Collaboration

So here we are on the last day of 2012.
I hope you all had a good year.

If I have to choose one word to describe what I have experienced this year, I think it would be "collaboration." And by that I mean the creativity, stimulation, connection and other great results that come from really good collaboration with others.

As always, I have enjoyed working at the two Tokyo Metropolitan high schools in the Koganei/Kodaira area, as a part-time ALT. I team-teach with ten different Japanese teachers so it is always interesting to interact with these different personalities as well as meeting so many different students. As I teach over 300 students at each school, I am meeting over 600 new students each year.

Working on the picture book project with the talented author and owner of the language school English Square in Kanazawa, Mari Nakamura, and with Eric Kane, the owner of ELF Learning, a company that creates original teaching materials, has been such great fun. This was the first time for me to co-author a story, rather than writing by myself and I have found it rather fulfilling to create a story from scratch with another person, to be able to discuss different wording, ways of changing the story, deciding which phrases are more effective, and much more. I think the fact that Mari and I have got to know each other well over a number of years and that our goals and values are similar and our personalities mesh so well together has really helped the creative process. Eric is an expert on the production and musical side and the result of our collaboration, "Lily and the Moon," will be published in hard-copy and as an e-book and You-Tube video around the spring of 2013. 

I made my own Japanese washi paper for the background scenes in the artwork for "Lily and the Moon." It was the first time for me to make and use washi for pictures in one of my stories so it has been quite a challenge. But I am so grateful to Kunitaka-sensei who runs the washi paper-making classes that I have been attending for the past two years for his invaluable advice and hand-made natural raw materials.

I am always happy to be invited to give book-readings, narrations, special events for children or presentations and in 2012 I would like to thank everyone who invited me to participate in events that they organized this year, including, Zeneiren, for inviting me to give a narration concert for the high school speech contest finals, Chihaya High School, for inviting me to give presentations about writing picture books and storytelling in English and the organizers of Kids' Carnival in Tokyo for offering me a booth at their event for children, among many others.
 
2013 looks like it could be an even more exciting year for collaboration!
I will be working on some projects with Kaneko-sensei who runs Face-of-Wonder art work shops and art projects for people with disabilities and their friends.  Some of the artwork I have seen produced at these art workshops is absolutely amazing (you can see some examples here.)
I am hoping to help produce a picture book, collaborating with the members of the art workshops and using their artwork.
In March 2013, I will hold a collaborative workshop with Nishioka-san from Chara-works, an organization that runs activities for children to develop self-expression through creating their own original characters.

And...already Mari and I have been working on some more stories. Talking about the stories, imagining the characters and writing the drafts for these stories in the final days of 2012 seems like the perfect end to a great year of collaboration.

And if anyone reading this blog has any ideas for projects, workshops, events or publications on which they would like to collaborate - please let me know!   

I was planning to translate this blog entry into Japanese but seeing as it got so long and I really do have to do a little Osoji (the big end of year clean!).....
I'll leave it in English only for the time-being.
 
Thank you, everyone!
| Books, events and activities (past and upcoming) | 09:05 | comments(3) | trackbacks(0) | pookmark |

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