July  2007
Hi everyone,
 .

The Convention seemed to be a quieter affair this year. There were a few thousand fewer teachers attending – maybe the need to travel out of the country was a bit of a deterrent? A pity, because Toronto is a very attractive city. Mind you, our visit wasn’t without its dramas – like the airline got us to Toronto just fine but sent our luggage on the scenic route, via San Francisco! As a result it took three days to finally get to our hotel! Not good!

But getting back to the Convention. Some interesting presentations – though many sessions seemed to be rather sparsely attended. My session had the opposite problem – the seats quickly went and then they firmly turned people away – no standing, no sitting on the floor. They really stick to their fire regulations!

Drama continued with all the electrics for my presentation giving up the ghost about 5 minutes into my session. Not a big help when you need electricity for the obligatory powerpoint presentation! One kind person went sprinting off to capture a technician and soon we were back with the program!

My paper was entitled:

"When Bart Simpson, Bob the Builder and Big Bird Meet the World’s Best Children's Books –
The Challenge of Competing Literacies when the E-Baby Learns to Read.".

If you would like to read a copy of the paper, just send me an email and I'll email it to you. Also, feel free to email me if you have any questions or wish to share your thoughts on the subject.

After the convention we set out to fly the short hop to New York – but drama struck again. Actually lightening did the striking. Our flight was cancelled due to electrical storms and it was another day before we made New York.

But New York was its wonderful best – as always. After Auckland New Zealand (our hometown!) New York is Manon and my favorite city. It was great to catch up with friends and publishers (and friends who are publishers!). The new Whole Foods Market in Columbus Circle is wonderful. And of course the book shops – some big ones and some small ones – are another favorite New York haunt.

Then it was back home to New Zealand and the need to catch up with everything – including our garden. One book of the many books I listed to buy in the US was Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, A Year of Food Life” . Here she writes about - amongst many other things – living off the food grown close by, including her own home grown. This is one of our aspirations, so it was good to get back and find - although it is now winter in New Zealand - that our apple trees were still bending low with fruit and in our vegetable garden we still had lettuce and leeks and rocket and peppers. It’s been a wonderful year for basil and other herbs too. I keep saying I must one day write a gardening book! Or maybe I should just write a gripping tale set in a garden?  Mmm…!

Actually I have too many other exciting writing projects to be getting on with, so the garden will just have to wait! Meanwhile another series I’ve ben writing for, called Fast Forward in Australia and Forward Focus in the USA, has been bearing fruit in the form of  advance copies. Fantastic illustration and design! Here are a few covers. Check them out.

Happy reading

Alan Trussell-Cullen