Tuesday the 10th of July I had the pleasure of meeting Laura Wallbridge at the launch of her beautiful picture book Elliott's rainbow Heart. The launch was at a lovely space at 520 Bourke st. in the Xplor space. What a colorful event in keeping with the illustrations by Ben Clifford.
​ Children, balloons, beanbags food. The publishers, Empowering Resources, run by the gorgeous Naomi and Jeremy Hunter did an amazing job of this event. 
Laura read to an amazed audience and books were purchased and signed.
Elliott's Rainbow Heart follows Elliott and his obsession with blue food through the jungle in search for blue food. He becomes desperate until a beautiful peacock shows him how to find his rainbow heart.

'On Saturday the 2nd of June I attended the book launch for Heather Gallaghers latest picture book, Scaredyy cat, Illustrated by Anill Tortop.
It was a lovely event at The Little Bookshop in Brunswick a great attendance and officially launched by the lovely Jen Storer.
What a delight Scaredy Cat is. Beautifully illustrated in gentle hues of sage green, gold, terracotta and lime. The story is gorgeous. Scaredy Cat is scared of everything that moves,including this and that, with an adorable twist at the end we don't see coming. 

This Saturday 28 th April,I went to my first SCBWI get together. Although I am not yet a member, I decided to go and check it out. It was very informative and fun. We heard from Melissa Keil, in a Q and A session. She is a renowned, award winning YA author, an editor with, first of all Black dog and currently Five mile press. We learned a lot about the workings of  publishing. I found her insights very informative. 

Kaye Ballie spoke with us about researching. I had already ordered a copy of her latest book, Message in a sock so I was more than a little excited to hear her speak on how she researched the facts about the war and the campaign to send socks to the soldiers. 

​Illustrator and newby author, Jess Rackleft,  spoke to us about her creative process. She was hilarious and very entertaining. 
I think I learned  just as much as a short course. I was also a little bit star struck at some of the famous names that attended.  

This weekend I had the pleasure of attending a writers course with Judith Rossell. It was held at the magnificent Abbottsford Convent in Abbottsford near Collingwood, Melbourne. The venue was so peaceful and inspirational. We had a class of sixteen people of all stages of our writing journey. Judith or Jude as she calls herself was a fabulous tutor and teacher. She was positive, encouraging, kind and very unassuming for someone who is so successful as an author and illustrator. I enjoyed it immensely and learned a lot indeed. 

Look what I found on Pinrest. What a great idea for a sand pit for little ones. Sun smart. Pet safe and contained. Some people just have great ideas, don’t they?

​Today I had the pleasure of attending a Jeanie Baker presentation. Wow, wow. What a talented, humble amazing lady. With over 14 illustrated children’s books to her list her work goes from strength to strength. Her latest masterpiece is entitled, Circle. It follows the migratory pattern of the Godwit. A very small, endangered bird that by some miracle flies from the Arctic right across the Pacific Ocean to the other side of the world to either Australia and New Zealand.
Jeanie uses a myriad of materials to create collages as the illustrations for her deeply meaningful stories. The art works themselves stand alone as masterpieces and have been displayed all over the world.  The original art work was on display in Melbourne and I feel very privileged to have witnessed them. I took photos but they don’t do justice to the experience.  

All last year I have been working on a recipe book alongside my youngest daughter, Donna.
This book is intended to raise money for a group of very ill children in Nepal who are suffering with a genetic condition called Thalassaemia.
People in Australia with this condition can live with blood transfusions and iron chelation therapy to a relatively normal life span.  However, in Nepal the life span is in their teens as the treatment is either non-existent or inadequate. I have been fundraising for these children for many years and a recipe book is what I decided to do this year to raise money.

​So, what we did was pestered every one we know to submit a recipe and a short story about the recipe and what it means to them. Some of the entries came in quickly and some took some extra pestering. But soon enough we had enough to fill the book. Donna did an amazing job of organizing the pictures and recipes into a format that could be printed in China. This was hours and hours of work for her including research and purchasing a professional editing program. She did an outstanding job.
The book was a hit at the fundraiser/ launch we had on the 4th march. We had about 200 people there and raised about $2400 on the day.
Thank you to everyone who helped and attended on the day and contributed recipes.
Thank you also to the wonderful people at Narre Hills Family Church for their ongoing love and support every time I come up with a crazy idea.

​Today we had our second mini launch with the children at Mossgiel Park Primary school. The ten contracted books in the series are now complete. We had two of the subjects come along, the Hairdresser and the Children’s Librarian had a chat with the students and the next five books in the series were presented to the school. The local paper arrived and resulted in an article in the paper a few weeks later.

​My dad came to me today to show me something he had found in a draw at his house. He told me that he opened an ‘empty’ draw in a bedroom that he had opened many times before. As the draw jerked opened, three, small paintings, that he had never seen before, plonked down flat into the draw. All of Mum’s signature native flowers and birds. Two of the paintings were complete but one of them had only a grey lead out line visible of the intended bird in among clematis vines, making the third painting incomplete.  Obviously, they were standing upright and out of view for the 15 years since my darling mother’s passing. Dad and I were amazed and overwhelmed by yet another treasure left behind by Mum. Judging by the date on them this had to be the last paintings mum ever did. This inspired me to write this poem. I had the two complete paintings, the incomplete painting and the poem that I wrote framed together and gave them back to dad. It now holds pride of place in his home. 

     Treasures left behind.
 
 By  Julie Dascoli.
 
 I looked inside a box today,
A box, inside a drawer.
I found a treasure stashed away,
So many years before.
 
Three small paintings I discovered,
Painted by my Mother.
Each stroke of brush applied with love,
Her talent like no other.
 
One with small birds, blue and quaint,
And toadstools twos and threes.
One with budgies plumed with colour,
Perched high in gum trees.
 
The third one has Clematis flower,
Entwining round and round.
The bird that was supposed to be,
Is nowhere to be found.
 
You see the angels took my mum,
This bird she could not start.
So this painting has a void,
And so too does my heart.