Hollins Illustration Gang
Here are the students and faculty for the 2014 Hollins University MFA in Children's Book Writing and Illustrating and Certificate in Children's Book Illustration students out by Ashley Wolff's fabulous sign post. Click the image to see a larger version in a new window:
Robert J. Blake Paints Bridges in Paris
Fellow children's book writer/illustrator and Midsouth SCBWI member, Robert J. Blake, recently returned from spending two years in Paris painting bridges. This is just marvelous beyond words. Enjoy!
Robert J Blake Paints the Bridges of Paris from rjb on Vimeo.
Artist Robert J. Blake set out to make plein air paintings of every bridge crossing the Seine River in Paris, France. Over a two year period he filled over 1500 sketchbook pages, and painted in rain and snow, heat and cold, and clouds and sunshine. Along the way Robert J. Blake met many interesting people and learned some fascinating things about the city.
If the embedded video gives you any trouble - click the image below to go watch the video on Vimeo.
Julie Mata's KATE WALDEN DIRECTS: NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIE CHICKENS - Guest Post and Giveaway!
Kate Walden Directs: Night of the Zombie Chickens
Guest Blog Post
By Julie Mata
A lot of people have asked how I came up with the idea to write a book about a girl who wants to make movies. It was easy—I just looked at my own daughters! They loved to create little films with their friends when they were young. Kids like messing around with cameras, even if it’s just the one on their phone, so it seemed like a natural fit for my main character, Kate Walden. It also helps that my husband and I own a video production business, so I have some knowledge about writing, shooting and editing.
Since Kate wants to be a Hollywood director when she grows up, I wanted the plot to focus on a movie she’s trying to make. Our daughters were always dragging our pets into their productions, whether they wanted roles or not! At the time I wrote Kate Walden Directs: Night of the Zombie Chickens, we were living on a small acreage and had ten hens—the Ladies, we called them. From a kid’s perspective, chickens are funny creatures—the way they waddle and squawk, and the way they will, ahem, poop in their own food if you let them. So I decided Kate’s mother would raise organic hens and they would be Kate’s stars. And what kid doesn’t want zombies in her movie? So Night of the Zombie Chickens was born.
In my story, Kate’s best friend abandons her and Kate makes some bad choices as she tries to get back at her. This plotline came from watching our daughters navigate middle school. I saw firsthand that those years can be tough. Kids are not always nice to each other. That’s why I created a character who isn’t always nice, either. She worries about her social standing. She gets in a fight with her friend. She quarrels with her younger brother. Like her peers, Kate is struggling to figure things out. She’s leaving childhood behind but adulthood is still a scary, gray fog on the horizon. It’s no wonder kids clump together in groups for support! And there’s plenty of poking and elbowing going on as they try to find their own place.
Kate finds her niche by being the girl who loves to make movies. I do think that movie making is a great activity for kids. It’s fun, it’s creative, and it doesn’t involve video games, internet, or TV. On my Instagram, KateWaldenDirects, I post 15-second video filmmaking tips that kids can try in their own productions—everything from making blood to using a skateboard as a camera dolly. I hope that kids, after reading about Kate and her adventures, will check out these tips and then get together with their friends and think up their own creative ways to have fun shooting!
GIVEAWAY!
Disney is kindly offering a free copy of Kate Walden Directs: Night of the Zombie Chickens to one of my lucky followers. Must live in the US/Canada to win. Enter below!
Friday Linky List - July 11, 2014
At The New Republic (via PW): Chip Kidd Thinks Lena Dunham's Book Cover Could Use an Upgrade: But she's not alone in reviving 70s-style fonts
Book Benches! at Bookshelf: roundup, "50 unique BookBench sculptures, designed by local artists and famous names to celebrate London’s literary heritage and reading for enjoyment. Runs until September." Books about Town
From ShelfAwareness: HarperCollins Relaunches Website, Emphasizes Direct Sales. They all should have done this a long time ago!!!
At Shelf-Awareness: Children's Author Allan Ahlberg Declines Amazon-sponsored U.K. Lifetime Achievement Award!
From NYC The Official Guide - Kid Lit City, Suggested Itinerary based on famous children's books
At The Bookseller (UK): Concerning Times for authors - "The results of the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) survey, What are Words Worth Now?, published yesterday (8th July), tell a story that many authors know only too well: authors' earnings are falling fast."
Book Benches! at Bookshelf: roundup, "50 unique BookBench sculptures, designed by local artists and famous names to celebrate London’s literary heritage and reading for enjoyment. Runs until September." Books about Town
From ShelfAwareness: HarperCollins Relaunches Website, Emphasizes Direct Sales. They all should have done this a long time ago!!!
At Shelf-Awareness: Children's Author Allan Ahlberg Declines Amazon-sponsored U.K. Lifetime Achievement Award!
From NYC The Official Guide - Kid Lit City, Suggested Itinerary based on famous children's books
At The Bookseller (UK): Concerning Times for authors - "The results of the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) survey, What are Words Worth Now?, published yesterday (8th July), tell a story that many authors know only too well: authors' earnings are falling fast."
PLANET KINDERGARTEN - interview and giveaway with Sue Ganz-Schmitt
What kid (or parent) isn’t terrified by the first day of kindergarten? I adore the approach in PLANET KINDERGARTEN written by Sue Ganz-Schmitt and illustrated by Shane Prigmore. They turn the entire affair into an interstellar space odyssey - which is much easier to handle. Don't you think? Sue stopped by to answer some questions!
Q. Sue - I have to know how the idea for this story came to you. Are you all astronauts at your house?
A. No, so far I am the only one with astronaut aspirations. My daughters are more inclined to run off and join the circus – they defy gravity by climbing silks and hanging upside down Cirque Du Soleil style, and my husband Martin is in a whole different space – the automotive space. He founded a company called newcars.com – once we build cars that can travel to space then he might take more of an interest.
The inspiration for this story goes back to my kindergarten year when NASA was busy launching Apollo rockets. NASA launched Apollo 7, 8, 9, and 10 when I was five years old. Then, they landed Apollo 11 on the moon just after kindergarten ended in July of 1969. There was so much excitement in America at that time for our space program and it has certainly infused my life with excitement over space missions. There was a time when I was deciding between growing up to be a ballerina or an astronaut. I gave up early on ballerina, but I still have high hopes for astronaut. Virgin Gallactic is touting 2014 as the year for space tourism. SpaceX has just released their new Dragon V2 and is readying for space tourism as well in the next couple of years. Kids who are reading Planet Kindergarten today may very well take their first trip into space by college. Planet College…that just might be a sequel.
Q. Sue - The visuals are often very different from the images. So many writers wonder about adding illustration notes. What did you do with this manuscript?
A. I had only one illustration note in the manuscript and that was about splashdown being a bathtub scene as I felt the rest of the text would lead to clear visuals. When I write, the scenes are clear and strong in my mind – as if I am watching the story as a TV show. But I can’t really see what the characters look like. It is so much fun to see what an illustrator comes up with when he/she reads my words.
Q. Sue - You quote NASA in the book - “Failure is not an option.” Why do I get the feeling that has to do with more than kindergarten to you?
A. After I wrote Planet Kindergarten, I set it aside for many moons while working on other projects. Then I visited NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida with my family. That visit reignited my passion about space, astronauts, and the awe of rocket launches. We saw a rocket in the bay getting ready for a trip to space, and a launch control center that had the famed quote “Failure is not option.” When I got home I pulled out the (yet unnamed) Planet Kindergarten manuscript and added that line. I felt that it applied not only to NASA missions, but also to any child’s kindergarten journey.
Q. Sue - What was your reaction when you saw how Shane had interpreted your text. Was it anything like what you expected?
A. It was even better than expected. Again, I hadn’t imagined what the characters would look like. I still giggle when I look at them. The hero’s NASA eyebrows are simply brilliant, as are the scenes with the aliens from many planets, splashdown, and the shadowy parents. Oh, and the space lunch – fantastic! I imagined Shane’s illustrations would have great appeal to kids – as an award winning Dreamworks animator, I should have known that he would also be able to captivate the adults with his illustrations.
Q. Have you actually met Shane or will you? And how have you celebrated the book’s release? (Please share the kudos it’s getting!)
A. We were selected to attend and sign books at the Southern California Independent Booksellers dinner in April shortly before the release. It was so great to finally meet Shane and learn that he is as kind as he is talented. The weekend of the release we had our first book signing at a bookstore and set up a balloon rocket launches for the kids.
Planet Kindergarten launched a few weeks ago but has already been chosen as:
Amazon Kids Best of May
Amazon Editor’s Pick for Summer Reading (kids books)
IBooks Spring’s Biggest Books (kids books)
American Booksellers Association: The Summer 2014 Kids’ Indie Next List
I even love the dedications in the back. This is such a fun book. Congratulations to you both!
GIVEAWAY!
Chronicle books has kindly agreed to give a free copy of PLANET KINDERGARTEN to one of my lucky followers. Must live in the US to win, enter below!
Your personal color palette
Many people think drawing and coloring are the same thing. "You're an artist - make art!" Well, I believe that drawing and coloring are two completely different skills. It took me until my late 20s to start understanding color. So, it's something I focus on heavily with my students at Hollins University.
The first exercise is identifying your "personal color palette." These are the colors you come back to again and again without even thinking about it. It shows up in your clothes, your decorating, but especially in your art. They are your default colors and they're different for everybody.
I talked about it several years ago at this post when I had first redecorated my office. (It's nowhere near this clean anymore.)
You can see my color palette in the pencils to the right and in my office: lime green, teal, orange, and soft yellow. The chair in the foreground is aqua (it turned out lighter than I intended, but it's still in that same teal family). The bookshelves are orange, as is the lamp. The credenza is lime green (although it's hard to tell in this light) and a matching green filing cabinet now sits at the end of my desk. And the walls are "cornbread yellow."
Want to know what your personal color palette is? A great way to nail this down is to lay all your artwork out before you, squint, and see which three or four colors appear more than the others. Another, easier way to figure this out is with colored pencils.
Here's Rhonda's palette (and yes, this really does look like her and what I always see her in.) And then here's Michelle's. What a lovely palette! (And again, this really does look like her -
especially the pinks. I've often noticed her lipstick, nails, purse, and cell phone case are the same shade of pink.
So if you're starting a new project and you're stumped about color, try to employ your personal color palette or elements from it. Work consciously with color instead of simply off the cuff. Once you understand the default patterns you fall into anyway, it can be much easier to then use those patterns to create a direction, style, and intent as you go forward.
So what is your personal color palette?
The first exercise is identifying your "personal color palette." These are the colors you come back to again and again without even thinking about it. It shows up in your clothes, your decorating, but especially in your art. They are your default colors and they're different for everybody.
I talked about it several years ago at this post when I had first redecorated my office. (It's nowhere near this clean anymore.)
You can see my color palette in the pencils to the right and in my office: lime green, teal, orange, and soft yellow. The chair in the foreground is aqua (it turned out lighter than I intended, but it's still in that same teal family). The bookshelves are orange, as is the lamp. The credenza is lime green (although it's hard to tell in this light) and a matching green filing cabinet now sits at the end of my desk. And the walls are "cornbread yellow."Want to know what your personal color palette is? A great way to nail this down is to lay all your artwork out before you, squint, and see which three or four colors appear more than the others. Another, easier way to figure this out is with colored pencils.
Here's Rhonda's palette (and yes, this really does look like her and what I always see her in.) And then here's Michelle's. What a lovely palette! (And again, this really does look like her -
especially the pinks. I've often noticed her lipstick, nails, purse, and cell phone case are the same shade of pink.So if you're starting a new project and you're stumped about color, try to employ your personal color palette or elements from it. Work consciously with color instead of simply off the cuff. Once you understand the default patterns you fall into anyway, it can be much easier to then use those patterns to create a direction, style, and intent as you go forward.
So what is your personal color palette?
Coloring Page Tuesday - Teddy's Rough Riders
CLICK HERE for more coloring pages! And be sure to share your creations in my gallery so I can put them in my upcoming newsletters! (Cards, kids art, and crafts are welcome!)
Sign up to receive alerts when a new coloring page is posted each week and... Please check out my books! Especially...
my debut novel, A BIRD ON WATER STREET, coming out next week! Click the cover to learn more!
When the birds return to Water Street, will anyone be left to hear them sing? A miner's strike allows green and growing things to return to the Red Hills, but that same strike may force residents to seek new homes and livelihoods elsewhere. Follow the story of Jack Hicks as he struggles to hold onto everything he loves most.
AWARDS
**A SIBA OKRA Pick!**
**A GOLD Mom's Choice Award Winner!**
**The 2014 National Book Festival Featured Title for Georgia!**
Basic shapes...
In an attempt to understand the basic shapes used in favorite book cover designs, per Molly Bang's PICTURE THIS: HOW PICTURES WORK, my students recreated two book covers using cut paper: TINKA by Rainy Dohaney; STREGA NONA'S HARVEST by Tomie dePaola.
They also rearranged the elements to see if they could come up with a more successful layout. Of course, both concluded the printed layout was indeed the most successful approach. What a great way to work out depth, positive/negative space, and composition!
We're all learning so much and having a great time at Hollins!
They also rearranged the elements to see if they could come up with a more successful layout. Of course, both concluded the printed layout was indeed the most successful approach. What a great way to work out depth, positive/negative space, and composition!
We're all learning so much and having a great time at Hollins!
Where The Wild Things Are - Claymation
This is tres cool and a little bizarre - created at the University of Georgia (my alma mater!).
Click the image below if the embedded video gives you any issues.
Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the heads up!
Click the image below if the embedded video gives you any issues.
Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the heads up!
Todd Strasser's NO PLACE - Guest Post and Giveaway
Todd Strasser stopped by with his latest release, NO PLACE, to talk about breaking into children's lit back when it was considered a 'gentleman's business' with three-martini lunches - fascinating read - enjoy!!!
Learning to Write What Your Know
by Todd Strasser
Between 1973 and 1977, toward the end of my sojourn as a college student, and then while working as a newspaper reporter, I wrote the first draft of a more-than- semi-autobiographical novel that would eventually become my first -- Angel Dust Blues, about a teenager on Long Island who, among other indiscretions, is arrested for selling drugs. Not aware at the time that there existed a genre of literature called Young Adult, I reread what I’d written and found myself concerned that my story about teenagers falling in love and getting in trouble lacked the action, excitement, international scope, and historical perspective necessary to catapult it onto the best seller lists. However, being youthful and resourceful, and naively believing that the answer to this problem could be found on a shelf at the local stationary store, I purchased a copy of Writer’s Digest to see if I could glean any advice as to how to transform my book into something with sales that would rival those of Stephen King and Robin Cook. And thus I learned that at that moment in literary history, at least according to the magazine, the two ingredients every book needed to insure vast commercial success were Nazism and cocaine (I have no idea where they got that idea. I’ve since checked the historical bestseller list and it appears that not a single book in the top 50 that year had anything to do with either).
Nonetheless I got busy creating a new character, a Nazi, who had escaped from Germany in a submarine at the end of World War II and sailed it to Colombia, South America (right? Right?). From there he regularly smuggled cocaine, via his submarine, all the way to the north shore of Long Island, New York. And, to tie it into my story, I made this Nazi the uncle of one of my protagonist’s best friends.
You might ask, why sail his submarine all the way to New York (2,300+ miles) when he could have much more easily traveled to the Florida Keys (1,200 miles) like legions of other drug smugglers? Because my story was set in New York, that’s why. I wish I could say that I’m pulling your leg about this, but I’m not. I was young, guileless, and ignorant.
Thanks to a stroke of luck that will be saved for another blog, I was able to secure the services of a reputable agent who began to submit the manuscript to publishers. Rejections quickly piled up from the first dozen editors who read it. This was a tough time for me. Other than working as a part-time fact checker for Esquire Magazine, I had no income, nor any real reason to believe I could make a career of writing. I’d even given myself a deadline: if I couldn’t publish a book by the time I was 32, I’d chuck the whole deal and start over at something new, even if I couldn’t imagine what that would be.
Then one day my agent called with good news: an editor named Ferdinand Monjo at a publisher called Coward, McCann & Geoghegan wished to have lunch with me. Was I interested? At the time I was so strapped for money that I was eating my way through a case of tuna fish that I’d purchased at a bulk discount. Of course I was interested in having lunch with him. I probably would have gone to lunch with Charles Manson if he’d offered to pay (and promised to come unarmed).
Todd's Favorite writing spot - Ditch Plains Beach in the evening.
And so I went to my first literary lunch, meeting Mr. Monjo and his assistant, Jim Bruce, in the restaurant of a small, elegant East Side hotel. They were already seated when I arrived. Mr. Monjo was a refined, dapper man dressed in a sport jacket and tie. His wavy silver gray hair was combed back, his wire-rim glasses sparkled, and he smoked cigarettes in a long gold cigarette holder. Jim, with his blond hair and light blue crew neck sweater, was the very image of prep.
This was to be an experience unlike any I’d had before. After rising and graciously thanking me for coming to lunch (shouldn’t it have been the other way around?), Mr. Monjo gestured for me to sit at the table set with linens, crystal, and silver. During the conversation that followed, the editor consumed two vodka gimlets while discussing theater, classical music, and opera with Jim (Clearly the least cultured person at the table, I mostly listened and sipped a Coke).
Still, I suspected they were feeling me out, trying to assess my background and how much I knew about culture (not much, although I could sing some of the songs from My Fair Lady). Meanwhile, I nervously, yet hungrily feasted on a hamburger (my first in months!) and fries, and wondered when we’d get around to discussing my book.
It turned out that this would not happen until after Mr. Monjo had consumed a red caviar omelet (I’d never seen one before, nor have I seen one since), as well as a third vodka gimlet. Finally, over coffee and dessert, Mr. Monjo got down to business. Would I, he asked, possibly consider rewriting my book? He asked this so apologetically that you would have thought he’d forgotten his wallet and needed me to pay for lunch. Fortunately this was the one question I was prepared for. My agent had already warned me that this query would be at the crux of the lunch, so I had an answer prepared. I would be glad to rewrite it, I said. And did Mr. Monjo have any suggestions as to just how he thought it could be improved?
“Yes,” he replied, appearing pleased and relieved that I had asked. It quickly became obvious that he had prepared a small speech for the occasion. “In this business it is important to write about what you know, Todd. And it is obvious that you know a great deal about being a teenager in the suburbs.” At this point he paused to clear his throat and take another sip of his vodka gimlet. “However, I hope you will not be offended if I add that it is equally obvious that you know very little about Nazis, submarines, and cocaine smuggling. The important thing, Todd, is to write about what you know. Focus on the teenagers and make it a story about them.” I suppose all this transpired with a bit of temerity on his part. As genteelly as possible, he’d carefully tossed down the gauntlet without knowing how I’d react. Another author might have insisted that the cocaine smuggling uncle Nazi had to stay. Or, even worse, might have felt insulted that his knowledge of cocaine smuggling and/or Nazis had been challenged.
Even though I already knew what my answer to Mr. Monjo’s request would be, I hesitated -- as if pondering all the ramifications of this suggestion -- when in reality there was only one: either I agreed to rewrite my novel or went looking for another publisher. Like the editors at the publishing houses that had rejected my manuscript, Mr. Monjo had found that the original story I’d created was neither plausible nor interesting. But unlike the others, he (perhaps because he himself was a writer) had detected a potential which, given the opportunity, might eventually develop into something decent.
Today there are still many devoted and erudite editors around, but I wonder how many would be allowed to gamble on a brand new author and an unmarketable manuscript the way Mr. Monjo did.* The impression I have is that nowadays editors are rarely allowed to speculate on what a manuscript might become, and must instead base their decisions on the manuscript they have in hand (provided the marketing and sales departments give them the green light. Many books today are purchased by committee. I cannot imagine any marketing or sales department approving of the manuscript Ferdinand Monjo read).
At lunch that day, I thanked him for his suggestion (and resisted the temptation to ask if I could possibly get yet another hamburger to go). Later, speaking to my agent, I learned that Mr. Monjo had offered a $3,000 advance to see if his hunch was correct. While small by today’s standards, in 1978 this was not an inconsequential amount to pay on an unproven first-time novelist with only the promise of a story. In the months that followed I would take his advice to heart and eventually produce a book that was driven much more by character, and much less by plot.
Mr. Monjo (his full name was Ferdinand Nicolas Monjo III) was born into an old and well-to-do Connecticut fur trading family that, in the 1800s, had had sailing ships plying trade all over the world. In 1974 one of his books won the National Book Award – a tremendous achievement for any writer. Sadly, he died in October of 1979, just a few months before Angel Dust Blues was published, and never got to see the fruits of his sage advice (very good reviews and an auction for the paperback rights). I consider myself very fortunate to have caught the tail end of the era when publishing was called a gentlemen’s occupation. He was certainly a sterling example.
* Among the other YA authors who got their start thanks to Mr. Monjo is Robert Lipsyte, whose wonderful YA novel, The Contender, came about when the editor wrote to him out of the blue and asked if he’d consider writing a novel about a teenage boxer. Before that, Mr. Lipsyte, a sports reporter for the New York Times, had never written fiction.
About NO PLACE:
"Dan's family was middle-class ... until they became homeless." "This compelling social commentary challenges stereotypes about homeless people and offers a look at homelessness from the perspective of a middle-class teen... believable tension, and references to John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath fuel Strasser’s well-paced, engaging narrative." -- School Library Journal
GIVEAWAY!
Todd has kindly agreed to giveaway a free, signed and dedicated copy of NO PLACE to one of my lucky followers! Must live in the US/Canada to win - enter below!
Learning to Write What Your Know
by Todd Strasser
Between 1973 and 1977, toward the end of my sojourn as a college student, and then while working as a newspaper reporter, I wrote the first draft of a more-than- semi-autobiographical novel that would eventually become my first -- Angel Dust Blues, about a teenager on Long Island who, among other indiscretions, is arrested for selling drugs. Not aware at the time that there existed a genre of literature called Young Adult, I reread what I’d written and found myself concerned that my story about teenagers falling in love and getting in trouble lacked the action, excitement, international scope, and historical perspective necessary to catapult it onto the best seller lists. However, being youthful and resourceful, and naively believing that the answer to this problem could be found on a shelf at the local stationary store, I purchased a copy of Writer’s Digest to see if I could glean any advice as to how to transform my book into something with sales that would rival those of Stephen King and Robin Cook. And thus I learned that at that moment in literary history, at least according to the magazine, the two ingredients every book needed to insure vast commercial success were Nazism and cocaine (I have no idea where they got that idea. I’ve since checked the historical bestseller list and it appears that not a single book in the top 50 that year had anything to do with either).
Nonetheless I got busy creating a new character, a Nazi, who had escaped from Germany in a submarine at the end of World War II and sailed it to Colombia, South America (right? Right?). From there he regularly smuggled cocaine, via his submarine, all the way to the north shore of Long Island, New York. And, to tie it into my story, I made this Nazi the uncle of one of my protagonist’s best friends.
You might ask, why sail his submarine all the way to New York (2,300+ miles) when he could have much more easily traveled to the Florida Keys (1,200 miles) like legions of other drug smugglers? Because my story was set in New York, that’s why. I wish I could say that I’m pulling your leg about this, but I’m not. I was young, guileless, and ignorant.
Thanks to a stroke of luck that will be saved for another blog, I was able to secure the services of a reputable agent who began to submit the manuscript to publishers. Rejections quickly piled up from the first dozen editors who read it. This was a tough time for me. Other than working as a part-time fact checker for Esquire Magazine, I had no income, nor any real reason to believe I could make a career of writing. I’d even given myself a deadline: if I couldn’t publish a book by the time I was 32, I’d chuck the whole deal and start over at something new, even if I couldn’t imagine what that would be.
Then one day my agent called with good news: an editor named Ferdinand Monjo at a publisher called Coward, McCann & Geoghegan wished to have lunch with me. Was I interested? At the time I was so strapped for money that I was eating my way through a case of tuna fish that I’d purchased at a bulk discount. Of course I was interested in having lunch with him. I probably would have gone to lunch with Charles Manson if he’d offered to pay (and promised to come unarmed).
Todd's Favorite writing spot - Ditch Plains Beach in the evening.
And so I went to my first literary lunch, meeting Mr. Monjo and his assistant, Jim Bruce, in the restaurant of a small, elegant East Side hotel. They were already seated when I arrived. Mr. Monjo was a refined, dapper man dressed in a sport jacket and tie. His wavy silver gray hair was combed back, his wire-rim glasses sparkled, and he smoked cigarettes in a long gold cigarette holder. Jim, with his blond hair and light blue crew neck sweater, was the very image of prep.
This was to be an experience unlike any I’d had before. After rising and graciously thanking me for coming to lunch (shouldn’t it have been the other way around?), Mr. Monjo gestured for me to sit at the table set with linens, crystal, and silver. During the conversation that followed, the editor consumed two vodka gimlets while discussing theater, classical music, and opera with Jim (Clearly the least cultured person at the table, I mostly listened and sipped a Coke).
Still, I suspected they were feeling me out, trying to assess my background and how much I knew about culture (not much, although I could sing some of the songs from My Fair Lady). Meanwhile, I nervously, yet hungrily feasted on a hamburger (my first in months!) and fries, and wondered when we’d get around to discussing my book.
It turned out that this would not happen until after Mr. Monjo had consumed a red caviar omelet (I’d never seen one before, nor have I seen one since), as well as a third vodka gimlet. Finally, over coffee and dessert, Mr. Monjo got down to business. Would I, he asked, possibly consider rewriting my book? He asked this so apologetically that you would have thought he’d forgotten his wallet and needed me to pay for lunch. Fortunately this was the one question I was prepared for. My agent had already warned me that this query would be at the crux of the lunch, so I had an answer prepared. I would be glad to rewrite it, I said. And did Mr. Monjo have any suggestions as to just how he thought it could be improved?
“Yes,” he replied, appearing pleased and relieved that I had asked. It quickly became obvious that he had prepared a small speech for the occasion. “In this business it is important to write about what you know, Todd. And it is obvious that you know a great deal about being a teenager in the suburbs.” At this point he paused to clear his throat and take another sip of his vodka gimlet. “However, I hope you will not be offended if I add that it is equally obvious that you know very little about Nazis, submarines, and cocaine smuggling. The important thing, Todd, is to write about what you know. Focus on the teenagers and make it a story about them.” I suppose all this transpired with a bit of temerity on his part. As genteelly as possible, he’d carefully tossed down the gauntlet without knowing how I’d react. Another author might have insisted that the cocaine smuggling uncle Nazi had to stay. Or, even worse, might have felt insulted that his knowledge of cocaine smuggling and/or Nazis had been challenged.
Even though I already knew what my answer to Mr. Monjo’s request would be, I hesitated -- as if pondering all the ramifications of this suggestion -- when in reality there was only one: either I agreed to rewrite my novel or went looking for another publisher. Like the editors at the publishing houses that had rejected my manuscript, Mr. Monjo had found that the original story I’d created was neither plausible nor interesting. But unlike the others, he (perhaps because he himself was a writer) had detected a potential which, given the opportunity, might eventually develop into something decent.
Today there are still many devoted and erudite editors around, but I wonder how many would be allowed to gamble on a brand new author and an unmarketable manuscript the way Mr. Monjo did.* The impression I have is that nowadays editors are rarely allowed to speculate on what a manuscript might become, and must instead base their decisions on the manuscript they have in hand (provided the marketing and sales departments give them the green light. Many books today are purchased by committee. I cannot imagine any marketing or sales department approving of the manuscript Ferdinand Monjo read).
At lunch that day, I thanked him for his suggestion (and resisted the temptation to ask if I could possibly get yet another hamburger to go). Later, speaking to my agent, I learned that Mr. Monjo had offered a $3,000 advance to see if his hunch was correct. While small by today’s standards, in 1978 this was not an inconsequential amount to pay on an unproven first-time novelist with only the promise of a story. In the months that followed I would take his advice to heart and eventually produce a book that was driven much more by character, and much less by plot.
Mr. Monjo (his full name was Ferdinand Nicolas Monjo III) was born into an old and well-to-do Connecticut fur trading family that, in the 1800s, had had sailing ships plying trade all over the world. In 1974 one of his books won the National Book Award – a tremendous achievement for any writer. Sadly, he died in October of 1979, just a few months before Angel Dust Blues was published, and never got to see the fruits of his sage advice (very good reviews and an auction for the paperback rights). I consider myself very fortunate to have caught the tail end of the era when publishing was called a gentlemen’s occupation. He was certainly a sterling example.
* Among the other YA authors who got their start thanks to Mr. Monjo is Robert Lipsyte, whose wonderful YA novel, The Contender, came about when the editor wrote to him out of the blue and asked if he’d consider writing a novel about a teenage boxer. Before that, Mr. Lipsyte, a sports reporter for the New York Times, had never written fiction.
About NO PLACE:
"Dan's family was middle-class ... until they became homeless." "This compelling social commentary challenges stereotypes about homeless people and offers a look at homelessness from the perspective of a middle-class teen... believable tension, and references to John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath fuel Strasser’s well-paced, engaging narrative." -- School Library Journal
GIVEAWAY!
Todd has kindly agreed to giveaway a free, signed and dedicated copy of NO PLACE to one of my lucky followers! Must live in the US/Canada to win - enter below!
Friday Linky List - July 4, 2014
HAPPY BIRTHDAY U.S.A.!(And to my sissie.)
Don't forget I have lots of patriotic coloring pages at Coloring Page Tuesday!
At the Association for Library Service to Children: The acceptance speeches for the 2014 Award Acceptance Speeches
The Guardian via PW: Writing Yourself a pen name: Authors reveal the different reasons they have adopted alternative literary identities.
At FacTank via PW: 7 surprises about libraries in our surveys. For instance, "younger Americans (those ages 16-29) are just as likely to be library users as those who are older"
From The Guardian via PW: Should Children's Books Have a Happy Ending? Should fiction protect children from a messy, troubled world - or prepare them for it?
From The Boston Globe via PW: Children's Books and YA Lit Quiz - fun!
At Shelf Awareness: Obituary Note: Walter Dean Myers - we've lost a great man.
At SchoolVisitExperts.com: Do School Visits Make a Difference? (I think so!)
A conversation with Adam Rex on MOONDAY - Giveaway!
Some author/illustrators gush so much creativity into the kidlitosphere it's almost hard to keep up with them. Last summer I was lucky enough to meet one of them: Adam Rex. Not only is he one of the most talented illustrators out there, he's also a fabulous writer. In fact, his novel, THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY, is being made into an animated movie! Yet he still creates marvelous picture books like MOONDAY. Adam dropped to talk about it...
Q. Adam, How did the idea for MOONDAY come to you?
A. I’m ashamed to admit it was a dream. Ashamed because I think this is the fanciful way a lot of non-writers think writers get ideas, and it belies the real work that goes into a good manuscript.
But about fifteen years ago I had a dream that the moon was in my backyard, and I climbed up on it to explore. And for the next ten years or so I tried to write a picture book that felt the way the dream had felt. The first draft bears no resemblance to what I ended up with.
Q. I know what you mean! I’ve dreamed stories I thought I couldn’t use, because somebody else came up with the idea in my dream. I’ve had to remind myself, Hey, that was YOUR brain! But it does feel like cheating a little… until you start writing it down and making it really work. Has any story ever come easily for you?
A. Yeah, and though I wonder if other picture book authors hate me for admitting this, I’ve written certain manuscripts in a day. Sure, they go through a little editing later, but all in all they don’t change much. So my personal range for writing a picture book is between one day and ten years.
Q. Ha! Well, you truly are prolific. You seem to just "get it" - that thing that makes a story work or not. What do you attribute that to? How did you acquire your storytelling chops?
A. Oh, gosh–well, I don’t feel comfortable agreeing that I get anything. I should stress that those good days, when I sort of manage to write a whole picture book, generally start with a flash of inspiration that I don’t know how to propagate on command. And those flashes of inspiration are preceded by weeks or months of nothing, during which I wonder if I will ever have a good idea again.
But if I do have any kind of natural sense of how to make stories work, it can only be because of a lot of reading and watching television. Reading and watching critically, which is something I had to learn to do better but which I think I’d always done naturally just a little bit.
This is a weird example, but it’s the first that comes to mind: while watching a cartoon recently I mentioned to my wife how much it used to bother me as a kid when I’d notice that the scenery was all lush and painterly except for, say, one rock in the foreground. That rock would be drawn and rendered in the same flat manner as the animated characters, and this was and is a dead giveaway that one of those characters is about to kick the rock or pick it up or something similar. I understood, as a kid, that it was harder to animate something painterly and lush, but I still wished all the rocks could look one way and all the characters another.
All this sticks in my mind because my wife then said, oh, I see what you mean–I never noticed that before. So it got me thinking that, even at a young age, I was always sort of deconstructing stories and noticing how they work. Not a lot, but maybe more than most? I don’t know.
Q. That makes perfect sense, and also proves what a visual person you are. Which leads me to my next question. I began this career as an illustrator, didn't you too? How have you reconciled these two Muses, the writer and the illustrator. Does one beg for more attention?
A. I did begin as an illustrator–I was supporting myself for several years painting pictures for fantasy role-playing and card games before I got my break in kids’ books. And my first two picture books were written by Amy Timberlake and Jill Esbaum.
I can’t think of two muses more easily reconciled than writing and illustrating, though. It’s not like I’m trying to freestyle rap and design sports pavilions. I’m very lucky to do both, because it’s meant that I haven’t had to wait for someone else to approach me with the right manuscript. I do find it interesting that so many people assume one begs for more attention than the other, though, and I find it even more interesting that those people are right–most of the time I’m drawing and painting I wish I was writing. It’s been like that for a few years now, though I expect it’ll flip the other way at some point.
Q. Amy is a friend and I adore THE DIRTY COWBOY! Were you miffed when it got banned?
A. I don’t know if "miffed" is the right word. Making books for kids is my life’s work, so it hurts quite a lot when any person thinks of one one of my books as bad for kids. That said, what I really worry about are the quiet challenges–someone tells a librarian or school administrator that a book is bad, and that gatekeeper either agrees or just acquiesces to make his life easier. An entire community is deprived of a book because of the feelings of a single person, and they never learn what’s happened in their name.
A public banning can be heartbreaking, but it always draws more attention than the book would have ever received otherwise.
Q. So what is your illustration method? I'm most fascinated by your combination of line and rendering. How do you know how far to take your rendering?
A. Regarding my illustration method…mostly I’m oil painting, or painting digitally and trying to make it look like oil painting. I start with a lot of sketching, a lot of messy compositional thumbnails. I refine the sketch in stages and don’t start painting it until after it’s been approved by my editor. I’m not sure if that answers your question–maybe you can get more specific about what you’d like to know. But if anything I think I tend to take my renderings too far. I’d much rather paint like a Whistler or a John Singer Sargent, who could define large areas with a brushstroke. I have no interest in rendering every last hair on my subject’s head–I’d much rather paint a single stroke and let your brain trick you into seeing detail that isn’t there.
Q. The light in MOONDAY is amazing. How did you deal with the specific challenges in this book? (Including all those angles of the boy walking on the moon!)
A. I think the biggest challenges in MOONDAY actually had nothing to do with the moon or the characters. Because I always shoot a lot of photo reference of friends and family when it will be helpful. That’s me as the dad in MOONDAY, and my wife as the mom. A friend’s granddaughter played the little girl.
I’m not the best at drawing architecture, so creating a consistent setting for the moon was difficult–I ended up building a 3D model of the family’s building to help me with that.
Q. How long did it take you to complete the illustrations for MOONDAY?
A. I don’t know–probably about four months? It’s always hard to do a real accounting because I’ll start sketching on a picture book, then maybe break to write something else, then come back to sketching, and submit a dummy to the editor, then work on something else for a few weeks while I wait for feedback, etc. But I usually say that I can manage a picture book and a novel each year. I’d like to slow down from that pace, but baby needs shoes.
This is of special interest to me at the moment because I’ve been trying to advise a friend who wants to self-publish some picture book manuscripts he wrote, and he’s interested in hiring his own illustrator. This has led me to poke around online a bit, and I’ve discovered forums where people in similar positions are balking at the idea of paying an illustrator even a couple thousand dollars for a 32-page book.
These are either terrible people, or (more likely), they’re people who have just never given any real thought to the work that goes into book-making. Because I can’t accept that they genuinely believe an illustrator deserves less than a hundred dollars per page, unless they think that entire page takes mere hours to complete. And I realize that it's possible that they do believe this–all my life people have been asking me to draw them birthday cards or student council campaign posters or whatever, and they often try to mitigate the imposition by telling me how easy it’ll be for me. "It’ll take you, like, five minutes,” they’ve told me, based on nothing.
Anyway: it takes me at least a few months to illustrate a picture book, and maybe as many as six or seven if it’s especially complex. I think I’m considered to be pretty average in that regard–some illustrators are faster, and some can’t do more than one picture book a year.
See Adam's book trailer for MOONDAY:
Click here to see the trailer if the embedded video gives you trouble.
Q. You’ve got some exciting things going on with THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY. Can you share with my readers? A. You’re right that there’s a lot going on right now relating to my first novel, The True Meaning of Smekday. By the time this posts, your readers may have already seen the first theatrical trailer for the movie adaptation, HOME, that DreamWorks is making. Or the short film, Almost Home (below), that played before a couple of other animated films earlier this year. Anyway, HOME will be in theaters March 2015, and my own sequel to The True Meaning of Smekday will come out in February. That’s called Smek for President!, and I’m very excited for people to read it.
Here's the short film:
Click here if the embedded video gives you trouble.
And here is the official trailer!
CLICK HERE to see the trailer on YouTube.
This has been fun talking back and forth Adam! I wish you much continued success!
GIVEAWAY!
Disney has kindly offered to give a free copy of MOONDAY to one of my lucky followers. Must live in the US/Canada to win. Enter below.
Coloring Page Tuesday - PUPPIES!
CLICK HERE for more coloring pages! And be sure to share your creations in my gallery so I can put them in my upcoming newsletters! (Cards, kids art, and crafts are welcome!)
Sign up to receive alerts when a new coloring page is posted each week and... Please check out my books! Especially...
my debut novel, A BIRD ON WATER STREET, coming out next week! Click the cover to learn more!
When the birds return to Water Street, will anyone be left to hear them sing? A miner's strike allows green and growing things to return to the Red Hills, but that same strike may force residents to seek new homes and livelihoods elsewhere. Follow the story of Jack Hicks as he struggles to hold onto everything he loves most.
AWARDS
**A SIBA OKRA Pick!**
**A GOLD Mom's Choice Award Winner!**
**The 2014 National Book Festival Featured Title for Georgia!**
Mem Fox at BEA
I adore Mem Fox. She is the author of my favorite quote: "Writing picture books is like writing 'War and Peace' in Haiku." Her brilliance is unquestioned and her recent speech at BEA was no less than one would expect:
CLICK HERE to see her talk on YouTube if the embedded video gives you an issue.
Thanks to Betsy Bird for the heads up!
CLICK HERE to see her talk on YouTube if the embedded video gives you an issue.
Thanks to Betsy Bird for the heads up!
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