Claire Dunn – författare

“An excellent book in every way... Best of all, the book is accessible to early readers. Superb coverage of a popular sport.” —School Library Journal (starred review). This indispensable guide is simply the best book for beginners to the sport of artistic gymnastics. Illustrated with full-colour photographs of gymnasts balancing, tumbling and jumping, The Gymnastics Book features skilled guidance from a medal-winning, record-breaking gymnast who is now a noted instructor. The topics covered in detail include: Finding a good gymnastics club; Qualities to look for in a coach; Warm-up and cool-down exercises; Entering competitive gymnastics; Managing victories and losses; The importance of family and friends; Nutrition and apparel; Financial aspects; A typical day of training for competition. This edition is updated for 2018 with new interviews and updated profiles on the most prominent star gymnasts of today and yesterday, including Simone Biles, Ellie Black, Ragan Smith, Kyle Shewfelt, Emily Boycott and many more. Anecdotes and advice from Olympic stars take beginners behind the scenes and offer a no-holds-barred account of life as a competitive gymnast. Updated profiles on the Olympic greats and gymnasts who have become well-known coaches,gym owners, and gymnastics judges show young gymnasts career pathways beyond the competition. The Gymnastics Book provides motivation and detailed instruction to young gymnastics students.

How can we become more in tune with nature, even in the heart of the city?Once upon a time, a burnt-out Claire Dunn spent a year living off the grid in a wilderness survival experiment. Yet love and the possibilities of human connection drew her back to the city, where she soon found herself as overscheduled, addicted to her phone, and lost in IKEA as the rest of us. Given all the city offers — comfort, convenience, community, and opportunity — she wants to stay. But to do so, she’ll have to learn how to rewild her own urban soul.Claire swims in city rivers, forages in the suburbs, and explores many other practices to connect to the world around her. Rewilding the Urban Soul is a field guide to being at one with nature, wherever you are.

In the tradition of Wild and Tracks, one woman’s story of how she left the city and found her soul.Disillusioned and burnt out by her job, Claire Dunn quits a comfortable life to spend a year off the grid in a wilderness survival program. Her new forest home swings between ally and enemy as reality – and the rain – sets in. Claire’s adventure unfolds over four seasons and in the essential order of survival: shelter, water, fire and food. She arrives in summer, buoyant with idealism, and is initially confronted with physical challenges: building a shelter, escaping the vicious insects and making fire without matches. By winter, however, her emotional landscape has become the toughest terrain of all. Can she connect with her inner spirit to guide her journey onwards? Brimming with earthy charm and hard-won wisdom, My Year Without Matches is one woman’s quest for belonging, to the land and to herself. When Claire finally cracks life in the bush wide open, she discovers a wild heart to warm the coldest night.“A brave and adventurous book … Claire’s writing is full of life and profound surprises.” – Anne Deveson Claire Dunn worked for many years as a campaigner for The Wilderness Society and is now a freelance journalist, writing for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, while studying postgraduate psychology. Claire is a passionate advocate for “rewilding” our inner and outer landscapes, and she facilitates nature-based reconnection retreats and contemporary wilderness rites of passage. She currently lives in Newcastle.