Back In The Saddle

It has been a mighty long absence.

I have some pretty good excuses for not posting in some time. A trip to Boston took me out of circulation for a while - I had great hopes of communicating with the blogosphere while I was there, but there was just too much going on. Here are a couple of highlights from the visit:

-a fantastic day of speaking to and drawing with children at Center School in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, a beautiful community by the sea. Great kids, great teachers, great experience! Thanks to everyone there.

-poking around independent bookshops like The Children’s Bookshop in Brookline and Porter Square Books in Cambridge. It was interesting and gratifying to see the breadth of children’s fiction available, especially books from the UK. If you are interested in learning more about independent bookstores in the USA, check out Indie Bound, their website. There are some excellent items there, especially their recommendations for reading groups.

Since I got back, it’s been go, go, go. There’s a lot of exciting stuff on the horizon that I will be sharing with you soon!

Jane Yolen in Edinburgh

Your chance to participate in a picture book workshop with the award-winning American author of over 300 books.

The Scottish branch of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators has let me know that Jane Yolen will be leading an all-day workshop about children’s picture books on Sunday, October 4, from 9am to 5pm at the Braid Hills Hotel in Edinburgh.

This is a rare opportunity to connect with an author who has written everything from babies’ board books to graphic novels. The cost seems very reasonable at £25 for the day, including lunch and tea/coffee. Spaces will be limited, of course, so sign up soon to avoid disappointment.

Jane is also offering (to 8 delegates only) the opportunity to have your picture book manuscript critiqued for an additional cost of £12.50.

To get a full run down on the workshop schedule and to sign up, email ra@scbwiscotland.co.uk

To learn more about what the SCBWI does in Scotland, check their site here.

Philip Pullman

I wonder whether most people regard Philip Pullman as an author and illustrator, picking up on the fact that he made the striking black and white images throughout the His Dark Materials trilogy.

If you visit Philip’s newly expanded website, you will be in no doubt of his illustrative talents. He has created a gallery page showing his illustrations from all three volumes and the book jackets used in many foreign editions, from the Faro islands to Indonesia to Galicia.

I found this section interesting because (in some cases more than others) it shows how other countries’ publishers choose to represent the stories. I am intrigued with the Dutch jackets for His Dark Materials, though I am not sure how much they would entice a child to pick them up. They have used three paintings by the Greek-Italian Surrealist painter Giorgio de Chirico.

I identified two of the jackets as The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street and Torino Printaniere. I guess the publisher decided to show us the arrid, haunted Italianate cityscape of the books’ parallel universe, Cittagazze, rather than main character Lyra and the huge polar bear, Iorek, who seem to be on many of the other jackets.

The most frightening jacket has to be the Slovakian cover of The Subtle Knife - if that deranged pair of eyes doesn’t keep you awake at night, I don’t know what will!

Tales from Outer Suburbia

Another stunning book from artist and writer Shaun Tan

Maybe this week’s theme should be “My Heroes”, what with Nick Bantock yesterday and Shaun Tan today. Both gentlemen are certainly alchemists, creating lush worlds from the seemingly ordinary.

Today I have been swooning over Tales from Outer Suburbia, Shaun’s new collection of short illustrated tales. It took me quite a while to get past the end pages, wall to wall doodle-fests of tiny creatures, aliens, robots and caricatures. And then come the full colour illustrations, many bathed in dusty late afternoon light. There is a sense of space to these paintings that reminds me of the American West: big sky and endless tracts of boxy houses. But then Shaun Tan is from Western Australia, so perhaps that big sky feeling is something shared with America.

But just when you are thinking, yeah, wide open spaces - bang! - the next story is about a tiny foreign exchange student who lives in a teacup. Here Shaun’s virtuosic skill in drawing close-ups of household objects is breath-taking. It reminds me of one of his other books, The Arrival, a wordless picture book that was so moving it made me choke up in Borders when I first looked at it.

And then another surprise…the next story’s illustrations are homages to Japanese wooodcuts, with delicate colour and texture. Is there anything this man can’t do? Because as you go along, you find dense hatched ink drawings, beautifully tinted with subtle colour. And then further on, ye gods - is that scratchboard (scraperboard to some folks)? Toward the end of the book, there is a full page spread that looks like pastel or oil pastel, a
riot of pink textures.

Ahh, what a pleasure to read and look at. And so are Shaun’s other books: The Red Tree, The Viewer and The Lost Thing.

If this isn’t enough inspiration for a Friday afternoon, have a look at Shaun’s website and prepare to swoon.

Nick Bantock

I was rearranging my studio bookshelf today and got caught up in my collection of Nick Bantock’s Griffin and Sabine books. They are truly treasured art objects, stunning examples of paper construction, illustration and storytelling for grown-ups. If you are unfamiliar with the series, it began with Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence and culminated in the sixth book a few years ago, The Morning Star: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin & Sabine is Illuminated.

The stories are told through gorgeously written and illustrated postcards and letters between a London artist, Griffin, and Sabine, a woman living on a tropical island in the South Pacific. Somehow she is able to “see” what Griffin is drawing and writes a postcard to him out of the blue, describing the image he’s made. This is the start of a mysterious and touching story of their growing interconnectedness. Nick’s mixed media style, incorporating stamps, found images, ephemera and rich swathes of paint never ceases to inspire me. I have become a bit of a collector, I guess. I got so caught up in the story, I bought The Artful Dodger: Images and Reflections, a fantastic collection of Nick’s work over decades and even an interactive game based on the Griffin and Sabine books called Ceremony of Innocence.

Now I hear tell that Nick has illustrated Peter Ackroyd’s retelling of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. He has made elegant and spare, mainly black and white, images that expose a lot of white background, in contrast to the complex layered images he often makes. To see examples of these new illustrations and to learn more about Nick’s work, including his workshops, visit his website.

Book News

Two pieces of news have given me a warm glow this week.

Ever so often I receive a lovely package from Margaret K. McElderry Books in New York containing a copy of the latest printing of You Have to Write by Janet Wong and illustrated by me. The accompanying letter always lets me know which reprinting we are on. I was pleased to find out that You Have To Write is on its eleventh printing! All credit to Janet for her excellent text and to McElderry Books for their support.

The other good news is from Scholastic Children’s Books about WOW! 366: Speedy Stories in Just 366 Words, an anthology that includes Yellow Rabbit, my very short story about the adventures of a stuffed rabbit left behind in a hotel by its young owner. All the contributors to the book, including such luminaries as Michael Morpurgo, Roddy Doyle, Charlie Higson and Anne Fine (as well as Monty Python’s Terry Jones) donated their stories and a hefty percentage of sales goes to Childline, a telephone helpline for children run by the NSPCC. The nice news about WOW! 366 is that it has been selected for the 2009 Booked Up programme, funded by the government and administered by Book Trust. 600,000 eleven year olds in the UK will be able to choose one book from the list of twelve Booked Up selections and keep it. I feel honoured to be part of such a worthwhile programme!

Gayle Forman and Carmen Reid in Glasgow

Ever since I was chomped by the writing bug, I have made it my business to attend as many author appearances and read as much children’s fiction as I can. It’s all part of acquainting myself with the writing side of the children’s and young adult book industry. And anything that involves venturing out of the creative cave and into bookstores, libraries and literary festival tents is dandy with me.

This week brought a two-for-one bonus event when both Gayle Forman and Carmen Reid were hosted by the West of Scotland Children’s Book Group at Glasgow’s Mitchell Library. Gayle is over here from New York touring in support of her bestselling novel If I Stay. I hesitate to write much about the plot for fear of spoiling it for you, but suffice to say it is about twenty-four hours in the life of seventeen-year old Mia who faces an existence-altering decision. Hearing Gayle describe how Mia’s character evolved and how she felt chosen to tell her story resonated with me and probably every other writer in the room. One does feel that characters surface from the ether and suddenly you are compelled to work with them.

Carmen Reid is already well known for her so-called “chick lit” books, but her new series of St Judes boarding school stories is making inroads with children aged eleven and up. A former boarder herself, Carmen spoke about the continuing popularity of this setting and how the absence of parents opens up the possibility of adventures that might not happen if the characters lived at home under parental eyes.

New Girl (Secrets at St Jude’s) is the first book in the series about LA girl Gina being packed off to a Scottish boarding school and guaranteed culture clash, new girlfriends and various permutations of boys. Judging by the young fans Carmen had in the audience (no, it wasn’t just us zealous grown-ups hungry for inspiration) and their excitement about the next book, she’s onto a winner.

And as if we weren’t already impressed, Gayle announced that If I Stay is to be made into a film directed by Catherine Hardwicke of Twilight fame. Gayle spoke of her suprise when her agent first suggested the novel could be made into a film, because of the way it is organised into short sections moving back and forth over time, but that she was delighted with the screenplay. One thing she was not so delighted with, but refreshingly honest about, was a book project she recently spent months on and then decided to shelve because it just wasn’t working for her.

Both Gayle and Carmen across as approachable and straightforward. I left with a couple of their signed books under my arm and they will be added to my growing and eclectic list of Books To Read.