DeborahAllwright: Forward and Back

there be Dragons...

Yes!! Aside from those Dragons in Game of Thrones - I eagerly await series 7 - My latest book with prominent red Dragon will be published in the summer of 2017. There is no Dragon in this story written by the new and dynamic author, Lou Carter. A story within stories, jiggling with delight amidst many familiar characters and one determined Dragon. More smoke signals nearer the publishing date.

A last few meaningful moments from 2016 here....

Many extraordinary people and organisations have been working towards supporting refugees and raising awareness about asylum seekers. Without doubt this year will be one that has shown all too many tragic scenes of families on treacherous journeys to safer lands. Some of these journeys have been documented and illustrated with great poignancy. The Vietnamese - Australian artist, Matt Huynh created these dramatic scenes to tell Nam Le's story in The Boat.

In the recent London Illustration Fair I saw the exhibition Where do we go from here?Amazing line drawings, works made by Nick Ellwood as he spent time in the refugee camps of Calais over the winter of 2015.

One of my fellow studio mates has been busy founding a new fund raising mission for refugees, originally through Calaid and now in the wake of clearing the Jungle in Calais the funding continues wherever food and clothing can be distributed in Europe. The fund is called The Kindness Tree and my small part in this was to design the logo. The Kindness Tree is made possible by creating collection trees in schools throughout the UK. See the little video for more info! I hope to post more about this project next year.

Just to add to the good work, here is a story illustrated by the very talented Sydney based artist Nancy Liang. I've long admired her work which here demonstrates an immersive way of telling Junko Morimoto's story, a survivor of Hiroshima in Junko's Story.

There have also been some triumphs on bringing our attention to old forgotten stories, such as the event organised by a friend about the Ladies Bridge or Waterloo bridge in London. Built by female construction workers during the second world war and here documented.

Isabel & I as part of the hands across the Ladies Bridge

This year I visited the Bologna Book Fair! Never have I experienced so many kilometres of books! Simply overwhelming and inspiring I will never be the same and yet might return in 2017.

Joohee Yoon

So alive

So dead!

So many people

There was much hilarity and fun in big knickers for Hooray for Knickers with the author(s) Jill Lewis aka Jill and Alison ( we also made Don't Read This Book ).