New England Writers Centre launches The Inside Story at Charlie's Last Stand

On Saturday, May 14 at Charlie's Last Stand Inside Story was officially released.

"This is a unique book that will be both an invaluable resource for aspiring and new writers, illustrators and other book people, and also a showcase of contemporary Australian children's books," said Sophie Masson - one of the core team of locals who worked on the book.

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Inside Story: the wonderful world of writing, illustrating and publishing children's books, is a collaboration between locally-based children's book publishers Christmas Press and Little Pink Dog Books, under the UPA Books banner, and was published in association with the New England Writers' Centre, with support from Create NSW.

"It is a fully-illustrated attractive publication which takes readers behind the scenes of how children's books are written, illustrated and produced, and there's nothing like it in Australia today," Ms Masson said.

"It features contributions from a stellar list of writers, illustrators, editors, designers, agents, publishers and other book people from across Australia, but was fully initiated, created and compiled by a local team of book professionals, showing clearly the high level of talent and expertise present in our creative community."

The book follows on from the Inside Story professional development day held in Armidale on March 27.

It featured talks and presentations on all aspects of the creation and production of children's picture books, from the first glimmer of an idea for a text to the drafting of illustration roughs and storyboards for the book's visual world, right through to the many production processes that eventually end with the book appearing in bookshops.

"Feedback was excellent with attendees remarking how fantastic it was that it was about the whole process of creating a picture book, not just writing or illustrating, as might be more usual, but all the aspects of production, publication and beyond too," Ms Masson said.

"We hope that this workshop might become a model for many more such professional development opportunities in the future."

The book is now available at all bookshops around Australia, including Reader's Companion in Armidale.

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