October 31, 2010

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

LAURIE McADAM/THE MODESTO BEE

Laurie McAdam is the illustrator of four, almost five of my books. She works in California for the Modesto Bee and does awesome editorial illustration. Laurie, Lauren McAdam is a professional in every way and a delight to work with.

She has illustrated four of my books and is working on the fifth. You may know her work with When Did I Meet You Grandma? and When Did I Meet You Grandpa? or Oliver Kringle and Aliens All Mixed Up OR you might have seen some of her work as Clay Aiken's portrait painter? Well, check out her website, she has some totally cool things to view! http://www.lauriemcadam.com/bookshelf.html

October 29, 2010

Skeleton Bob, next year's Halloween book


I have been writing a Halloween book with poems, short stories, recipes and just simply weird, Halloweeny kind of stuff. I am presently thinking it might be an eBook only, because of the seasonality of this type of book. Opinions are very welcomed!

Skeleton Bob and Skeleton Fred

Were arguing about who was more dead,

“I’m telling you Bob you died of the flu!”

“Then how are we talking? Say it isn’t true!”

"I fell down a stairwell and broke my neck off

That’s why I have this bad, nagging cough

But you my friend Bob, you got really sick

And that is why you are as thin as a stick."

"But how are we talking if we are both dead?"

Bob scratched his skull and pulled on his head,

His head rolled right off of the top of his throat

"Help! Grab my head!" Fred caught it with his coat

Fred lifted Bob’s skull and he started to dance

In circles he spun, then he lost his pants

He was standing there shivering in just underwear

When Skeleton Marge saw him standing there

“Give Bob his head back!” Marge growled through her jaws

and at the end of her fingers were curly old claws

Sam was afraid of the ghoulish Marge gal

And gave the head back to Bob, his best pal

They danced in the wind those skeleton guys

While Marge stared at them her coal black eyes

Then the three did a dance, which could raise any dead

And all three of them pulled off their own bony head!




What are you dressing up as this year?

Working on next year's Halloween book




A recipe to try:


NIGHTCRAWLER COBBLER & EARTHWORM EYE STEW


3 cups of slimy nightcrawlers

2 cups of brown sugar

1 pinch of dirt from beneath a coffin

6 tweaks of a bat’s earlobe

Mix all ingredients with bone flour and bake at 450 degrees for 12 hours.


Serve cobbler cold with the greasy stew from the nightcrawler gravy.

October 24, 2010

For my new buddies at Bell Middle School...

I am experimenting with a video blog. This one is for Bell Middle School as an introduction... It's weird, but so are Middle Schoolers!

October 20, 2010

A chapter from the upcoming installment in the GO ASK MOM series titled The Gabriel World Book of Records -Stories From The Tree House



ANSWER TO THE FACEBOOK CONTEST POSTED 10/30/2010 FOUND HERE



CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE SUPER-DUPER TOTAL DARE-OFF

Andy, Butch, Murph, T-Bone, Eddie and I walked up the railroad tracks for about three miles with our backpacks on our backs and our sleeping bags tied on. It took a lot of convincing on T-Bone's part for his grandpa to let him come with us for an overnight, but I guess I had hung around the U-Pump-It with T-Bone enough and his grandpa thought I was a funny kid, so he let him come along for the overnight. Of course T-Bone left out one small detail about the fact that the place we were going was haunted.

Frisky and Friskier were following along with all of us, but they kept stopping to smell the ground and wandering off. At one point they found a dead animal that got so smashed by the train you couldn't even tell what it had been. It smelled like crispy death on account of it being all crackly, and almost all of its fur was gone. Frisky started to roll on it, and I yelled him away. He looked kind of ashamed of himself, but Friskier looked jealous that she hadn't gotten a chance to roll on it. My stuffed squirrel Deeden was in my backpack just in case. You never know when a vampire squirrel might come in handy-especially when your dumb big brother, who is afraid of the squirrel, might try to pull a prank on you with his dumb, goony friends.

Before we headed out down the tracks, we stopped by Deak's house and explained to him what we had to do. Deak told us the overnight stay in the "haunted" schoolhouse would qualify us all for a bravery merit badge. I wasn't sure if there was such a thing as a bravery merit badge, but it sounded good. Deak suggested a different place we could earn our bravery merit badge though - a cool cave near tunnel number three where we could spend the night, but we had heard about the Indian legends from that cave. Andy and I had spent some time in the cave even, but never, ever at night. I wouldn't say it out loud, but I just wasn't that brave, and the truth is I don't think any of my friends were either. We'd rather take our chances in the haunted schoolhouse, I guess because we figured it was bigger and had more places to hide. A cave had only one way out, and if you are inside, you aren't getting out.

On our way out, Deak invited T-Bone to join our scout pack. He was really becoming one of us, and fast.

The truth was, we didn't really have a choice where to spend the night, since the dare-off was specific about the haunted schoolhouse. We had convinced our parents to let us sleep in the old abandoned schoolhouse up the railroad tracks three miles - it's next to the ditch where Mom and Dad go asparagus hunting - because it would let us earn our merit badges for bravery. What we didn't tell our parents was that it was probably one of the scariest places on earth, and the real reason we were doing our bravery badge time there was because we had lost the dare-off.

The schoolhouse is an old one-room schoolhouse that's half falling down. It was once called the Fossil Creek School. It was white at one time and, according to Deak, could be seen from all over town. In its day it had a school bell up in the belfry. Now there were just bats up there.

Today the old school is a weathered gray-looking wood, and seems to have shrunk into the little valley it was built in. It looks spooky even during the day. The bell has been gone for decades, but some people claim they can still hear it clanging in the middle of the night when the old witch-teacher is mad. It was a school where kids as young as kindergarteners spent time in the same room as kids who were old enough to be in high school; they all got taught there by the same teacher. The teacher lived upstairs when school was in session, and she is said to still haunt the schoolhouse. We would be staying in her old bedroom.

We were all a little bit afraid to go up there because of all the things we had heard about the schoolhouse. We had certainly explored it during the day enough, but never at night, which is when everyone says it's haunted all the time by an evil witch-teacher who taught there when people were still driving wagon trains. They say at night sometimes you can hear her yelling at the kids that were trapped in there with her during the famous blizzard. Trapped so long they all starved to death, and after that she panicked and hid the bodies between the walls of the old classroom. When the wind is just right you are supposed to be able to hear the ghost kids wailing and screaming and trying to escape.

The starving was supposed to have happened during a huge blizzard, in which the students would have just spent the night or nights in the schoolhouse until the weather cleared enough for people in their horse-drawn wagons to come pick them up. When it was clear enough, the townspeople came looking for their kids, and when the teacher confessed to what she had done, they hung her right in the middle of the schoolhouse.

Now legend has it that inside the schoolhouse at night, you can hear the loud scratching of her fingernails along the blackboard and see messages from beyond that show up mysteriously on the blackboard. The story also is that all of the people who were present at the teacher's hanging - there were seven in all - mysteriously died within a year and within a mile of the old schoolhouse. When one of them would die, the bell in the belfry would start ringing over and over by itself, one peal each for each of the kids that she had hidden between the walls.

Every Halloween, groups of people go to the haunted schoolhouse to see if they can make it a whole night inside without chickening out. My dad told me that every year, some of his college students try it, and they almost never spend the entire night.

The guys in The Secret Brotherhood of Boys and I have looked in the schoolhouse windows before, and the only thing we saw was the bird poop all over the wood floors and something written on the blackboard that gave me a chill.


BEWARE OF THE CHAIR THAT GOES FROM HERE TO THERE, IT IS BEING RIDDEN BY A WITCH-TEACHER, SO ENTER IF YOU DARE.


There was a chair, all broken up and sitting in the corner. It had been there all those years.

It was the chair they had made the witch-teacher stand on when they put a noose around her neck, then kicked it out from under her. I guess no one had ever dared move it out of the dunce's corner. When we saw that writing on the blackboard and the broken-down old chair we had run away so fast even T-Bone wouldn't have been able to keep up with us.

I was angry. Carl and his Goon Squad would probably be too chicken to stay in the schoolhouse or the cave for that matter, but they were making us do it. So I was really starting to focus on revenge. After all, we didn't really have the time for their dumb dare-off with all the Guinness record work we had to do.

Right across the highway, near the abandoned schoolhouse, there is a neighborhood where a bunch of really mean teenagers hang out by this big lake we like to go to sometimes because of the big raft in the middle and the two awesome rope swings that catapult you way out into the lake on a hot summer day. We've seen them go into the schoolhouse before, and I wondered if they would be stopping by as we tried to make it through the whole night.

*

Whenever the teenagers were near the schoolhouse, we would stay down in the ditch where there are tall weeds to hide beneath, watching them with our binoculars until they left. But if they came up this night, we would have nowhere to go because we would be trapped upstairs.

The teenagers think they are really tough, but they are kind of gross because sometimes the boys are over there with their dumb girlfriends acting all stupid and goofy, like older guys do when a girl is around. Sometimes we see them kiss. The boys all try to act really tough to impress the girls, but my mom says girls don't think that is so great and that it usually doesn't impress them at all. Girls don't seem to like the same stuff boys do, and they kind of get bossy when you call them "your girlfriend." Who wants that?

Mom told me about bossy girlfriends after Carl was bugging me really bad the night Denise ate dinner with our family a couple weeks ago in the backyard, and Denise started bossing Carl around and he seemed to listen to it. I didn't mind that because she was mostly telling him she thought I was cute and he ought to be nice to me. But she was pretty bossy.

Dad says Carl and Denise are an item, and that she has a ring in Carol's nose. I don't really know what that means, and I am not sure I want to know. How a girl could like my big brother is beyond me anyway; since he is hairy, scary and mean.

Carl got really mad at me because he said something about how ugly I was at dinner to Denise and she said, "I think he is a cutie!" (I know I already mentioned that, but I kind of like that part of the evening the most.) She even winked at me. Carl then just stamped on my foot under the table, and the bite of cheeseburger I was eating ejected from my mouth because of the pain in my foot. It isn't like I just go spitting cheeseburgers all the time, but Mom told me that it wasn't funny and to stop showing off.

I am not sure how spitting your cheeseburger across the table is showing off, but I wasn't going to argue and make a big scene because it might embarrass Denise and she seemed really nice. Still, I was glad it wasn't me she was bossing around.

*

The dare-off at the schoolhouse turned out to be different than what we expected, except that we didn't get much sleep and I felt really tired the next day.

I would admit that there were a few moments during the night that I felt pretty scared. Once I heard a strange scraping sound that made me sit right up, until I realized Murph was moving his foot in his sleep and it was his army boot that was scraping against the wall. But the things we feared most didn't happen, and we were talking about it as we walked down the railroad track back to our neighborhood.

"The teenagers never even showed up like you said they would, Butch," Tony murmured.

"Yeah, and we never even heard the screeching on the witch-teacher's chalkboard," T-Bone chimed in.

We all stopped over Tunnel Number Three, and started throwing the pink railroad rocks down into the water, competing to see who made the biggest splash and KEPLUNK. All of a sudden, thousands of small swallows flew off their mud nests which clung to the inside of the tunnel. They blackened the sky above us.

Murph said, "That's-because-it-was-a-weekend-night-and-even-ghost-teachers-take-the-night-off-on-weekends,-don't-cha-think?"

"We n-n-never heard the tr-trapped k-k-kids screaming. B-But I swear I heard a v-v-voice in the m-middle of the n-night and it was c-coming through the wall!"

That kind of made my skin crawl.

"Andy, you better close your mouth if you are going to watch those birds, or they'll poop right in your mouth," Eddie chuckled.

Andy was watching the birds darting about overhead, but now he slapped his hand over his mouth.

"The most amazing thing was that the Goon Squad never showed up like we thought they would to torment us!" Tony said, squinting really hard to see if there were any big carp milling around in Tunnel Number Three's waters.

We had a couple old fishing poles stashed nearby in the weeds in case we saw a big run of fish from the top of the tunnel.

"Yeah, wh-where were those w-w-wussies?" Andy stammered.

"Oh, like you would have done anything to them if they had come, Epstein. You are such a huge chicken!" Butch jeered.

"Shut up Butch!" I growled.

We went on like that for a long time, and then we were all lying in the steep embankment that led from the tracks down to the water just looking up at the clouds and calling out what we saw in them. Every so often someone recounted details of the night before, and then as usual everyone tried to top the other with details and, before you knew it, it sounded like it had actually been a pretty terrifying night.

"So, how does someone join your secret club anyway?" T-Bone asked.

"Just like you just did!" I exclaimed, and all at once everyone put their arms into the middle of a human circle and made hand pancakes.

"That's it? I'm in?" T-Bone asked excitedly.

"That's it. You are official," I said.

T-Bone was smiling from ear to ear.

"W-We have t-to go b-back on a weeknight and tr-try it again," Andy muttered.

"Why on the weeknight?" several of us asked at the same time.

"B-Because, g-ghost teachers m-must t-take weekends off like r-regular t-teachers!" Andy insisted.

We all just laughed nervously and changed the subject quickly.

*

Mom was on the back patio, soaking in one of the last days that would be warm enough to sit out there, when I walked in through the gate. She asked me the usual twenty questions about what happened, and I went through the whole experience with her again. I told her the whole story, and I told tell her how the dare-off worked, and I even mentioned how weird it was that the Goon Squad never even showed up to make sure we were sleeping in the haunted bedroom.

Mom explained that Carl and his gang were otherwise occupied on account of something else coming up, which involved Denise and two of her girl cousins who were visiting her family from San Francisco. Again, girls this and girls that... girls, girls, girls! Sheesh, I will never understand why they are such a big deal.

"As a matter of fact, they are in the living room right now." Mom nodded her head toward the house.

To avoid them, I climbed up the steel patio lattice, crossed the roof and snuck in through my bedroom window. I crept out into the hall and spied on them instead.

The Goon Squad and the girls were downstairs in our living room watching The Brady Bunch and you would think Denise's cousins were some kind of movie stars the way the older guys in the Goon Squad were acting. They laughed at everything the girls from California said, and acted really squirrel-y. Carl and Denise were sitting right next to each other on the couch.

I got bored listening to their dumb conversation after about two seconds, and army-crawled back to my own bedroom to make more plans about how we were all going to get into the Guinness book and how I was going to ask Andy not to mention us all going back to the abandoned schoolhouse without looking like a chicken. The thought of spending another night in there made my skin crawl.

*

I sat at my desk drawing and reading and thinking about the night before and how safe I felt in my room. I put my favorite Partridge Family album on my phonograph, and I pulled a space food stick out of my desk drawer, peeled the wrapper back and chewed on it.

I guess the schoolhouse wasn't so scary because there were five of us and we had locked ourselves in the small bedroom upstairs and pushed a huge branch from a tree that had crashed into the window some time back against the door, so there was no way anyone could get in the room we were in. But the more I thought about those kids being inside the walls, the more I realized no branch could keep them from floating out into the room where we were. Besides, when you are with four other guys, it's not like staying alone in a scary place.

I hope Andy's suggestion that we go back up there on a school night to test Murph's idea about the teacher would pass right on by. Maybe next summer, but as the President I would have to insist that we get back to the task of setting a world record. The truth I would never tell the guys was that I was C-H-I-C-K-E-N to go back and spend another night.

The day after the dare-off at the old schoolhouse, the guys and me went to our scout meeting and described to Deak our night of bravery. We all exaggerated a lot, and it seemed the more he laughed and the wider his eyes got the more we added to the story. We got merit badges, and Deak made us all hotdogs and macaroni and cheese for lunch. Then we had a contest to see who could fit the most marshmallows in his mouth. Andy won of course on account of having the biggest mouth I have ever seen.

ANSWER TO THE FACEBOOK CONTEST POSTED 10/30/2010 FOUND HERE


What could be more gratifying to an author...

than to attend a Holiday Boutique event to meet, greet and sign books for little readers and be able to watch child after child literally plop down on the floor amidst busy shoppers to dive right in to the book they chose? I do this every year to remind me of just who it is I write for. This year's most popular titles have been the mix and match aliens and it's 1728 alien combination mix and match feature (next up Pooches All Mixed Up!) and for my older readers the new Gabe installment, The Gabriel Book of World Records is being VERY well received!

I am jazzed up by the responses and am busy at work at my next two to publish! Please watch my website www.justinmatott.com for announcements and add me as a friend on Facebook and Twitter!

THANK YOU TO YOU READERS!





October 13, 2010

Dads


FOR ERIC OHMY

It is hard to believe it has been a year since my Dad died. I have processed so much as one is apt to do when you lose someone so dear. I went through intense sadness and grief, then some anger, then more sadness, then some joy as I thought of the wonderful things my dad passed to me that makes me individual, creative and full of life. Dads have SO much power and influence on us. When my dad was alive, I always tried to make him proud of me. I continue to do so, maybe even more now. There is something about knowing your dad approves of you that drives each of us so much.

I am reprising this blog entry for two reasons; one is to somehow commemorate the anniversary of my dad's passing and the other is because a young man who has been in my life for a long time is in the same place. Eric is one of my son's CORE friends and he lost his dad this week.

Eric is an awesome young man. He is a collegiate football player, has an incredible sense of humor (which I pray helps him get through this) and an infectious laugh. He is one of those people who simply is a joy to be around and he is one of my LOST buddies (meaning we spent hours watching episode after episode after episode together in my living room with my sons). Eric's dad was and is very proud of him, because Eric is PURE GOLD. Eric's dad did a good job of adding to the world with Eric and his brother, two very fine humans. Eric is only twenty-two and it seems very unfair that he will have to travel life's ups and downs without his dad. I know the burn of this, because I lost my mom when I wasn't that much older than him.

Sometimes God gives us good substitutes here on earth until we are reunited with those we love. I am more than willing to be a substitute for this fine young man. I would be proud to have Eric call me dad, so I will do what I can to fulfill a "dad" role for him in any way he needs me to.

We are in a club that neither of us would choose to be in. We are not orphans though, because we have another Father. The one that looks down with love on us and loves us no matter what we do.

If you are the praying kind, please pray for my buddy Eric and if you think about it, throw a few prayers skyward for the University of Wyoming Cowboys, that's football for those of you who didn't know, and especially for #36, who's father will now have the best seat in the house!

Here's to our dads Eric!


Dad, inevitably telling mom a story.


I lost my dad yesterday and my heart is heavy. My heart is also so full, because he was a good dad and a good man and in many ways believed in me and championed my life. My dad was an English professor for forty years and read many of my drafts and sent them to me with thoughtful, encouraging and great notes over the years (he also had a wicked, good red pen that he used liberally and gracefully to instruct).

I talked to my dad for hours every Saturday. He was literally one of the most interesting people I have ever known. It seemed he knew something about everything I mentioned. Well traveled, well taught, opinionated but willing to hear the other side too. I will miss our talks more than I even realize now.

My dad tried in vain for years to get published and wrote some four novels that have never been read. BUT, my dad was SO happy and proud of my success in the literary world, he felt as though he shared in my success and he did. Perhaps somehow my dad's work will get another look.

So what I do when I feel deeply is write, get it out, get it down and deal with it. My first published book, My Garden Visits, was a book I wrote after losing my mom. At first I wrote it for just me, to purge, to get my sorrow and memories down on paper and out of my body, my head, my heart. Soon the words turned into a book and traveled into many homes to help others to deal with the same. It liberated me to do what mom would have wished for my life. To use my passion and to live everyday as thought it might be my last. To leave a lasting impression, which I have tried and am trying to do daily.
Mom never got to see me as an author. She too was a professor of English and German and would love nothing more than to know her son went on in life to spread more entertainment, amusement and books into the world. I know she knows.

Last spring I was asked to submit the following for an anthology by authors. I haven't heard back from the publisher, so I can now assume they didn't choose mine. But, it seemed appropriate to post it, so someone could read it.


Mom, listening with rapt attention, or thinking, wow, when will this one end? Looks like she is asleep with her eyes open, lol. Dad could go on a bit... hmmm... is that where I get that?

Bit of enduring wisdom received as a child –
My Father had a mantra that he seemed to only repeat to me, never my brother who was a boy, and is a man of few words. My father would say to me, “There is a virtue in learning when to keep your mouth shut.” It took me a long time to understand what he was saying. I now know that when my mouth is shut others are open and with the ratio of two ears to one mouth I learn twice as much as I teach.

Most people like to be listened to and some tell the same story over and over, assuming everyone is interested. People simply want to heard and often tensions, stress and in the most escalated case wars are caused by parties feeling they aren’t being listened to or heard. Dad also said to leave the world much better than you found it. He did. He left me and I will go on trying to leave the world better.

“A laughing minute is one well spent, for time has up and gone and went...”

Wisdom to a child

Time is fleeting,
Time is short,
Laugh every day until you snort...
A minute gone,
And then another...
And soon your older;
A dad or mother.
You only get so many days,
So spend each of them well.
So you'll have stories
to someday, sometime tell.




Thank you Dad!
Thank you Mom!
Goodbye...




October 10, 2010

CATCH THE READING BUG!

THIS IS A READING BUG! I'LL EXPLAIN...

S
o, I was having a meeting at The Tattered Cover and as I prepared my stuff, in my overstuffed vehicle, one of my new books hurtled to the ground. I had to put a bunch of stuff together so I just left it sitting there on the ground (actually three moms and four reading age kiddoes were heading down the sidewalk right toward the book and I thought, "Hmmm subtle marketing technique! They will see it, pick it up and realize I dropped it!", since it looks just like the case full that was sitting still opened up in my car trunk and maybe ask why I had so many of the same book."

I continued to ready myself for the meeting, pulling things together when one of the kids yelled, "WOW, HOW COOL!!"



I started to smile and my eyebrows wiggled up and down as if to say, "OH YEAH, THE NEW BOOK'S A HIT!" I closed my car door and said, "Pretty cool cover huh?" The four kids looked at me like I had two heads. "LOOK MOM!" The sole girl pointed down at a Praying Mantis slowly walking across the sidewalk. Soon it was walking right over my book, seemingly pausing to admire the artwork by the stellar David Schiedt!
I wanted to say, "Well, the bug IS cool, but check out the book!" But I didn't. No, instead I whipped out my iPhone in modern fashion and started to snap pics of the beautiful bug and the beautiful book. The green beauty held my attention long after the kids walked off far enough now behind their moms not to worry that I overheard, "Jeez, you'd think that dude'd never seen a bug before."


Well, at least my initial reader paused long enough to see the cover. After the Mantis' long journey, it, he, she, headed toward the parking lot. I picked it up and carried it to a nearby grassy knoll, thinking it would have taken it the rest of the day across the hot, busy parking lot and set it on a nice clump of flowers. I walked back to my car where the book was still sitting squarely in the middle of the sidewalk and people were just walking around it, not really giving it much of a look... I shrugged my shoulders and went into the great coffee shop at my neighborhood Tattered Cover and had a great meeting. I kind of forgot the whole incident until I plugged my phone into my computer and the photos uploaded.







That very night as I came home in the twilight after a nice evening walk with Andy and Tootsie, right next to my front door was this dude. Apparently the Praying Mantis had spread the word and the other eager readers were trying to get a glimpse of my new book. At least someone had caught the reading bug!
THIS IS A READING BUG.

What are you reading?

October 7, 2010

THE BIG QUESTION!

I have heard the BIG question posed at EVERY writer's conference I have been to that included picture books.

I have been asked the BIG question numerous times by many aspiring authors and illustrators and never really had a good answer because it is subjective and depends on the editor in question.


I have however answered it before after hearing an agent say, "It is much easier for an editor to dismiss the work if they like the illustration but not the story or vice-versa. It is just simply easier to reject it and move on to the other thousand submissions. Poor pity for the really awesome story that never gets a chance because the illustration just isn't up to snuff..." I even heard an editor say, "How does one accept you and reject your spouse or best friend? Just easier not to hassle with it. There are too many people competing for the same prize. Sometimes it is much easier to find what should be rejected than what I am going to spend the next two years trying to sell."


Okay, that makes a lot of sense, "BUT MY PROJECT IS UNIQUE AND DIFFERENT! SURELY THIS DOESN'T APPLY TO ME?!"

Thursday night, the best answer in my estimation to the BIG question was given by an editor who really, really, really knows her stuff. After all, she is largely responsible for the
other two guests joining a very enviable and elusive club of people: those who have won the coveted Newbury and Caldecott. Dinah Stevenson, VP and Publisher of Clarion Books, a division of Houghton Mifflin, was asked the BIG question after Linda Sue Parks and David Weisner gave excellent presentations about the process of taking their ideas through many drafts, false starts and successes to becoming very enjoyable, readable, interesting and exciting books (see Weisner's video below and get yourself a signed copy of his new book ART AND MAX at The Tattered Cover! It is an awesome book and will surely secure Weisner the fourth Caldecott, you heard it here first!)

SO, at the Tattered Cover near my home twenty three of us (three of us being Tattered Cover employees) sat listening to a Newbury winner, a three time, record setting Caldecott winner and Dinah Stevenson, editor for both of them. HOW FORTUNATE FOR THE FEW OF US WITHIN SPITTING DISTANCE TO GET TO ASK MORE THAN ONE QUESTION AND HAVE PERSONAL INTERACTION WITH THESE THREE GIANTS OF OUR WRITING COMMUNITY.

(Now, allow me a slight aside)

MY BIG QUESTION THAT NIGHT WAS; "My gosh, where is everyone?" I mean if an Oscar or Emmy winner was there FOR FREE to mingle with, the place would be packed and jammed tight. Here we were truly in the presence of a sort of genius in all three panel members and it was largely ignored? Well, as my mother used to say when I turned up my nose to something I now would give my eye teeth to have for dinner, "Oh well, good, there is just more for the rest of us!"


(Even though I was taking notes on my ipad during the night, I did not transcribe the specific conversation, therefore allow for the fact that what I say was said, just not exact. I am not in the business of putting words into other's mouths... wait, that is my business, but only in my fiction...)
When asked the inevitable BIG question, "Is it a good idea for an author to send his or her manuscript with
illustrations?" Dinah, David and Linda Sue Parks glanced at each other with a look of knowing. Dinah said, "No! One of the biggest thrills I get as an editor is marrying my image of who would best represent the author on paper, and the discovery process is what I love. It is FUN to watch the process..." The persistent person with the question (with an obvious agenda, in that she probably already had her sister-in-law, colleague or someone else take a stab at illustration or had done it herself) asked again, "What if the author illustrates it?" Dinah said something like, "Well if one has the talent to do both, then of course, but if it isn't the author's illustration I DO NOT recommend sending it with illustration." with a shrug of her shoulder Dinah was ready to move on to the next question.

SO, WAIT, THE EDITOR CONSIDERS IT A LARGE PART OF HER JOB TO BRING NEW VISION TO THE WRITER'S WORDS AND THAT IS WHAT BRINGS HER FUN???? THEN WHY, OH WHY, WOULD I DREAM OF ROBBING HER OF HAVING FUN? AFTER ALL, FUN IS WHY I WRITE! AND FUN IS WHAT I INTEND FOR MY READERS TO READ. WHAT FUN IT IS GOING TO BE WHEN DINAH DISCOVERS THE PICTURE BOOK MANUSCRIPT I'M STUFFING IN AN ENVELOPE ON HER DESK SOON!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuIsAIKiNgY

By the way, for those of you who are aspiring authors for children's picture books as well as chapter books, here is a nugget of GOLD for you. Dinah Stevenson answered another question posed and her answer brings hope. The question was, "Do you read unsolicited manuscripts?" Dinah said, "Clarion is one of the very few publishers who read EVERY manuscript sent in. Linda Sue Park was plucked from the slush pile!"
Did I mention Linda Sue Park won the NEWBURY???? I am sending Dinah a manuscript on Monday...

What will you do next?

October 6, 2010

It's coming... If you have a reluctant reader, check this out!

WHAT?????


http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1889191205/ref=sr_1_3_olp?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286396710&sr=1-3&condition=used

Every so often a guy just has to google himself. I was looking for some reviews to send to an agent I am corresponding with and came across this page on amazon.com

This book sells for $19 and though there are dangerously few of the first book in the series, who would expect to spend five times that? Sure, it is a limited printing and will someday be worth more because I plan to be really famous.

I mean, it is being reillustrated and will come out with a totally different look, so the original is harder and harder to find, but come on, the cheapest copy is $113????? The most expensive is $201.67???? AND they are all used.

You can still get it on my website for $19 plus $3 for shipping, but I am thinking of selling the last two cases I have on amazon for $99.99 each, what do you think?

Is there something I don't know? Did the author expire? Back to googling to see what is going on!