Ree-flections
Greetings from a suddenly-cool Brisbane which seems to have finally realised we’re in autumn.
I’m excited to share a range of interesting reads in this ed. (Well, I think they’re interesting!!)
And I’m especially excited to share one of my new short stories in my ‘Something I Created’ section below! It took a lot of writing (and ree-writing) and I think I’m happy with it now. The words were 100% inspired by the image.
The story is part of my Snapshot Stories collection. And, by the way, I’ve got several other new tiny stories on the Snapshot page too!
I hope my words find you well in your world, and I hope you enjoy this issue.
Writing & Creativity Cool Finds
Apparently, librarians don’t use white gloves to handle rare books and manuscripts – for a whole bunch of very good reasons. Non-librarian audiences, fed on a steady diet of movie librarians in white gloves, think otherwise and regularly try to take librarians to task about this.
This is an interesting one about children who grow up in influencer households and who are the main source of their parents’ online content (and income streams). What happens when the children grow up and don’t want a bar of it anymore?
Can you protect your images from AI re-use and manipulation? Maybe. On the flip side, here’s a piece on ‘synthographers‘ – a portmanteau term of ‘synthesis’ and ‘photographer’ coined to describe those who create digital media using AI image generators. Where does this leave the whole AI-images-can’t-be-copyrighted decision by the US Copyright Office? Wait and see, I suppose.
I found this article fascinating: on dyslexia and comparing the reading and writing experiences of multi-lingual children – and guess what, their first language is not necessarily their easiest language.
Something I created
The Woman Who Painted Love Hearts
At first the woman set herself up in the little tree-lined park, just to the left of the entrance, on the grass and among the trees.
She set out her little desk and stool, and carefully pulled out a scrapbook – the kind you can buy at the supermarket, a shallow plastic tub which had once contained cream cheese and which she filled with clear water from her drinking bottle, two small square-tipped paintbrushes, and a small tub of red paint.
Over the course of a week, between two and three o’clock, every time someone entered or left the park through its sunlit entrance, the woman bent her silver hair towards the scrapbook, and carefully painted a love heart with one of the square-tipped brushes.
The hearts were of varying sizes – no smaller than the woman’s thumbnail and some that could barely fit onto her palm. They were scattered all over the page – some were well-shaped, others were uneven – too patchy, too thick, and, where the bristles had strayed too far, too splotchy. Some looked more like ticks or crosses than hearts, but there altogether on the page, all in different sizes, all in the same shade of red, they all looked like hearts, and somehow they all looked as though they belonged on the page.
When the page was full, she turned it over to the next page and started again.
One love heart painting at a time.
At the end of the week, the woman moved her desk and chair outside the park.
To read the rest, click here.
Backstory: The painting came first for this story. It was my usual case of using leftover paints and I liked the love hearts effect enough to play with it in my phone photoshop app. I loved this final image. The story took the longest time to come together, but I do like this version. I hope you do too.
A Book or Piece of Art I Love
Moon by Britta Teckentrup
Another beautiful children’s book which is part of a themed series by Teckentrup. There are also Tree, Bee, Sea, Home and Bugs.
I think I should really just re-name this section ‘Beautiful Kids’ Books’ and be done with it!
This is a beautifully illustrated book, following how different animals around the world live their lives under different phases of moonlight. It ends with a moon above a town sleeping in silvery light, allowing children to bring themselves into the story.
Does it have a somnolent effect on LittleOne? No, but I live in hope!
Randomly Interesting Inspirations for Stories
I love this: buildings being designed to automatically adjust and reduce their artificial light in proportion to moonlight. Pair that article with the dark sky town of Moffat in Scotland, which tries to turn off all artificial lighting for two weeks in winter. I can imagine the world would feel more magical. And it would definitely leave me starry-eyed
Now visit the small Icelandic town where it’s a way of life to rescue baby puffins confused by town lights.
And in keeping with the light theme, here’s a piece on how native Australian wildlife live in moonlight.
Thank you
Du fond du coeur, thanks for reading x
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