Conferences, Shows, Appearances Archives - Page 3 of 3

Whispering Pines Writer’s Retreat 2009

Posted on Monday, March 30, 2009Monday, March 30, 2009

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Once again, I had the good fortune of going to the Whispering Pines Writer’s Retreat at the Alton Jones Campus in West Greenwich, RI. It’s not far from me, but a world away. The setting is more like something out of Maine.

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Before anything happens there is food.

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SCBWI’s Marilyn Salerno, editor mentor Sarah Shumway from Harper Collins, Barb Johansen-Newman, and author-illustrator mentor Maryann Cocca-Leffler.

The food is literally amazing here, and there’s plenty of it.
After dinner, Lynda gets the ball rolling with a First Pages panel.

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Excellent readers!

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The mentors: Author Ellen Wittlinger, Agent Anna Webman, Editor Jennifer Rees, and editor Sarah Shumway.

Here you can see the cozy fireplace room.

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The girls sent me some mascots to keep me company over the weekend.

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The next morning began with special helper awards.

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Helper Sally Riley gets her trophy from Chief Organizer Lynda Hunt.

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Laurie Murphy is at a loss for words…

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Jan Kozlowski receives her very special award.

Jennifer Rees shared her editing process with us, and showed us some great examples of recent books from Scholastic.

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Author Ellen Wittlinger read us some inspiring passages from well-written books, and at least 3 important points to think about in our writing!

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Here is Sarah Shumway at her very cool podium giving us the lo-down about working at Harper Collins.

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Laura’s trying to decide which way to go.

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The view from the porch.

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Mentor books for sale!

Another fabulous dinner! Honestly, it’s consistently the best food ever to be had at events like these.

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Pictured here: Laura Fry, Laurie Murphy, Debra Wainwright, Maryann Cocca-Leffler, Lynda Mulally Hunt, Barb Johansen Newman, Jan Kozlowski, Mary Pierce.

After dinner, it was time for another rollicking session of First Pages!

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The official mentor lineup shot!

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Jennifer Rees, Maryann Cocca-Leffler, Anna Webman, Sarah Shumway, Ellen Wittlinger.

After hours fun at Laurel! Here’s Jan doing her best Vanna White impression with a fine array of themed baskets to be raffled off.

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Cheers! Somehow there are always colorful beverages involved in the evening’s events.

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Mary brought along Cadbury Creme Eggs. Not just the smaller, wimpier American ones, but the bigger, better British ones! This finally laid to rest the mystery of the incredible shrinking Cadbury Eggs. Americans should protest. Bring back the original sized eggs! Thanks to Mary for all the spare British ones…we’re loving them!

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After another night of late-night chatting, the next day started with Barb introducing Maryann Cocca-Leffler.
Maryann has channeled all of her life experiences into her stories, and has used her winning personality and chutzpah to successfully navigate the minefield known as children’s publishing. Very inspiring.

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New to the festivities this year: Children’s Book Jeopardy!

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Lynda Trebek shot out the questions, and teams had only 15 seconds to guess them. Not easy!

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Team 4 gets it right!

Anna Webman from the Curtis Brown Agency spoke next, shedding some light on what agents do.

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Maryann signs her books for lucky children (and adults)!

The last of the themed baskets were raffled off, signifying the end of another fabulous retreat.

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Basket cases!

A final look at the Whispering Pines:

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See you next year!
If you’re nostalgic for retreats from previous years, follow the links:

Whispering Pines 2007

Whispering Pines 2008

Authors Heart Kids, Too

Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The first ever Kids Heart Authors Day went really well here in Rhode Island! Barrington Books is a fabulously well-stocked store, and they went all out to make for a festive book signing event. It was truly heartwarming to see so many people (both the kind that make books, and the kind that read books) enthusiastically supporting this event.

Here are the five of us that were at Barrington Books:

Linda Crotta Brennan, Me, Anika Denise, Chris Denise, and Mary Jane Begin.

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See what a nice job they did of making the setting as playful as possible? Excellent job!

Linda and I had fun chatting, meeting lots of little people and their parents, and eating M+M’s.

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Chris and Anika have a great rapport with their little book fans.

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Thank you to everyone who came out, and to Barrington Books for supporting such a great event!

Kids + Authors = Luv

Posted on Wednesday, February 11, 2009Thursday, February 19, 2009

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What could be more fun on Valentines Day than to head on out to your favorite indy bookstore and meets lots of authors and illustrators?
Saturday, February 14th is the KidsHeartAuthors Day all over New England. Check out the site and see who’s signing where!

I will be participating at Barrington Books along with several other exceptionally fine authors and illustrators. We will be there from 10-12 to sign and meet and have general merriment…hope to see you there!

Here’s another Valentine from my collection.
Mere words can’t describe how much I love this one.

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The 2008 Highlights Highlights

Posted on Friday, October 17, 2008Monday, November 2, 2009

Finally, a chance to revisit my neglected blog!
I recently got to go to the 2008 Highlights Illustrator’s Party in Pennsylvania. Highlights (the makers of the well-read magazines, and also owners of Boyd’s Mills Press) is a very unusual company that actually puts aside time each year to party with it’s illustrators. Yeeha!

We got lucky with 3 days of great weather:

The stretch of NY/Pennsylvania that we traveled through is beautiful. Unlike last year, there were no 4-hour traffic jams to bog down the trip, and we arrived without incident.
The Highlights folks have the party-throwing thing down to a science, so when we arrived, there was the first of many lovely buffets. We were able to stay in a cottage near everthing, and the next morning began with (yes!) more great food!

The illustrators spent the first half of the day doing illustrator stuff. We got to hear Leonard Marcus speak- he’s a children’s book historian, and author of a fabulous book I have (maybe you do, too) called “Golden Legacy”, all about the cultural and artistic impact of Golden Books. I’m anxious to find some of his other books now.
Then we got to check out each other’s portfolios.

I though the folks coming to this event would have all been east coasters, but I was wrong. Illustrators came from all over the country. Getting to connect the art with the names and faces was a real bonus. Luckily, this was made easier by our big, clear nametags!

While we were doing this, our families were off having a blast at a farm. Check out this beautiful place! Eric and the kids had a great time. The kids were glad to meet other kids who like art (I guess this doesn’t really happen as much as they’d like here at home).

They got to paint and decorate pumpkins:

Beat each other with noodles:

Listen to fiddlin’ kids:

And roast marshmallows:

Later that afternoon, the big event…we all met at the main Highlights building in Honesdale for a costume party! This year’s theme was “The Enchanted Forest”. Needless to say, illustrators are pretty good at coming up with costumes…and so are the Highlights staff.

The entire building is decorated, inside and out. It must take weeks of planning to do this; it’s refreshing to think that it is allowed and encouraged within the company.

I love these mossy tree people.

Inside, the kids got to go on a Timbertoes scavenger hunt with stickers hidden all around the building.

More food…awesomely themed.

Leprechauns! Cloaked Art Directors! Fungi! Dragonlike Photographers!

Fairies! Keebler Elves! Unicorns!

Unbearably Cute Ewoks! Teeny Tinys!

The one and only Joan of Art, hailing from the Columbus, OH office.

Look- it’s a portrait of pure evil!

Wait a minute… it’s Judy Moffatt (who’s not evil at all, really).

Eric and I were apple trees…I guess you can say we didn’t think too hard about this, since we pretty much live in an apple orchard. It was a logical choice.

What’s that? It’s the BloomMobile! This is the Highlights company car (I presume) decorated in the manner of Suzanne Bloom’s adorable Splendid Friend books.

Good times. It’s very fun to see such universal participation in something like this.
Later that day it was time for a lamb roast, (with intro by Christine Clark…)

Can you see the ultra cool, gigantic mural behind her, too? Awesome.
Here’s a closer view:

Then, of course, there was a post-dinner hoedown!
Silly me, I thought the hoedown was part of last year’s “ranch” theme.
It’s not, it’s just hoedowning for hoedowning’s sake!

The next morning was another farewell buffet.
We met so many great people over the weekend…here are two of them:

It’s Phyllis and Brad Harris, all the way from Missouri!
There were cheesy potatoes available this morning in the buffet that were TO DIE FOR.
I need this recipe (let’s put it in High Five- ha!)

Then after a swing:

and a horse-drawn hay ride:

We headed back home.
It was another great driving day.
This road cracked us up…it follows (EXACTLY) the contour of the ledge butting up against the Delaware river. It was like a rollercoaster. Best not to take your eyes off the road here!

Along the river we saw these:

We refer to them as “those things in the water.”
Does anyone know what these things are??

Thanks to everyone at Highlights for such a fun weekend. It’s a real treat to hang out with people who love children’s illustration and writing. Hello to all the new and old friends we met there- and for those of you who couldn’t get there this year, hope to see you next fall!

2008 Surtex, The Stationery Show, ICFF, and All the Wonders of New York in One Post

Posted on Monday, June 2, 2008Monday, May 25, 2009

June 2.
Ah, it seems like only yesterday it was June 1. Which is still a couple of weeks late for me to be blogging about NYC, but here goes anyhow!

My illustratin’ gal pals and me jumped off the train and hit the Surtex and Stationery shows right on the first day.

The overview here, as modeled by Laura, gives you a tiny idea of the sheer quantity of printed matter contained within the Stationery Show.It boggles the mind.

See? See down there? Thousands of greeting cards, paper goods, collectibles, gift bags, etc., and all the fine people who’d like to sell ’em. It’s a great way (as an artist) to see who’s doing what, and where your art might fit in…but it’s not set up for that purpose, per se. Surtex, on the other hand, has a different vibe. It’s mainly artists and art reps who are showing images to license. Almost everyone we met here was happy to talk about their experiences with having a booth and/or the ups and downs of selling art (or art usage). Very interesting.

We hit the city for dinner and a little shopping. Here’s the colossal M+M’s Store:

Do you need pink, purple, and green M+M’s? I did, and by gosh, I got ’em!
Do you need chartreuse, aqua, and dusty rose M+M’s? They probably have ’em.

Here’s Janet and me dazzled by the array of choices. And stuff. And noise!
I also managed to go thru the ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair), which is very different from Stationery or Surtex, mainly because it has couches instead of paper goods. And all kinds of other highly designed, one-of-a-kind furnitury stuff. And all kinds of housewary stuff, too. My work at FRED dictates that at least part of me* be “in touch” with the world of cutting- edge design. I am sure you can tell this when you look at my bunny illustrations.

* the small but extremely hip part

After 2 solid days of show walking, Monica and I went shopping in Soho. We tried to hunt down gluten-free goodies for her, but alas, we were NOT very successful! So instead we bought yarn and fabric.
Here’s Monica at Purl Soho:

WAY TOO MANY colors to choose from! I bought some adorable fabric at the sister store, Purl Patchwork…I’ll show it sometime.

How cute is this random store window??

On the last day in the city, I was on my own. Country girl in the big city? Yeah, it freaks me out a bit.I got to meet up with my editor at Simon and Schuster, which happens to be right next door to Radio City Music Hall!

Oh, yeah! And right across the street from The Giant Metal Guy of Rockefeller Center!

Actually it’s Prometheus, ancient God of insanely fast-paced cities.
And what do you know…I was watching the Today Show with MB in the hotel room, and right outside the door practically was the ACTUAL Today Show! They were doing some kind of wedding game:

Trust me, it was exciting.
I had a bagel at the Dean and DeLuca that you can always see in the background of the Today Show.
I found this to be very surreal.

Cool, NBC of course.
Whenever I am in NYC, I MUST go to the big Toy’s R US:

It’s got a toy-themed Ferris wheel in it. WooHoo!

And a life-size T-rex, too:

And something equally as terrifying…an entire wall of My Little Pony!
My MLP lover would be in Seventh Heaven!

I went to American Girl store, too…a real destination if you are a girl, a doll, or a person with an unusual fascination for merchandising.
My 2 favorite dolls are: Molly, because she’s got a whole 1940’s world:

And Julie, because she’s got a whole 70’s world:

And here’s a typical weird thing you’d see in the city- a model in a photo shoot in the middle of traffic!

Times Square:

And of course, another thing I always look for when in NYC, the statue of George M. Cohan!

George looks pretty weird surrounded by the competing visual noise.
But even in his day, Times Square was something like this, I guess.
He liked it that way!
After the George sighting, I caught the train back home and talked to a fascinating lady from New Delhi all the way home.
I think I know everything about her now, except her name!
People can be fun.
Back to work for me!

Whispering Pines 2008

Posted on Monday, March 3, 2008Monday, March 30, 2009

I left my usual life behind for a few days over the weekend, and retreated to the woods for the Whispering Pines Writer’s Retreat. The location of this event is truly remote, so it’s easy to immerse yourself in both nature and writing, or at least talking about writing.

The retreat opened with a First Pages panel, whereby participants’ first pages of their current manuscripts are read aloud, and then discussed by the writer and editor mentors. Here they are:

That’s writer Mark Peter Hughes, Charlesbridge editor Emily Mitchell, and Candlewick editor Kaylan Adair. They did a bang-up job of critting the story beginnings, being truthful yet positive.

Someone in this group is probably sweating it out while Lynda reads their First Page…

The next morning was rainy, so the pines were not whispering (which they do on a nice day), but whimpering, maybe.

The weather didn’t interfere with the great sessions, though, or the GREAT food that gets served seemingly all the time. It is easy to get used to gourmet meals served continuously, without having to actually cook or wash the dishes. But I digress.

Emily Mitchell was up first.

Emily reads. She chose some clear examples of strong voice, which reinforced a lot of what came up during the First Pages panel. She thinks voice is the most essential, driving part of the story.When you start tuning in to what attracts you to a book and makes you want to read more, you start hearing voices, for sure. I really feel like I have a better understanding of this concept than ever before.

Next up was Mark Peter Hughes, author of I Am the Wallpaper and Lemonade Mouth. He gave a pens-on workshop about dialogue, and how it can effectively move things along in a story, create tension, etc. It’s great stuff to know. After this, I definitely already had mental updates I wanted to make to my current book text.

Thinking makes me hungry.
All we had to do was follow this path back to the Lodge…

And voila! The Lodge:

The neverending banquet was inside. I didn’t get any good food pictures, but the fine folks of Whispsering Pines have never made a bad meal, as far as I can tell.
Here are some scenes from the dining zone:

Lucia, Mary, and Laurie- bon appetit!

Kaylan, Moi, and Ilene– slainte!

Barb and Jan…and pie. Oh, the pie…
Back at the Laurel Lodge, Lynda Hunt presented the helpers with weird things from her Bag o’ Fun.
Here is Lynda, Lucia (a.k.a. the “Partner in Crime”), Mary and Jan (the Basket Gals), and Barb (The Power Point Princess).

These gals are a LOT of fun- they helped make it the casual, fun-yet-functional event that it is. Bravo.

Not pictured: an evening of wild writing-induced debauchery that lingered until morning.Well, that’s what COULD have been going on, for all I know. I went to bed at midnight after a lot of chatting, laughing, and Cadbury eggs.

Morning came early, but the sun was out!

Kaylan Adair from Candlewick presented first on Sunday morning. She gave us an excellent overview of how things run at Candlewick, which seems pretty different from most of the other publishers out there. Different in a good way. It reminds me a bit of the Highlights company, which also operates on it’s own terms and manages to put out well-regarded work.

That’s a picture of her box o’slush behind her.I like this picture- it looks like Kaylan is channeling the angst-ridden spirit of the slush pile!

Next up was my pal Ilene Richard, the illustrator mentor. I have known Ilene for years now, but I still found out lots of new fun facts about her (like, I didn’t know she did jewelry design for 15 years!). I also hadn’t seen a bunch of her art pieces. She’s a prolific gal, and I think she’s on the verge of some big stuff. She read one of her dummy books (which I believe began at last year’s WP), and it is lookin’ GOOD! Best of all, she was not defeated by her own PowerPoint presentation!

Here’s a nice, formal picture of Ilene, Mark, Kaylan, and Emily in front of the fireplace. How rustic!

Mark clearly doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

And then, it was over. I went home with a splitting headache, but after it cleared, I was left with a clear case of inspiration!

Here are some lovely parting shots of the property:

If you are feeling nostalgic for WhisperingPines 2007, click here!

A Keene Time in New Hampshire

Posted on Tuesday, October 30, 2007Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Eric and I had the good fortune to go to the Keene State College Children’s Literature Festival last weekend. A little rain didn’t interfere with the amazing lineup of speakers!

Dr. David White is the enthusiatic organizer and MC of the event.

First up was author-illustrator Kathy Mallat.
Kathy had the daunting task of stepping inas a conference speaker at the last minute, and she really rose to the occasion! Her artwork and stories are sweet and right on target for the youngest audiences. I was particularly interested in how she starts with lots of words, then pares them down to the essence of what needs to be said in the book, and what can be “said” in the pictures. I know what that’s like, and it’s not easy! My own upcoming book has 50 words in it, but it started with plenty more!

Kathy and some of her charming books!

Michael Dooling is a writer and illustrator who really likes to get into his characters!

He works in oil paint, and even painted in front of us all. He owns a collection of costumes that he uses for reference in his highly accurate but accesible work. Continue reading “A Keene Time in New Hampshire” →

Whispering Pines 2007

Posted on Monday, February 26, 2007Monday, March 30, 2009

Whispering Pines is a fabulous 3600-acre property in W. Greenwich, RI- and every year there is a NESCBWI Writer’s Retreat on the site. This is the first year I have been able to go. I was also the illustrator mentor, which meant that I had to talk about my illustrating and stuff. What a weekend! Scroll down for pictures and impressions of a wonderful event, the kind that truly leaves you ready to create upon your re-entry to civilization.

Here is the entry to the main lodge. The setting is stunning- seemingly untouched wilderness right here in RI, but for a smallish group of rustic conference rooms clustered in one area, connected by paths.
This is the view from the main lodge.

We had a first pages panel with writer Laurie Halse Anderson and editors Lisa Cheng (McElderry Books, Simon and Schuster) and Liz Waniewski (Dial books, Penguin Group). It was fun to hear off-the-cuff comments on everyone’s first pages- the panel did amazingly well under the pressure! The caliber of the writing was good, too, so that made it all the more interesting.

The FOOD at Whispering Pines is top-notch. I have never seen so many good choices at a conference- unusual New England stuff, too- johnny cakes, clam cakes, lobster bisque, prime rib…sigh. Easy to get used to, hard to leave!

Here are Liz Waniewski and Lisa Cheng, the two delightful editor mentors. I personally have full confidence in their abilities to choose good things- because they are both big fans of The Office (a.k.a. the best show on TV now)! But seriously- they are both very good at what they do, and it was cool to hear each of their presentations on how they work, and how publishers work in general.

Here is Laurie Halse Anderson worrying about her latest book release, and signing a book for me. I admit it, I don’t read a lot of YA, and I hadn’t ever read any of her books before coming to the retreat. But Laurie is one of the best speakers I have ever heard, I mean- like EVER. I think she really set the tone for artistic openess during the weekend. Beyond her speech, she is enthusiastic, outspoken and DAMN good at getting each person to face their own artistic demons and/or angels. She’s like an author/therapist…in a good way. Her new book due out soon is called Twisted.

Following is an attractive montage of people, places and things from the retreat. You can see what my room looked like, and also Barb playing with one of her cowgirl alter egos. Don’t worry, the dolls had a good time, too!

After a very late night of scintillating discussions and little sleep, I had to give my talk the next morning.

Everyone says it went well, but it was nerve-wracking- I forgot a whole bunch of things I was going to talk about! It was the first time for me to speak to adults- and they were a great bunch to speak to.

I won a Mystery Box in the raffle- score!
You can see what was inside- I am going to need a bigger YA shelf.
All in all an amazing weekend- I loved meeting everyone there, and would go again to this in a heartbeat!
Thanks Lynda and Jan and everyone for a truly memorable experience!