Local author inspired by Southbank

By Sarah Bartlett

Author Margaret Robson Kett moved into her high-rise apartment on Queensbridge Street in 2012.

Her apartment was located opposite to another apartment that was under construction at the time. She would observe the construction work that was happening outside of her apartment block from her window on the 16th floor.

“Level with my window, just four car lanes across, the cab of a tower crane stood at the corner of the buildings skeleton. I noticed that children, like me, looked up from the street, or across from their balcony or window, to see the hook lowering at the end of a cable like a giant fishing line to a waiting truck,” Ms Kett said.

Ms Kett decided after many years of buying, reading aloud and recommending picture books to children and parents at libraries, to return to school to study professional writing and editing at RMIT University.

It was here where she met graphic designer Caitlin Ziegler at an editing class. Ms Ziegler specialises in drawing, cutting, pasting, and folding paper cranes. Ms Kett and Ms Ziegler made the decision to enrol together in the subject writing for children. In this subject, they worked on a picture book manuscript, The Daily Crane Watching.

Ms Kett used her observation of construction in the Southbank area as inspiration for her picture book.

“A lot of staring out of the window became legitimate research, and trying to work out how cranes worked and grew with the building. Even when I moved one block over, I could find plenty in the neighbourhood to photograph and write about. When a building right next door to mine was finished and I was able to spend a day watching the crane being dismantled, the simple rhyming text was finally polished to perfection,” Ms Kett said.

Ms Ziegler used a variety of both traditional and digital illustration and collage techniques for the book.

“Discarded building plans from a skip even made their way into it,” she said. The title, A Construction of Cranes, takes its name from the collective noun for the birds, as well as the machines,” Ms Ziegler said.

A Construction of Cranes is now available to purchase and can be ordered online at kettlestitchpress.com.au