lisa Shanahan (My Big Birkett), Moya Simons (Walk Right In Detective Agency series), Bruce Whatley (Diary of a Wombat) and Sue Whiting (Freaky).

Southside Festival

On the Southside Festival the Illawarra South Coast CBCA presented Fiction and Fun with authors Richard Harland, Sue Whiting, Di Bates and Bill Condon.

A star attraction was the readings including verse recitation by Grace, Meg and Maryanne, who are members of our branch Book Buddies Reading Club.

Deb Abela and Jobi Murphy Visit - 11 March 2009

On Wednesday 11 March a lucky group of adults and children gathered in Wollongong library to hear the author and illustrator of the best-selling Max Remy Super Spy series. The event was sponsored by the Wollongong City Council Library and funded by the CBCA ALOUD Program

This feedback sums it up best:

Thank you to Di Bates and her local CBCA group for organising Deb's talk at Woll Library yesterday afternoon.

I know we heard her speak at ISLA conference about 2 years ago.

With children in the audience, she was spectacular!!!! She worked to the students but not did not leave out the adults. The students lapped up her happy, animated, dramatic performance. Very inspiring.

I know she visited Flinders yesterday, I have no doubt she had every student wanting to read her books!!

A great author to have

Joan Hornig
Teacher Librarian
Berkeley Public

Creating Picture Books with Margaret Hamilton and Dee Huxley - 28 February 2009

On Saturday 28th February I attended Creating Picture Books and listened to Margaret Hamilton and Dee Huxley talk and present for five wonderful hours. Did I learn something? Lots. Did I enjoy it? Heaps. Would I recommend this course? YES.

Dee is passionate about her work and all those students in her art classes are very lucky indeed. As I watched Dee display and talk about her portfolio, I desperately wished for just a smidgen of artistic talent.

Margaret is a wealth of information on every aspect of picture book publication and presentation. Listening to her stories is both informative and encouraging. Not that she said it was easy but seeing a publisher's love for a book they 'just had to publish' - well, it doesn't get more inspiring than that.

So often I attend courses - and no matter how interested I am in the subject matter - I find myself bored part way through. Not this time. This course is entertaining and Margaret and Dee make a great tag team. The hardest thing for me was letting go of the original Stephen Michael King sketches from Janeen Brian's Where Does Thursday Go? It's one of my favourite picture books and it was exciting to hold those drawings in my hands.

If anyone is interested Creating Picture Books course information can be downloaded here. - Sandy Fussell

Feedback from attendees:

I really enjoyed learning about the technical aspect of picture book production: colour printing, page lay-out and design, and so on. I also found the presenters obvious preference for much shorter picture book texts enlightening. I have several picture book texts which are far fewer than 450 words; I now feel more confident to run with these rather than feeling the pressure to flesh them out. - Kathryn

It was particularly interesting to learn about the illustrators experience and to see the samples of books in various production stages that Margaret offered - Lili

It was encouraging to see both Marg and Dee being so enthusiastic and passionate about such a treasured part of the publishing industry - that of picture books - Anke

Lady Cutler Award presented to our President

Authors are good with words. And when Di Bates referred to the group of friends and well-wishers who had gathered to celebrate her Lady Cutler award as a family, she had chosen exactly the right word.

How do you celebrate over 25 years of devotion and commitment to children’s literature? With a lot of laughter, plenty of applause and just a few tears. On 18th December CBCA members did just that. We toasted Di - author of 100 books, founder ot two branches of the CBCA and one of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, magazine editor, staucnh industry advocate, mentor, Buzz Words compiler, Radio show host, educator, performer and friend.

Christmas Dinner - 3 December 2008

On 3 December fifty members and friends of the CBCA gathered at the Villa D Oro, Wollongong to celebrate Christmas and a wonderful year of children's literature.
The guest speaker was author, editor, educator, lobbyist and former national CBCA president, Mark McLeod. Mark entertained the gathering with a range of stories, anecdotes and advicebased on his life in the children's book industry.
Mark's latest release Tomorrow (ABC Books) was the subject of heated bidding at the fund raiser auction which followed.
The food was wonderful and the company even better. If you couldn't make it this year, don't miss the 2009 dinner.

Viva La Gong Author Readings

On 11th October CBCA members Di Bates, Bill Condon, DC Green, Sandy Fussell and Mo Johnson (pictured) read from their latest releases in the Crown Street Mall.