My blog has moved!

My blog has moved and all my web addresses have been roped in to lead to one place! I’m hoping that you will follow me with the move and resubscribe to my blog posts at www.thedragoncharmer.com. I’ll be listing the first free softie pattern this afternoon!

The importance of being creative…

My Faerie House

My life has been full of creative pursuits. It wasn’t until I was almost 30 that I finally settled on creating creatures and found a way to support my craft habit. Creating to me is like drinking water– it is not just something I like to do– but MUST do. To keep my creative mind refreshed it is important to learn new skills. I’ve been wanting to learn how to sculpt for many years and I finally got the chance to hand build a faerie house this past week with the help of my friend, Cindy Best, at Little Bear Pottery.

We had given my youngest son a clay session with Cindy for his birthday instead of toys he would eventually break or outgrow and it was such a great experience for him. Watching him throw a pot on the wheel gave my urge to sculpt a little push! Finally I just made time to do it and I can’t wait to create another! I’ll post another photo after it has been fired and glazed.

How do you keep your creative juices flowing and fresh?

Fairies & Hapennies Need Readers: A Giveaway for Librarians & Educators

Win this Library Fairy created by author & creature maker Jennifer Carson!

Where would Fairies and Hapennies be without librarians and teachers to read them into existence?

FAIRIES & HAPENNIES:
A Giveaway for Librarians & Educators (Grades 1-3)

Author and creature maker Jennifer Carson went into the land of stories as a child and never came out.  She spends her days weaving stories and stitching the marvels that appear in them.

The Chapter Book
Jennifer Carson’s (a.ka. The Dragon Charmer) latest chapter book, Hapenny Magick is the sweet, suspenseful, oft giggle-worthy fantasy for ages 7+,  (illustrated quite wonderfully by P.A. Lewis).

“A charming book, perfect for a read-aloud or to read sitting in the crook of a favorite tree…a warm, cheery story with just the right amount of thrilling scenes.”  –Angela J. Reynolds, Head of Youth Services, Annapolis Valley Regional Library

The Giveaway
Not only is Jennifer giving away a dozen signed copies of Hapenny Magick to elementary school librarians, public librarians, and teachers (grades 1-3), but one random applicant will be chosen by the fairies to receive the above (quite magical) Library Fairy*!  Truly?  Yes, truly.

Enter all those that read aloud to rooms full of imaginative creatures or place such books in readers’ hands. (Your email nor address will be saved, but only used for the purpose of this giveaway).

Your Name(required)

Your Email(required)

Your School / Library

Street Address

City, State, Zip

Your Comments on Fairies, Hapennies, or Giveaways(required)

*The Library Fairy is 6″ tall and made from hand dyed wool with hand dyed yarn and fiber/ribbon hair. His book is permanently attached, as are his ultra-suede pants. Face and feet are needle sculpted, eyes are needle felted with hand dyed roving.

Hapenny Giveaway for Teachers and Librarians

Where would Fairies and Hapennies be without librarians and teachers to read them into existence?

FAIRIES & HAPENNIES:
A Giveaway for Librarians & Educators (Grades 1-3)

Author and creature maker Jennifer Carson went into the land of stories as a child and never came out.  She spends her days weaving stories and stitching the marvels that appear in them.

The Chapter Book

The Library Faerie you might win!

Jennifer Carson’s (a.ka. The Dragon Charmer) latest chapter book, Hapenny Magick is the sweet, suspenseful, oft giggle-worthy fantasy for ages 7+,  (illustrated quite wonderfully by P.A. Lewis).

“A charming book, perfect for a read-aloud or to read sitting in the crook of a favorite tree…a warm, cheery story with just the right amount of thrilling scenes.”  –Angela J. Reynolds, Head of Youth Services, Annapolis Valley Regional Library

The Giveaway
Not only is Jennifer giving away a dozen signed copies of Hapenny Magick to elementary school librarians, public librarians, and teachers (grades 1-3), but one random applicant will be chosen by the fairies to receive the above (quite magical) Library Fairy*!  Truly?  Yes, truly.

Enter all those that read aloud to rooms full of imaginative creatures or place such books in readers’ hands. (Your email nor address will be saved, but only used for the purpose of this giveaway).

To Enter the Giveaway visit the Curious City’s Department of Public Works for the entry form! Want to listen to the first chapter of Hapenny Magick? Follow this link.

Hapenny Magick, audio book sneak “listen”

Maewyn

I have been dying to share this news with you all and now I finally can! Hapenny Magick is going to be a wonderful audiobook narrated by Simon Brooks, a local (to me!) professional storyteller.Please visit his website and take a listen to some of his other wonderful audio stories!

Simon has graciously decided that I could share the rough cut versions of some of my favorite chapters with all of you guys.

 

If you have the book, follow along! If not, you can get a copy here or here.

This is the first sneak “listen” to chapter one! Stay tuned for more!Hapenny Magick Chapter 1

Also, May 31 is the last day to enter the Goodreads giveaway. Find out more information here.

Children’s Book Week Giveaway

In honor of Children’s Books week Pugalicious Press is doing a giveaway for Hapenny Magick! You can also sign up for the Goodreads giveaway for Hapenny Magick too! The Goodreads giveaway ends on June 1st. The Pugalicious giveaway ends sooner! Don’t miss out =0) And check out the awesome reviews on Goodreads and Amazon!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Hapenny Magick

by Jennifer Carson

Giveaway ends June 01, 2012.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Reads for Tweens, Find Out What Your Kids are Reading!

Reads 4 Tweens offers book reviews aimed at the adults who care about the books that kids aged 8 to 12 (give or take a few years) might be reading. While there’s no reason kids shouldn’t explore the site, the reviews are full of spoilers—they’re intended to inform about content, not explicitly persuade anyone to read the book.

It’s also intended to provide a place where parents, grandparents, teachers, librarians, and anyone else who cares can talk about the issues that arise with young readers.

I love this site because we had a hard time with finding appropriate content for our precocious reader when he was younger. This site clues parents in to the content of the books that their children are reading and makes recommendations for books they might enjoy.

See what she had to say about Hapenny Magick.

Writing is like a dragonfly…

I  know, some of you are thinking, this lady is crazy! How is writing like a dragonfly?  Well, I’m going to tell you.

My family and I went up to Pittsburg, NH this Memorial Day weekend. The three older boys were fishing with my husband and I was on shore with my youngest, having paddled the canoe for a couple of hours, on break. We were standing at the lakeshore when we saw these strange looking bugs crawl right out of the water and head for land. Luckily, I knew that dragonflies began their life in the water as eggs and proceeded to live underwater as nymphs, until one day they crawl onto dry land and change into a dragonfly. I had never seen this transformation. I had never seen a dragonfly nymph crawl out of the water, but deep down inside I knew that I was about to witness a monumental moment of change.

I ran headlong for the car to get my camera.

The dragonfly head emerges.

Once the nymph made it onto shore it found a sunny spot. It took about fifteen minutes for the exoskeleton to dry out. Every once in a while it’s tail would flick. Then, all of a sudden two orange colored eyes would pop out–much larger than the eyes of the nymph.

He struggles free.

Slowly, the dragonfly would struggle out of it’s exoskeleton. First his head appears, then his back. If you look really closely on his back, you can see some brighter colored green–almost looks as if he’s rolled in a bit of pollen–those are his wings! Or…they will be.

Finally, after another fifteen minutes,

he’s out! It took a lot of struggle to be free.

Whew! That was a lot of work!

His wings slowly unfurl.

His wings start to unfurl.

Watching his wings unfurl took the longest amount of time, but it was worth watching. I kept thinking to myself, how  many people have seen a dragonfly break free from it’s “shell”? To be there when the moment happens? This is the point where I had the other thought– Dragonflies are like writing. I’ll get back to that in a moment.

And they are still going!

All dried out and ready to fly!

Above, his wings continue to unfurl until finally they unfold and he begins to vibrate them. This took a couple of hours, and even when he tried to fly a while later, he didn’t get very far. He was new to this flying thing and all, you know. I’m sure within another few hours, and a little practice, he was flying like a pro.

As writers our stories crawl out of the waters of imagination. They warm up in the sunshine in our minds until the exoskeleton is brittle enough to break through. Sometimes it’s a struggle. Sometimes our stories have to flick their tails. Sometimes our legs don’t want to pull free. But eventually our characters and their story break free and our writing wings unfurl. This is a monumental moment of change. A story  may have been in its nymph stage for a month, or six months or six years, until one day you read something, or see something, or experience something that makes it crawl out of the water, bask in the sun and struggle free.

That’s how writing is like a dragonfly. = )