Dear Readers,

I hope everyone is staying well and safe right now, especially in these winter months, which can be particularly hard. There has been a lot of rain here, but a few sunny days, which are lovely. And even when it is raining, we've been trying to get out.
Ori doesn't mind the rain at all! He loves wearing googles on his head, which makes him seem even more like an adventure boy.

Also, this was a great parenting pandemic moment: Ori's failed haircut. We tried, but he moved too much and it was pretty bad. Until I reshaped it when he was sleeping.

This month marks the 1 year anniversary moving into our house on the Sunshine Coast. Our house move in date coincides with Valentine's Day, so I am going to celebrate this year's love day with a lot of love to this house. Since we designed it ourselves, I tend to always focus on the mistakes and things that we could have done better, forgetting all that I really really love about it and am so grateful for.

This month, I started teaching an on-line class for Creative Writing for Children, for Grade 6-8 year olds. It's every Saturday afternoon, and by the end of the courses students get to publish their own book. I used to teach a lot for CWC, especially before we moved to the coast, and I am really happy to be taking on this class now. It would have been a dream class for me as a young writer, but nothing like that was offered when I was that age. Every class we discuss a book, talk about a component of writing, and do some inspirational activities; then the students work on a chapter. The first class we talked all about how to get ideas and the differences between the "hook" of a story and the "inciting incident". It was fun to see in which stories the two might be the same, and in which stories they might be different.

I'm also offering another workshop through the Gibsons Public Library. This one is directed towards adults who might be interested in writing and publishing their own children's books. It's on Wednesday February 17, from 6 pm to 7 pm, PST time. The link is here.

In terms of my own two new picture books:
Throughout this month, too, I've been continually impressed by the art activities posted by Shanda McCloskey, who illustrated Bedtime Ballet. You can find links to all her amazing activities on her website, here. I have done a few of the drawings myself and they are SO fun!

This month also marks the Book Birthday for The Secret Fawn, a book by my dear friend Elly MacKay and myself.

Elly's work is completely magical. She creates these gorgeous images using cut-out paper drawings, then placing them in dioramas, lighting them and photographing them. They are such beautiful, gorgeous tiny theatres of art. She goes into depth on her process here. I've actually got a few prints from her too, now hung up around our house.

As she says,
"With layers to create the setting, individual characters, lighting, filters, camera lenses and settings, there is lots of play that goes into getting my images and sometimes interesting surprises."

Below are some images from the process of Secret Fawn that she was gracious enough to share with me, to share with you.

This book mean so much to me. Not only is it based on my childhood memories, I am good friends with Elly too. So it is a real dream project. When I first opened my author copies I got true tingles.

We have a launch for the book that is being hosted by Kidsbooks in Vancouver, on February 7, on their instagram account. You can watch their instagram live at the link below to see me and Elly read the book and talk about our process too.

Hope to see you there!

xx
Kallie