In this issue:

2017 flying along!

Welcome to Week 6 - who can believe it?  2017 has been flying along ......

If you haven't already done so, please update our contact phone number.  The 1300 number has now been disconnected.  Our new easy to remember local number is:

07-30408-INK(465)

Wherever you are, you can now also make direct contact with us via a Skype Call - search for
[email protected] and add Speakers Ink as a contact.

Recently we have also added some new voices to the Speakers Ink family for 2017 so check out the article below to see who has recently joined our Agency.

If there is anything at all we can do to help you secure vibrant speakers, please don't hesitate to make contact.

A direct link to our website can be found here.

2017 New Voices

• Jess Black
• Chrissy Byers
• David Hallett
• Tamsin Janu
• Dimity Powell
• Guillio Saggin
• Samantha Turnbull

Stop Press

The Spotlight

 is on  Dimity Powell  

"Our students really enjoyed your presentation. It was very exciting to see an author who could actually engage with students and could talk to them at their level".  - Miami State School Authors in Schools Program June 2015.

Dimity Powell is an award winning children’s author and Kids’ Lit reviewer who has been around the world a couple of times, or maybe more.

Her words appear in school magazines, anthologies for children, on line, as immersive digital narrative, in junior novels and in picture books. Dimity’s debut junior novel, PS Who Stole Santa’s Mail? unashamedly celebrates the magic of Christmas. Her poignant picture book, The Fix-It Man graced bookshops across the planet in 2017 with another, At the End of Holyrood Lane due out in 2018.

To book Dimity or any of our wonderful speakers for your school or library, please visit our website: Speakers Ink.        

International Read to Me Day

Emma Mactaggart, one of our very own Speakers Inkers, is the creator of International Read to Me Day.  Emma's goal is to use 'International Read to Me Day" as a way of connecting young people around the world to each other and to their communities.  Emma passionately says, "We all know it takes a village to raise a child, but it often takes a child to inspire a village into action.  It is time to listen to that one child".

International Read to Me Day will be held this year on Sunday, 19th March - we hope you can get behind this great initiative.  For all the details, please follow the link.

Congratulations to...

	Jess Black whose books have been included in the reading list for the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge
	Randa Abdel-Fattah whose book When Michael met Mina has been included on the longest for the Inky Awards.

What's On

	The Books I love best Yearly (Bilby) Awards organised by the CBCA Queensland branch are on again this year - registration opened on 1 February. Nominations close at the end of March. Children can vote for their favourite books throughout terms 2 and 3 and winners will be announced on November 22
	The State Library of Queensland has many programs running throughout the year. Keep checking here for more information as programs are finalised
	Following the success of the reCollections exhibition in 2016, another exhibition of original illustrations from Australian children's books is being organised for 2017. Visually speaking will comprise artworks on loan from local children's illustrators from their published books. The exhibition will first show at the Garden City Library during April and May
	The Somerset Celebration of Literature is once again being held in March 2017 and in preparation the National Poetry Prize and the National Novella Writing Competition is now open for applications.  What a great way to encourage young aspiring poets

 

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library." — Jorge Luis Borges

Yours in promoting literacy from all at the Speakers Ink team,

Sandie, Helen, Margie, Anna, Jan, Rob and James