Feather, Leaf, Bark & Stone
By Jackie Morris
A pillow book of poems, dreams & stories typed on sheets of gold leaf.
Sunday, 13 June 2021
Silence
It's been very quiet here for a while, but that is because my focus, for now, is elsewhere. The manuscript for Feather, Leaf has been with John, my publisher, and he has edited and also restructured the end a little. Like many of my books it wasn't linear, can be shuffled, and between us we have been trying to gather together the leaves, bark, stones etc into the right order. Part of my work today will be to check what John has done, and then, my friends, it will vbe sent off to Alison, where it sits and waits in a queue of design until she turns her gaze on it.
All in good time. And in the meantime I have been working hard on other things. Soon Wild Swans and East of the Sun will be published in the UK and The Unwinding will come to USA. And soon, very soon, I hope to be going to North Moor House in Dulverton for The Unwinding event, postponed from last year- if all is well, and we are allowed. There may still be a place left, so contact Seven Fables if you wish to join us. I think it will be quite an emotional event.
I've been reading, and have a new project, supporting the books of others. I think, but am not sure, that I first heard of Mrs Death Misses Death from Backlisted Podcast, but maybe it was the cover. Anyway, I have blogged about the book and am offering my copy plus an original bookmark to go with the book to one of the people who comments on the post, and there are such moving, beautiful comments there. Follow this link to find out more, and below is the bookmark.
Backlisted is a wonderful listen, while I am working. And this is what I have been working on; it's this year's Help Musicians Christmas Card and will possibly become, at some point, a new Unwinding, along with last year's. It is almost finished. I'm intending to go and sit by a small pond where a family of swans live to find words for it, and then have a plan that I have just passed on to Help Musicians, that might just make something a bit magical.
I'm now reading this, and intend this to become part of 'the bookmark project' too. It's the perfect summer book. But also, maybe the perfect winter book. It is a real soul's ease that fills the mind's eye with beauty. And, like The Unwinding, part of its origin was on twitter. How wonderful that something often associated with hate speak can bring forth sweet beauty through the hands, heart and mind of a creative genius like Joanne Harris.
I'm sorry I can't report more progress on Feather, Leaf. Books take such an age sometimes. I am working on some new things with John that are in contractual phase and hopefully there will be more about them soon, and settling my feathers to the Book of Birds. But for now, I need to go and catch words in the sunshine, and look at the shape of the swans. Honeycombe may find its way in to my bag also, as it would be the perfect place to sit quiet and read.
Top rewards
Trade Edition Hardback
Signed Special Edition
Comments
Stanbrook Abbey's No. 19 2021 newsletter has several whimsical images from a new illuminated alphabet. Rabbit is frequenting those images too!
posted 15th June 2021
I rather got my hopes up thinking that this announcement was the one! The one to say all was done and it was off to printing. So a publishing and distribution date was being set. Alas, not! But we do learn, with interest, a bit more of how publishing works - so slowly, yes - but then, once we do receive ‘our’ book, it feels ours not only because we own a copy but because we were just a small part of the process. It has become part of us even before we receive the actual book. Yes! We want the book now but we also want our book to be the very best it can be. To be the beauty we anticipate. So, we wait, impatient but so very patiently.
posted 17th June 2021
That card would make a lovely jigsaw. Sadly there haven't been any new ones from Wentworth for a while. I think I have all of yours!
posted 17th June 2021