Hannah Hutchins

Hello again,

Well, work continues on the Fairytale Project, as it has become known.  I feel I can now reveal to you all that it is going to be a beautifully illustrated paperback of The Forest, and that the very talented Laura Barrett (check her out at www.laurabarrett.co.uk)  is beavering away on the artwork even as we speak… I am so delighted that she has come on board, and is giving her time and energy to this project – I truly think it’s going to be a beautiful book.

All the profits raised through sales (that’s where you come in) will be going to Save the Children.  I won’t be pocketing a penny. This is all for the good, people.  Here’s why:

Back in March I was watching Comic Relief, sort of in the background; you know how you do, pottering away at other things while the telly’s on.  Then they showed a short film about a little girl called Esther, who couldn’t have been any more than five or six years old, and had cared for her mother until she died of AIDS.  Esther was HIV positive, alone, and starving.  Talking about her mother’s death didn’t reduce her to tears, but when the interviewer ask if she was hungry, she cried out ‘yes, I’m always hungry.’  And she sobbed and sobbed.  And so did I.  

So I got online and donated a bit of money, but it wasn’t enough.  Not enough money, not enough action.  Maybe it was because my own little Esther was tucked up asleep upstairs, and that she and her sister and brother will never (I deeply hope) have to face what Esther on the telly had, but something in me wasn’t satisfied with the donation I made.  There’s not a lot of spare cash floating about our house, so I knew if I wanted to give more, do more, I’d have to come up with something else.

So I thought about it for a couple of days.  What am I good at?  How can I make some extra money, enough to feel like it’s going to help someone like Esther – or more than one Esther.  And that’s when the fairytale project came up.  I’d been trying to find a way to get my stuff published, so I could stop hanging around waiting for nervous publishers to get brave and take a risk on me.  And this could be a way to do it, and help as many Esthers as possible.

So I got on the internet, started doing some research, approaching printers, illustrators, charities, friends of friends and total strangers, and this is how it turned out.  Brilliantly, Laura agreed to be involved.  Self publishing seems the most cost effective way, so when it’s all finished you’ll be able to buy the book online.  Save the Children was my chosen charity because their current campaign is about no child being born to die, and instead being free to live their lives to the fullest potential, doing what they were born to do.  Doing what they love.  And that is what I’m doing, by writing these stories.  I really hope when it comes down to it, you’ll support us, me and Laura and all the Esthers everywhere, and buy the book.  It won’t work without you.

H xxx

One Response to “Paperback coming soon!”