New cover pic for Moso book...

 Have finally finished painting up the boards for our latest book on "Moso". As I find with all of the ancient Samoan stories series books, it's quite hard to consider what the pictures might look like for each page as it's a balance between trying to stay true to the essence of the story, my developing artistic skills and what the audience needs to understand from each page. So am happy that the wait is finally over and will be taking over to the printers ready for launching late next month.

I think for me, the story of Moso has been one that I have held as a child as it was passed down to me from my parents and then in visiting Samoa in the early 1970s, I was able to see the rock formation for the first time and was then told the story once again whilst viewing the site. I remember taking the story to my class for "news time" upon returning from Samoa and then I visited the site in 1989 before the devastating cycles of Val and Ofa in the early 1990s. It was then that I heard that the village of Falealupo, the sacred sites and surrounding areas were decimated as a result.

However, when I went to Samoa in November of last year, and went to see the site, it had changed somewhat as well as the story added to. With the tala o le vavau series I try to keep as close to the origins as well as checking the story version with the writers of old but then must always have the disclaimer that it is but one version of many versions of the tala.

This morning, in taking a walk with my beloved, I asked the question about why should such stories be important to write about for a so-called "enlightened" Samoan society and he reminded me about the old and new testament and how the old testament heralded the coming of the new testament. This is a direct parallel to the Nafanua story (which I'm hoping to add at some latter stage) in which she heralded the coming of someone/something that would bring Samoa together (very general storyline.)

With more to come...