I am writing Pigeon letters

It’s been a while since I wrote a let­ter that wasn’t an attempt to get out of a park­ing fine. It’s been even longer since I wrote cor­re­spon­dence by hand that wasn’t a post­card. And for the remain­der of 2010 I’ll be writ­ing and receiv­ing let­ters that have noth­ing to do with 15-minute park­ing zones nor exotic travel spots.

I say this as I’m very excited to be involved in the Pigeon Let­ters project this year. Pigeon Let­ters is a pro­gram that matches up authors (and illus­tra­tors) with pri­mary school stu­dents, get­ting each author-student combo to write let­ters back and forth and col­lab­o­rate to write a short story. Pretty cool, huh!

Some of the authors involved in the project last year include Tony Wil­son, Sally Rip­pin and Michael Wag­ner. And some of the kids involved last year include Leif, Jas­mine and Alex (all from North Mel­bourne Pri­mary School).

This year I’ve been matched up with a grade five stu­dent called Toni from Footscray City Pri­mary School. I received Toni’s first let­ter last week (pic­tured above) and I can already tell that Toni and I are going to write a mad story together.

In her let­ter she told me ‘I am inter­ested in writ­ing an action-packed story with you if that is OK with you’. It sure is Toni! I love action-packed sto­ries almost as much as I like authors who know exactly what they want to write. Con­vic­tion FTW!

Here’s me with Toni’s letter.

I have spent this week­end writ­ing a let­ter back to Toni. I would tell you what I have writ­ten back to her, but let­ters are pri­vate, don’t you know? I’ve already said too much by quot­ing from Toni’s let­ter and show­ing you what it looks like. But the good news is that at the end of the project, all author-student sto­ries will be pub­lished as a spe­cial Pigeons book. Here’s what last year’s Pigeons book looked like. Pretty pigeons!

Jenna and Lach­lann (the excel­lent peeps behind Pigeons) have almost dou­bled the num­ber of cre­ative types involved in the project since last year and this time around have 20 authors/illustrators work­ing with 20 lucky Footscray City stu­dents. Toni and I are just one of 20 col­lab­o­ra­tive teams. Col­lab­o­ra­tion FTW!

For more info visit the Pigeons web­site and while you’re there check out what my pen pal Toni had to say about The Great­est Blog­ger in the World.