New Zealand Here I Come

Uncategorized | Posted by Carole on Friday 6 June 2008

I am going to New Zealand tomorrow which is very exciting. I am a guest of the Storylines Festival.

I will be speaking at three free Family Days during the festival.

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Lazy

Uncategorized | Posted by Carole on Friday 4 January 2008

I have been very lazy and haven’t blogged for ages. I meant to do a Christmas blog, but I ate too much. Then I meant to do a holiday blog, but I just sat in a chair and read. Now it’s too hot.

Fortunately my daughter Lili did a blog about our Christmas Day, and one about our holiday break in the country, so if you really want to know, you can read her blog.

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More Dragons on the Horizon

Dragon Companion, Featured Post, News, Uncategorized | Posted by Carole on Thursday 6 September 2007

It is now only three weeks till my next book comes out. It’s called The Dragon Companion: an Encyclopedia.

I am very proud of it. It is a beautiful hardback book with fabulous illustrations by Dean Jones. Here is the cover. (Click on the image to see a larger version.)

It isn’t something I’ve whipped together since I finished Dragon Moon. It is a result of more than 10 years research into dragons. I actually started writing the first version in 2002 and kept changing my mind about how to write it. And I didn’t have a publisher who wanted to publish it. Then in 2005 Andrew (my black dog books publisher) said he’d like to commission the dragon encyclopedia he’d heard me talk about so often. I started writing this version in Dec 2005.

When I talk about my dragon research at schools, I sometimes think that people don’t believe me when I say I collected 17 folders of notes on dragons from around the world. Well here is a picture of Rita in front of the 17 folders.

It took a while to find the right illustrator for The Dragon Companion, but finally we decided Dean was the right person. (He did the illustrations in my version of Ned Kelly’s Jerilderie Letter.) He has created some wonderful dragons—some scary, some cute; some gorgeous, some downright ugly.

Now I have to wait and see if everyone loves the look of the book as much as I do. It’ll be out in Australia at the beginning of October.

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Orchids

News, Uncategorized | Posted by Carole on Saturday 5 May 2007

Today I had my last book signing in Melbourne at the Mockingbird Bookshop in Mont Albert where I met lots of young readers (and some not so young!).

Proprietor, Evelyn, gave me these lovely orchids. Aren’t they gorgeous? The arrangement is a work of art.

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Creating Covers

News, Uncategorized | Posted by Carole on Friday 8 December 2006

black dog books has got this new feature on their website. There are slideshows of how a bookcover evolves. As it happens, both examples are covers of my books!

One is the Australian Dragonkeeper cover which is made up of many different layers. The other is Ned Kelly’s Jerilderie Letter, which doesn’t come out till next February. Both covers were designed by Blue Boat Design. Click here if you want to have a look. It’s worth a visit.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned Jerilderie Letter before. It’s a 56 page letter written by Ned Kelly (an Australian bushranger). The original letter is very rambling and hard to understand (partly because of the lack of punctuation!). So I have edited the letter to make it easier to understand. It’s a fascinating insight into the mind of Ned. It is fully illustrated with fabulous drawings by Dean Jones.

Speaking of covers, I saw the design for the cover of Dragon Moon today. It is gorgeous!

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