Listen carefully, I will say this only once...

Yesterday I participated in a fundraising event for Christchurch. As poet Renee Laing said at the Mt Roskill library last night, when disaster struck in Christchurch New Zealanders said "I want to help, what can I do?" And the truth was the best thing to do was what you are good at. So when author James George said lets do public readings of our written work in Auckland libraries, I signed up in a flash. On Friday March 25th I joined a group of authors (Ken Grace, Mihera Paterson, Bronwyn Elsmore, Nicky Pelligreno and Brennan Rigby) at the Public Library at Massey out West at 1pm and a different group (Maggie Tarver, Robina Adamson and Renee Laing) at Mt Roskill Library at 6pm and we each shared an 8 to 10 minute reading with the good folk who turned up to hear us and donate money to a good cause. I hope the audience enjoyed what we had to offer. They seemed to. I certainly enjoyed reading aloud. I read short stories from the two Pick 'n' Mix anthologies put out by Scholastic NZ. I very much enjoyed the listening too. I remember listening to stories on the radio played during school. This is where I first developed a serious crush on Greek Mythology. Careful listening, something you have to do with a live reading because there is no pause and rewind facility (no do-overs as it were) is a great skill. I listened attentively to the other readers yesterday because if you missed any seeds sown earlier in a story the twist or climax at the end could lose its potency. I read somewhere recently that we have diminished the facility of our brains by using calculators and other technological devices that save us the effort of figuring things out in our heads. Many cultures had an oral tradition that is slipping away. Many of us lose the listening skills we developed at school. Poets, as Renee Laing reminded us last night have a well organised schedule of regular readings and slams. Writers of prose have nothing like this. We should. It would be good for writers to share their work; good for listeners to enjoy some good stories, practice some good listening skills and enjoy a sense of community around a creative endeavour. We could all benefit.

You like me, you really like me...

(Ten points to the people who get the reference in the title of todays blog post). After welcoming NZ Book month in with the official Auckland opening last monday night, I followed up yesterday with author visits to three Auckland libraries. Karma smiled at me making my last visit the one to my own library at Mt Roskill. Unlike the other libraries, they had advertised my visit in their display case outside the library and set up another display featuring my work inside the library alongside where i was to sit. They had made fairy bread for the children and gave me flowers and chocolate at the end of the visit. I was overwhelmed by their appreciation and left feeling ten feet tall. I had my son with me and i swear he stood a lot taller too. So thank you to the librarians at Mt Roskill, you obviously care about children's literature and I'm sure it rubs off on your young readers. Mt Roskill library - YOU ROCK!

I have to say I was impressed with the children at all three libraries. The audiences were never huge but the children were patient, well behaved and polite. In a library you are kind of preaching to the converted as these are people who have already decided they like books. They are there because they want to be which is the best kind of audience to have. I have two more library visits later in the month and a visit at the Auckland Art Gallery.

It is good to have those first three visits under my belt. I was a bit stressed about it before hand. I am not a natural speaker and I'm still learning about finding the right tone for different audiences. I have a better handle on speaking to classroom groups as I'm clearer on what the agenda is but a public venue like a library is a different kettle of children. They are there because they enjoy reading but may have no interest in writing or the process of making books. They might not care where you get your ideas from or what you did when you were growing up. They want entertainment in the here and now. (School children probably feel the same but there is an expectation from all parties that some educational elements will be included). Thanks to Maria Gill's good advice I'd generated some word-finds which many of the children seemed to enjoy and I had some lovely flash-looking Jack the Viking postcards to hand around. I think most children get a kick out of taking something like this away. Best of all they did seem to enjoy being read to, which is great because I get a buzz out of reading aloud. At the Storylines Margaret Mahy Day earlier this year Wayne Mills gave a stirring lecture on the benefits of reading aloud. And not just to the younger children. I'm a big fan and I'm now thinking i might see if i can do more of it. The only tricky thing about reading aloud is what to read to a mixed audience. I am lucky to have written material over a range of age groups from picture books to short stories to novels. There's pretty much something for everyone. With school groups the ages tend to be homogenous and selection is much easier. Most older children don't mind hearing the occasional picture book but sadly I lost a few older boys at one of the venues despite having suitable material for them because of the littlies in the audience. I don't know if there is any way around this. I hope some of my other picture book stories are published so I have a wider range of material to read from. It is still looking possible that a third one will be published but it is (as with so many book related things in my life right now) up in the air. Even if it is, it is probably a couple of years away.