Friday stuff and items

 1) It's spring in Melbourne. We can tell by how it was 30 degrees and windy yesterday, followed by an impressively dramatic temperature drop, which made it rawther chilly overnight.*

via our helpful friends at the School of Earth Sciences 

But the most telling piece of evidence is how everyone is swearing at the plane-tree fluff.

Also, in other Melbourne spring news: don't forget that DAYLIGHT SAVING starts this weekend. HOORAY! BOOOOO! **

This has been a public service announcement.
  
2) This Twilight: Breaking Dawn part 2 poster - it's just really really funny somehow.

3) It's Friday. What would you like to be doing best? Going on a 'sonic journey' as our colleague  Jarvis Cocker reads a passage from Heart of Darkness accompanied by cellist Philip Sheppard? Thought so.

4) For $395,000 you can buy Ingleside. INGLESIDE! Surely we need a Canadian office, don't we Mothership? We promise to leave at least one Onion  to run the Melbourne office. We were always a bit suss on her anyway.



* Don't pack away these winter doonas just yet, people. You don't want to freeze in the fickle Melbourne spring.
** The onset of Daylight Savings is guaranteed to ever and always divide the night-owls from early-birds.

Friday stuff and items

This time last Friday we were flying up to Sydney for our PARTY (more photos on our facebook page). This time THIS Friday we are preparing a list of excellent stuff and interesting items:

1) The Mothership has a beautiful new website design. It's clean and spacious and easy to navigate and quick to load. www.allenandunwin.com We think you should go to there*, look around, put your feet up, make yourself at home. While you're there, you should check out the beeyotiful Alien Onion linky button right there in the left-hand sidebar. How cute is it? We are well pleased.

Big cheers for everyone involved in the remaking of the website. It is a Known Fact that cockies fly bettter with new plumage.

2) If you are a fan of either Lois Lowry or Scott O'Dell (Author of Island of the Blue Dolphins. See item number 1 on this list.), then you should go and read Lois's lovely letter on Amazon. (You'll need to scroll down the page a bit.)

3) There is MUCH excitement in the House as we eagerly anticipate the welcoming of Joss Whedon into our fair city as a keynote speaker at the Melbourne Writers Festival.

4) And speaking of our fair city and its festivals of genius... Quick, quick, snap up a ticket for Animation Shorts 1 at MIFF where you can see the short film of Shaun Tan's The Lost Thing. A thing of beauty it is.

5) The Twilight Saga: Eclipse as told through lolcats. Entirely too too good. (via Bookshelves of Doom)

6) Speaking of cats. Look at this bookstore in Venice**...

*Unless, of course, you have just come from there. In which case, hello and welcome! Lovely to see you.

** Onion 1: 'Oh did I mention I was just in Yoorup? *carefree laugh* 'And there was--'

Onions 2-11: 'Dear colleague, enough now. Shhh. Ssshhhh.'

Friday stuff and items

1) It's cake season in the House of Onion at the moment,* and even though the Cake-maker Extraordinaire flies (waddles?) with a different flock these days, she's still exerting her influence around here.

The Cake-maker-in-Chief recently discovered an unexpected envelope in her in-tray. At first she thought it might be a surprise book contract, but no. It was a recipe and an instruction about whose birthday said recipe would suit. The recipe included the preparation of sugared rosemary. Yes, dear reader, sugared rosemary. Who thinks of these things? It also featured oranges asimmer, hazelnuts aroasting and Grand Marnier aplenty.

We are delighted to inform you that the Cake-maker-in-Chief executed this recipe with SUBLIME results. SUBLIME. Wish you were here.

2) It's also the busy season. There are still 11 books to go to the printer from the House of Onion before Christmas. (Hoo boy - that looks really scary in print, so we're just going to make the font really tiny.) Clearly the only thing to do is watch YouTube videos, like this one:



via Bookshelves of Doom


3) And it's ALWAYS lolcat season**





*Isn't it always.
**In the interests of fair and transparent representation of the House of Onion as a whole, we need to note that E - of E-cake fame - does not find pictures of cats with poorly spelled captions amusing.

Friday stuff and items

Here are some things that are going on around the House of Onion today:

1) A blurb is being written for Lord Sunday, the last book in the epic Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix. But how to whip up a frenzy of excitement without GIVING ANYTHING AWAY?

2) The covers of the Little Else series are being tweaked to get the colours of the three books in balance so they have the same ‘weight’ next to each-other on the shelf.

3) Huge and unwieldy (but exciting) test proofs are being checked for The City, a new picture book by Armin Greder. To varnish or not to varnish? That is the question.

4) Our 2010 publishing list is being discussed with our Rights & International Sales Director in preparation for the Bologna Children's Book Fair (Just quietly: it's awesome, she's awesome, and we are geniuses). On the other hand, piles of manuscript submissions from the Frankfurt Bookfair are threatening to swamp us.*

5) Our February New Books brochure is being sent to Booksellers. February, already!

6) A picture-book text is being wrangled into shape with an author who's roaming the country (last week in Western Australia, next week Queensland), a co-author, an editor and a designer in Melbourne, an artist in London, and a ticking clock...

7) And, it seems, the passive voice is being revelled in.



Here are some things going on in the wider world today:

1) There seem to be a lot of gluttons for punishment out there participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Lili Wilkinson is, for one. And Justine, Scott and Maureen are offering tips. Good luck one and all!

2) Ang Lee’s taking on another sort of crouching tiger. **

3) Bookshelves of Doom uncovered something too disturbing for words. Seriously, go here at your peril.

4) In the same theme, Cakewrecks has discovered a whole new genre of birthday cake. Some good and some oh so very bad.

5) Karen Healey is revealing the secret to being published. As workshopped by a distinguished panel of authors, editors, publishers and experts.

6) And Kate Constable is sharing the love for ballet books. Hitch up your tutu, tighten the ribbons on your pointe shoes, pull your hair into a bun and pirouette on over to tell her which ones were your favourites.




* Oh no - that publisher is drowning, not waving!
** Richard Parker may well be slouching at his end of the little boat, but will there be dragons?

When Buffy met Edward

Found via Bookshelves of Doom
Made by the very clever folk at Rebellious Pixels
Genius.

Step-hen v Step-henie

oooh - controversy in the vamposphere!

Wilted Onions

Apparently everything breaks when the temperature is over 40 degrees Celsius (that's 104 degrees Fahrenheit) for two days in a row: trains, trams, electricity... brains.

So while we lie on the floor panting, here are some pretty/interesting/funny/educational things. (OK, none of these are educational.)

Vampires. We like them. We really like them when they are being staked, or when they are all dark and broody and have a soul, or bleached hair, an English accent and (eventually) a soul .

That's why we like this so much.
'But you know what they say: stakes don't kill vampires; girls with stakes kill vampires. Mr Sparkly, meet Mr Pointy.'

And this. It speaks for itself, really.

As has been stated before, most of the Onions are firmly Team Jacob (though we wavered temporarily after seeing the film), but the thought of snuggling up to an ice-cold vamp is actually mighty appealing in the midst of this heatwave. Although, come to think of it, I suppose Edward doesn't actually have an internal refrigeration device, does he? I mean, he's cold because he frequents cold climates. In this heat he'd just be room-temperature. ICK. Scratch that thought, still Team Jacob over here.