Earlysville, Virginia

July 29, 2009

Greetings to all those who love fairies and their ilk. It’s been an exciting year.  I have lots of positive reviews (thank you, you know who you are), offerings of signings and shows.  The second book is half finished and my artist, Rose Csorba, is beginning to feel the stirrings of creativity again for this second book.  I can’t wait to see what wonders flow from her colored pencils.

ABOUT THE SECOND FAIRY HUNTERS BOOK

I am half way through the second book.  I am introducing several new characters in this book, including Squirrel, along with the inevitable Acorn Fairy, Winnie the Poo-dle, and John-Michael, a sweet, imaginative little boy who moves into the big house next to Ashley.  And for the third book, there will be Owl, Toad, and Leo the Lizard.  Leo is brand new and I haven’t fleshed him out yet, but I think he is fond of jazz.  Being French, he dresses in scarves and berets and is always in fashion.  He speaks French extremely well and is always struggling to understand the English spoken by his compatriots, which leads to many humorous misunderstandings.

ABOUT THE WEBSITE WWW.FAIRYHUNTERS.NET

We are building a new page on the website (www.fairyhunters.net) called “Laura’s Garden” and it will have descriptions of flowers with photographs I have taken from my gardens.  It will also tell how to take care of the various flowers, so that you might learn to tend a garden of your own.  The page will also have stories of fairies and gremlins one might meet in a garden.

Also on the website, there will be a store front where one can buy t-shirts of all sizes with the illustrations printed on them.  There will be blue, white, yellow and pink shirts.  In the fall we will add long sleeve t-shirts and sweatshirts.  One can also buy 8 X 10 prints of the illustrations along with various frames.

I am trying to talk Rose into creating reproducible figurines of the various characters in the book.  She already creates puppets and no one knows the characters the way Rose knows them.

There are also going to be trading cards with the various fairies on the fronts and descriptions on the back.  There will eventually be a lot of fairies, as I have two more books in my head.

COMING SOON TO WWW.FAIRYHUNTERS.NET

There will be a page which allows readers to write in their own stories of the fairies they have met and their habits.  I plan to compile a list of these fairies and publish a book created by all of you out there.  So pull out your magnifying glasses and start looking for fairies.

IN THE FALL

In the fall I shall be reading at schools and libraries, as well as selling my wares at various art centers and fairs.  I am going to the Neptune Festival at Virginia Beach in September and appearing at the annual Midwest Book show that month as well.  It promises to be a very busy autumn.  I will enjoy seeing the autumn fairies come out and do their things with the leaves.  It is the fairies who color the leaves of trees in the autumn.  They are very creative.

ABOUT OTHER FAIRY BOOKS

There are other fairy books out there that I love.  This is a very partial list and I’ll add to it each month as I discover new ones..  Many of you are probably already familiar with some of them.  If there are fairy books that you know of and I don’t include, please email me at sheila@fairyhunters.net.  I have to start somewhere, so here goes.  I also include “Alice in Wonderland” for Lewis Carroll must have been a fairy hunter too.

FAERIES,   2002.  Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition, described and illustrated by Brian Froud and Alan Lee.  Published by: Abrams.   The illustrations are amazing, many of them being fiercely ugly and others ethereally beautiful.  A must have for all faerie lovers.

HOW TO FIND FLOWER FAIRIES.  2007.  Popup Book by Cecily Mary Barker.  Published by Penguin Group.  This is an exquisitely rendered popup book, suitable for children or curious adults who haven’t left their childhood behind them.

LADY COTTINGTON’S PRESSED FAIRY BOOK. 1994.  Turner Publishing.  Written & illustrated by Brian Froud.  This is one of my personal favorites.   The pressed fairies are very humorous and irreverent.  It’s a glimpse into the young Lady Cottington’s childhood, during which she captured fairies in the pages of her book, hence the “pressed” fairy book.  A must have for young and old.

Each of these books will lead you to other books on the magic realm of fairy, and cover subjects like dragons, witches, gnomes and the like.

ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND AND THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS by Lewis Carroll, Hugh Haughton & John Tenniel.  Penguin Classics.  For those who had had the misfortune to have lived without reading Carroll, now is the time.  It is a wonderful visit through an enchanted land where anything could happen at any moment.  From the moment Alice tumbles down the rabbit hole, everything goes slightly upside down and sideways, leaving the reader a bit disoriented in this interesting place.

I have just ordered one of the few available copies of Mary Cecily Barker’s THE COMPLETE FLOWER FAIRY BOOK, which contains her books: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Wayside, Garden, Alphabet, & Trees.  If you are quick you can get one of the few remaining copies at Amazon.com.  The book is currently out of print.  Barker’s illustrations are wonderful as is her verse.