More Bologna!

Here I am with my obligatory photo with the main event sign. In my last post, I shared the beginning of my Bologna trip - as in Monday! Heck, I wasn't able to even finish Monday - there was more!
      Remember the Anglia Ruskin booth I talked about? Well, it's also where PictureHooks hosted a party on Tuesday evening. PictureHooks was the Scottish organization that made me decide to go to the University of Edinburgh for my MFA and it was co-founded by my dear friend and author Vivian French, who was there! We had a lovely lunch together and caught up on all our news on Monday, so Tuesday was just more hugs and love. The party was a blast too. I ran into so many friends from Edinburgh! Like Katie Chappell and Hannah Sanguinetti. Petros Panaou also joined us - he put on the Georgia Conference on Children's Literature where I gave a keynote and a workshop at the beginning of April at the University of Georgia. (I'm behind on my blog posts, but I hope to add it soon!). Petros and I ended up making each other our "plus one" at several parties, so we opened doors for each other. What a small world our children's book world is! We end up having friends all over the world!
     Monday also saw IBBY's (International Board on Books for Young People) announcement of the Hans Christian Andersen Award. What a thrill to be there in person for that!
Even better, the head of the Children's Lit program, Evelyn Arizpe, at the University of Glasgow, where I did my PhD, was one of the judges! She was following online from Mexico.The after-party was fun too and I met lovely people. And I honestly have lost track of which day the Astrid Lindgren Award was announced, but I was there for that too!So was Dav Pilkey's Dog Man.      Days 2 and 3 gave me the chance to walk around and enjoy some of the presentations. For instance, Mac Barnett was there announcing his new book for adults about why children's books are so important. It was a really good talk! (If you don't know who Mac Barnett is, click on his name, you're sure to know his books!) I attended two talks by the illustrious Leonard Marcus. How we met is actually a funny story from 2012. You might know him from the museum show on children's books that was at the New York Public Library several years ago, or the one that is on now at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. Or maybe you know him from his books. This is his latest. We spoke and he might even come down to the Smithsonian to meet my students if I can arrange a field trip!I also enjoyed at talk at the PublisHER booth about AI. Sarah Baker, Executive Director of SCBWI was on the panel. She and I are hoping to do some big things in the near future, so stay tuned for that! Of course, one of the main reasons I went to this year's fair is because I met the creators of the Illustrators' Survival Corner, Giacomo Benelli and Ivan Canu in Shanghai, and they invited me to give portfolio reviews at Bologna! Sadly, I didn't get any photos, but I had a blast talking to such dedicated creators! Being invited to give portfolio reviews there is quite the honor, so I was thrilled to be able to take them up on it... because of the other main reason I was at the fair... At Hollins University, we are expanding our MFA in Children's Book Writing and Illustrating program to now also have a year-round option (along with our summers-only option). This opens the door for international students to attain visas to come study with us. Hence, the posters and the brochures and bookmarks I was sharing everywhere, and also the conversations I had with people. Days 2 and 3, I spoke with publishers in several international booths including the United Arab Emirates, Rwanda, Nigeria, Bangkok, Taipei, Mongolia, Taiwan, Belgium, and Canada. Many have developing children's book markets and want help taking their books to the next level - this is where we come in!
     A fellow portfolio reviewer turned out to be Eric Telfort, program director at RISD - we met at ICON two years ago. If was fun seeing him in his element talking about character design.I even got to see a live demo of an illustrator doing a lino-cut LIVE for onlookers.      Gads, I didn't even mention some of the gorgeous books I got to see! Out of the thousands, tens-of-thousands these were some of my faves.


     As I left the fair, I had to take a photo of this wonderful quote set into the stepping stones, because wow is this true about my life right now. It says "every step I have taken in my life has led me here, now."
     Tuesday evening I attended a private party hosted by SCBWI at the adorable bookstore, Libreria Trame. I was having so much fun, I forgot to take pictures and especially wish I'd gotten the photo of Barbara McClintock, Martha Rago, and me - we had a wonderful and long overdue sit-down. (Martha will be speaking at Hollins this summer.)
     Okay, okay, I know you really just want to see more Bologna, so that will be in my next post!

Bologna Children's Book Fair:
01: To Bologna!
02: More Bologna!
03: Bologna - pretty pictures!