Verna McFelin

An author’s website where the sentences are the design.

A very large serif heading on pale paper: "Overnight, I became invisible. Not a widow, not divorced, simply forgotten by the system." A soft rose band sits behind the words "invisible" and "forgotten". — The home page’s line about 1983, in her voice.

Her work was for families nobody was looking at. A brochure about her would have been the wrong thing.

In 1983 Verna McFelin’s husband was imprisoned, and she was left with her children and no name for what she was living. Out of that came Pillars, a New Zealand organisation for the children and families of people in prison. She led it for more than thirty years and is a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

Now she writes and speaks. There’s a memoir, The Invisible Sentence, and The Shepherd’s Path, reflections on faith and leadership. My part was giving all of it one home.

The first screen of the home page. A deep green menu runs down the left. On pale paper, the heading "Everything I write, I have lived first." sits beside a portrait of Verna in a dark gilt frame. — The top of the home page. The portrait is Verna’s. The page around it is my part.

One mark

I set the headings as sentences, large in Newsreader, a serif made for reading, on pale paper with deep green around it. I put a rose band behind the words the sentence turns on, the way a reader marks a page. Most carry a single rose band; the 1983 line has two. Little else on the page asks for attention.

Line up only the marks from across the site and they tell the story on their own.

Nine lines from the site’s headings, stacked and aligned on their marked words, with the rest faded. Read down, the marks say: I have lived first, invisible, forgotten, broke me open, surrender, prayer, told on air, being written, Stay a while. — Drawn for this page from headings across the site, in its own type and colour. Some are shortened and one is split in two. The fading and the order are mine.

A menu in sentences

A menu usually gives you one word. Verna’s gives you a line as well. About says “Faith, family, and the years outside the prison wire.” Contact says “Speaking invitations, media, and notes from readers.”

On a computer it stays down the left of every page. On a phone it opens from a quill. The memoir sits under it either way, so someone who came for a reflection is never far from the book.

The menu open on a phone, on deep green with a pale leaf pattern: About, Books, Blogs, Writing and Contact, each with a line under it, and The Invisible Sentence pinned at the bottom. — The menu open on a phone.

The book

The memoir gets the deep green on the home page. There’s one Amazon link for New Zealand and Australia and another for everywhere else. Readers in New Zealand can also email Verna for an autographed copy.

Still being written.

That’s the heading over her next two books, and it fits the whole site. The Shepherd’s Path is still running. So Verna has a private editing area, with two-step sign-in (a password, then a code), where she can add a book, publish a piece of writing or put an event in the diary. It runs on the content system I first made for Rolleston Rugby Club, set up here for an author.

When the diary is empty, the events page says so in the same voice: “Nothing in the diary just yet.” Then it asks you to invite her.

A deep green section with a faint leaf pattern, labelled Upcoming. The heading "Nothing in the diary just yet." sits over a short note that there are no dates scheduled, and a link: Invite Verna to speak. — The events page with no dates in it.

“The technical skill is there. What sets him apart is that he listens. He works out what you are actually trying to achieve, then explains the technology in language you can follow.” Verna McFelin, MNZM

One mark

A menu in sentences

The book

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