We’re pretty lucky at Story City to work with some incredibly talented creators who make a whole bunch of really cool stuff OTHER than interactive adventures in a city you can access on a super cool app (wink, wink).

So we’ve gathered here a holiday watchlist to help entertain you in your down time, as well as some awesome last minute gift ideas from our creator community. Let’s do this!

Guide to the Guide

Holiday Watchlist
- Activities and Classes (Video)
  - Free Online Family Friendly Paint Sessions by Kaylee Rose Creative
  - Tackers TV, Directed by Christopher Bond
- Podcasts and Audio
  - Role to Cast with Christopher Bond
  - Turning Point: Kismet’s Odyssey by Dimity Powell
  - Moments of Clarity by Schae
  - 6 Minute Warning: Let it Snow Featuring Brett Ludwig
- Novels and Stories
  - 1/16th by Primrose Gandhy
  - Assorted Horror and Speculative Fiction Short Stories by Pauline Yates
Gift Guide
- Books for Adults
  - Headstrong Girl, How to Live a Writer’s Life by Kim Wilkins
  - Turning Point, Moments that Changed Lives Featuring Dimity Powell
  - Midnight Echo 16 and 666, anthologies featuring Pauline Yates
- Books for Kids
  - The Velvet City by Isobelle Carmody
  - Oswalt Messweather by Dimity Powell and Siobhan McVey
  - Bedtime by Eileen O’Hely and Ambet Gregorio
- Artwork
  - Original Paper Cutouts by Elysha Rei
  - Portraits and Painting Parties by Kaylee Rose Creative
- Plays/Theatre
  - Rising featuring Lauren Sherritt
- Dance
  - Site, Sight and Place a performance including Masani St.Rose
- Magazines
  - Australian Institute of Policy and Science Edited by Grant Mills

Holiday Watchlist

Activities and Classes

Free Online Family Friendly Paint Sessions by Kaylee Rose Creative

Check out these free paint sessions via Facebook Video. Fun for adults and kids alike!

Kaylee is also offering gift cards for an array of her work in the Gift Guide section. She is known for her pet portraits, house portraits, digital family illustrations, mural work, and large in-person and online paint parties.

Tackerz TV, directed by Christopher Bond

From the South Australian Circus Centre, Tackerz TV, directed by Story City Producer Christopher Bond, is a YouTube series which helps children aged 4 – 10 practice Circus skills at home with household objects!

There are three different tracks:

Tackerz TV with Jono

Tackerz TV with Joel

Tackerz TV with Jasmin

Podcasts and Audio

Role to Cast with Christopher Bond

An Australian actual play podcast with trained actors, original music & homebrew campaigns. Each season explores a new TTRPG. Listen to a season of your favourite tabletop rpg or experience a game you haven’t tried yet!

Season 1 – Cyberpunk 2020 – ‘Going Mainstream’
Season 2 – Vampire The Masquerade – ‘Adelaide By Night’
Season 3 – Cyberpunk Red – ‘Feed The Beast’
Season 4 – Pulp Cthulhu – ‘Ambrosia Island’
Season 5 – Kids On Bikes – ‘Mystery Down Under’
Season 6 – The Witcher RPG – ‘The Bloodsoaked Rose’

Turning Point: Kismet’s Odyssey by Dimity Powell

Part of a freely available audio collection: The Voice. Handpicked stories read by the authors who penned them from The Turning Point, anthology.

We’ve all heard the phrase ‘the moment when my life changed forever’. Some of us can even pinpoint it in our own lives; the birth of a child, the acceptance letter to a degree programme, the decision to make a momentous change, the signing of your first publishing contract! The Turning Point is an anthology of personal accounts, showcasing the extraordinary and unexpected moments that have completely altered everyday lives. The Turning Point is a rare glimpse into the most important and fascinating moments of people’s lives. A collection of extraordinary exposes, it contains stories about everyday people (like me), from all over the world. In the words of editor, Gareth St John Thomas, “This anthology was born of an international writing competition. Writers sometimes need accessible challenges to get them up and typing, and the competition asked them to write about a turning point in their life. The writing astonished us — it was as if the writers had taken note of the English poet Sir Philip Sydney’s muse simply instructing, ‘look in thy heart and write’” – Editor Gareth St. John Thomas (Introduction – The Turning Point).

This is the perfect book to read in snapshots, or to dive into and not resurface until you’ve read every fascinating account. Beautifully presented, it makes an ideal addition to your coffee table, or gift for a loved one. With sections on Love, Changes, Momentous Decisions, Tragedy, Vivid and Learning Moments, every reader is sure to find stories which relate and inspire.

After landing her dream summer job on the Greek island of Corfu, Dimity Powell straps on her deck shoes and packs her sunscreen ready for her own Ionian sailing adventure. Yet despite the allure of sizzling souvlakis, hypnotising sea breezes and enough Metaxa brandy to sink a small flotilla, kismet strikes with a force more powerful than Zeus’s Thunderbolt, sending irreversible ripples through the bareboat charter community and compelling Dimity to accept the fragility of perfection. – Kismet’s Odyssey

Moments of Clarity by Diveakssh Schae

An album produced in the back of a van

Diveakssh Schae, or Divi as he’s known – tells stories through sound. He worked his magic on three stories in the Story City app in 2015, helping bring them to life with original music, sound design, and even monster voices! Today, he’s travelling around Australia in a van with the mission of making music from beautiful places. “Moments of Clarity” is the name of his debut album – which he is releasing tracks from over the next few weeks.

The plot twist? He doesn’t even play an instrument. Learn more about this nomad’s unique creative process here, or listen to the first 2 tracks of his album at the above link.

6 Minute Warning: Let it Snow Featuring Brett Ludwig

Here it is! Our cover of “Let it Snow”. Merry Christmas and happy holidays from 6 Minute Warning!

6 Minute Warning is a Canadian vocal group based out of Edmonton, Alberta. The group consists of six members (Caleb Nelson, Nathan Willis, Brett Ludwig, Tyler Smith, Kyle Carter, and Andrew Malcolm) with extensive backgrounds in rock, pop, jazz, classical, and choral music. 6 Minute Warning is renowned for its exceptional a cappella singing – tight harmonies, seamless phrasing, thrilling lead-solos, and intricate beat-boxing. Their love for singing and their ability to create a soundscape with their voices continues to inspire audiences both young and old. The group’s repertoire ranges from the upbeat stylings of rock and pop music to the complex nuances of jazz, drawing influence from Boyz II Men, Take 6, Michael Jackson and many others.

Novels and Stories

1/16th by Primrose Gandhy

1/16th is a romance novel set in Mumbai in the 2000s that is delivered to your inbox, free, two chapters a week.

‘Let me get this right. You want me to marry you and give you two children to make up for the family you lost at the age of eight. For this you will pay me the five crores I urgently need to save my chain of restaurants. And I don’t have to take any responsibility for raising the children.’

So starts 1/16th, a romance set in Mumbai in the early 2000s.

Aliza makes this audacious proposal to Sameer one balmy June afternoon at The Taj against the backdrop of the city’s fast changing social landscape where old and new money were colliding. Sameer’s answer would change their lives forever.

Join author Primrose Gandhy as she tackles her way through Aliza and Sameer’s desires, ambitions, pride and follies in order to make their love triumph, one chapter at a time.

Assorted Horror and Speculative Fiction Short Stories & Flash Fiction by Pauline Yates

The Secret Keeper, 16-year-old Rose is a demi-god charged with keeping hope in the world. A fantasy, it dives into the world of Hades and Harpocrates and explores the ramification of keeping a secret. In podcast and written form!

Clean Sheet – Purge

Pumpkin Head – Halloween

Dual – War

Kuntilanak – Myths and Legends

Naughty and Nice and Flying Home for Christmas – Christmas

Gift Guide

Books for Adults

Headstrong Girl: How to Live a Writer’s Life by Kim Wilkins

The path to happiness in writing is always in the process: the imagining and the writing.

In these essays, Kim Wilkins-the celebrated author behind Daughters of the Storm, Giants of the Frost, and (as Kimberley Freeman) Wildflower Hill and Stars Across The Ocean-offers the collected writing wisdom she’s accumulated across her career.

Drawing on years of experience delivering workshops, lectures, and articles, Headstrong Girl features Wilkins’s collected advice on both living the life of a writer and telling great stories, including topics such as the importance of persistence, turning off social media, anchoring scenes for your audience, and creating an effective protagonist and supporting casts for your novel.

With over three million words of fiction in print across multiple genres and pen names, this is a chapbook jam-packed with writing advice from one of Australia’s preeminent experts in genre fiction. Ideal for existing fans seeking a glimpse behind the scenes, or new writers looking for a sound foundation to build upon while working towards a long and successful career.

Turning Point: Moments that Changed Lives – a short story anthology including Dimity Powell (Kismet’s Odyssey)

Perfect for fans of autobiographical, memoire type short stories.

Midnight Echo 16 – An anthology including Pauline Yates (The Best Medicine)

Midnight Echo 16. The official magazine of the Australasian Horror Writers Association, featuring short fiction, poetry and non-fiction from some of Australasia’s best writers of dark fiction.

666 – An anthology including Pauline Yates

Tiny tales of horror.

We all have a fascination for things that scare us—the thrill, the heart-stopping jump scares, the terrifying suspense. From the youngest age, we’re fascinated by the fiendish and furry, the creepiest critters, the naughty and the nasty. Horror is all around us, from the clowns who hide under our bed, to the things we might drag up from the brook at the bottom of the garden, and the zombies who crawl our streets.

As author, Megan Feehley, so beautifully says; there is beauty just before the terror…a silken breath taken before the spill of righteousness…the warmth of a licking flame preceding the scald.

So, close the drapes, check the locks, turn on all the lights and get comfortable. But don’t close your eyes…

Books for Kids

Velvet City – Isobelle Carmody

Perfect for the little kid in your life (for you to read to them, or them to you!).

The final book in the award-winning and beloved fantasy series, The Kingdom of the Lost, by the acclaimed author of Little Fur and the Obernewtyn Chronicles.

In this last part of their long journey, Bily and Zluty must each travel to the dangerous Velvet City, where they will learn the shocking truth about themselves . . . even as their beloved Monster faces the fate he fled.

A thrilling series for younger readers from the award-winning author of Little Fur and The Obernewtyn Chronicles.

Oswald Messweather by Dimity Powell and Siobhan McVey

Ideal for suffers of OCD and their families, educators and early learning organisations, and anyone coping with anxiety and building better mental wellbeing.

Mess and disorder upset Oswald. Even the complexity of his own name is enough to set Oswald’s legs jiggling and his palms itching with anxiety. To combat his unease, Oswald obsessively counts his take-everywhere pocket pals – his crayons. It is a compulsion he finds comforting but also extremely exhausting. How can he find a way to overcome his anxieties and employ his compulsions with purpose?

A sensitive gentle tale about a little boy battling with the corrosive disorder of OCD and learning how to regain control and peace.

Bedtime by Eileen O’Hely and Ambet Gregorio

Things we do and see when it’s getting dark.

Your purchase of this book supports Library For All in its mission to make knowledge available to all, equally.

Available in English and Tetun!

Artwork

Original Paper Cuts by Elysha Rei

All hand cut and original designs, plus free postage in Australia (though disclaimer they are unlikely to arrive before Christmas, but they are worth the wait!).

Portraits and Painting Parties by Kaylee Rose Creative

Kaylee is offering gift cards for any array of her work which includes:

Pet portraits,
House portraits,
Digital family illustrations,
Mural work, or
Even to hire her for large in-person or online paint parties
Gift Cards can also be used to purchase some of her artwork prints, more of which can be seen on her Etsy.
To order a commission for the new year check out this page, for visit her via Facebook or Instagram.

Plays/Theatre

Rising by Hannah Belanszky, Madeleine Border, Emily Burton, Lauren Sherritt and Sara Wilson

Rising by Hannah Belanszky, Madeleine Border, Emily Burton, Lauren Sherritt and Sarah Wilson is an ambitious new work responding to the looming ecological crisis in an effort to find equality and balance.

Facing imminent environmental, economic and social collapse, through rising sea levels, scarcity of food and fresh water, and open conflict between Government and Rebel forces, a remote island country is at a tipping point.

When a bomb explodes killing civilians and UN peacekeepers the pressure mounts for definitive action to solve this ecological and humanitarian crisis, but the competing visions of the Nation’s future have no room for compromise. Among the widespread chaos, five individual stories of integrity, idealism, justice, compassion and hope emerge.

Commissioned by Playlab, produced and published this year, people can buy the published play or enquire about production rights via the link above.

Dance

Site, Sight and Place – A performance including Masani St.Rose

A recording of the performance on December 11 | 8 PM MDT

Curatorial Statement:

I have been curious about Blackness in Edmonton since the day I landed – well the day after. My work is focused on representation, on voice and voicing and so I am always centering Black femininity in my work. That is why I ask: “Where are we seen?” “When are we seen?” “How are we seen?” I am excited to share the stage with this formidable group of femmes and gender non-conforming folks – including those working behind the scenes.

Magazines

Australian Institute of Policy and Science Edited by Grant Mills

January 2022 edition is out now!

The pandemic has shifted the ground upon which we live our lives. No one is really sure how this will manifest, but Covid has pulled back the curtain on a lot of the assumptions we had been taught were universal truths. The system is less of a black box now – will understanding translate to action? We’ll have to see…

2021 Story City Holiday Watchlist and Gift Guide

Published by Emily Craven on December 23, 2021December 23, 2021