So sad...

It's not very often I feel truly sad at a celebrity death, but for many many girls out there I think the death of Jonathan Crombie will make them feel a little strange - I still think Gilbert Blythe is my favourite fictional boy, from what is definitely my favourite book and as discussed in the New Yorker here Jonathan Crombie gave him a kindness that is the key to why Gilbert is so great and by far the most feminist of fictional boys for young girls to admire: he loved Anne because she was clever, he never laughed at her quirkiness when she was deadly serious - he liked her precisely because of who she was yet still challenged her, he wasn't wet or dim or preening - just natural and clever and decent without being boring... Fictional teen heroes of today's overloaded YA romance genre don't have a patch on him with their silly manipulative needy ways (read good Guardian article here ). I was going to upload an Anne of Green Gables video but they all seem to have cheesy theme tunes on you tube, so here is a photo instead... So sad... My eight year old self's heart is broken!

Auropolis New Website

Me and Ana's lovely publishers Auropolis have a new website! Click here to see http://auropolisarts.blogspot.co.uk

Tree (tea) houses of the day!

Haven't done this for a while - I feel posts have all been work, which is great and important, but sometimes a few treehouses is what one needs, so...

Firstly this one that I really hardly believe is real, but if it's not I don't really care as it looks like a living monster and I am all for tree creatures taking over cities whilst providing snacks and caffeine. It's the Gajumaru Treehouse Diner in Okinawa. 

But if I had to pick a tree tea house to live in I have to say I'd be keener on this one - the Teahouse Tetsu, built by the architect Terunobu Fujimori in Hokuto, Japan. I've always shared Anne of Green Gables' thought that if a bed couldn't be provided one really couldn't beat a cherry tree full of blossom:

Momentum open call - The Car Boot Museum

I am thrilled to announce that my project The Car Boot Museum has been chosen as one of three site-specific commissions for this years Momentum open call for Somerset Art Weeks. I will be travelling round Somerset with an evolving museum of objects and text in the back of my car. Ana will be joining me for some of it and members of the public are welcome to add to it. I will also be taking the museum to school and community settings across the county, before it culminates in an installation of text, images, film, sounds and objects during the art weeks (location to be announced). More details can be seen here: http://somersetartworks.org.uk/2015/03/artists-announced-for-momentum-open-call-commission/

Very very exciting! Do let me know if you are in Somerset and you would like me to visit!

The City - available to purchase online!

As well as in various small bookshops and galleries and on Amazon, The City is now available to buy online in limited numbers direct from us. Published by Auropolis Association of Multimedia Artists with a fab design by Nevena Vasiljevic I hope it is worth a tenner! Click here to buy a copy.

Interview with Arts Award Voice

I was recently lucky to be asked by the lovely people at Arts Award Voice to give an interview about my somewhat random but interesting career and why I love working with literature and young people. It can be read here : http://www.artsawardvoice.com/magazine/articles/interviews/want-my-jobwith-alice-maddicott

Do look at this website for upcoming articles written by the lovely members of my young writers lab I run with Bath Festivals - they are super kind, clever and interesting young people so I for one am certainly looking forward to what they have to say...

Bath Chronicle Interview

There's an interview with me about The Chancery of Lost and Found in the Bath Chronicle - the online version can be seen here. The project was a great success - so weird it's over! Thanks to the Bath Festivals team, especially Hazel Plowman their fantastic Learning and Participation Coordinator and to all my young writers - Milo and Yves Morris, Rory Haresnape, Benjamin Stephenson, Hal Bennett and Jazmine Vale.

http://www.bathchronicle.co.uk/Working-way-seeing-Bath-mixes-fact-fantasy/story-26083803-detail/story.html

The Chancery of Lost and Found - opens this weekend!

After lots and lots of hard work I am thrilled to say that The Chancery of Lost and Found will be open to the public from this Saturday 28th at 10 am. It is closed weekday mornings and Monday and Wednesday afternoons for workshops, but other than that it is open until the end of the Bath International Literature Festival on March 8th. Do come by - read and/or contribute!

The City has arrived!

Look look! Most exciting. Details of how to purchase soon.

Cafes of Europe - Spa Towns and Utopia Day

I will participating in this on the 5th March at Komedia in Bath. The writing lab I run will be giving a performance plus I will be chairing a discussion on fictional versions of Bath and young people's ideas of "ideal" cities and how this often blurs the line between dystopia and utopia. There's a nice article with more details herehttp://www.sources-of-culture.com/en/cafes-of-europe-bath-63.php and here http://virtualmuseumofbath.com/2015/01/25/ . People are invited to pop down to The Chancery of Lost and Found afternwards to contribute there own ideal cities to my collaborative installation as part of the Bath Literature Festival. I'm really excited that this could give an interesting international and spa-specific element to the work created. I believe this also coincides with World Book Day, so there should be lots of literary things to celebrate all round.