Planes, Trains, Cars and Bounty Hunting (or an overseas trip)

Yep, that about sums up the next seven weeks of my life. Three planes, two trains and over three thousand kms of road will take us through seven countries on a massive European adventure. At least I’m calling it an adventure – some would call it insanity, considering how much driving we’ll be doing on the wrong side of the road, but I wont let that deter me.

And the bounty I’m hunting? Ideas, inspiration, writerly knowledge, illustratorly experiences, oddities and a whole lot of mischief. Plus, of course, rabbits. I am always on the lookout for rabbits. I will hopefully capture a few European varieties (you can see the ones I captured on my last big trip to America here, including the strange pink demon rabbit pictured above).

While in Europe I will get to do some pretty amazing things as a writer and illustrator, including*:

• Scotland: I’ll be spending nearly two weeks in Edinburgh and St Andrews and several small towns in between, researching a young adult novel that I’m writing which happens to be set there. So much to look forward to … seaside villages all scuddy with cliffs, gothic churches, crumbling castles, eavesdropping on local teens. But most of all just generally absorbing the feel of the place and letting the world of my story settle into my skin.
• England: I’ll be doing a short residency at Seven Stories, the UKs national centre for children’s books. I’ll get to be a part of some amazing exhibitions they’re putting together, browse their archives of original literary artefacts, help run activities for young people and learn from their expert staff all about engaging children in the world of books.
• Italy: I’ll be attending the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, the world’s leading children’s publishing event. I’ve had an image chosen for the second year running to be exhibited by the Australian Publisher’s Association Stand, and I’ll be featuring on their table doing live illustrations each day. Bologna also hosts an exhibition of the world’s leading illustrators, a bunch of professional development talks and is the years biggest networking event for creators, publishers and agents.

My travelling visual diary

I can’t really tell you whether I’m excited or nervous or completely overwhelmed by it all. The feelings are quite indistinguishable. But either way it’s going to be amazing.

It’s not all work type stuff though. We’ll also be seeing my family in England, heading to Berlin for my man’s birthday, off to Venice just because, then driving in a meandering style (ie. we’ll likely get lost) down through Italy, southern France and into Spain.

Needless to say I may not be around much over the next two months. If you do see me here, make sure to shoo me away from the computer. I’ll likely have other things I should be doing … like freezing my little cotton tail off in the biggest cold snap in Europe since the 80s.

Now it’s time to get packing, if my pup will ever let me…

* A significant part of this trip is generously supported by a career development grant from Arts Queensland.

Sydney in Photos

Last week I was flown down to Sydney for an art exhibition, awards night and general party-like-gathering for past winners of the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship. The event was held at the Art Gallery of NSW, and the lovely organisers exhibited some of my Squish Rabbit illustrations, alongside installations from other previous winners (including paintings, sculptures, acting videos, dance, poetry and music). It was a whirlwind couple of days, and instead of writing about it all I decided to capture my time as a photo diary. I took these using Instagram, my current favourite iPhone app:

…..  ..View from my room by day…………………………….…and by night

At the exhibition (unfortunately the perspex display makes it hard to see my illos)

Coffee with lovely ladies (L to R): Melina Marchetta ('Looking for Alibrandi'), Sophie Hamley (my agent) and Pip Harry (soon to be published by UQP)

Autumn in Hyde Park

Reading + Lindt cafe = two of my favourite things

View from a bench where I sat writing to the kick and skud of skateboards

Lunch with illustrator friend/fiend Serena Geddes

Breakfast at Ampersand (look it up - awesome)

Final hot chocolate in Hyde Park

Visual Diary #5

A beautiful New York Valentine’s Day – a Vietnamese feast, chocolate and karaoke in K-town:

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Chinese New Year – Happy year of the rabbit!

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Sadly, the end of my US diary and the end of my travels:

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This is the final instalment of my US diary posts. I have, however, continued the practise of regular scribbles in my visual diary … so I’ll post up images from it occasionally. Apart from that, next post we’ll be back to regular scheduling :)

Visual Diary #4

How I felt wandering around the Museum of Modern Art (on my own):

Image inspired by an almost completely unrelated sculpture at the MoMA:

A Chelsea vacuum cleaner store, which randomly had a bronze statue of a kid playing a sax in the window:

Visual Diary #3

A successful shopping trip (one of the stores was called ‘Strawberry’):

An odd stall at the Chelsea markets:

Two Jewish men discussing the weather:

Still more to come…

Visual Diary #2

Trying to order a small hot chocolate at Starbucks:

Serena’s hallucination of the Chess and Checkers Visitor Centre in central park:

Brain food I grabbed on the way to the SCBWI conference each morning:

More to come…

Visual Diary #1

As mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been keeping a kind of visual diary of different things that have happened along the way on my US trip. I’ve collected conversations, cultural oddities, random thoughts, strange happenings and characters from the streets of New York, trying in some way to capture a collage of the day to day of my travels.

I began with the above array of pens, moleskin diary (never leave home without one!) and glue stick. Here are some of the pages so far…

On the plane from Brisbane to LA:

Hopping on the plane to New York:

The strangely named US towns we flew over:

I’ll post more oddities as I capture them…

The Big Apple

As some may remember, last year I received a travel grant to attend the New York Winter SCBWI conference, as well as meet my publisher and US agent. Over a week ago, after boarding a plane, travelling backwards through time and flying over oceans and ice, Squish Rabbit and I landed in the frosty Big Apple.

Unprepared for the freezing conditions (I’m no snow bunny), the first thing I did was head out shopping. Ok, so it wasn’t just because I was unprepared … there were some incredible winter sales with awesome hats and boots and coats luring me into stores. Needless to say it was a successful shopping trip.

The SCBWI conference was incredible, with many inspiring talks and presentations on everything from digital publishing and picture books, to crossover novels and writing humour (Mo Willems!). Lots to take away, and I’ve left with a growing urge to dive back into my stories.

While over here I’ve been lucky enough to have the company of a number of lovely Aussie authors and illustrators. I spent the most time with Serena Geddes, Tina Burke and James Foley – all incredibly talented and whose books you should check out. After the conference we got up to all sorts of shenanigans, including: iceskating, pizza and gelato in times square, snow fights, Irish pubbery, late night hot chocolates (and maybe some cocktails), Chinese New Year (year of the rabbit!) and plenty of random meandering.

I’ve been keeping a visual diary while here, filled with ticket stubs and a muddle of found objects with scratchings and scribbles over the top. I’ll put some up over the next few days, but for now I’m going to go take another big bite out of that apple…

The City That Never Sleeps

Sometimes the world works in strange ways. Wonderful, but strange. You may remember late last year I attended a workshop on applying for grants (and blogged about some of the things I learned), then in October I had a go at applying for a well renowned scholarship.

One of the many reasons I was applying was with the far flung hope of being able to travel to New York to meet my publisher. I knew the winners of the scholarships were being announced in March, so as the March days trickled by I accepted that I wasn’t one of them. Still really hoping to be able to meet my publisher, I started investigating other possible grants for writers. I made a shortlist of about three I was eligible for, and on the final day of March I sat down to begin writing my applications.

As my fingers hovered over the keyboard, I got a call on my mobile. And nearly dropped it. It was a delightful lady, ringing to tell me that I had been awarded a 2010 Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship. For a writer, I was embarrassingly lost for words.

The scholarships were established by John Chisholm Marten and commenced in 1967 as a way to support young artists. Their website describes the awards as follows:

The … Scholarships provide support for young Australians in a variety of categories to help them further their cultural education and achieve their dreams. They are awarded each year for study, maintenance and travel either in Australia or overseas.

The scholarship will span over two years, and true to their word it will allow me to access opportunities that have so far been purely the stuff of dreams. So it turns out I will get to meet my publisher, next year in January while I’m in New York for the annual SCBWI Winter Conference. I’ll also get to attend some other conferences, research a series of middle grade novels set in South America, research a new YA novel I’m currently planning set in the UK, plus have some dedicated writing time away from other commitments.

They’re lucky they didn’t wait a day longer to call me, as April 1st being what it is, I never would have believed them…

Grant Me Motivation

A few months ago I attended an ASA seminar on applying for writing grants. I always expect to come out of such talks feeling motivated and ready to take on the world, however invariably it’s the opposite. Instead I leave with a head full of new information, feeling intimidated by the task before me. Call me slow, but I tend to need a day or two to emotionally digest new information.

I suppose I had reason to feel overwhelmed. Applying for grants is a lot of work. They’re wily beasts to craft – it takes practice to perfect the art and get the tone just right, and much like a novel they should go through several drafts. Then there’s no guarantee that after all that effort you’ll actually get one. Grants are coveted prizes, so there’s serious competition for them. I’m currently wrangling with my first grant application and was whingeing about it to my fiance the other day:

Me: Man this is hard work. I’m spending all this time crafting this silly thing when I don’t even know if I’ll get one!

Him: Isn’t that what you do every day with your writing?

Me: *silence*

He’s so right. Each day I willingly devote majority of my time to creating stories that I’m never really sure will see the light of day. I don’t need certainty to do that, so why should I with a grant application? In the ASA session there was a great quote from Narelle Oliver, who said that every time she even considers starting a new project, she applies for a grant. She’s not always successful, but this way it has simply become a part of her writing process. When I grow up, I want to be just like Narelle.

Now that I’ve recovered from the seminar and digested all the information, here are some tips I picked up on writing grant applications:

• Tell a story: Treat the application like a story you’re writing. The judges get hundreds of applications to trawl through – if you start yours with a refreshing or startling tidbit about your project, they’ll be more likely to remember your proposal (and emotionally connect with it)
• Don’t be shy: Contact the organisation running the grant and ask questions – they’re typically helpful and will guide you through the projects of yours that may be most appropriate for their grant
• Edit: Treat your application just like a novel. Redraft that baby until it comes up to a high shine
• Don’t give up: You may not be awarded a grant the first time, or even the first few, but each time you’ll get better at writing them and you will get there eventually

So enter the wide world of grant applications boldly: go write, apply and conquer. And if you need a whinge, you know who to come to – writing these things is tough…