National Year of Reading sails through Sydney Harbour

Sydney Harbour is stunningly beautiful.

A fleet of sailing boats

View from the cliffs of Sydney Heads

Author Moya Simons, artist Jules Sevelson, creative thinker Annette and Georgie the pooch  the new writing sensation – watched the white sails go through the heads.

I love Sydney.

Let’s sail into the new year supporting National Year of Reading taking books and literacy throughout the Australian community

www.love2read.org.au

and Room to Read taking books and literacy to the children of the developing world. 

www.roomtoread.org

I am proud to be an Ambassador for both The National year of Reading and Room to Read.

Literacy changes the world.

 

 

2012 ~Thankyou for the kindnesses that have touched me

A year of dramas, highs and lows, loves and betrayals, hopes and friendships, sickness, marriages, death and birth …

Lots of travel from Bahamas to Perth.

Festivals from All Saints Perth to Ipswich Literature Festival

Spoke to 1000′s of young people across Australia

Monkey Baa Theatre’s ‘I AM JACK’ third season of performance

 

Supporting : Room to Read, Cancer Council, The Alannah & Madeline Foundation, NSW Writers Centre, Monkey Baa Theatre,  The National Year of Reading 2012, Australian Day,Books In Homes, SCBWI, The Writers & Illustrators of The Hughenden Hotel  … writers and illustrators.

 

My first picture book ‘Ships in the Field’ illustrated by Anna Pignataro

2012 marks a new year with healing and deep thankyous for the kindnesses that have touched me and those I love.

 

 

A joyous Christmas love Susanne Gervay

Christmas Wishes

So your great wish is to be a successful a writer or an illustrator? Hey, let’s be honest, you want to be JK Rowlings. Harry Potter, move over. Well, here’s some sound advice:-

 The wastepaper basket is the writer’s best friend.

- Isaac Bashevis Singer

 Most writers can write books faster than publishers can write checks.

- Richard Curtis

 I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork.

- Peter de Vries

 I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.

-Oscar Wilde

 The following is very good advice, even if you want to spit and you’ve been crushed and you know if only they could see, they’d get it, but they are too limited and you’re suffering. Follow this advice carefully:-

 Never throw up on an editor.

- Ellen Datlow

So you still wish to be a major writer or illustrator?  Reality check:-

Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman’s name out of a satire then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to a writer – and if so, why?
-Bennett Cerf

All art requires courage. 

~Anne Tucker

Have courage because creating is the way to the heart. Whatever the challenges, pitfalls, crashes, there’s the top of the mountain, the sky. There’s finding joy, insight, laughter and tears and the privilege of inviting others to share it all.

This is my wish for you all and my quote:-

 Create because it’s you.

Wishing you a joyous Christmas and New Year and may 2012 be a year of creativity.

Proud to be an Ambassador for The National Year of Reading and an author ambassador for Room to Read bringing education to the children of the developing world.

Love

Susanne

Bill Bachle USA sculptor supports Montessori Schools Sydney

Bill Bachle,  Chairman, The Luxury Marketing Council UK, sculptor, writer, consultant for DreamWorks to United Nations, is in Australia. Had a lovely dinner with him at The Hughenden Hotel Woollahra.

He worked on the European segment of Speilberg’s Shoah.

Bill’s Sydney exhibition of minature sculptures of elegant and original dresses raised funds for Montessori Education was warmly successful.

I loved the small fragile sculptures but would have liked to have seen his major works in marble and carved wood. They’re in Europe/UK.

Christmas is nearly here and I got my advance copy of my first picture book ‘Ships in teh Field’ – - Anna Pignataro’s work is so beautiful.

 

Governor Marie Bashir – a remarkable woman, Patron of Children’s Book Council NSW

One of my favourite photos of 2011

is when the Governor Professor Bashir, the first woman to be appointed Governor of New South Wales, presented me with an Order 0f  Australia (OAM) for children’s literature and other associations at Government House

Dr Bashir is a leading light in children’s services, psychiatry and mental health services, and indigenous health programs. and when appointed was  Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Sydney ; Area Director of Mental Health Services Central Sydney ; and Senior Consultant to the Aboriginal Medical Service, Redfern and to the Aboriginal Medical Service, Kempsey.

She is patron of the Children’s Book Council. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1988 for her services to child and adolescent health; and was invested by Her Majesty, the Queen, with the insignia of a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in 2006.