23 SHI JIE MAGAZINE – SPRING
DC Emerging Authors
2017 S taff P rofile
Discovery College is proud to have a diverse and talented staff who have a wide range of interests outside of teaching. Here are profiles of three DC staff members who have published a variety of books.
appeal for young readers, particularly boys. Written in easy to read colloquial language the novel deals with issues such as family, death, dealing with emotions and the destructive influence of alcohol.
Kris Stanhope
When he’s not teaching, Kris enjoys spending time with his family and watching sports. He still writes on a regular basis.
Year 4 Teacher (Team Leader) Kris is originally from Canada, but has spent the last 17 years teaching in New Zealand and then here, in Hong Kong. The majority of his youth was spent either playing sports or watching them on TV. While weekly visits to the library helped develop a love of reading books, writing always remained something that was only done in school.
Frank Donnoli Drama Teacher
After high school Kris became a teacher and found New Zealand, with its abundance of teaching jobs and warm climate, to be a great fit. During that time he got married, had two children, and decided to take a stab at writing.
Frank never actually intended to write a children’s story, let alone illustrate one, however, he found himself engrossed in an idea and he simply couldn’t stop. This has resulted in him creating a small collection of books, which has continued to grow. Frank finds working with children on a daily basis inspiring, fun and full of surprises providing a great environment for stories, anecdotes, and fun.
“Why I hate school” by Michael Fatarsky is Kris’s children’s novel and is a winner of Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon Award, a New Zealand prize awarded for a first novel. The story is fast-paced and has broad
The books are published through CreateSpace, which, linked to Amazon, cuts out the challenge of distribution. Each book was approached differently in its construction. Here is Frank in his own words.
Mighty Monty and the Stinky Possum Gang began as a standalone drawing on my iPad which led to another drawing and then another. I decided to add words to enhance the image still with the idea of them being standalone and before I knew it I had series of pictures with dialogue that somehow went together. I had no idea how the story would end until I sat down and completed the final picture. Wilson Wirehair and the Smiling Cloud was planned out using a storyboard, numbered pages and designed with a complete book in mind. All that was left to do were the illustrations and dialogue. After collaborating with DC Primary Chinese teacher, Lilian Wong, this book was translated into Chinese. The Misunderstood Speckled Python was an idea, which emerged from an inkblot on a piece of paper. In that inkblot I saw a scene full of unusual characters that I filled in and then described that scene. Originally I thought it would make for an interesting poster and ended up being the centre spread. I then developed the story by working out what happened before and after that centrepiece.