Reads and Links: Book Arts (Part 1)

Do you think every traditional – i.e. ‘dead tree’ book – is just a plain old block of paper with a cover?  Think again! The book arts are alive and well! And they have their own e-journal (which is free to download and read), making the world of bookbinding and book arts accessible to everyone with the right website address…

I give you The Bonefolder.

During the next couple of weeks I hope to showcase some of the best the book arts have to offer – small presses, handmade books and the people behind them. They show me just how out of the box a book can be and gives me a chance to re-think the creative spark behind a few random ideas… You don’t need a lot of words to tell a whole story.

Cover of The Bonefolder, Volume 2, Number 1

Some other links and reads:

One of the very good things about digitizing old or out-of-print books is that you can read it without hunting across the world for a copy too expensive to buy or simply find out if it’s to your liking before you buy the book. For instance, here you can read GK Chesterton’s works. 

A Dragon, a Phoenix, Music and Dancing

Paper myths

While rummaging around for inspiration for some quilled wedding invitations I’m making for a friend, I (again) came across the wonderful blog If Looks Could Quill, where a quilled dragon and phoenix also features… truly beautiful works of art!

Phoenix - Paper Quilling

Dragon - Paper Quilling

  Heavenly music

Anonymous 4 ‘s music is some of the most beautiful I have ever heard. I first came across their CD Four Centuries of Chant while browsing the Classical Room at a local music shop – and now I’m slowly building my music library to contain all their CDs… (And look out for one of the songs tomorrow on Ageless Words – with a translation, of course!)

“Renowned for their unearthly vocal blend and virtuosic ensemble singing, the four women of Anonymous 4 combine musical, literary, and historical scholarship with contemporary performance intuition as they create ingeniously designed programs, interweaving music with poetry and narrative.”

Time to brag about local talent…

I also got a delightful surprise birthday gift from my sister and brother in-law – tickets to see South African Ballet Theatre’s Romeo & Juliet! And last Saturday was chosen especially because my favourite dancers were performing. Here’s a small gallery. I see the next ballet for the season will be The Sleeping Beauty – can’t wait! I have to get tickets. And it’s always a pleasure to go to the theatre.

Reads and sites: Worldbuilding with Words, Paint & Pencil

I’ve found some great resources for worldbuilding this week and visited John Howe’s website again. I also took a peak at writer’s notebooks…

Worldbuilding Resources

You can now download the Magical Worldbuilder Guide by  Stephanie Cottrell Bryant in PDF, ePub or MOBI formats:

“… give yourself 7 and a half hours this month-- 15 minutes a day-- to build a world. It's not going to be Perfect or Set. Why would it be? You haven't actually written the story yet, you haven't tested its limits. But it'll give you something to start with, something to feel comfortable about when you start.”

I also came across an interesting interview about worldbuilding on www.writerswrite.com – I always love to hear how different writers go about writing.

John Howe

John Howe is truly one of my favourite artists – and he is a talented wordsmith as well. Enough to make you dark green with envy!

I love notebooks!

What can be better than a brand new notebook? One filled with scribbles, stories and pictures… I came across this link in a tweet by @thecreativepenn – “For the love of Moleskine journals”. My notebooks are usually a mix of ideas, glimpses of stories, the names of books or sites I want to read, doodles and scribbled maps and even the odd feather, leaf and pressed flower… How does yours look?

Interesting reads and sites of the week, part 1:

Welcome to the first “interesting reads and sites” Thursday; where I share some of the stories or sites I came across during this week.[1]

World Enough, and Time – a new series of articles on The Friday Challenge about "finding the time to write and to publish." I enjoyed the style this was written in and will definitely keep my eye out for the new ones!

Some more good writing advice from Rachelle Gardner:  Story vs. Craft. 

I have to mention SpecGram’s new June 2011 issue - as always, it’s a hoot to read. This month I especially love the “linguistic love song”... I do not have an article in this issue, but I am (slowly, but surely) working on another one which I am sure will rock the linguistics world! 

Something for the eye: 

I stumbled across this wonderful gallery by Gold-seven on DeviantArt – one of my favourite web haunts for inspiration. 

The Choice of Luthien by Gold Seven

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[1] These articles, stories and sites are chosen by me, I do not receive any remuneration for any of these mentions.