Have just finished reading/checking "The Children of Craig-y-nos".
Dr Carole Reeves, my co-author, has done a magnificent job reducing my 125,000 words to a readable 64,000.
She is off to Utrecht next week to give the keynote address at the Casco conference on the Craig-y-nos project.
Have started on the picture selection for the book,"The Children of Craig-y-nos".
Over 1,200 photos have been sent in by former child patients or their families so it is quite a task.
Fortunately we have already done most of the repair work on the images in Photoshop in order to prepare images for the three exhibitions which have taken place.
Have just had some emails from Patti in Texas which show how this story has touched the hearts of people around the world.
This is an extract:
"My heart was captivated by all the stories and photos of the people, mostly the children, who were treated in this "hospital".
More than anything else, I wanted you to know that your story has touched me so that I plan to share this with my friends. It is not a whimsical look at "sick kids in a castle" or even for the rush of telling ghost stories. I am so glad I found this story. Thank you for all your hard work to share this almost lost moment in time…and THANK YOU for sharing it in a way that it even reached someone like me…all the way in Houston, Texas, USA. Most respectfully, Patti Abbott-French"
I have built my first web-site using my two weeks in Palozzi's Masterclass as a project. Now I have got to find a domain name. At present it's hosted on my Apple site.
http://web.mac.com/annshaw/Site_4/Home_Page.html
Phew!…have just posted first draft of "The Children of Craig-y-nos"
on email to Dr Carole Reeves.
It's going to need some serious editing because it stands at 120,000 words – and that's before Dr Reeves writes her side from the medical and historical side.
I am building my first web site around a Paolozzi Masterclass I attended years ago at Edinburgh College of Art.
We were required to keep a diary of the 10 day course and recently I re-read it and was surprised how relevant it all was so decided it would be a useful project for my first ever web-site.
This is a bit of light relief from writing up The Children of Craig-y-nos" book. People keep emailing me asking for the publication date. Trouble is there is such a vast amount of material to go through – 150 interviews- that I need time just to get a bit of a distance form it and re-think the structure.
Ann Shaw is an artist/writer based in Scotland working in new media. As a journalist she campaigned and wrote about many social and medical issues. She is a feminist and founder member of Falkirk Womens Aid, active in the trades union movement and former member of National Union of Journalists Equality Working Party, and founder member of Forth Valley Open Studios.
