CEO welcome

Tēnā koutou katoa

First, let me introduce myself – David Glover, the new-ish chief executive of Learning Media.  I've been in the role for six months now, since early January, and think that I am beginning to understand what the company is all about.  However well you're briefed, it's only when you're into a new job that you can pick up the history and flavour of a business and understand the specific challenges.  I'm happy to report that my key personal measure ("Do I want to go to work today?") stands at 100% so far – this is a great bunch of people doing important work.

I've also become very aware of how important you, our contributors, are to the success of our work, whether you be a writer, illustrator, photographer, facilitator, consultant, or contractor.  That's why it's a priority for us to maintain regular contact with you, through the medium of this newsletter as well as through your personal contact with staff  in relation to specific assignments.  The newsletter has followed a similar pattern for the last couple of years, and I'm aware that certain items, such as our writer and illustrator profiles, are very popular. However, we'd like to hear from you about what content you'd like to see in the newsletter – please send your suggestions to our Communications team.

It's been a very busy six months here, with key work for the Ministry of Education on the National Standards for literacy and numeracy, as well as work on the major project for a United States publisher that Gillian mentioned last time.  I've recently spent a couple of weeks in the States familiarising myself with our business there and assessing business trends in the publishing world there, which tend to be replicated in the rest of the world later.

While the economic recession is biting the major publishers, with revenues down 10 – 20%, and some significant restructuring going on, smaller players like Learning Media are more optimistic about opportunities that might fall to those who are more flexible and nimble. During my time in the States, I attended an Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) conference, which looked at trends in the digital world – the conclusion being that content will increasingly be separate from form: "once the book was primary, now it's just one possible outcome".

One person I met at AEP Conference was Mark Lau, the founder of Wattpad, an e-book community that provides writers with an opportunity to self-publish their work. You might like to check it out.

I look forward to hearing from you with any views you might have on the newsletter and to being in contact with you again before the end of the year.

Ka kite ano

David Glover 

Greg O’Connell – Writer, Performance Poet

I’m a poet
I take a line and throw it
I take a rhyme and crow it
I take a word
And overflow it.

There’s nothing quite like the last scrape of chocolate icing out of the bowl, nothing quite like being tumbled head over heels by a crashing wave, and nothing quite like writing and performing new poems.  It’s that natural high that accompanies the crafting of words that has me hooked.

For many years, I admired the work of other writers, until I finally submitted a batch of ten poems to the School Journal in 2007.  I waited.  One month, two, three.  Then a letter arrived, accepting "A Spider’s on the World Wide Web".  I leapt up and down, punching the air, in a private victory dance.  Then I promptly rang everyone I could think of.  While my luck was in, I dispatched another ten poems.... and waited another three months.  This time "The Sink" was accepted.  Wow!  Determined to attempt a hat trick, I sent off twenty fresh poems and tried in vain to keep calm.  I made an agreement with myself that if I managed three out of three, I’d take a poetry roadshow around local primary schools.  Finally the third letter arrived.  To my delight, "Zoom Tube" made it three in a row.

That was all I needed by way of a green light from the universe.  I wrote over one hundred poems for kids and took them on the road to school audiences.  I conducted performance poetry workshops. I had my first public poetry reading.  And of course I sent off another batch to the School Journal.  Amazingly, "Sky Waka" was accepted, making four poems in succession.

By this time, I was having so much fun working with poetry in schools, I decided to create a web site (www.gregoconnell.com) and set my sights on an annual performance poetry tour.

For me, it would be impossible to overstate the thrill of creating, presenting, and promoting poetry.  Today I had the opportunity to teach in a class of year 7 and 8 students.  While they wrote, I wrote.  Then we all shared the results.  Their poems were, by turns, funny, clever, insightful, and dramatic. These young writers are a constant inspiration. And the joy of composing and dramatising poems alongside them has become my privilege and passion.

Apple Pie

I’ve left the apples in their bowl so long
they’ve developed bed sores

but I’ve been busy
with words

washed the words
peeled and sliced the words

heated the oven
to the exact temperature
and baked the words

now
my poem boasts
a golden crust

and its core
is fit for a spoon.

Thaw Naing - Illustrator

During my young years in a very small town in Fiji, where there were no toys, television, video games or anything else much to do, pencil and paper became all I had to occupy my time.  Drawing had always been just a quick way for me to satisfy my soul, so for a very long time it never occurred to me as a possible occupation.  

My influential encounter occurred when I was around 13 years old and was perusing the books in a bookstore in Wellington, and I came across Alan Lee’s illustrated 50th anniversary edition of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.  To this day, I find it difficult to determine whether it was the literary genius of Tolkien or the masterful artwork of Alan Lee that consumed me, but I can remember that as the exact moment I decided I wanted to be an illustrator.  Drawing and painting is not a part of my family's history, so I knew that if I wanted to become an artist, it was always going to be an uphill climb.

My first professional illustration job was a School Journal story commissioned by designer Elton Gregory, who had seen my work at my university presentation and decided to give me a shot.  That job heralded a new stage in my life, as I had just finished studying art at university, and was moving into a professional environment.  I have to thank Elton for providing me with abundant advice and showing me the ropes of working as an professional.  I am now working as a full-time freelance illustrator, and have worked on many great illustration and concept art projects for various publishers and companies.

What I love about illustration is that every job is unique, and I often face new challenges with each brief.  What’s rewarding is that each job gives me an opportunity to experiment and improve, as well as research a topic I previously had no knowledge of. I believe continuous growth is a vital element in successful artists.  I am now looking forward to new challenges, such as writing and illustrating my own book, amongst many others.

If there is any advice that I could give, it would be these two things: The first is that you have to be as self-reliant as possible.  Beyond having the self-discipline to be able to hand a job in before deadline, or the self-motivation to get up in the morning and start drawing, you sometimes have to be your own mentor.   Even after I spent four years at university studying art, I quickly found out that there were still big gaps in my knowledge.  It took me six to eight months of my own self-driven study, where I read every art book available and practiced my fundamental drawing skills to obtain the necessary knowledge I felt I needed.  I'm not exaggerating when I say that I learned more in my six months of private study than in my four years of university.  This isn’t to say that university was obsolete, I am merely suggesting that private study allows you to explore avenues you are interested in without any outside constraints or influences.

The second piece of advice I would give is to understand that art is a lifetime of study.  I don’t believe in the term "talent" ; when you consider that talent is merely the understanding of light and form and the practice of hand /eye coordination, it means everything can be obtained through dedication and hard work by anyone who is able to hold a pencil.  For me, art has always been in the mind; the artwork is just a by-product of something else I am trying to achieve. As long as you keep pushing yourself with what you’re trying to achieve, you are guaranteed to improve with every painting as you gain experience.
  

Illustration, design and photography submissions

Learning Media always appreciates the fine work that all potential contributors put into submitting portfolios. At the moment, we don't have anyone on staff dedicated to receiving portfolio submissions and providing feedback. All designers are sharing the task of reviewing your samples and giving feedback, but with constant submissions coming in alongside the designers' own workloads, it can be hard to keep on top of everything.  This can cause delays in potential contributors hearing back from us. 

1. Please send a tearsheet (a PDF) of samples of your work.
2. Figurework is important, as we almost always need people in our illustrations/photographs
3. Provide a sequence of images.  It is good to show us that you can draw the same people doing different things, to show us that you understand continuity.
4. We often need images of animals or graphs, diagrams or maps. 
5. If you have a range of styles, then it is good to see a variety of images.
6. Provide images with backgrounds.  We cannot judge if your work will be suitable from a pencil sketch of a person on a blank background.  If possible, we like to see fully-rendered, finished pieces of work. 

"War Games" wins the Elsie Locke Writing Prize

“ I am from India, and Zaffar is from Pakistan. India and Pakistan are at war. But that doesn’t matter to us. We play soccer in the zone between the two borders. No soldiers ever come here. This is no man’s land. No one’s, just ours ”.

So begins Cileme Aroha Venkateswar’s story, "War Games", the winning entry of the first Elsie Locke Writing Prize. Cileme, whose own family comes from India, is a student at Ross Intermediate School in Palmerston North.  Her story was chosen from more than one thousand entries from year 7 and 8 students throughout New Zealand to win the inaugural prize in an annual competition established by the Elsie Locke Memorial Trust and Learning Media Limited.  Cileme's  prize-winning story on the theme of  "living together in peace and friendship" will be published later this year in the School Journal, Part 4 Number 3, 2009.  She also received $400 and $100 worth of book vouchers.  Elsie's son, Member of Parliament Keith Locke presented the prize to Cileme at her school in late June 2009.

The Locke family wanted to remember their mother Elsie (1912–2001), one of New Zealand’s best-loved children’s authors, in an ongoing and appropriate way, so the Trust and Learning Media developed the new annual writing competition.  Its purpose is to encourage children in years 7 and 8 to think and write about matters that interested and concerned Elsie Locke, including social, political, and environmental issues, New Zealand’s social and political history, peace and disarmament, women’s issues, and writing for and by children.

Looking for Answers: A Life of Elsie Locke, a biography by Maureen Birchfield (Canterbury University Press), will be published in September 2009.
 

New Face @ LML: Teremoana O Ma Hodges

Publisher/Consultant - Māori and Pasifika Publishing

A time to celebrate the new year of Matariki – how great is that? I’m looking forward to being formally initiated into projects after six months of getting to know the ins and outs of Te Pou Taki Korero.   The writing of the Māori and Pasifika resource plans has been a steep learning curve but well worth the experience. Through this exercise,  I now have a better understanding of Learning Media's ongoing series in Māori and Pacific nations' languages.   I’ve gone through anxious moments while being part of a team to write a Request for Proposal, pursuing possible opportunities for business, having business lunches to discuss possible projects for the Pacific team, and last but not least, being involved in the branding exercise for Learning Media  – wow, that was just fantastic. I learnt so much!

My teaching background in primary as well as tertiary education has led me to study at Victoria University of Wellington on the Marian Rayward Memorial Scholarship, and has given me the opportunity to both develop an indigenous group learning model as part of the compulsory subjects of students at the Wellington College of Education and facilitate educational trips for student teachers to the Cook Islands.

I spent the last six years as Principal of Cook Island Teachers Training College, developing and implementing diploma and graduate certificate programmes for primary and secondary student teachers.  It was a huge challenge as I was born in the Cook Islands but most of my life has been spent here in Aotearoa.  

I wish us all well in the new year – Kia manuia – Good luck. 

New Face @ LML: Migota Eria

Editor, Māori and Pasifika Publishing

Ko Ngāti Pahauwera te hapu
Ko Ngāti Kahungunu te iwi
Tēnā koutou katoa.

I have been living in Wellington since 2001, and since finishing my degrees at Victoria University of Wellington, I have spent 80% of my time teaching and tutoring te reo Māori.  I spent several years teaching at Tawa College, before going to work at the Māori Language Commission on the first monolingual Māori dictionary project, He Pātaka Kupu.

And following my trail of words, words are the reason I am here today, beginning at Learning Media in April 2009.

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou.

Awards all round

Learning Media’s Dragonflies, a series of non-fiction books targeted at United States early readers, was one of four finalists in the curriculum section of the Golden Lamp Awards in Washington DC recently. Golden Lamp Awards are presented by the international Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) to the 'best of the best" for superior use of content, design and achievement of a product’s educational mission.

We are also delighted with the success of Learning Media designer Meredith Biberstein, who is a finalist in the educational book category of the BPANZ  Book Design Awards 2009, for her work on Through a Gap in the Fence: Journal of Secondary Students’ Writing and Visual Arts 2008.  

Congratulations to contributor Esther Chua, who is  also a finalist in the same category of the BPANZ awards with Saying What You See.

Warm congratulations also to Learning Media past and present contributors for their success in the following awards:

New Zealand Post: Children and Young Adults Book Awards 2009

• Kate de Goldi, NZ Post Book Awards Book of the Year 2009 and Young Adult Fiction winner: The 10PM Question
• Gregory O’Brien, Non-Fiction winner: Back and Beyond: New Zealand Painting for the Young & Curious
• Jack Lasenby, Junior Fiction winner: Old Drumble
• Philip Webb, Picture Book Honour Award: Piggity-Wiggity Jiggity Jig
• Melinda Szymanik and Sarah Nelisiwe Anderson, Children’s Choice Award: The Were-Nana

Finalists

• Ali Teo, Duck’s Stuck!
• Ben Galbraith, Every Second Friday
• Brigid Lowry, Juicy Writing: Inspiration and Techniques for Young Writers
• Gavin Bishop, Piano Rock: A 1950s Childhood
• Joy Cowley, Chicken Feathers
• Philippa Werry, Enemy at the Gate
• Fleur Beale, Juno of Taris.

Montana Book Awards 2009

• Brian Turner, shortlisted for Into the Wider World: A Back Country Miscellany
• Kate de Goldi, shortlisted for The 10PM Question.
  

LIANZA Awards 2009 Finalists

- Esther Glen Award

• Fleur Beale, Juno of Taris
• Jack Lasenby, Old Drumble
• Kate de Goldi, The 10PM Question

- Russell Clark Award

• Ben Galbraith, Every Second Friday
• Robyn Belton, Herbert, The Brave Sea Dog

- Elsie Locke Award

• Gregory O’Brien, Back and Beyond: New Zealand Painting for the Young & Curious
• Brigid Lowry, Juicy Writing: Inspiration and techniques for Young Writers
• Gavin Bishop, Piano Rock: A 1950s Childhood.

- Te Kura Pounamu Award

• Peti Nohotima, Mihiroa
• Patricia Grace, Ko Maraea Me Ngā Toroa
• Tim Tipene and Katerina Te Heikoko Mataira, Hinemoa te Toa.