Goblin Diaries: Apprenticed to the Red Witch, written by Alex D’Angelo was published by Tafelberg Publishers.
A highlight for Marjorie in 2011 was the exhibition, in March, at the University of Stellenbosch Art Gallery, of her original illustrations for Die Avonture van Alice in Wonderland (H&R, 2010). This is the Afrikaans version of Lewis Carroll’s classic, and the translation was done by one of South Africa’s most distinguished and world-renowned authors, André P Brink.
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| Marjorie and André P. Brink |
In October of 2011 Marjorie and Elaine Ridge hosted a week-long Spring Event, attended by Steve Mooser, Sally Crock and Erzsi Deak, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the SCBWI.
During the year Marjorie was guest lecturer at various schools, colleges and libraries; she lectured at a writing school facilitated by the ATKV (Afrikaans Language and Culture Association) in Gauteng. For the third consecutive year, she facilitated a week-long children’s book illustration course as part of the Spring School at the Visual Arts Department of Stellenbosch University and she lectured at a refresher course for librarians offered by the University of Western Cape.
Marjorie wrote and illustrated a picture book she called Lulama’s Long Way Home (published by Pan Macmillan in 2007) and in 2011 the Zulu translation Uhambo LukaLulama olude Oluya ekhaya won the W.B. Mkhize Award, from the Usiba Writers’ Guild.
In 2011 Kathleen Ahrens (International Regional Advisor Chairperson (IRAC)) and SCBWI Advisory Board Member (2008-2021) asked Marjorie if she would illustrate two of her stories. Marjorie finished the illustrations for Numbers
Do and Ears Hear in 2012. These two picture books were co-written for the Chinese Market by Kathleen Ahrens and Chu-Ren
Huang and were published by Sun Ya
Publications (Hong Kong).
Both books
were released in May, in time to be launched at the AFCC (Asian Festival of Children’s
Content) conference in Singapore. Marjorie was invited to the conference as a guest
speaker and she did two presentations: 1)
“How Illustrations in Children's Books
Provide Context for Understanding Stories” and 2) “Challenges in Developing Countries for Picture Book Authors and
Illustrators”. While at the conference, Marjorie also facilitated a day of
master classes for children’s book illustrators and writer/illustrators.
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| Kathleen and Marjorie at the launch of their books at the AFCC conference in Singapore |
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| Leonard Marcus and Kathleen Ahrens |
Another highlight was in June, when Marjorie and author Alex D’Angelo won the
M.E.R. Award for the best illustrated children’s book published in South Africa
during the previous year (2011). (Marjorie also won this award in 2008, with Wendy Hartmann, for Nina and Little Duck).
In October Marjorie,
as Co-RA for SCBWI (SA), hosted a retreat under the title The
Fundamentals of Characterisation, at Fynbos Estate, an hour’s drive
from Cape Town. The SCBWI (SA) invited Doug Cushman, an
American writer/illustrator who lives and works in France, to facilitate the
retreat together with Marjorie.
As usual, in 2012, Marjorie was a guest lecturer at various schools, colleges
and libraries during the year; In April she again lectured at a writing school organised
by the ATKV in Gauteng, and in September, for the fourth consecutive year, she
facilitated a week-long children’s book illustration course as part of the
Centre for Comic, Illustrative and Book Arts (CCIBA) at the Department of
Visual Arts at Stellenbosch University. In December she lectured at a refresher
course for librarians offered by the University of the Western Cape.
Before the end of 2012 Marjorie started with her next project, illustrating a children’s picture book commissioned by publisher Oyez!Books, an imprint of Integra MajuJaya Media in Malaysia. The book was called Grandma Lim’s Persimmons and it was written by Sunita Lad Bhamray. Sunita famously said: “Close your eyes and let your world take on colours from the rainbow. Open them steadily and make it happen!”. Grandma Lim’s Persimmons was released in May 2013, in time to be launched at the AFCC (Asian Festival of Children’s Content) in Singapore.
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| The Asian Festival of Children’s Content, held in Singapore. |
In 2013 Marjorie was commissioned by NB Publishers to design and illustrate characters for their new interactive online bookshop, Storierak (“Story Shelf”), for the electronic downloading of Afrikaans language children’s books. Two stories that she had illustrated earlier, Gouelokkies (Goldilocks) and Die drie varkies (The three Little Pigs) were included as separate digital books. These were two of four stories Marjorie had illustrated for the Storieman series published by Human and Rousseau in 2012.
In 2013, as in previous years, for the fifth consecutive year, Marjorie was invited to facilitate the 5-day Children’s Book Illustration Course at the University of Stellenbosch. In her own home loft-studio she also offered and facilitated two 2-day courses and workshops for children’s book illustrators: The Fundamentals of Drawing (July) and Visual Background in Children’s Book Illustrations (November).
In 2013 the City of Cape Town’s libraries department launched a reading campaign aimed at young readers in the Western Cape and they used some of Marjorie’s illustrations for their campaign, on the posters, the library cards, pamphlets, bookmarks etc. (Note: The children’s book library and reading area filling the basement of the Cape Town Central Library has wall-papered all its walls with blown-up copies of a selection of exclusively Marjorie’s published children’s book illustrations. This newly-renovated library, located next to the City Hall and the Grand Parade in downtown Cape Town, is definitely worth a visit for any booklover coming to the Fairest Cape.)
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| Children's Book Library in Cape Town Central Library - wall-papered with a selection Marjorie's children's book illustrations. |
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| Children's Book Library in Cape Town Central Library - wall-papered with a selection Marjorie's children's book illustrations. |
See interview on Litnet by the poet and joernalist, (18th of December 2012)
SA-illustreerders: Marjorie van Heerden (in Afrikaans)
A great
highlight of 2013: In October, Marjorie, as Co-Regional Advisor for the SCBWI
(SA) with Elaine Ridge, the other Co-RA, and the committee members, organised
the SCBWI (SA) TURNS 10!
celebrations. A conference, a celebration party and a series of review sessions
for children's book writers and illustrators were held on 1, 2 and 4 November
to celebrate the SA Chapter’s 10th anniversary. (Note:
Marjorie started the South African Chapter of the international SCBWI in
October 2003).
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| Jenny Hatton (Assistant RA) Marjorie and Elaine (Co-RAs) with Niki Daly. |
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| SCBWI SA 10th anniversary Conference held in Cape Town. |
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| Elaine with editors. |
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| SCBWI Committee members. |
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| Philip de Vos entertains the SCBWI members with some of his daring poems. |
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| SCBWI Co-Regional advisors, Marjorie and Elaine. |
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| High tea at the Hillcrest Berry Farm. |
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| High tea at the Hillcrest Berry Farm. |
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| High tea at the Hillcrest Berry Farm. |
2014 was another very busy year for Marjorie. It started with a commission to be the illustrator for quite a large American children’s book project; The Adventures of Willy Nilly & Thumper books by Jim Henry (Texas, USA). Marjorie, as the illustrator, was also on the team who built a website for the collection. She also created all the visual material on the website.
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| Cover illustrations are done by Karen Ahlschläger |
At the same time Marjorie was also working on the StorieMuis (“Story Mouse”) series by Leon Rousseau for H&R Publishers in Cape Town, also published in 2015. Marjorie is one of three illustrators commissioned for the first two collections of stories and poems. These StorieMuis books, aimed at pre-readers, are part of the Storieman series, books of South African fiction and fairy tales for beginner and other young readers. Marjorie illustrated four stories in Storieman books 1 and 2.
Some 2014 highlights: For the sixth consecutive year, Marjorie was invited to facilitate the 5-day Children’s Book Illustration Course at the University of Stellenbosch during their Spring break. During the year Marjorie was asked to give various talks and workshops on Children’s Book writing and illustration. In August, after repeated requests by local graphic artists, she again offered and facilitated two 2-day courses and workshops in her studio: The Fundamentals of Drawing and Visual Background in Children’s Book Illustrations. In her capacity as Co-RA for the South African chapter of the SCBWI, Marjorie, with Elaine Ridge, the other Co-RA and their committee members, organised a variety of workshops, talks, get-togethers and review sessions for local children's book writers and illustrators.
A large part of 2015 was spent on developing and sorting out how the The Adventures of Willy Nilly & Thumper books should look.
Some background notes: The Willy Nilly stories have been told in Jim Henry’s family for three generations. Like his grandfather and father before him, Jim continued the tradition by telling bedtime stories about Willy Nilly, first to his three children and later to his eleven grandchildren. Then, together with New York editor Simone Kaplan, Jim decided to publish the stories, in English and in Spanish, in the USA.
As far as planning the format of the books was concerned, it started with picture books, and then the team decided to make a storybook with 4 to 6 stories. With each idea, Marjorie made a rough Dummy Book to see how it will work.
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| Cover for the six story book concept - Rough drawing with background colour added in Photoshop |
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| Thumper/Hopper character |
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| Willy Nilly character |
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| Willy Nilly & Thumper together |
Eventually it was decided to go back to the picture book format. Marjorie
started with the illustrations in November.
The plan was to launch the first two books, The Adventures of Willy Nilly & Thumper Book One: The Treasures of Mount Methuselah and The Adventures of Willy Nilly & Thumper Book Two: The Hermit’s Last Hairs, in May 2016. Book 3 and book 4 were planned to be published in the second half of 2016.
At the same time Marjorie was still working on the StorieMuis (“Story Mouse”) series and she completed the final illustrations for Books 1 & 2 (published in October 2015). Then she completed the illustrations for Books 3 & 4 (published in 2016). She worked together with two other illustrators, Karen Ahlschläger and Johann Strauss.
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| Cover illustrations are done by Karen Ahlschläger |
In 2015, for the seventh consecutive year, Marjorie was invited to facilitate the 5-day Children’s Book Illustration Course at the University of Stellenbosch during their Spring break.
At that time Marjorie also illustrated the book Stories van die See (Afrikaans), Sea Stories (English) by Wendy Maartens, published in 2016 by Protea Books, SA. The book is a collection of stories, all related to the sea.
Marjorie completed the illustrations for four books during 2015.
From the first week of 2016, the Chinese year of the Monkey, Marjorie was already at her desk working. She had worked through the Christmas holidays and completed the final illustrations of the first two books in the The Adventures of Willy Nilly & Thumper book series in the first quarter of 2016. In total, she completed the illustrations for seven books during this year.
Marjorie continued working on the StorieMuis (“Story Mouse”) series by Leon Rousseau (who sadly died during that year). Books 3, 4, 5 and 6 were published during 2016.
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| StorieMuis series by Leon Rousseau, illustrated by Marjorie van Heerden. |
In 2016, for the eighth consecutive year, Marjorie was invited to facilitate the 5-day Children’s Book Illustration Course at the University of Stellenbosch during their Spring break.
Marjorie continued as Co-RA for the South African chapter of the SCBWI. But because of her workload she was not able to be as active as she usually was. Elaine Ridge (the other Co-RA) and their committee members picked up the slack. Marjorie did, however, present a 2-day intensive workshop on how to draw children for the SCBWI (SA).
The highlight of Marjorie’s 2016, however, was in May, when she flew to Texas, by invitation from Jim Henry, for the official launch of the first two Willy Nilly and Thumper books.
