Books to cherish every day
We love working with our wonderful authors and illustrators, and in this tenth anniversary year, have asked them about their experience of working with us. Over the next few weeks you will see their responses, and today we’re starting with some absolutely beautiful and affirming words from Victor Kelleher!
Our lovely intern Yasmin Paige has created the great tiles: on the first one is the short version of Victor’s words, on the second the full one.
Happy new year, everyone! We hope everyone had a great festive season.
We’re very excited because this year, 2023, is our 10th anniversary year! Yes, our little press started ten years ago with a big dream and a lot of hard work…and this year, we’ll be celebrating the achievements of the last ten years, the fabulous books, the wonderful creators–authors and illustrators–and brilliant professionals–editors, designers, printers, distributors–who work with us. And we’ll be celebrating the fact that our books have found their way into the hands of so many young readers, thanks to the dedicated booksellers, reviewers, families, teachers and librarians who have supported our books and our ‘small press with big ideas’ over those ten wonderful years!
We’ll have all sorts of things going on this year to celebrate and highlight our books, including giveaways, interviews, free downloadable activities, competitions, and more. And today, we’re kicking off the celebrations with a short video outlining the story of Christmas Press. Enjoy–and thank you!
To all our authors, illustrators, friends and supporters:
And see you next year, our 10th anniversary year: we’ll have lots of exciting things happening to celebrate! Meanwhile, have a look at our 2022 books below: lots of great holiday reading!
We’re happy to present our 2022 catalogue, with all this year’s fabulous books, plus an overview of all our earlier wonderful titles. Download from the link below–and enjoy!
We’re delighted to introduce our fabulous new creative and social media assistant, Yasmin Paige. Yasmin, a University of New England student majoring in publishing and writing, is doing an internship with us for the next couple of months, concentrating on coming up with great social media campaigns and posts, and creating fun activities around our books. We’re delighted to welcome her to Christmas Press! Watch for her posts and stories on Instagram and Facebook, starting from today.
And read on for more from Yasmin herself.
Hey there, I’m Yasmin (but I usually go by Yas)! I am currently studying my Bachelor’s degree of media and communication, majoring in writing and publishing, at the University of New England. I am so excited to be working with Christmas Press and look forward to showing you what I can do!
A little about me:
I live with my partner Jarrod, and our three cats (Eddie, Lily and Daisy), which means I’m always covered in cat fur. Our apartment is overrun by books, plants, painting supplies and little knick-knacks I pick up from thrift stores and traveling. I love art, fashion history and romance novels, and will often be found curled up on the couch with a mug of Milo, reading a book or watching a video essay on Renaissance fashion.
I chose Christmas Press because of their dedication to both their authors and their audience, which is very important to me! And I hope during my time here I can further boost this connection as well as gain knowledge from those more experienced in the publishing industry. I’m not sure what the future holds for me, but hopefully I will be helping the writing dreams of others come into fruition and encouraging younger generations to take up reading ♡.
For the enjoyment of our readers and supporters, we’re delighted to present to you a fun little video, Four friends at the vintage vehicle show, which is a standalone mini-episode set in the world of the four fabulous friends who just happen to have wheels: Fergie, Maxie, Lady and Flash.
The ‘Four’ series of chapter books for young readers is written by Sophie Masson, illustrated by Cheryl Orsini, and published by Christmas Press. Together, the books form a fantastic, funny and action-packed little series full of vivid vehicle characters, exciting adventures and lots of fun. And they make perfect little stocking fillers for Christmas!
In order, the books are:
Four on the Run(2020)
Four All At Sea(2021)
Four Up In Lights (2022)
We have a new merchandise store on TeePublic–offering all kinds of things, from Tshirts to phone cases, stickers to cards, bags and more, which feature gorgeous illustrations from some of our books. Below you can see just a couple of the fabulous designs you can choose from–‘Bear in the Woods’ by David Allan, from Two Trickster Tales from Russia by Sophie Masson and David Allan, and ‘Selkie seal kingdom’, by Fiona McDonald, from Two Selkie Stories from Scotland, by Kate Forsyth and Fiona McDonald.
Check out the store here.
We are delighted to announced that we are now represented internationally, both for our frontlist and our backlist, by the fabulous new Bold Type Agency, helmed by the wonderful Nerrilee Weir and Fiona Henderson. We look forward very much to working with them!
There’s a great interview with our fabulous author Rebecca Fung, writer of A Very Special Moon Mission and Princess Hayley’s Comet, on fellow author Helen Edwards’ blog. Here’s a short extract:
‘My best memories come from children’s books, which have influenced my writing. I remember how excited I was to read a great story as a child, and I want to create that experience for others. I also think in children’s books, you can be daring and imaginative and simply have fun; more than you can in adult books. If you create a three-headed monster made entirely of jelly and ice cream, who flies off to Jupiter, kids are in it for the adventure, not to ask how this is scientifically possible?’
Rebecca cites Roald Dahl as one of her great writing heroes, because, like Dahl, she likes to create both fun stories for children and darker stories for adults. ‘I love both his adult books and his children’s books. They’re edgy and quirky and he writes well for all audiences.’
Rebecca’s stories feature characters with strong emotions. She says that some include dark humour and some are just dark (usually the more adult ones). She enjoys taking a possibility or a character and following it through – asking why, or seeing what happens – no matter how weird, dark or strange. She enjoys finding that lever to make readers laugh, feel unsettled, or feel strongly in other ways, such as wanting to fight for a character, and says, ‘To me, it’s a challenge to get this just right and so satisfying when I think it works.’
You can read the whole interview here.
We are absolutely delighted that Inside Story: the wonderful world of writing, illustrating and publishing children’s books, which we published jointly with Little Pink Dog Books, under our collaborative imprint UPA Books, has just received a glowing review in the latest (September) issue of the prestigious, long-running children’s literature journal, Magpies. The review isn’t available online, but you can see a jpeg of it below. The same issue(available on subscription) also contains a fabulous three-page interview with Sophie Masson and Kathy Creamer, principal writers and compilers for Inside Story.
For anyone interested in Australian and New Zealand children’s books, it’s really worthwhile subscribing to Magpies, a fabulous resource packed with interviews, reviews and news, published five times a year. The magazines are beautifully produced in full colour and subscriptions are very reasonably priced, see here.
Christmas Press 