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Support writers: Buy books for
Christmas! |
Friday, 4 December 2009 |
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Filed
under:
publishing |
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More great
bargains at the
PublishMe Shop
online bookstore: Maria Kennedy's Hen
Stories for only $17.95 each!
These are adorable books: that I
totally enjoyed editing—kind of
Charlotte's Web meets The Matrix.
I know where I am shopping for Christmas
gifts this year.
Check out other Christmas season
bargains at the
PublishMe Shop. |
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Cover
of The Hen Stories: Trouble with the
rainbow, by Maria Kennedy. |
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Cover
of The Hen Stories: Moving on, by
Maria Kennedy. |
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Cover
of The Hen Stories: Journey to
source, by Maria Kennedy. |
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It's
a bargain! |
Wednesday, 2 December 2009 |
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Filed
under:
publishing |
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Steel City
and City of Sports are
selling at an amazing price at
the
PublishMe Shop online
bookstore! Check out the low
price and bag yourself some
fabulous bargains for Christmas.
I know I’m probably biased
(because I edited, illustrated,
designed and laid them up for
print), but even editing these
books, I nearly died laughing!
Hasko Starrenburg’s sense of
humour is terrific, and children
will love the quirkiness of
these books. The bedtime story
with no end is a classic! The
concept alone deserves a prize.
I can’t wait for Hasko’s next
book, The Queen’s Orb, to
be published. From my sneak
preview, I can advise that it
contains rollicking adventure,
some hilarious scenes with great
word play, amazing characters
and plenty of magic. |
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Cover
of Steel City, by Hasko
Starrenburg. |
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Image and design © Meg Mackenzie 2009 |
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I particularly love the
permissive parents in Hasko’s
books. How wonderful to be
allowed to head off into the
forest by yourself for a week on
some mad adventure and not have
one’s parents worried sick. In
Steel City, Patricia’s
parents seem more concerned
about her hygiene than her
safety, sending her soap and a
toothbrush, but not trying to
make her come home. Hasko’s
writing is liberating and
refreshing!
If you don’t have anyone to buy
these books for, buy copies for
yourself. If you love language
like I do, you’ll be entranced.
You can always wrap these books up and
put them under the tree for yourself
from Santa. I do this with a little gift
that I have bought myself each year. The
card always reads: “Dear Meg, you have
been such a good girl this year. Well
done! Happy Christmas. Love from Santa.”
Each year, my husband finds it very
confusing, and asks why he doesn’t have
a present from Santa. My answer? “Well,
you mustn’t have been very good!” |
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Cover of City of Sports,
by Hasko Starrenburg. |
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Image
and design © Meg Mackenzie 2009 |
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Vernon's
Vulgar Verses is for sale online! |
Sunday, 7 November 2009 |
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Filed
under:
publishing |
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Brian
Aroa's hilarious book
Vernon's Vulgar Verses is
now available to shoppers
through both the
Fishpond
and
PublishMe
online bookstores.
It is also available from
Benny's
Books (formerly
Wadsworths) on Devon Street, New
Plymouth, or from the store's
online shop, also for $20.
The book retails for $20 + p&p
(at time of blogging), and the
reviewers on the Fishpond site
seem to thing that it is worth
that and more. You can read the
reviews
on the Fishpond listing, each of
which gives Brian's book 5
stars. |
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Cover
of Vernon's Vulgar Verses, by
Brain Aroa |
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Image
and design © Meg Mackenzie 2008 |
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Cute! |
Saturday, 31 October 2008 |
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Filed
under:
publishing |
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I just found
this again and wanted to share it. It's
the detail of an illustration I did
recently for Kelly Deihl's book If I
Could Be Anything...
The idea of a
boy communing with his goldfish really
appealed to me! |
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"Boy
with Goldfish" © Meg Mackenzie 2009,
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Lost
software, new poetry book, and garden
glory! |
Sunday, 12 October 2008 |
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Filed
under:
garden,
publishing |
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If I could find my Frontpage software I could load it onto my new laptop and update the website from there. Instead I must continue blogging from the old laptop with the dodgy screen. I have turned the house upside down several times, looking in every single box, every cupboard and even places that the software box cannot possibly be, including the pantry, china cabinet, and even the glove box of my truck. Still no luck.
The only thing to do now is get up into the ceiling space and see if I have a box up there. Andrew might climb up there for me, as it is a bit of a mission to clamber up the aluminium ladder through the access hole in the bathroom ceiling and make one's way around the side of the hot water tank.
I have just seen the proof copy for a book I recently illustrated. It should go to print in the next month. It's a book of verses by a New Plymouth man, Brian Aroa. It's called Vernon's Vulgar Verses. I won't spoil the fun of his launch, which will happen shortly, but here are a couple of the pictures from it. It's a rather 'different' sort of poetry book. |
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Another couple of days of great weather. I have now cleaned out the passion fruit tubs and have cleared all of the dried vine off the back trellis. We didn't get much fruit to eat off those vines, because they were clinging to the corrugated iron fence, and when the summer sun beat against the other side it was like a hot plate, cooking the passion fruit on the vine before they ripened. In their place I have planted raspberry canes. I can tie them to the trellis, but they won't climb up the iron fence like the passion fruit did, so I should get a better result with these plants. I LOVE raspberries.
Today I cleaned out a bunch of pots and prepared them for some of the vegies that will soon germinate on the potting bench. Perhaps sooner than I thought: the rocket came up in 2 days and the mustard lettuce followed the next day. I love the way the seedlings push the soil up like a little pie crust as they pop their heads up. I also picked all of the lettuce from our terracotta lettuce tray and put in new compost ready for the next lot of young plants.
HOORAY! The rose garden is now complete. I planted the Fairy rose this evening, so that it will be able to settle into the garden in the cooler temperatures over night. The bark is laid down and the irrigation system is up and running (I tried it out tonight).
And finally for today: here's the view from our kitchen window a couple of weeks back, as snapped by Andrew. Mount Taranaki (or Egmont to others) looks like Mount Fuji with the cherry blossoms in the foreground. |
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