From WordPress, David Clement-Davies and Phoenixarkpress.com invites authors, illustrators and designers here, and on Facebook, to tell us how Storytellers and artists can lead the field again, in building a community, rapidly linking friends up for maximum profile, and discussing new forms of storytelling and publishing. Contact us here or on Facebook, under DavidClementDavies. New friends are invited to join the publishing party.
Category Archives: The Phoenix Story
STORYTELLERS SHOULD LEAD THE FIELD IN PUBLISHING
Filed under Books, Publishing, The Phoenix Story
Dragon Egg on Face!
Many apologies, but still a Dragon delay. It must be the cold snap in London. Very exciting things coming next week though.
Filed under Childrens Books, Fantasy, The Phoenix Story
A Charming Letter, On Facebook
Dear Mr Clement-Davies,
I just wanted to send you an email to say thank you! I 1st read Fire Bringer 10 or 11 years ago, at the time I must admit, being 14 I wasn’t a huge reader. I first picked up the book as we had one English lesson per week so we had half an hour reading. I can’t remember the exact reason why I picked up the book, but once I did I couldn’t put it down until it was finished. Since that point, I have regularly been immersed in one book or another.
I recently found a copy of Fire Bringer in a 2nd hand shop and was delighted to have the chance to read it again, and once more I didn’t put it down until it was done!! It really is a fantastic book that has had the same effect on me as an adult as it did as a child.
Many thanks for your time in reading this.
Many kind regards,
AW
Filed under Fantasy, The Phoenix Story, Young Adult
PRESS RELEASE
Someone said that when private hurts are made public, everyone gets a black eye. So, apart from the previous post, anything relating to specifics in New York has been password protected, as has A Letter to My Father. It is part of the record of an extraordinary true story that might wake people up to connections and responsibilities, but a Publisher is not an individual, only a shell to nurture and present authors and their work, in the best way possible. Though a spirit of openness and honesty is exactly what Phoenix is all about, from the personal experience of the founder, blogs will only be used to discuss books and stories, provide Press Releases, and move work rapidly forward, or to highlight issues, ideas and questions readers are interested in. If the founder starts mouthing off, we’ll try to give him a cup of tea, and some pen and paper, but he is, like all of us, only human! PA
Dragon Post and a publishing schedule will appear this Thursday. In the next few weeks the blog will be fully edited and re-styled.
“Any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you…Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question…Does the path have a heart? If it does the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.” Carlas Castaneda, quoted in The Tao of Pyshics by Fritjof Capra.
Filed under America and the UK, Publishing, The Phoenix Story
DRAGON COMING…
Apologies for the further Dragon delay. Writing and editing, laying out and designing, has swamped things. Fingers crossed for Monday.
Filed under Childrens Books, The Phoenix Story
NOT UNDERSTANDING
“I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.”
Tennyson
I’m not quite convinced Alfred was right, and more especially think that a blog is often a bit like talking to yourself, but it certainly unites all in the sometimes happy, more often sorrowful human condition. Perhaps there should be a Dislike key here too, though, now we’re all forced to turn to ratings pursuits, and Push Button Democracy. As for publishing damsels, over here, this poetic heart certainly loved and lost, but wasn’t that enough, and why did said party just stand around and watch an entire writing career being taken apart too? Is it because everyone in New York is so rigid in their bizarre fears, and levels of aggressive Ego Consciousness, they believe not in the great stories, only in bad episodes of Prison Break, and the violent defence of their ‘rights’? I admit, in the Christian suffering stakes, a writer approaching the question of real good and evil in a book might have touched a sacrificial core, but what is it people really believe in? I think I prefer a quote from Kipling, unfashionable priest of Mowgli, animals and empire, but fine storyteller, to add to the poetic Sweatshop of the Soul:
“Oh, the years we waste and the tears we waste,
And the work of our head and hand
Belong to the woman who did not know
(And now we know that she never could know)
And did not understand!”
DCD
Filed under Poetry, The Phoenix Story
LIKES AND DISLIKES
Dear All,
we had a flag from a friend to say their Like Button showed an error message, and it would help to know if that is happening elsewhere. This is naturally a sneaky way of encouraging folk to press the silly thing.
Filed under Books, The Phoenix Story
PHOENIX ARK PRESS RELEASE
If you’ve ever seen a publisher, and its authors, try hard, and succeed or fail, right in front of your nose, this is where the story’s at! Apologies for delays, but we are trying to do a lot of things at the same time, and trying not to crash and burn.
The publication of Scream of the White Bear will now be brought forward, after a previous delay this year, to Spring of 2011. Not ideal for that vital Christmas Market, next year, but David Clement-Davies is not having disappointed fans waiting any longer. The situation at Abrams caused enough grief, as it is, and it is time a book came out.
Filed under Fantasy, Publishing, The Phoenix Story, Young Adult
Renaming a Serialized Book
Our serialized book has just been renamed Dragon in The Post. The next episode, involving some very Phoenixy kitchen fun has been delayed a little, but catch up
Filed under Childrens Books, Fantasy, The Phoenix Story
A SNEAK PRIEVEW
Since this story of Phoenix is being blogged, as it happens, and B sent such a kind post, I wanted to share the excerpt from Michelangelo’s Mouse, that’s being chipped away at, at the moment. It’s for younger children, but the spirit is that artistic fight to believe in work, beyond even making money, though that would be nice too! Had a wonderful illustration on Saturday of our hero mouse, and the artist is now at work too.
“Oh, no, please, you can’t give up,” came a little voice, from somewhere below. “It’s not fair.”
“Who’s that?” cried Michelangelo, jumping to his feet.
“What about me?” came the sad voice. “If you give up, Michelangelo, then how will I ever learn to be an artist? How will I ever become famouse?”
“Who’s there, I say?” cried Michelangelo angrily, looking left and right.
“I’m down here,” came the tiny voice.
So Maestro Michelangelo, the greatest artist in all the world, looked down and saw a little waist-coated mouse, poking his head through the finger hole in his painting palette.
Michelangelo was always looking at things, but he had never seen any-thing so amazing in his life before. His huge, brooding eyes opened wide. His great stubbly chin dropped open, and he placed his giant hands on his sides, and stared down in astonishment at the little mouse.
“And who are you?” he asked softly.
“I’m Jotto,” squeaked Jotto nervously. “I’m a mouse.”
“I can see that,” said Michelangelo, “and why can’t I give up, little mouse? I’m Michelangelo. I can do what I like.”
“You can’t do what you like,” said Jotto boldly.
“And WHY NOT?” said Michelangelo, beginning to get angry.
“Because…because I need your help. Because I left my family, and my village of Popolo, and the painting of St Francis, to be a real artist. Because if I don’t become an artist, the fresco in the stone church will never be finished, and I’ll never be famouse. And because, because without you, what will the others do?”
“OTHERS?!” said Michelangelo.
“The school of mice, under your studio.”
“Under my studio!” cried Michelangelo, looking even more amazed.
“Dante and Caravajeo, and Tintorettito and the others. They’re mice, but artists, too, and they haven’t got any paints, or food, or spirit left. So they left. Except Caterina.”
“Oh,” said Michelangelo, a little guiltily.
“So, you see, we need your help. All of us.”
“I never knew I was so needed,” said Michelangelo, shaking his strong head.
“Oh, yes,” said Jotto, “now more than ever. Besides, we love what you do. ”
“Oh, you do, do you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Jotto.
“But I can’t go on, Jotto,” said Michelangelo more kindly, sitting down wearily next to the tiny mouse.
“Why not?” asked Jotto.
“Because they’re always telling me what to do. I’m fed up with it.”
“I don’t understand. You can do what you like. You’re famous,” said Jotto, “the most famous artist in all Italy.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” said Michelangelo, with a sad smile. “I still have to please other people. I have to earn a living. I have to buy brushes and paint and canvas, Jotto, so I have to listen to my patrons. And, they’re always so patronising. Do this, do that. Palaces and portraits. Sometimes I forget what it’s like to be an artist, and just do what I want. Just for the fun of it.”
“Would you teach me?” asked Jotto suddenly. “What it’s like to be an artist, I mean.”
Michelangelo looked carefully at the little mouse. “What do you want to learn?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I want to paint. But sometimes I want to make sculptures, and sometimes I want to make buildings, and sometimes I just want to think.”
“Do it all then,” said Michelangelo, shrugging.
“What do you mean, Maestro?”
“With the Renaissance going on, everybody’s trying everything. Some-times art is agony, sometimes ecstasy. But be a Renaissance Mouse.”
David Clement-Davies Copyright 2010 – All Rights Reserved Published by Phoenix Ark Press
The right of David Clement-Davies to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988
Filed under Childrens Books, The Arts, The Phoenix Story
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