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Pearlz Dreaming Newsletter 5 July 2014

Making New Friends

I have been missing the beauty of our old home but meeting the writers and photographers nearby in our new home has made it a little easier. We've been making field trips to the country when we can.

ABC Open
We went to Noosa and met the Jo Joyce (pictured with me above) at an exhibition of ABC Open contributors. There was a real buzz at the launch and a feeling of being with family. I will never forget my time contributing with ABC Open, might be time to send a postcard to old friends at that forum.

Write Links
Another group I have met up with is Write Links, who are focused on writing for children through to young adults. They hold regular monthly meetings to share industry news and critique each others work. They stay in touch via facebook during the month and are a great source of information and inspiration. Quite a few writers from the group have been launching books and many are actively developing their craft.

They are a very motivated group who are keen to work on their writing, and careers. I shared a story with a critique group there recently and was inspired to come home and edit it.

Books from our Backyard
The most recent event I was able to attend was the launch of the Books from our Backyard catalogue.

The Queensland Writers Centre put this together each year and all writers are welcome to contribute an entry on their book if it was published in 2013. After Yasi was included in the catalogue and will be on display for twelve months with the other books in the catalogue.

I wrote about the event on my blog. This catalogue is available as a pdf. It was great to see one of Pam Galeano's books in there as well as books by new and old friends. I was rapt to see Talitha Kalago after four years and we had our photograph taken together by a wandering photographer, so I'll find that one later on the facebook page.

All the best,
June

I have been selecting and editing pieces from my blogs and publications of poems and stories on the theme of motherhood. The goal is to have an ebook ready for next mother's day.

You can see a sampler of this as well as the upcoming eversion of After Yasi at http://pressbooks.com/catalog/gumbootspearlz

I'm working on another ebook More Paper please, on the creative writing process, and it will be available soon. It is a series of reflections on what has made me as a writer with questions for readers to reflect on their own creative processes. I currently have some beta readers reviewing it before I release it.

Inspired by Boonah

One of our trips out of Brisbane was to a festival at Boonah. Here I caught up with an old friend Elizabeth Hindson, who I had not seen for many years. She was promoting the making and use of material bags rather than plastic ones, and was busy sewing away.

I was inspired to write a blog and poem after our trip to Boonah about Kiribati. Some Kiribati dancers shared their culture with us and they were very friendly and approachable. I worked on a story about my visit to Kiribati about 15 years ago.

I still like making posters with inspiring quotes on them.

There are new things to photograph - like the rooves with blossoms and the overpass across a highway surrounded by trees. Making collages with my daughter's art and my portraits of her is intriguing.

Poetry
Some links of interest - You can find some new poems over at Ripple Poetry.

Blog articles

Shirley Lyn, Musician, Song Trails Participant: I first met June at SongTrails in Tully in 2012 – a weekend songwriting workshop learning some tools of the trade – when she seamlessly moved amongst everyone taking photographs which she later compiled into a number of slideshow presentations to share with all. From that time I have found June to be very passionate about her work and her enthusiasm shows through in the results that she achieves.

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