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Kid’s Unbridled Imagination Inspires Local Author WORDS LIANE MORRIS Newcastle has more than our fair share of musicians, actors, artists and authors and over recent years, there’s been a push by the City of Newcastle to establish the region as a creative industries hub. This thriving creative community is one of the reasons that Jess Black, successful award-winning children’s author, manuscript editor and creative writing teacher, has vowed never to move away from the city she calls home. “Visitors are always surprised at what they find here,” said Jess. “It’s such a creative place. There’s so much energy and exciting things happening. It’s wonderfully supportive for creative output, and I don’t plan to live elsewhere!” Creative output is something that Jess seems to do rather well, having authored 47 books and counting. She’s recently released the first two picture books, Aussie Bird Babies and Aussie Farm Babies, in a series of six, called Black and White for Babies, high contrast board books ideal for attracting the attention of babes in arms and initiating a lifelong love of reading. She has a new picture book coming out next 62
June, a series coming out in July and another project that it’s too early to talk about also on the horizon. It's not just her own creative output that she’s engaged in, though. She’s also a passionate, creative writing teacher, guiding the future generations of our region’s writers through Story Hunter, an initiative of the Newcastle Writer’s Festival, and The Creative Word Shop. Both organisations offer school and holiday creative writing workshops. In addition, she further facilitates the learning of writing by providing professional development courses for teachers through Black & Wright. Black and Wright was founded by Ed Wright (of the Creative Word Shop) and Jess, who discovered that teachers were looking for a practical and concrete way to teach narrative to their students. “I love teaching, kids especially,” said Jess. “Their unbridled imaginations bring me such joy. It’s a pleasure to help them facilitate the magic of turning their ideas into stories. And by offering professional development to the teachers, we can feel secure in knowing that participating schools are harnessing that magic. It works particularly well when we package
the two together, the teacher’s professional development and the creative workshop for the kids.” Jess also tours schools, giving author talks, and offers manuscript assessments for aspiring authors. Add into this mix two teen daughters, her husband, a rescue dog and a tyrannical cat, and you could be forgiven for thinking that her life is pretty much complete, but she recently added piano lessons into the mix because “anything creative just brings me such joy.” Born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1972, Jess spent her childhood moving home a lot, spending blocks of time in Melbourne, Hobart, Brisbane, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Wellington and Sydney. “My dad was in insurance management and just moved jobs a lot. I was always devastated moving from one place to another. I thought it was the worst thing to happen, and then after a while, I’d settle in and be happy, and then it would happen again. Looking back, I’m grateful because it taught me so much, but I’ve grown up with an aversion to moving, so Newcastle is stuck with me.” As a child, Jess’s love of animals had her aspiring to be a vet, but her maths and science
