An artist in Paris: it could be you!

A residence is on offer! Check it out!

The City of Paris and the Institut français, France’s international agency for cultural policy affiliated to the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, offer a programme of residences dedicated to established writers and artists in the fields of visual and performing arts who have already achieved international recognition. The residences take place at the Recollets International Exchange and Accommodation Centre, a magnificent building in the centre of Paris, opened in 2003.

More info over here. Deadline for applications: 17th of June.

Children's Books Ireland Award 2012... nearly there!

Amazing performances. Unbearable tension. Incredible good taste. Yes, there's less than a week to go before the results of the Children's Books Ireland Awards. Monday will see all revealed!

(oh yes, the Eurovision is on this weekend too...)

Alexis and me

This past weekend saw the return of that exciting, unequalled and highly inspiring event: the Children's Books Ireland conference. As always, the speakers were brilliant and it was great to wander among the delegates with free hands (thank you, childminders of this world!) and meet known and new faces.

The particular highlight for me, I must admit, was writer-illustrator Alexis Deacon's talk on the Sunday. It was one of the typical conference sessions where I'm mentally going 'yes, exactly' every two sentences and that make me want to go home and read, read, read and write, write, write.

So what a great honour and bonus it was to spend the next hour interviewing the man himself!

More on that once the paper is written (and published).

I leave you in his extremely capable hands in the meantime. 

(and for those French speakers out there, yes, his books are available en français from l'Ecole des Loisirs et Kaléidoscope)