Time flies...

Progress update. Lucas is still working on a final copy of the documentary, one that he is happy to submit to the Bicycle Film Festival. In the mean time we have shown the Canberra edition of the documentary to a Devonport crowd at the Entertainment Center and that was a great hit. The little hall we got given at no charge was almost full with 60 people attending. Considering it was mid-week, mid-day and less then a week's notice we did very well!

I say Jump!

You think I am silly?

We're all silly!

Walter, Lucas, Tiina and Dave jumping for joy at the first Canberra screening of Coughing the Distance!

Screening in Devonport

Monday 1 September from 2pm till 4pm. in the Centenary Court of the Devonport Entertainment and Convention Centre.
Entry by donation, and donations will go to the CF Association of Tasmania.

In case you like to read it

Click on the below image to get a large version of the Sunday Examiner article.

The Sunday Examiner - 24 Aug 08

Wow, journalist Ben Wild got all the facts right too. I wished I could have written the book as well as he's written this story. I flew into Devonport today and could not believe what I saw in the paper when I landed in Tassie!

The Advocate 19 August 08

My fav. local journo Sarah Webb wrote this great article in the Advocate for Tuesday August 19.

Canberra Screenings

Canberra screenings went well. We had our new and improved version 1.1 of the documentary, and it is looking good! The Finkel Theatre at the John Curtin School was awesome, but it was a shame we only had 30 odd people show. Parking at ANU is atrocious, and it was a day-time session. I was hoping people from the school would actually show.

The Southern Cross screening was excellent with about 60 people attending. Many of our friends and families showed up, and Lucas bought 6 bottles of wine which he made me present to some of the major contributors of our project. I should have thought of that, only K and I are pretty broke right now! I still feel like giving away all the books to all the great people, but we just cannot afford to do that unfortunately. Nothing extra was charged for David, Lucas and myself to sign the books. Gratis!

Barbarra Mills from the ACT CF Association was officially handed a collection of donations from the two screenings for their association. I hope it was a good amount.

Now I need to arrange a NW Tasmania screening ASAP! Our biggest support came from there!

John Curtin School of Medical Research

Today was open day at the school and following the screening of Coughing the Distance I was asked if I liked to have a table in the foyer during their open-day!

I was honoured. Met a bunch of interesting researchers and other medical people who will hopefully be able to use some of our books/DVD! I also met my first ever genetic councellor, Jennifer Hogan.

ACT CF Association

Wow, I found this at my mother's home, the July 2008 newsletter of the ACT CF Association. I was in it with a beautiful photo of me consuming a German Ale and a story I had written for them in the past.

The newsletter also had an order form in it to pre-order the books/DVD!

Thank you Berenice!

Pre-sales Update

Dear all of you who were wonderful enough to pre-purchase the books and DVD. This is an update especially for you! I wanted to rush off the pre-sales as soon as possible of course, but we had a slight hiccup with the documentary. We were slightly delayed and the documentary we showed at the launch was perhaps not a perfect version. We are right now touching it up and taking some typos out of it that we discovered and that we find embarrassing! So as soon as we have a good copy, which should be in the next week or so, I will mail them out.

Those who ordered the books alone will go out in a matter of days!!

Thank you all for your enormous support!

Walter and the COFE team!

The Grand Launch

Lucas and my mum arrived last week and we rushed out the DVD production for the launch. Too late to review it, but we'll see how the audience reacts!

We had a great weekend in Hobart doing the launch at the CF Nurses conference. The doco was well received and we sold a heap of books!
There were several newspaper articles and some radio and TV coverage too. Off to canberra today to polish the doco with Lucas and to show it to the Canberra community!

Unfortunately my laptop died and has not been resurrected yet, causing delays in reporting...
Here is one article:


This is an old one I just found.

Press Circus

Tomorrow is the launch in Hobart! Followed by a radio interview on ABC 936 Drive at 1745 with Louise Saunders . There should also be coverage in the Mercury as well as a spread in the Sunday paper. Gosh, we are in the spotlight! Lucas and my mother are here and we are all tickled pink with the attention. Let's hope people like our work.

Walter and the Mucous Monster

Katherine's children's book has arrived! Walter and the Mucous Monster looks fantastic. We are very happy with the result. The shipping took a little long as it came from the USA. We are still awaiting the postcards that we had ordered to go with them. The postcards are coming from VistaPrint, and we had hoped they would've been here by now.

We have been soo pleasantly surprised with past orders coming in well within the expected time-frames that we are now scared when they don't arrive just as quick the next time! Walter and the Mucous Monsters for instance arrived within the expected time frame, but we were sure they had been lost in transit! Maybe we are just a little nervous. August 14 is looming around the corner!

First book arrives

Wow, here it is. We got two boxes of books in the mail! Enthusiastically I drove to Katherine's work to officially open them. We only found my book, and not the Mucous Monsters. The Mucous Monsters were submitted for printing 11 days earlier, so we have no idea why they are not here yet. Just waiting for them and the documentary on DVD and I can go mail them out to those who preordered! The DVD is likely to not be available till 14 August, and there is no sense sending pre-orders out in seperate packages.

The cover colour looks a little purple and artificial, but hey, I am happy! I was proud to drop off my copy to the Tasmanian Library who had written to me months ago to advise me of my obligation to make a legal deposit: Legal deposit is a statutory provision which obliges publishers to deposit copies of their publications in major libraries in the country or state of publication.

Coming to a theatre near you!

Lucas has almost finished the documentary, and has it down to under 90 minutes! He hopes to have copies of the DVD available at the launch in Hobart at the www.anzcfnurses2008.com conference on 14 August.

There is no public show for Hobart yet, but we are looking for a venue to play the documentary on Friday evening, 15 August, if someone can come up with a place!

Also, STOP PRESS READ ALL ABOUT IT, we have a Canberra launch organised for the week after:

Wednesday 20 August at 3pm at the ANU John Curtin School of Medical
Research.
Gold Coin Donation for entry into the Finkel Lecture Theatre,
Building #131 Garran Rd, Acton
(http://transport.anu.edu.au/index.php)

Thursday
21 August at 6:30pm: The Canberra Southern Cross Club in Woden will show the
movie to up to 400 people.
Gold Coin Donation for entry in their Top of the Cross theatre. Remember they have Happy Hour
downstairs from 530pm.

I flew to Canberra last week to help finalise the documentary with Lucas. These are the planes we fly in and out of Devonport with - this picture taken at Melbourne Tullamarine Airport.


All those who ordered a pre-purchase will get them soon now! As soon as we get the books/DVD they will be mailed out!

Walter----

Counting down to Launch!

Yesterday late at night I finished my final draft of the book! This will have to do for the 2008 CF Nurses conference Edition!
I am very happy with it. Kathryn Whitfield has helped me greatly improve the text by making some key recommendations wrt to tense used in the book, and helped rewrite the first half of the book in which she culled all the extraneous unimportant bits to make it all more readable. So I need to bring this draft to the printers for printing and hope the book arrives in time for the conference on 14 August!


Also, at the printers right now is Katherine's children's book; Walter and the Mucous Monsters. We still owe the illustrator a final payment and we hope to sent that to him with a copy of the book! We got postcards made for the Mucous Monster as well as a general promotion tool. The postcard is the book cover itself.

Watch iReport on CNN

Here is the link! If you watch the 30 second commercial it follows straight on, please have patience.

iReport for CNN: July 5 part 2

Walter----

CNN

From: Frank Van Praag [mailto:fvanpraa@xxxx.com]
Sent: Wednesday, 9 July 2008 4:14 AM
To: walter@xxxx.com; jackie@xxxxx.com; connie@xxxx.com

Subject: Happy Birthday to Bruddah

Surreal... Here I am in my hotel room, 12.30 in the morning flicking through the 30+ channels on my TV before I retire for the night. Then I'm struck by a little text caption on the bottom left of the screen: "Walter van Praag"... Confusing, I thought. I'm sure I checked in as Frank van Praag - then I listen and look. It's CNN! Showing about 5 mins of footage of the great COFE with music and commentary. Mentioned the site, the music, and at the end the reporter wishes you a happy birthday! iReporter. Surreal! Now I'm going to sleep. Well done, bruddah.

10 Minute Teaser on line!

Coughing the Distance - Teaser from Jason Sewell on Vimeo.

CNN telephone interview

Got a call from CNN International! They wanted to do a radio interview with me! Apparently I am getting on CNN on 4 or 5 July, and again on a repeat on 8 July - my 43rd birthday!
The reason they got me was because 3 months ago I put the 3 minute teaser on CNN:'s i-report <here> .

Time to celebrate, and I have the perfect place.... See picture of The upstairs pub at the Blackthorne Inn.