Book Launches in April

Next month sees three diverse book launches at the Children’s Bookshop in Kilbirnie:

Thursday April 4, 6:00pm

Anzac Day: The New Zealand Story 

by Philippa Werry

Useful for the whole family, this fascinating new book exposes the rich history behind Anzac Day, seeking to answer the many questions children often ask their parents around the 25th.

Wednesday April 10, 6:00pm

Mysterious Traveller 

by Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham

Many of you will know that renowned author Mal Peet is in Wellington teaching at IIML. Mal and Elspeth are from over the ditch and don’t know too many people here yet, so this is your chance to welcome them and celebrate the launch of their picture book. As John McIntyre says, “Bring your friends ... we need to make this a big Wellington event.”

Saturday April 13, 3:00pm

A Winter’s Day by Melinda Szymanik

Melinda is thrilled to be invited to come down to Wellington and launch her new book. Come along and be part of the welcome and join us for dinner afterwards. Here is a snippet from Barbara Murison’s review: “This book, which is based on the experiences of Melinda's father and his family, is hard to put down and even harder to forget.”

PLEASE RSVP THE CHILDREN’S BOOKSHOP 

(PH. 387 3905) FOR ALL BOOK LAUNCH EVENTS.

Fundraising book fair

A book fair will be held in the Ngaio Town Hall from 9:00am to 1:00pm on Saturday 13th April, as a fundraiser for the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation in Hanoi, Vietnam. All proceeds will be donated to Blue Dragon to support its work in providing education and training for kids in crisis in Vietnam. Trustees of the Blue Dragon Children’s Trust (NZ) are organising the fair.

There are several ways you can help:

• Donate any unwanted books, DVDs or CDs. If possible, please contact a trustee and arrange to deliver the donations to a trustee’s house. If necessary, one of us can pick up the books.
• Please tell friends, neighbours and work colleagues about the call for book donations and the date of the book fair.
• Contact one of the trustees if you would like to help set up the fair on Friday night, 12th April, or help on the day.
• Come to the book fair and buy some books, DVDs or CDS. As always, there will be some great bargains.

 If you’re interested in donating to this worthy cause, send us an email (the.wcba@gmail.com) and we'll forward the relevant contact details.

Wellington Storytellers’ Café

The next event of the Wellington Storytellers’ Café is at 7:30pm on Tuesday 2nd April 2013, at Toi Ponēke, 61-69 Abel Smith Street, Te Aro. It will be hosted by Moira Wairama, and guest tellers will be Judy Frost-Evans and Linda.

Judy Frost-Evans lives by the sea in Pukerua Bay, where she inhales the salt laden breezes, listens to the sounds of the sea, is inspired by the graceful flight of the sea birds riding on the updraughts, and keeps a lookout for whales in the Kapiti Channel. She will bring us tales from the Belly of the Whale.

Linda writes regularly on controversial social issues for adults and young people, and as a storyteller, generally tells World stories, myths and legends. At this month’s Storytellers’ Café, she’ll be combining the two, in tales that entertain, startle and surprise.

Entry $5.

For more information about events at Toi Poneke:

Email: artscentre@wcc.govt.nz


Facebook: Facebook.com/toiponeke.artscentre

Congratulations Sabrina!

In WCBA-member-success news ... Sabrina Malcolm has been shortlisted not once, but twice for the Storylines Joy Cowley Award.

Full shortlists for Storylines Awards are available at the Storylines website.

Hometime by Holly Gooch

Congratulations to WCBA member and highly regarded storyteller Holly Gooch!

She has released a new book, Hometime. It contains some of her most popular stories, along with beautiful artwork by Alice Moore.

Find out more here.

Jack Lasenby Award 2012 Winner

It was with great pleasure that we announced the winner of the Jack Lasenby Writing Award at our annual Christmas Quiz night.

Unfortunately our winner wasn’t there so we had to wait until this week to catch up with her and hand over the plaque and the winners cheque.

Congratulations Linda Bremford!

This year Judge David Hill had a runner up, Liesbeth Visser.

Well done to all who entered.

David Hill was impressed with the standard of entries and that augers well for the continuation of the competition.

Click on over to the Jack Lasenby page to read David Hill’s Judges Report.

Next year it will be Junior Year for the Intermediate age group.

The annual WCBA Christmas Quiz is turning into quite an event for the Wellington Children’s Literature community. It is our annual office Christmas party...with close to 50 people battling it out for team honours.

This year John McIntyre was the quiz master...and there was hot competition among all the teams. The craft challenge interlude at half time was dress a figure from the Hobbit...courtesy of our design dynamo Fifi Colston who worked on The Hobbit film.

In a first for the Quiz...we had to have a tiebreaker to decide the winner!

If you get some Christmas money this year and you are thinking of a writerly kind of gift...look around for a writing course or a writing retreat to go on.

or start saving towards going to the next New Zealand Children’s Writers and Illustrators conference, which will be held in Christchurch 2013 Queens Birthday Weekend.

Registrations will be open early next year according to Gavin Bishop who is the leader of the conference team. (We'll let you know when.)

The Wellington Children’s Literature Association wishes you a safe and Happy Christmas.

Best wishes for a writerly New Year in 2013.

Maureen Crisp

Convenor

Come along to the annual WCBA Quiz Night!