Well hi everyone,
I’m not even going to look at the last time I blogged. Probably before the Anthropocene era. But I did want to tell you about my new poetry picture book MoonFish of which I’m rather proud. It came out in March with Ford Street (and has already been reprinted a couple of times which is exciting.) The book came about when I approached Paul Collins from Ford Street in September of last year and asked him whether he’d be interested in publishing my new poetry collection for kids. Errr… he said, poetry’s a hard game. I know I said. We talked a bit about who we might approach for the illustrations and then a couple of weeks later, Paul floated an idea the idea of having multiple illustrators and making it a picture book. I gulped, thinking I wasn’t really picture book material but then thought well why not? So Paul sent round the poems to some of Australia’s best-known illustrators and quite a number of them agreed to provide illustrations. By November we’d gathered most of the material. Then things had to move fast. I was on retreat, somewhat out of contact and Paul let me know he needed a title, a blurb, and various other things by… well tomorrow. The phone rang hot between myself and Nicola my wife who is also a poet. And somehow (with wonderful input from her) we came to the title MoonFish based on one of the best illustrations in the book, the lovely moon and fish by Lucia Masciullo. The subtitle too, ‘Poems to make you laugh and think’. I did the various blurbs and sent it all off. When I got home I then wrote a brand new poem The MoonFish especially to fit the poem. I also wrote new poems for the Shaun Tan artwork. Not the way things usually happen I’m sure, but it was a challenge and I enjoyed it. Then the cover had to be worked out and Grant Gittus, the designer did a great job on that, working closely with Paul on the various iterations. Grant has also, I think you’ll agree done a fabulous job with the typography and layout and made every poem and illustration combo really sing. MoonFish is a book you want to hold in your hands and so far kids seem to really enjoy the poems and quickly find their favourites. Which I hope they repeat over and over. Cheese Rap for instance. So there we are. And I should say the book can be ordered on my website. So I look forward to signing some for you!