The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales

Pledge Me have contacted us and let us know that some of our Twisty Christmas Pledgers had difficulty adding postage to their pledge. We’re just letting you know in case they contact you asking for postage.  Some of you are based in Wellington, and will be collecting copies of us personally, therefore don’t need to add postage. Others may live further afield!  Please contact us if you have any queries at: phantomfeatherpress [at] gmail [dot] com (substitute symbols in the right place. We didn’t want spammers to pick up our address.)

Thanks again for pledging to support The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales. We hope you enjoy your books and cards!

Thanks for a successful Pledge Me campaign. We have a few hours to go and have already achieved our initial goal and our stretch goal! A fabulous result.  We’re hoping that you all have a great “kiwi” Twisty Christmas this year!

After the campaign closes tonight, Pledge Me will take up to three days to send Phantom Feather Press the details of who pledged for which rewards. Then we can send your books, cards, ebooks and the other great rewards you purchased. So please be patient, your books will be with you very soon.

If you’d like to come along to our book launch, feel free to download an invitation here.  We’d love to see you at The Children’s Bookshop on Thursday 13 November at 6pm, to join in the fun. (Address is on the invitation.)

To join our Facebook event – for both the print and e-book launches, sign in here.

The e-book is available on Amazon on pre-order. For those who love e-books, this is great for us, as pre-orders boost our Amazon rankings immensely! Thanks again for your support!

See you at the launch – with Twisty Christmas music, nibbles, drinks, art and books galore!

Rustle up a little magic in digital or ebook form with either of these two packages containing Wizard’s Guide to Wellington on PledgeMe.

Santa’s Little Helpers

Christmas Wizard

Nominated for a 2013 Sir Julius Vogel Award, Wizard’s Guide is an adventure where the only romance is that of Wellington city itself, and the  world of magic lying just beneath the surface -

Alec finds a magical book, “The Wizard’s Guide to Wellingtowne,” lying in the corridor of Wellington Airport. But it doesn’t help answer his questions. Where is his father? Where is Perrin, the mysterious English cousin they were supposed to be meeting? And, most importantly, am I going mad, or is someone playing practical joke?

Perrin arrives at “Wellingtowne Airport” only to discover, Ike, her cantankerous wizarding guide had disappeared. She has been warned abut the dangerous city of “Wellingtowne,” but when she sets out to find her missing uncle she has no idea just how dangerous it is going to get.

“Bad men watch you.”

Two cousins from different worlds must rescue Wellington from wizards who wish wake a very dangerous taniwha.

A.J. Ponder is the author of award winning stories published in New Zealand and internationally, and has written  plays and stories for School Journals in New Zealand and Australia. Lost in the Museum (YA) contains two companion pieces Lost at Te Papa & Found at Te Papa, about a boy and his family who are dropped through time into Victorian Wellington. She was also instrumental at creating the many links that hold the collection together. She also has a BSc Hons and Dip Teach, but doesn’t tend to mention these qualifications, maintaining reading should be fun first…and fun second. More here.

The Santa’s Little Helpers and Christmas Wizard packages are both available on PledgeMe – and Wizard’s Guide, The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales and Lost in the Museum are all available for order, or pre-order on Amazon.

Phantom Feather Press would like to announce a children’s drawing competition to celebrate the launch of The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales, a fantastic collection of zany New Zealand Christmas stories from some of NZ’s favourite authors — including Joy Cowley, David Hill, Lyn McConchie and Dave Freer. (This post provides a full author list.)

Twisty Christmas Drawing Competition prizes include copies of the book, posters and sets of special edition Twisty Christmas Cards – all illustrated by Geoff Popham. Selected entries will also be published in The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales e-book.

Prizes will be awarded at The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales book launch, Thursday 13 November 2014 6pm at The Children’s Bookshop, Shop 26, Kilbirnie Plaza, Kilbirnie, Wellington. Come along and join in the fun.

Entries forms can be downloaded here:   Twisty-Christmas-Drawing-Comp-2014

or here: http://phantomfeatherpress.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/twisty-christmas-drawing-competition/

Completed entries can be:

1. Posted to Twisty Christmas Drawing Competition, Phantom Feather Press, 15 Liardet St, Vogeltown, Wellington 6021
2. Delivered to The Children’s Bookshop, Shop 26, Kilbirnie Plaza, Kilbirnie, Wellington
3. Scanned at high resolution and emailed to phantomfeatherpress [at] gmail [dot] com (replace the “[at]” and “[dot]” with the correct symbols.)

Remember, entries must be received by 7 November 2014.

Good luck!

The team at Phantom Feather Press.

Take Flight this Christmas with Twisty Bird

Award-winning author Lee Murray has donated five copies of her young adult novel, Battle of The Birds -  so look out for Twisty Bird, and Candy Cane offers on our PledgeMe campaign to get a copy of this stunning book and more.

Battle of the Birds - blends fact and fiction in a fantastic action‐adventure for children and young adults, Battle of the Birds by award winning author, Lee Murray, explores New Zealand's varied birdlife, flight and migration, democracy, early medicine, and most of all, friendship.

Annie's family has moved to Wisconsin, and with her only friend away in Florida for the holidays, 11 year‐old Annie faces a long, boring summer. She lies on an eagle‐shaped hill and daydreams of home. Imagine her shock when the eagle breaks free from the earth and flies her home to New Zealand! But it's not a New Zealand Annie is familiar with, and when she and her new friend Moana almost walk smack into a giant moa, Annie realizes why. The eagle has flown her back to New Zealand, but she's arrived a thousand years too early, and right in the midst of a battle between the birds. However, Annie's visit isn't entirely unexpected...she can speak the language of the birds and is part of an ancient prophecy. Now she must mediate in a battle between the great bird chieftains: the violent and vengeful Te Hokioi and the thoughtful philosopher, Moa. Suddenly, Annie's summer doesn't look so boring after all!

Can Annie and her friends help the flightless overcome the flying predators led by ambitious Te Hokioi? Will the gentle Moa survive to live on in history? And will Annie ever make it back to Wisconsin?

About the Author - Lee Murray is multiple award winning author. It would take far too long to name all her awards, from Sir Julius Vogel Awards to the Australian Shadows Award. Find out more on Lee Murray's website.

"Feeling homesick is horrible. The new place is exciting but it isn't as good. The food is different, nothing is familiar, and people talk funny. It was like that when I moved to Wisconsin: I missed New Zealand so much! I missed my friends, the beach, rugby games, driving on the left-hand side, even food like Marmite and mince pies. Then I discovered Wisconsin's intriguing animal-shaped effigy mounds, ancient sites with no known purpose. I imagined these mounds were secret portals to other places and if I found the right one it would whisk me home to New Zealand. But people say you can never go home. Things change while you are away: new buildings go up, new roads develop, and people move on. So when I wrote Annie's adventure I thought I might explore this idea, while also drawing on my experience of trail running on forest tracks. I sent Annie back to a time when Moa and Te Hōkioi dominated the wild New Zealand bush. Eventually, I came to love Wisconsin with its red barns, yellow school buses and blue, blue lakes. I loved the sound of my shovel in the snow, cheesy bagels, fall leaves,sledding, and the lovely friends I made there. Perhaps it's time I looked for a New Zealand portal, so I can pop back (in time) for a visit!"

                - Lee Murray

Lee Murray's Sir Julius Vogel Award winning novel, Battle of the Birds is available in print from The Battle of the Birds website along with  teaching notes for NZ schools & the ebook available from Amazon  but why not get Battle of the Birds and The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales for only $NZ36 here on our PledgeMe campaign?

We know you’ll love Lee Murray's stories Bells and The Christmas Pantomime in The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales...and you may find out why Santa and Rudolf are riding in a police car...

Merry Christmas,

From the team at Phantom Feather Press

Thanks to you, we reached our initial goal of $810!

Thank you so much to our loyal followers and pledgers for supporting our project. We know you're all going to have a wonderful Twisty Christmas this year—with 31 great Twisty Christmas Tales to read, a stack of Twisty Christmas Cards to send and, no doubt, some yummy treats to nibble on.

Our campaign continues, so please help us share some more Christmas cheer.

We have a new stretch goal of $1200!

Just an additional $400 more will enable us to print more books and get them into the hands of more kiwi kids this year—helping the Muscular Dystrophy Association even further!

To kick off our new goal, we’d thought we’d introduce a few of our authors. Today's featured author is:

Lorraine Orman

We'd like to thank Lorraine Orman for offering us a Touchstone ebook for our PledgeMe campaign for The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales. (Reward - Twisty Touchstone.)

Sixteen–year-old Skye hates secrets. She’s desperate to know why her mother has cut herself off from the rest of the family. When Skye travels to the remote West Coast to meet her ailing great-grandfather, she’s determined to unearth the truth. Her first challenge is discovering she has a teenage cousin, Josh. Her next problem is accidentally hearing about a secret protest action organised by an eco-warrior group who are fighting to prevent an open-cast coalmine on the Buller plateau. Skye is drawn into several explosive situations: the shocking truth about her parents and her aunt; the deathbed confession of her great-grandfather; and the cruel betrayal of Josh’s environmental protest group.

Will Skye find the courage to stand up and fight? To read a sample chapter visit Lorraine’s website http://www.story-go-round.net.nz Lorraine Orman is a book reviewer, literary judge, and writing tutor with nine published print books for children and young adults, including Cross Tides which won the NZ Post Best First Book Award in 2005. Like Cross Tides, Touchstone is a blend of present-day and historical stories.

To download a free Secondary Teachers’ Resource Kit visit http://www.story-go-round.net.nz/pdf/touchstone_teachersresourcekit.pdf The setting of Touchstone originated with Lorraine’s in-laws, some of whom worked in the Buller coalmines.

Publication: April 3013; ISBN: 978-0-473-23972-5 (EPUB); 978-0-473-23973-2 (Kindle); Publisher: Ashmore Books; International Price: $4.99 (US) approx  6.27 (NZ); Age level: Secondary.

Bandit by Lorraine Orman, illustrated by Geoff Popham

Ebook available from Smashwords and Amazon, but why not get two great books for onlt $NZ10 here on our Pledge Me campaign? Just choose Twisty Touchstone reward and you receive Touchstone and The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales. We know you'll love Lorraine Orman's story Bandit in The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales. But get in quick, there is only one Twisty Touchstone combination available!

Enjoy!

From the team at Phantom Feather Press

Our artist, Geoff Popham, has worked his magic again, creating cool Christmas cards from four of the illustrations in The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales. Kids will love receiving a card along with their copy of the book when you tuck their stockings full of goodies this Christmas!

The four illustrations featured on the cards come from these stories:

·         A Modern Kiwi Christmas by Kerrie Ann Spicer

·         Rumbled by  Eileen Mueller

·         New Neighbours by Anne Wilkins

·         Jimmy’s Night In by Lyn McConchie

We can’t tell you which card matches which story, because we don’t want to give away any spoilers!

Have some fun this Christmas! Surprise kids with matching cards and the great NZ Christmas stories in The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales!

We’re over half way to our goal. The team at Phantom Feather Press would like to say a special thank you to all of our wonderful supporters for providing some fairy dust to help our Christmas wishes come true this year.

Please continue to share our Pledge Me campaign with your friends, encourage more children to enjoy great kiwi literature this Christmas, and support the Muscular Dystrophy Association of New Zealand.