Author Alice Pung

With the help of Alice Pung and her true story about green vomit, we have kicked off ‘In Other Words’, our major project for 2012, working with grade prep, one and two classes at Dinjerra Primary School in Braybrook.

Alice, the award-winning author of ‘Unpolished Gem’ and ‘Her Father’s Daughter’, and editor of ‘Growing up Asian in Australia’, drew on her experiences as a former student of Dinjerra Primary School to share some slightly embarrassing personal tales with the young students.

Tariro Mavondo shares folk stories from Zimbabwe

Alice’s workshop was followed up last week by poet and performer Tariro Mavondo, who shared some folk stories from Zimbabwe, and read an amazing poem she had written for the class about her journey from Zimbabwe to Australia when she was young.

Having shared in some wonderful personal stories, the students will now embark upon the next stage of the project – selecting the personal narratives that they will eventually turn into short films. With a workshop in visual storytelling to be given by the irrepressible Bernard Caleo, the children are well on their way to creating some incredible stories.

2012 will be getting off to an extra special start as we begin work on a new program with Dinjerra Primary School in Braybrook.

Taking its cue from the school’s current focus on journeys, and exploring the students role as learners and community members, Pigeons are working with Maribyrnong City Council and Dinjerra Primary School to develop a program that will involve parents working with students to retell stories that come from their own childhood, experiences or culture.

With involvement from some of Melbourne’s most skilled storytellers, short films of the stories will be created by the students and parents to be shared at a special screening. Stay tuned for details.

The secrets, the hints, the sly references to comic content – we’ve been teasing you about early harvest for a while now. Since March, to be exact.
So we’re excited to announce:

Well, almost.

You didn’t think we’d give away all our secrets at once, did you? Especially since the Editorial Board has been working on it for months.

… from authors and illustrators, young and old, funny and not-funny, but they all had one thing in common. They were about SECRETS. The Editorial Board had heaps of information about editing, fonts, storyboarding and printing to digest, but …

Ta da!

Here it is folks, early harvest, a new kind of literary magazine bursting with fresh young writing, illustrations you’ll by dying to cut out and stick on your wall (have to buy a spare copy then, eh?) and a bunch of superstar children’s authors and illustrators, including Terry Denton, Sally Rippin, Sherryl Clark and Paul Collins.

Get yourself down to the Sun Theatre in Yarraville, on Saturday 12 November at 11am and find out why this is one literary mag that you won’t be able to keep secret for long.
If you can’t make it to the launch, pre-order your copy online here, or at one of these bookstores.

The early harvest comic was written by the Early Harvest editorial board and illustrated by Chris Downes.

Pigeons is honoured this year to be part of literary discussions as far away as Canada!
Audience members at The Ninth International Conference of the Book held in Toronto later this year will be captivated as Dr Marnee Watkins shares a paper co-written with Dr Pam Macintyre entitled “Aliens with Einstein Heads: Creative storytelling partnerships between child, author and artist.”

Pigeons has come a long way, and the paper discusses its development from an idea inspired by Jenna and Lachlann’s internships at 826 Valencia, to the far reaching project it is today, bringing together children, authors and artists, and collecting their shared stories.

Best of all, this is much more than an essay; the voices of the young people involved in our projects will be incorporated into the interactive presentation.

Stay tuned for more news from the conference.