Magic Fish Dreaming

Book Week With the Students from Higaturu Oil Palm International School

| June
Work from the students of the Higaturu Oil Palm International School which became a class anthology, Escape to Wonder

A recent week of Book Week workshops via zoom, at the Higaturu Oil Palm International School, was wondrous.

Students were willing to imagine and open their eyes to a sense of wonder, to explore other worlds within worlds, from nature, to rivers to the moon and outerspace.

We began with learning about cheeky Cassowaries hungry and looking for food after a cyclone, and imagining what they might say or think, and advanced to humourous dialogues within the river and exploring a sense of wonder, through sensory adventure poems.

Students learnt about the power of working in pairs and in groups and how many voices combined can create, extend and then joyously and confidently perform their creations.

  • Creativity is joyful! Students in action creating.

Throughout I used my own illustrated poetry book, Magic Fish Dreaming, as the main mentor text with a storytelling session also of Michelle Worthington’s Book, Possum Games.

Both had kindly been posted and provided to the school by Tina from CYA. This meant we could read together, and as I have dialogue poems and question and answer structures this was fantastic to have each student have the book on the other side of the zoom.

I was impressed by how the students worked with each other on some in the river dialogues and their humour and inventiveness throughout the week began to shine through.

Work from Stone and Seaweed Anthology, by Students of Higaturu Oil Palm International School

I am delighted the school community (families and staff) gave permission for me to share their work.

More important than products though, is the process of creativity that the children undertook within their classroom. By reflecting on that stories can come from that which you know through your senses and take you to places you might only imagine.

I hope these children, will create many more poems or stories and strengthen and contribute to building a publishing community within Papua New Guinea, beginning from anthologies within their school and moving beyond the anthologies for their communities. Building perhaps collectives for theirs and future generations.

With many thanks to the school, students , staff of the Higaturu Oil Palm International School, and Tina of CYA.

Photographs courtesy of the Higaturu Oil Palm International School, shared with their permission

Return to the Motherland 1#

| June

I never expected that my first trip back to Papua New Guinea, since I moved to Australia as a one year old, would be in my fifties and via zoom and would be working with writers based in three different countries.

Yet, none of us knows our future, and so it was that the last week my first ever Book Week experience, occurred this way.

I was invited by Tina Marie Clark, to join a CYA team, including her, Albert Nayathi, Phil Kettle, Caroline Evari, (and works from Michelle Worthington and Dannika Patterson) that has been mostly going to the Higaturu Oil Palm International School there in person for the last ten years.

The last two years they have had to conduct the visit via zoom, because of COVID19.

Screen shot of zoom of bookweek

Although I haven’t done Book Week before, I have done several workshops in libraries, environmental centres, and schools, to mentor creatives of all ages from kindergarten through to people all backgrounds in their seventies, in poetry. Something which became such a passion I ended up writing and publishing a poetry book,  Magic Fish Dreaming, for children.

I wrote Magic Fish Dreaming,  to express a sense of the place I was living in at the time, which was the Cassowary Coast, in Far North Queensland, as well as to demonstrate different poetry techniques which might appeal to children but also extend them. At the time of composing this work I was facilitating workshops in the community and needed to create original materials with a sense of the place I was living in, not just use what was already out there.

Magic Fish Dreaming, represents all the beauty, grandeur, magic, and heartache and I saw whilst living in that area, all captured for families to relive some of that and hopefully fall in love with poetry.

During this visit, I was able to bring all the experiences of the last few years, in designing workshops, as well as my recent enrolment training as a teacher (although for highschool) together into my contemporary practice.

I was delighted to see the effect of the workshops on the students and their teacher and teacher assistant. I can truly say I had as much of a feeling of joy out of this as out of being published.

My heart soared to see them engaged with the activities and WRITING! And finally confidently performing work they had collaborated on composing together.

What did we and the school do during the week to reach this point?

To be continued . . .

June will be Storytelling at APT9

| June

11.00AM Fri 18 Jan 2019 – Sunday 20th Jan 2019

GOMA | GOMA Cafe Bistro Lawn | Free

​Come and relax under the fig tree by the river from 11.00am – 12.00pm and hear poems by poet and children’s author Dr June Perkins and stories from members of the Brisbane Kiribati community.

​Free, no bookings required.

Friday and Saturday Auslan Translating Available.

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Magic Fish Dreaming with your help and love on its way to PNG

| June

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO MAGIC FISH DREAMING BOOKS TO PNG (You will be asked to verify you are not a robot first!)

Inspired by a meeting with Gregg Dreise, where we learnt about the Indigenous Literacy Foundation in Australia and their various projects I decided I needed to do something for literacy for my mother’s homeland Papua New Guinea.

I decided to run a non profit book drive to send some copies of Magic Fish Dreaming, via local charities that deliver them, to Papua New Guinea. In this way I hoped to cover my cost price only, and effectively donate the profit on these books to charity.

I wanted to do this so that rather than sending second hand books, that might not be culturally appropriate I could send a brand new book, from my heart to the heart of Papua New Guinea.

I wanted to do something to assist literacy to assist the children in my Mekeo mother’s homeland.

I had a feeling that if I asked my friends, they would want to support me in these efforts, and enable me to send more than a few.

To my amazement, so far enough for 76 books has been raised, and I am so excited to be delivering them to the charities who will then ensure these make it into schools that need them.

I will soon be sharing the names of all those assisted me to make this contribution on my social media and with the charities (as long as you give me your name) that find schools in need of these books in Papua New Guinea.

I will be making my first delivery to my first charity of choice, Books4PNGKIDS soon, but have found some other worthy people who take books into PNG schools and communities to support as well and I may look to send it to other places in the Pacific.

$8.00 AUD  per book allows me to send one Magic Fish Dreaming book to PNG by covering the costs of my printing.

People can sponsor as many books as they would like, whether it be one or ten or more,  it is the love with which this donation is made that matters the most.

I am now inviting overseas friends and fans to join this project to sponsor some Magic Fish Dreaming Books to go to PNG.

Please leave a note with a name and message and join us in this quest to send this beautiful book to PNG. You are welcome to email me at gumbootspearlz@gmail.com

I hope to share updates of where the books end up!

Donations to this project are closed for now.

Another charity sponsorship project coming soon.

Sprout Sunday Readings

| June

June Reading ‘Tawny’

 

A big thank you from Renee and June for all those families who braved the weather to reach the beautiful  venue, and stopped to listen to story and poetry about nature and Queensland and to the Sprout Sunday organisers, Gold Coast Green Living and Botanical Bazaar, and venue Host, the Surfer’s Paradise Golf Club, for having us at this day.

The indoor fairy lights and the hall of the Surfers Paradise Gold Club were quite magical, and we were happy that the farmers received their rain and thankful it cleared up a bit later in the day.

A special thank you to the wonderful young people  who helped read the dialogue poems and  show many of the animals featured in the Discovering Magic poem.

We hope that all those people who brought copies of the book will love them and would love it if they let others know about them.

 

Renee reading Turtle Love

Do let June know if you enjoy the educational materials link that she provided for all people wanting to make greater inspirational use of Magic Fish Dreaming at home or in the classroom to spark the imagination of children and their love for poetry, nature and discovery.

Renee and June do school visits, and June is increasingly doing commissions and collaborations and is scheduled to do an activity at the Queensland Art Gallery in October (more details soon).  You can check with them for their rates and the kind of activities they are able to do.

Thank to James and David who provided heaps of support on the day for June and Renee.

June Reading ‘Cassowary Chat’ with assistants

Reading ‘Discovering Magic’ with assistance from the children.

More people stop to listen to Turtle Love including adults.

To see small video of  June reading ‘Discovering Magic, visit to the  Sprout Sunday event page.

 

A Weekend of Meeting Inspiring Readers and Supporters

| June

This weekend I went to Big B books, Burleigh Heads and Mt Alford Artisan Markets. Both are about an hours drive from Brisbane. My quest was to share Magic Fish Dreaming!

One of the lovely outcomes of this weekend was connecting with other artists and writers.

At Big B Books, owned by the wonderful Candice Lemon-Scott,  I loved catching up with Angela Sunde and Lucia Masciullo and we shared a table.  Angela is an absolute dynamo and was promoting all three of us so beautifully.

At Mt Alford Artisan’s Market,  which is supported by the Mount Alford School of Arts, I absolutely loved meeting this vibrant mother and her little one, Jude, who gave me the biggest smile.

So lovely to know he will be growing up with Magic Fish Dreaming.  It was so exciting to hear of people sending this book overseas to relatives and friends, as well as taking it into areas I am not sure have read it yet. Germany, England, Toowoomba readers as well as Mt Alford, Boonah and Logan.

I had a chance at the Market, to catch up with Jessica from The Shed, a friend made at the Boonah environment day, as well as Yonda, who is one of the people who organises the market and who has a food van that makes the most delicious healthy burgers.

 

There were many artisans, some beautiful singing, and you could watch a spinner at work.

I met many local writers, some poets, romance writers and novelists, who came up and introduced themselves and their genres, and were very supportive of the book.

There were so many interesting stalls.

One dedicated to Mermaids, but with very sweet sea horses particularly caught my eye!

There were eco prints, canvas, clay and other creations from local artists,  specially made soaps, wellness essential oils and more, photographs, spun fibres, crotched baskets from Moshki, adorable felt creations, upcycled clothes, crafted wooden spoons.  Boonah Organisation for Sustainable BOSS were there as well.

It was wonderful meeting many locals and the atmosphere of the market was warm, busy! and friendly.

Many locals and stall holders had a chat, another stall holder actually bought my book and told people to head to my stall up another level in the hall!

You can find out more about that artists over at the Market’s facebook page.

Thank you so much to all the lovely Aunties, Grandparents, Parents, Teachers, Writers, and stall holders who bought the book!

Thanks everyone at both venues who stopped for a chat.

I highly recommend a trip to Mt Alford Artisan Markets as well as the Big B Books, a treasure house of books.

Upcoming Magic Fish Dreaming

| June

ANNOUNCING TWO UPCOMING EVENTS

  • MOUNT ALFORD ARTISANS MARKET  DECEMBER 2nd  June Perkins, author of Magic Fish Dreaming will be at the Mount Alford Artisans Summer Market selling and signing books and poetry post cards of new poems.
  • BIG B BOOKS CHRISTMAS AUTHORS EVENT DECEMBER 3rd  June Perkins will be alongside some other fabulous Queensland Writers, at Big B Books, Burleigh Heads, Gold Coast,  on December 3rd.

Online sales portals are on their way to make it easier to order this book from anywhere in Australia.

In January Helene Magisson and June Perkins will be conducting some more library workshops, more on this soon!

If you live in FNQ and are looking for a special Christmas present this year the book is now available in more places in Far North Queensland thanks to the Local Authors Network

Gift Shop Botanical Gardens – Cairns

Cairns Crystal Ball Bookshop

Collins Bookshop

Cairns Books

Cook Town Botanical Gardens – Gift Shop

 

If any store is out of stock, just let me or the Local Authors network know.

 

Helene Magisson has recently colaunched the beautiful Slowly Slowly by T.M Clarke.

It was a delight to be at the launch for this book recently, and both author and illustrator together have a number of events popping up around Brisbane, including at Riverbend books this weekend (this ones sold out!).

To keep up with Helene’s great work you can join her facebook page.

Tina is a wonderful author as well!

 

 

World Literacy Day with the Kids of Botongon

| June

Replay of the Livestream of the Event.

Skype view from my office – Australia

What a special day to meet and speak with the children of Botongon.  I thank my dear friend Mel Irvine, for taking the magic of Magic Fish Dreaming and sharing it with the children.

Mel tried to make it seem as much as possible as if I was there, and moved the camera a few times so I could see the whole gathering  and setting as well as introducing me to people. The local women who work with Mel are very impressive in their care for the children too.

It was amazing and quite overwhelming to think of some children arriving early and waiting for up to two hours outside the gate to run up the stairs to go the world literacy day event.

After welcome songs, and prayers, and me also thanking all of our ancestors I spoke.

We had some common ground and I spoke with them about Australia’s typhoon – Yasi and my family’s experience of it.  It was something that brought some memories back for all of us in two parts of the world where massive cyclones have occurred.

I loved hearing the children sing in a number of languages and was very impressed that one young man recited ‘Gecko’s dance.’

I read ‘Rain Song’ and encouraged the gathering to tell that rain to go away.  For a moment it was as if we were all yelling out at the typhoons/cyclones we have been through.

But it was lovely that the meeting was so positive, joyful and focused on education.   Mel showed me the library! And lots of children were reading.  I was sad to hear they had lost their school after the typhoon, but they did soon return to school in tents!

Soon everyone was smiling again through memory tears. There is something about sharing the experience of a natural disaster that can’t be explained in words.

You can watch most of what unfolded in the replay of the livestream.

The children  introduced themselves one by one, and really enjoyed going up to the microphone.

A big thank you also to Helene the illustrator of Magic Fish Dreaming, who was thanked at the meeting as well.  Her illustrations have played such an important role in attracting people into the  words of Magic Fish Dreaming.

It has been wonderful to see how people everywhere and all ages can relate through the power of poetry and memory.

The major highlight of this skype was to see so many smiling faces listening to poetry to someone all the way in Australia, and responding to the words which such warmth, emotion and enthusiasm.  A writer can ask for nothing more.

You can read more about this event and Mel’s work in the Philippines at her blog.

If you feel inspired maybe you can give some support to these dear children.

Images Courtesy Mel Irvine  – showing what was happening on the other end of the skype session and in the lead up to the day.