The State Library of Queensland has published a new piece of flash fiction I’ve written for its Finders Keepers series. For the series, I was asked to find an item in the library’s collections and write a new creative work inspired by it.
The story I’ve written, ‘Top five tips for lifting pumpkins’, is based on the 1995 artwork ‘Lifting pumpkins’ by five-year-old Zhouhao from Hubei, China. The artwork is part of Dr Barbara Piscitelli AM’s Children’s Art Archive, from a series called Together Under One Sun.
Thanks to Laura Elvery for commissioning and editing the piece, as well as to Naoko Benom-Miura, the Peephole Art Tsuyazaki exhibition, Professor Minoru Meguro, Satomi Hirohashi and Guesthouse Kojiya. Thanks also to Takuya Terashima and Naoko Eto of the Tsuyazaki-based artist-farmer duo nemuharzyu, who helped me out with the story by telling me a bit about growing pumpkins. The slideshow below includes scenes from nemuharzyu’s life of art and farming (courtesy of nemuharzyu and Naomi Matsuo).
Special thanks, too, to Harriet and Theo for creating the lovely images below to accompany my story.
