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…
Delighted to see a wonderful review of Inside Story (for which I was one of the principal writers and compilers) in the latest issue of the prestigious children’s literature publication, Magpies Magazine. See below.
There’s also, in the same issue, a three-page interview with me and Kathy Creamer, another of the main writers/compilers, about how the book was created and produced. Not available online, but you can check out Magpies Magazine subscriptions here: for anyone interested in Australian and New Zealand children’s books, Magpies is an absolute must!
There’s a great first review for Four Up In Lights in Buzz Words. Here’s a short extract:
Award-winning author of over 70 books, Sophie Masson has clearly had a lot of fun creating these four endearing characters, putting them in all sorts of trouble and helping them find their way out with plenty of chuckles and adventure along the way.
Cheryl Orsini’s fun illustrations bring the characters to life and capture both the tension and celebration of the story as it unfolds.
Perfect for young readers, aged 5–8, Maxie, Flash, Fergie, and Lady once again demonstrate the importance of friendship and the joy of adventure. With a hot-wheeling pace, Four Up in Lights will keep readers engaged and wanting to read the story in one sitting.
You can read the whole review here.
I am much looking forward to the Dubbo Writers’ Festival, which is on this coming weekend, 9-11 September, in Dubbo of course! The theme is ‘Shorts’–with a feast of practical workshops on short fiction, short poetry, short blog posts, as well as consultations with publishers, an In-Conversation, and a ‘submissions spur’. I’m presenting at several events, see below. You can get tickets and the full program via this link here.
Friday Sept 9:
Saturday:
Sunday will be the Submissions Spur, 2-4pm.
Yay! Today is publication day for Four Up In Lights, the third and final book in a little series I created with illustrator Cheryl Orsini, about the adventures of four friends who happen to be vintage vehicles! Published by Christmas Press, Four Up In Lights follows on from Four All At Sea(2021) and Four On the Run(2020) and were huge fun to write.
Here’s hoping the four friends’ final adventure finds many many readers, as the earlier books have done! And cheers to Maxie, Fergie, Lady and Flash, four fabulous characters who drove their way into my imagination quite a while ago–and who have been brought to such fantastic visual life by the wonderful Cheryl Orsini!
Four Up In Lights is available from any bookshop around Australia, as are the earlier two books. And you can find a fun little trailer for Four Up In Lights here.
There’s a lovely first review of Magical Tales from French Camelot, by the fantastic book blogger Ashleigh Meikle, on The Book Muse.
Here’s a couple of bits from the review:
Sophie’s retellings are lyrical and emotive, and as she explains in her rationale at the end of each tale, she chose the most powerful moments in each tale to retell, leaving off where she needed to, and at times, explaining the rest of the story and its context within the French canon as well as its relationship to the British stories. Doing this gave an extra layer to the book, and it is the same process Kate Forsyth uses for her Long Lost Fairytales collections as well. In giving readers a history of the tale and letting us know what they have done, Sophie, like Kate, invites us into her world and writing process….
These stories bring part of the Arthurian legends and myth cycle to life for adult and young adult readers, and I loved reading them, loved feeling like I was part of the world that they came from, and loved the beautiful illustrations by Lorena, created with many different aspects digitally to tell the stories just as much as the words did. I find it hard to put her illustrations into words because I think they are the kind of illustrations you have to experience for yourself – they’re just that magical!
You can read the whole review here.
Wattle blooming
By Sophie Masson
Sudden bursts of gold,
Sweeping colour bold,
By rivers, by roads, in country and town,
In farms and gardens, the wattle’s the crown.
Of the end of the winter, beginning of spring,
The blooming of wattle will sing and sing
Of birds in their nests and the warm days to hand,
For the wattle is blooming across the land.
Delighted to be celebrating the launch of Magical Tales from French Camelot, online (livestreamed via FB) this Sunday, the 21st August, at 5.30 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time, 3.30 pm West Australian time. Lorena and I will be talking about the book with our publisher Karen McDermott of Serenity Press. Do consider joining us, we’d love to see you there! You can find all the details on the Serenity Press Facebook page, here.
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!
Christmas Press have just put up a great little trailer for Four Up In Lights, my chapterbook with Cheryl Orsini, which comes out in September. Have a look!
Feathers of the Firebird 