Pardalote Press

Leave a comment Posted on announcements, Book talk, collaborations, Creative work, Fiction, forthcoming books, memoir, Pardalote Press

Advance copies of Secrets of the Good Fairy House!

It’s always exciting when you get those first advance copies of a new book–it’s a magic moment when you get to hold the real-life book in your hands! This week, copies of my new book with the wonderful illustrator Lorena Carrington, Secrets of the Good Fairy House, arrived at my place and to say I was delighted with how it looks is an understatement 🙂 It is truly gorgeous, in fact!

Here’s the blurb:

Secrets of the Good Fairy House is a unique exploration of how a beloved childhood house can grant not only a treasury of rich memories, but also spark imaginative childhood adventures, and future creative inspiration. Created by award-winning author Sophie Masson and acclaimed illustrator Lorena Carrington, this beautiful book is an interwoven mix of memoir and fiction in both text and images, taking you on a fascinating journey into a very special magic.

The book is published by our very own ‘tiny press’, Pardalote Press, and distributed nationwide through Peribo, so you can buy or order it from any bookshop. It will be officially out in June.

(by the way, the framed photo in the pic below is of the ‘good fairy house’ of my childhood in France, which was the inspiration for my part of the book)

Leave a comment Posted on adult fiction, announcements, Art, Book talk, Creative work, forthcoming books, Inspirations, memoir, Pardalote Press

Announcing the new Pardalote Press production!

I’m absolutely delighted to announce the forthcoming arrival of the new Pardalote Press production, my latest collaboration with the wonderful Lorena Carrington!

It’s a beautiful little book titled Secrets of the Good Fairy House, which will be out at the beginning of June and distributed nationally through our distributor Peribo. Below you can see the book’s gorgeous front and back covers which Lorena created, as well as the lovely page Peribo have for the book in their June catalogue.

Secrets of the Good Fairy House is a unique exploration in words and images of the magic a beloved childhood home can confer on people, through its sheer atmosphere and the objects in it too. Both in words and images, it’s a mix of memoir–about my childhood home in rural France and Lorena’s in regional Victoria–and fiction, to create what we hope will be an enticing, imaginative blend. Each page features a space or an object or an aspect of the good fairy house, and, as well,  there are interactive elements at the end: an encouragement to create memory maps(with ours as samples), ideas on how to use the ideas and concepts in the book to create your own exploration of your own ‘good fairy house’, and a maze game, for a bit of fun 🙂 We absolutely loved creating this unique little book, and we hope many readers will take it to their hearts too. It’s for a general audience, for adults as well as younger readers, and makes a great gift too.

Secrets of the Good Fairy House is a beautiful small square book of 48 pages, in full colour, retailing at $25.  The ISBN is 9780645563429. It will be available in all good bookshops across Australia, and can also be pre-ordered, via your local bookshop, or directly via our website.

Leave a comment Posted on announcements, collaborations, creative activities, new work, Pardalote Press, work in progress

Sample pack of our gorgeous Wayfarer cards!

We were excited to receive our sample pack of Wayfarer cards yesterday, for our Pardalote Press launch. Here’s a little video of how they look. And sound! They have best swish/thwack as you shuffle them, and they feel so lovely with their silk laminate.

We have five days left of crowdfunding, so head over to Indiegogo, if top quality story-telling, poem-forming, magic-image-making cards are your thing!

https://igg.me/at/PardalotePress/x/5644576#/

And we’re off to order another two hundred sets…

Leave a comment Posted on adult fiction, animals, Art, Book talk, collaborations, creative activities, crowdfunding, fantasy, Illustrators, Pardalote Press, Poetry, Publishing business

Crowdfunding campaign to launch Pardalote Press

Exciting news! The wonderful illustrator Lorena Carrington and I have established Pardalote Press, a tiny Press making small surprising things. We’ve launched a crowdfunding campaign this morning to support our first two projects, Bird’s Eye View and Wayfarer. Bird’s Eye View is a chapbook of words—poetry and prose—and black and white images, which together form glimpses into the world of birds, and the world as seen by birds. Wayfarer is a unique set of sixteen beautiful full colour cards which in words and pictures take you on a journey of mystery, magic and meaning.

The campaign is to raise funds towards production and printing of the projects. We hope you might be interested in having a look! Here’s the direct link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pardalote-press-launch#/

You can learn more about the Press and our first two projects on our website, and social media: Facebook and Instagram. There’s also a great little news item about it at Books+Publishing. And here below are a few words from Lorena and I, extracted from that article, as to why we started Pardalote Press:

It was in fact a mock medieval bestiary—published as an appendix to our joint book Magical Tales from French Camelot—which first made us think of the idea of working on unusual little projects. We started with the idea of Bird’s Eye View, and then, later, came the idea for Wayfarer.

We knew these were a bit too left-field to fit into mainstream publishing lists, so decided to create our own tiny press to produce them and other things we might come up with.

So–do check us out, have a look, and if you are interested, we would be very grateful for your support in the launch of this tiny press making small surprising things to help the imagination take flight!