Story Street is a monthly newsletter from children’s author & illustrator Jane Porter. Read on for ramblings about my life as a picture book maker, community artist, comic diarist and growing-in-confidence fiddle player. Story Street is a guaranteed AI-free zone.
This is the time of year when I find it very, very hard to stay at my desk. There are far too many temptations outdoors, and I tend to be powerless to resist. I’ve been taking my sketchbook out on the coast path, with skylarks singing overhead and the coconut smell of gorse on the wind. What a pleasure it is to get absorbed with paint on such days…
However I have managed to be a little bit strict with myself, and have been making big progress on my project about play. This has also involved buying plastic dinosaurs, cars, buses and a £3 bag of Lego at a village fete from which I (and my family) have derived well over £3 worth of pleasure. You can’t make a book about play without playing, after all. Here we are building tiny structures in a pub beer garden - I’m not sure what the hushing mum made of three grown adults playing with Lego, but in my opinion we should all be doing more of it!
Last year I spent a few weeks running creative sessions in Kingsgate Primary School in Kilburn, north west London. It was part of a clean air campaign run by Camden Council, and I delivered the workshops with Jonathan Dean from the council, who had some wonderfully inventive ways of teaching the children about things like particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide and making it feel really fun. My part was to design a wrapper for an air pollution monitor using the children’s artwork, and it is now finally installed, right opposite Kilburn High Road overground station.
A couple of weeks ago we had a grand opening - Jonathan draped the monitor with curtains, I tied a satin ribbon around it, and we invited the children to meet us on the corner to unveil their work.
It was lovely to watch their faces as they spotted their own drawings and collages. And here’s me with Jonathan, feeling proud of the results! The artwork covers all four sides of the main monitor plus additional boxes to the top and sides, and doors. It was complicated to make, to say the least, and I was SO relieved when I saw that all the artwork fitted exactly as it was supposed to.
If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you’ll know how much I LOVE teaching my online comics class. I have many students who return again and again, and I know some of them have a big project inside them that’s bursting to get out.
So I’ve decided to start a new course for anyone who has a longer comics story they’d like support with, once a month, over a whole year - and it’s going to be called…
I’m still fine-tuning the details, but here’s what it will definitely involve:
Starting September 2026, a two-hour Zoom session once a month until June 2027 (ten sessions in all) for a small group, maximum 10. A Padlet to share work, and an option for 1-1 breakout room chats with me, and little nudges of encouragement between sessions. It will be very interactive and a supportive, warm environment.
I won’t be giving you prompts as I do with the regular comics class (though there might be some speedy warm-up exercises now and again). Instead I’ll be setting you targets and encouraging you to share progress with the group each month - each session I’ll invite two students to share their work in progress in detail. But it won’t be scary! The aim will be to get your project significantly closer to completion by summer 2027. Or maybe even finished…
If you like the sound of that, let me know and I’ll email you with all the details as soon as I open enrolment. Also let me know in the comments if you have any questions or indeed suggestions for Comics Coaching Club. I’m thinking of an afternoon slot on the second Tuesday of the month though this could be flexible. (My online comics class will still continue as normal alongside, by the way). I liked the idea of calling this one a club - I think it’s the first club I have started since I was at school and launched the Bono Club where everyone had to adopt the persona of a dog. But I won’t make you do that this time, I promise!
In my last newsletter I mentioned that I was looking for play ideas - and I was bowled over by the response. Thankyou so much for all the brilliant tips and inspiration last time. Do keep them coming - especially if they are about keeping playful with teenagers, and how to stay playful when life is hard (eg. depression/illness or if you have a disability).
I really appreciate the help - I’m hoping this book will prove a useful resource for lots of people and I am determined to make it happen and get it in as many hands as possible (if you can help with that, or know any large yet reasonably ethical corporations that would like to sponsor it, let me know!).
I’ve been having lots of big thoughts about whether to continue making picture books. Too many thoughts to fit into a regular issue of Story Street - that’s why I’m saving them for a special post, which I really do promise is coming very soon. Just as I was talking myself into quitting, a student I’ve been mentoring on her picture book proposal sent me this email about two things that happened when she read my books with a school class - all the way out in San Francisco:
“After reading ‘Be Bold Bob’ and completing a journal activity to draw themselves in a situation where they’d had to be bold, the children had gone outside for their PE class. An imaginative boy, Mario, was delaying by showing me items in his backpack. I asked him if he really shouldn’t be outside with his class, and he said he didn’t want to go. “Why not?” I asked. “It’s hard!” he said. “Be bold, Mario!” I said. The look of absolute astonishment as he made the connection between the story message and this moment in his life was absolutely priceless. (He did run out right then to catch up with the others.)
“The ‘Pink Lion’ activity sheets were also a big hit. Students brainstormed as a class what could be added to each before choosing one sheet for themselves. To them were added T Rex’s (to overpower the crocodile); bath bubble makers of various kinds, bath toys with pull strings, hair dryers to dry the lion’s mane after the bath, soap; and for the picnic pizza, chicken drumsticks, roast beef, watermelon, bananas, cake, ice cream, and a rainbow. One child added to Arnold’s mane a long ‘prehensile’ mane braid that could reach out and pick up food.”
Needless to say this made me feel very happy - thankyou so much Terry! Keep an eye out for a ‘Story Street Special’ all about picture books soon. And if you’d like to download those activity sheets yourself, you can find them all here:
May ended with a treat: ‘The Visitors’ - an interactive art experience and community celebration laid on by The Maltings at the Barracks in Berwick upon Tweed. Created by playwright Lewis Hetherington, the event consisted of a startling parade of creatures and costumes navigating the town’s historic walls.
Everyone who took part got kitted out with a beautiful ruff, then we could choose which team to be in: barnacle, pearl or salmon. When I was offered the chance to operate an eye for Susan Barnacle, I seized it and had so much fun bending my eye to peer at dogs, bins and passers-by.
What made the event even more special were some participants who came to meet The Visitors in costumes they had made specially - a tin-foil robot was brilliant, but best of all was a mussel shell head-dress, made with great thought and creativity from the packaging materials from gravestones. Its creator Lee wore it while unicycling, a stunning feat!
I’m off on a school visit today, then on Friday 5th June I’ll be doing my first GLL Literary Foundation event at Balham Library. It’s at 4pm, there will be a story and a craft activity, it’s free and all are welcome! If you’d like to come along, just email balham.library@gll.org to let the team know. Hope to see you there…
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