Clone My Brain (Part 1): Q&A from SCBWI Austin
Pleased as pie to have spent such delicious time with the creators at the SCBWI Austin Conference. This welcoming and boundlessly productive conference was planned, encouraged, and steered by the grand Debbie Gonzales, Carmen Oliver, Mark G. Mitchell, and a bounty of clever volunteers. This Q&A is a result of my presentation and individual consults with creators. Why a Q&A a week later and 2,000+ miles from the original source? There is only so much time in a conference weekend, so I requested written questions and promised this follow-up post. Brain Cloning Q: Can...
Read MoreSync YA Lit into Your Earphones
Curious City has been quite honored to spend the summer helping to build an audience for LISTENING TO LIT by working with the grand folks at Audiobook Community to produce Sync. The program pairs the download of a current YA with a corresponding classic. It is not too late to take advantage of the free audiobook downloads of the titles above. Two new titles appear every Thursday and two titles disappear so mark your calendar! Share...
Read MoreBook Trailer: Mary Mae & The Gospel Truth
Really pleased with this trailer we created for Sandra Dutton’s middle grade novel Mary Mae and the Gospel Truth. This is the first trailer where we did not use voice. The accent of the character needed to be quite specific and was just geographically (a tad) unattainable. We set the mood with music and type rather than voice. The script and direction was a beast to arrive at. The book is such a sweet balance of science and religion and of loyalty and exploration. How to create that in a trailer script? Sandra nailed it, though, and I love the result. All the photos were set up...
Read MoreClaudette Colvin Live
It is one thing to read Phillip Hoose’s biography, Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice (FSG). It is another to meet the woman herself. I have had the honor over the last nine months of watching Phil share the stage with unsung Civil Rights heroine, Claudette Colvin. In Claudette today you can see the 15-year-old girl that said “no” to Jim Crow by refusing to give up her bus seat on a Montgomery, AL bus 9 months before Rosa Parks.We gathered all of the photos and audio recordings of their appearances and wove them together the best we could for a YouTube piece. I hope it...
Read MoreBarbara Cooney’s Wee Birds
Took a sweet side trip up to Bowdoin College Museum of Art to see the final days of the Barbara Cooney Exhibit. Oooed and awed my way through the minute details of her work alongside the beatific illustrator, Jamie Hogan. We stood dumbfounded by a group of tiny birds gathered in the gutter in an out-of-the-way corner of Cooney’s picture book, Eleanor. Watch for the attentive, busy animals in almost every single spread she creates. Was also enamored with the lupines painted on Chinese silk for Miss Rumphius. Proud to say, I have worked with Penguin USA and Raising Readers to include...
Read MoreForeigner in the House of Comic Con
kAs a foreigner in the house of Comic Con from the much more tepid world of book trade shows, I wondered often and heartily over the weekend at “fandom.” As someone who as a living tries to increase the readership of books for children, I marvel that Graphia (the new haute word for manga, comic books, and graphics novels) has FANS, not readers.How different a writer’s life would be if, say, (our dear departed) John Updike had readers pressing towards him at conventions dressed like Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom. I mean, the costume would not be so hard.I saw many wonders of...
Read More