For those of you who have a children’s book lurking in a drawer or in the depths of your hard drive, the annual CWILL BC panel at the Vancouver Public Library is coming up on Monday, March 10.
I attended this evening years ago as a newbie writer, and I had the pleasure of participating on the panel last year. It’s always a fun night of great questions and generously shared advice. Personally, I think the panelists are particularly wonderful this year. Check it out:
I went with friends to a Push Festival event at the library last week, called The Quiet Volume. Two at a time, we donned headphones and were led to a table on the third floor, in the midst of sleeping students and eccentric researchers and one man devouring something from a paper bag. (When I described this to Min, he asked if they were actors. But no, they were the regular library denizens.)
I have to admit, I was partly impressed by the work and partly frustrated by it. The voice whispering/echoing in my ears kept instructing me to read enticing little parts of various books, before wrenching my attention to something new. At times, it read aloud to me from my page. At times, I would glance to the side to find it was reading my companion’s page instead of mine!
It wasn’t until the hours and days afterwards that I grew REALLY impressed. Because the experience raised all sorts of questions about how much control one has as a writer, and how many different experiences are possible as a reader.
As for those few tantalizing pages, I snapped a shot of the book covers, just so I could track them down and read them in their entirety!
I’m busy preparing for tomorrow’s trip to Citadel Middle School, where I’m giving three workshops on Storytelling Techniques in Non-Fiction. Which sounds rather boring, but actually means that I get to:
1. Tell my dad’s logging stories. (He tells them better, but I do what I can. And it’s not a fair comparison, because he gets to drink beer while telling.)
2. Hear crazy stories from students. (Last time I gave this workshop, I learned about imaginary bears in White Rock and solo flights by a sixteen-year-old.)
3. Hang out with the amazing Eileen Cook, Denise Jaden, and C.C. Humphries. (How cool is that?)
The logging stories? Well, you’ll have to book a workshop to hear them, or fly to California and ask the man himself. All I’m saying is: there’s an ice-bridge.
And Dad lived to tell the tale.
I spent a lovely Friday evening with the members of the Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable. There was cheese, there was wine, there were amazing information books to celebrate. And there was book talk.
If you ever want to feel inferior about your level of reading, you should definitely hang out with these folks. At one point, I was part of a conversation that went like this:
ON MY LEFT: Have you read blah blah and blah blah? I thought they were fantastic.
ON MY RIGHT: But not as good as blah blah said they were. And what about blah blah?
ON MY LEFT: Wonderful. Reminded me of the old movie version of blah blah.
ON MY RIGHT: And there’s blah blah, which I loved almost as much as Bomb.
ME: I’ve read Bomb! I read Bomb! Yes. I read that one!
ON MY LEFT: What do you think of that sort of non-fiction in literary style, like blah blah?
ON MY RIGHT: Oh yes, and blah blah.
Confused? So was I. An entire ten-minute conversation, and I recognized the name of one book.
Fortunately, the members of the Roundtable are gracious as well as knowledgable, and they pretended not to notice my complete empty-headedness. Not only that, they actually let me speak afterwards, on whatever topic I chose.
In preparation for this, I had taken all the things I’d been mulling about for weeks — tiger parenting, the economic value of the arts, inspirational people in history, the value of work ethic, and even one of my dad’s logging stories — and strung it all together in a way that turned out (to my surprise) somewhat coherent.
There is nothing like an evening with thinkers and writers and readers to send you home inspired to think and write and read.
Thanks, Roundtable!
Ten years ago, I came out of the bathroom holding a plastic stick with two little pink stripes on it, and Min flopped down on the bed looking as if… well, as if his world were about to permanently change. The first words he managed were: “we get to go to Disneyland.”
Last week, we finally went to Disneyland! We have been thoroughly spun, shaken, and stirred by every kind of ride, play, and event imaginable and it was fantastic. It was everything we hoped it would be, ten years ago.
But now it’s back to real life. And a mountain of laundry. As in, the Matterhorn of laundry.
Between loads, I’m talking to myself. Not only because I lost my mind somewhere along the Indiana Jones track, but also because I need to practice for tonight’s presentation to the Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable. I’m talking about economics, tiger dads, and whether or not to encourage my child to be a writer. (You can probably guess my eventual answer to that one, but I won’t spoil it here.)
They have promised me wine. Which may help me forget the laundry.
One other note: the day before I left, Denise Jaden visited my blog with some fantastic tips for fast fiction. In the frenzy of packing, I did a terrible job promoting her post. If you missed it, please check it out!
Anywhere But Here was officially launched last night, with plenty of fun and fanfair, and perhaps a teensy bit of Prosecco.
Kidsbooks did an amazing job of hosting a big crowd of friendly folks.
And wow — worlds collided for me. There were school friends there, and writing friends, and parent friends, and people I didn’t know at all! (Though I assume most of them came with my co-launcher, the lovely-in-pink Gabrielle Prendergast.) Min asked me if I was nervous speaking, but it was such a friendly gang that I think they would have applauded even if I spoke complete gibberish. (Which I may have. Who knows?)
Here’s a photo of me attempting to appear calm and collected while Simon and Schuster sales rep extraordinaire Kate Saunders offered a lovely introduction:
Dirty Girls Joanna and Alex with their new favourite book:
One of the many displays ALL over the store. Look how nicely the Anywhere But Here and Audacious covers matched.
Coincidentally, Gabrielle and I matched, too! Though I’m thinking I should have placed that pink Audacious pin a little higher. Does it look like I have a mutant nipple, or is it just me?
And finally, writers Rachelle Delaney and Lori Sherritt-Fleming, two of the Insklingers, without whom the book would never have been written.
Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate with me!
In case you missed my other hundred or so references, my book launch is tonight! I hope, hope, hope you can come! And I won’t be writing anything other than that here today, because I can’t type and chew my fingernails at the same time.
I have never, ever been to the Vancouver Writers Fest. Until now.
Isn’t that horrible? Not only am I a writer and an avid reader, I also live FIVE MINUTES AWAY from Granville Island, where the Writers Fest takes place.
I am very ashamed of myself.
Fortunately, I am rectifying the situation this year with not one, but two events. Yesterday afternoon I sprung my daughter from school and we went to see Rachelle Delaney, Meg Tilly, and Cary Fagan at Mystery, Adventure, and Lies. All three were spectacular.
We are already a household of Rachelle Delaney fans, of course, but we enjoyed watching the hundred or so other groupies in the audience ask question after question after question about The Metro Dogs of Moscow.
Cary Fagan read a hilariously twisted first chapter (think children’s version of The Family Fang), and Meg Tilly read/acted a story about the tooth fairy, a baseball glove, and poo. She’s a writer who knows her MG audience!
Tonight I’m hoping to have just as good a time as I leave my daughter behind and head out with some fellow writers to see Fantasy@Six with Maureen Johnson and Maggie Stiefvater. My expectations are high, after yesterday afternoon, though I have a feeling there will be less talk about poo.
I went out to dinner last week with the Dirty Girls Running Group Which Doesn’t Actually Run and received two lovely belated birthday gifts. Books, of course, since the DGs are the girls who know me best!
So I’ll be cracking the spines soon on The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which sounds exactly like the quirky sort of book I love…
… and Lean In, which is apparently going to make me a take-charge woman of power. (Not that I’m not already supremely powerful. In my own mind.)
I also received an amazing piece of orginal art from my friend Joanna, incorporating this quote:
You must write every single day of your life. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads… may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”
— Ray Bradbury
Isn’t that a perfect slice of inspiration?
Incidentally, I asked these dear friends for their advice on preparing for my book launch. They suggested that I:
I’m thinking they’re better at gifts than advice, no?
Today is my book birthday! Anywhere But Here is officially in stores and I am beyond excited.
So, how am I going to celebrate this momentous occasion?
More shopping, perhaps?
A glass of champagne with lunch?
A browse through local bookstores?
No. Through a feat of truly terrible scheduling on my part, I’m off to have my annual physical. But my doctor is quite nice. So maybe we can chat about books. While she’s… you know.