After Yasi Ebook Out Now

Hooray Ebook After Yasi Ready

DECEMBER 2014 / PEARLZ

Just letting you know the ebook of After Yasi is now available for $4.75. (australian dollars.)

Full of interesting links to blogs, videos and photo sets on the recovery after yasi and a slightly adapted version of the coffee table book version (slightly fewer photographs in the ebook.)

Most of all this book is a celebration of the optimism of the Cassowary Coastal community and a reflection on the ways creativity in many forms played an important role in lifting people’s spirits.

https://authors-unlimited.org/book-member/after-yasi-finding-the-smile-within

Sample here: http://gumbootspearlz.pressbooks.com/

On February 3rd 2014 an online launch event will be happening. You can participate from wherever you are. Feel free to join the event at the link here and follow what happens on that day.

https://www.facebook.com/events/866286073402069/?pnref=story

Reviews can be found HERE

After Yasi ebook on its way - Arts Led Recovery

The virtual launch of the ebook of After Yasi, finding the smile within, is being planned right now.  So watch this space!

As one historically oriented reviewer recently said, this book is not really about a cyclone, but more about what happens in its aftermath. If you really want to know more about the cyclone night itself there are links to that and there is lots of online coverage. There are at least three other books that focus on that more.

However, the project of this particular book was to reflect the emerging power of the arts to build a bridge for anyone recovering from a trauma. It is a social commentary on what creative means help people to heal after a natural disaster.

The ebook makes After Yasi widely accessible to the general community and it is hoped that community development workers, arts workers, community planners, councils,  health workers, and funding bodies make use of it when determining how to assist people in future recovery from natural disasters.

It has hyperlinks to photographs, blogs and videos, that encourage readers to explore and have an enriched experience moving  well beyond the original coffee table book.

The author/editor was invited to guest blog in the Place Stories space, which features many more stories about the role of the arts and artists in recovery.  You can still visit those spaces to find out more about the role of the arts in recovery:

Place Stories Creative Recovery Arts Network

Place Stories Creative Recovery Cassowary Coast

June also guest blogged  for ABC Open in the Aftermath project and chose to tell, video, and photograph her community’s recovery story and not just that of her family’s.

The coffee table book was created especially for the local community and is still in the library for anyone who wishes to go visit it at the Cardwell or Tully libraries. Furthermore it’s at the National and State Libraries and in the households of the families of many of those featured in the book and their friends.

It was not a cheap book to make or sell, and was an individual initiative undertaken with a noncommercial aim.  A bulk buy order helped us reduce the price of the book. The final product was beautiful and much appreciated by those it was made for. We had the launch at a cafe in Mission Beach last year.

You can still purchase the hard cover book of it if you are keen and yes these books are pricey because they are print on demand one of a kinds go to  JUNES’ BLURB   A more affordable pdf version is available if you want and this is a copy of the coffee table book version but is not what I would consider an ebook.

Multimedia storytelling is my passion and I hope to create more books like this which encourage guided online explorations of the stories and mediums that I love.

A special thank you to all the community groups, families, artists, writers, creatives, and organisations that made the story of this book possible, especially to ABC Open, Creative Recovery and the many people who had faith in my portrayal of our collective journey.

Curtain Fig Tree

(c) June Perkins, Word and Image

This is a place to go looking for wildlife at night.  The National Parks and wildlife website says ‘Look for eye shine, listen for leaves rustling and inhale the smells.’  They instruct you to use red cellaphane over white light to view the wildlife, take your binoculars, be quiet and never put lights on nesting birds as it causes them distress. FOR MORE INFORMATION.

Welcome to the Blog

Thanks so much for dropping by the blog. I wonder what attracted you here.  Was it the poetry? The photography? The memoir? The discussions of writing? The interviews? Did we meet somewhere? Was it the philosophy?  Would love to know.  I usually blog HERE though.

I am finally working on some individual books, and you may like to purchase them when they are ready.  More announcements on this soon.

I am in the middle of techno land learning about ebooks and create space. I am learning about treaties between Australia and America that enable us to be taxed less when we sell books.  Maybe you are too?

I try to visit as many blogs as I can, especially those that inspire, educate, trigger, connect and help me to keep on practicing writing, art and photography.  

I love to interview people as well as you learn so much from each other in the process.

However I do have to be careful not to get lost in cyberland and pay concentrated attention to doing writing and art, but part of writing and art is about connecting is it not?    Thanks so much for your follow, like, comment, inspiration and encouragement.

All the best with your creative journey and  hope to see you back again. Please respect all copyright. Thank you.

--Gumbootspearlz - June

Nature Boy

A recent art work using digital manipulations and overlay.   These words were made famous by Nat King Cole.

Settling in

So many things have happened on the journey from here to now.It all began with the car journey from Tully to Brisbane, and our bird keeping us on our toes on the way down. We stopped into see Brad and his wife Jess as well as Dan on the way down.


We discovered which were the most boring pieces of road, and the most exciting. Brad, Dan I worked with on ABC open during the 500 words project, and had never met in person before.

“Met Daniel Battley AbcOpen in person with his two gorgeous sons. Awesome.  We went via an interesting back road into Bundaberg with navigator Sandon, like a rollercoaster ride, stomach survived just, bird doing well on our travels, and keeping us all entertained, classic photos of this later though, lots of Simon and Garfunkel in the car, more adventures tomorrow and then into Brisbane.”
 

Then there was the month we spent living in West End, house sitting for friends.  I loved the sunrise from their house.
We went to a street neighbourhood gathering in their area.  It was awesome and my son jammed with some musos.  They are setting up a garden and doing lots of projects like clean up Australia day etc.



We caught up with our friend Temily who lived around the corner who we hadn’t seen for over 10 years.  She is an artist and lived in a very interesting share house, full of energy, light and colour.


We visited the museum and South Bank.  The children were much taken with a Hobbit house featured in an exhibition of collections.  We went to the cricket as well, which was brilliant as it looked like Australia were losing, but then a miracle, they won and we were there.



We had lots of adventures house hunting and I made the following discoveries about Brisbane.

”Brisbane discoveries, looking for houses requires military operation precision, and a swot team to help you out, busking licenses for South Bank require auditions in November and only happen but once a year, some suburbs people appear friendlier than others, Aldis are cool, self serve zapping in shops requires practice …”

“More things learnt about Brisbane, videos can be found in vending machines, laundromats are plentiful, and have wifi and cool websites, birds interact with the city and find the nearest tree to flock too, and adopt humans to feed them, sunrise splashes golden light on buildings, afternoon practice bands near our home have a reasonable guitarist, and average drummer and singer, your real friends have to make appointments and cannot rely on bumping into.”

Finally we made it to our new house:
“Didn’t notice it on the first view through but there is a dish washer in the kitchen … an upstairs and down stairs clothesline and laundry, a shed, and to my relief quite a bit of storage under the house so we can fit our stuff and even divest of more with more sorting if we wish (my excuse we had looked at a lot of houses and I was getting tired) , bird is settling in but was a little crazy this morning on the new verandah poor thing!

Ben to the rescue. Have now put all our present stuff in the cupboard and made air mattress couches, plus we have a kettle, and a saucepan, and esky with ice, time to have a cuppa, other news both school kids have already been put on invitation lists to events with friends and started bringing home phone numbers, and are quite excited about finding buddies who want to get to know them better, this is what makes me the happiest.”

We continue to connect with old friends from the area as our boxes were all unpacked and our home began to felt like a home.  One of our friends from Atherton came to visit us with his son, and had a chat about the universe which was cool.

And so the journey to settle in continues, with new horizons like learning how to use public transport again, and how to drive around the city.

Riddle Me

My cultures seem clearest to me in objects and values my parents had in our house when I was growing up, many of which are still there.

I think immediately of string bags, grass skirts, shell necklaces, bush knives, and Dad’s cheap reproductions of Gauguin paintings of women in the tropics.

I remember being sent to care for old neighbours and baby sit other people’s children for no payment so my mother could show her generosity and teach me the value of service. I remember cooking family meals and being the little mother to my brothers from a young age.

As I think back on these objects I think of the riddles they hold, and want to go deeper under the surface to explore what context they have in the present and past.

The values my mother taught me were sometimes explicit and other times hidden in the objects and gifts she gave to me.

Listening to a tape of my bubu, grandmother’s voice, I hear the chant of her world. Looking at the cards from my English grandmother, with animals made out of leaves and seeds pasted onto cardboard, I am struck by the time she spends to connect with a granddaughter she so rarely sees.
I am a daughter of many cultural worlds.

(c) June Perkins

For more stories in progress head to  Northern Gal Dreaming

I will be spending a fair bit of time over at my Northern Gal Dreaming blog, as I’ve decided to devote a lot of this year to writing memory stories. I’ll explore how these memories come to live in the present, and become embodied in objects. Also working on some ideas for fiction for young adult readers. Here is the first draft of some writing done today. Will come back and do some more rewriting on it, for the moment it will serve as an introduction.