I'm so thrilled that Grace Lin's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon has been awarded the Newbery Honor! And also so happy that Jerry Pinkney has finally won the Caldecott Gold with The Lion and the Mouse. It was a good day for Little, Brown! See all of the honorees here.

Here are me and Andrea Spooner (editor of The Lion and the Mouse) celebrating at the hotel after hearing the news and before heading over the the awards ceremony.

Yay, Grace! I love this book so much. One of the Newbery committee members said to me afterwards, "This book is going to be a classic." That is my hope and dream.

For an update of the rest of ALA as I posted on the Blue Rose Girls before the award announcements, read on below.

**********


I'm writing this post on Sunday night in my hotel room in Boston while watching the Golden Globes. I've been here since Friday for the American Library Association Midwinter Conference, and as actors and writers and directors, etc. all collect their awards, I'm trying not to think about our awards, the ones bestowed by the venerable American Library Association. I was burned last year, and on a roller coaster ride the whole weekend before the announcements, and was determined for that to not happen this year, and for the most part it's worked. I've managed to not think about it too much (yeah right).

That aside, I've set this the post automatically at 8:30 AM, so by now we all know which books have won, so I'll just give a general CONGRATUL

Display Comments Add a Comment

Cross-posted from the Blue Rose Girls:

Yes, I do have a problem keeping up with email (as I've mentioned here), but I seem to have an even tougher time keeping up with snail mail. Our business, including submissions (in fact, especially including submissions), is handled more and more via email, and so I increasingly pay more attention to email and less to snail mail. In fact, I get irritated when agents send submissions, especially novels, as hard copies. They should know better by now!

At work, I have a bin labeled "mail" in my office where I dump all my mail, and last year I've realized that at times mail has stayed there unopened for over three months at a time, until I make time to sit down and open and sort through it all.

This is how I go through my mail: I sit down with the bin, open an envelope, scan the letter. If it's an unsolicited query or manuscript, I put it back in the envelope and scrawl "slush" on the envelope and put it in a pile. This pile is ultimately handled by our receptionist who send back form letters saying we don't accept unsolicited submissions or queries. If it's a solicited manuscript, I put in a different "log in" pile for my assistant. If it's a solicited query, I read it quickly, decide if I want to review it or not, and then write "Query yes" or "query no" on it and add it to the pile for my assistant. If I receive art samples, and I like the art, it goes into a pile for filing. If I don't like the art, it goes into the recycling bin (sorry, illustrators!).

Last Sunday, the day before I was to go back to work after the holiday break, I decided to go into the office to sort through my mail so the bin would be empty when I started the new work year. The pile was threatening to spill over. Yes, this is partially my fault--if I just opened and dealt with the mail I received each day, or even each week, it would be more manageable. But dealing with a pile of several months worth of mail, something became extremely clear: I get way more unsolicited submissions and queries than I should. In fact, I should receive zero--as a company, we only accept agented or requested/referred submissions. Instead, I receive on average one or two a day. I would say a good 75% of the mail I receive are unsolicited queries and submissions. And this irritates me to no end.

Our submissions policy is stated very clearly on our website:

Publishers in the Hachette Book Group (including Grand Central Publishing, Business Plus, FaithWords, Center Street, Mystery, Orbit, Little, Brown and Company, Back Bay Books, Bulfinch, Springboard Press, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers) are not able to consider unsolicited manuscript submissions and unsolicited queries. Many major publishers have a similar policy. Unsolicited manuscripts, submissions and queries will not be answered and the publisher will have the right to destroy any unsolicited material or mail without returning to the sender.

I don't know if people ignore this rule out of ignorance, or in hopes that we'll take a look at their query or submission anyway. And, okay, yes--very very rarely, if you catch me in a good mood, I might scan the submission (especially if it's a book dummy with illustrations), but I don't actually remember an example where I've then actually ended up considering the submission--it still gets returned as slush. And I can say with 100% certainty that I've never ended up acquiring a submission that was initially sent to me as slush. So, STOP TRYING. You're wasting your time, my time, my assistant's time, our receptionist time, and you're also wasting money and paper, and making it harder for people who are following the rules to have my undivided attention. Stop it. Seriously.

Sigh. Remember when you loved getting mail? Remember a time when mail was something other

Display Comments Add a Comment

Cross-posted from the Blue Rose Girls.

***

I always make New Year's resolutions, including my "no candy" resolution of eight or so years ago. One of my resolutions this year (and last year, too, although I didn't achieve it) is to blog at least once a month on my personal blog. (Cross-posts from the Blue Rose Girls don't count.) Well, to get in the habit, I posted my first original bloomabilities post in a loooong time on Wednesday--I looked back on my Oughts here.

So now it's 2010 and it's back to work. Vacation is over--it passed so quickly! I got more than 50% of my very lengthy work "to do" list done, so I feel okay about starting the work year. However, because of the work, it wasn't a true vacation. It never really is, right? I think we all struggle with maintaining a work/life balance.

Around New Year's, agent Barry Goldblatt tweeted (or retweeted, rather) this:

Definitely! RT@DaveMcKean Resolution? More unequivocal days, that is WORK days and PLAY days, not guilty play days and distracted work days.

That really resonated with me, because if I had to pick two words to describe how I felt last year, they would be "busy" and "guilty." I felt guilty all the time because of all of the things I had to do and wasn't doing. All of the submissions yet to read, the unanswered emails and calls, the people to get back to. I felt guilty all the time about not working, even when I wasn't supposed to be working. And that needs to stop.

So, in addition to my usual work goals, in 2010 I'm going to try to set some boundaries and make some changes in how I work. Here are a few of my work-related resolutions I've come up with so far:

1) Learn how to say "no" more. Last year I really did try to say no to favors and requests that I really didn't have the time to do, but if someone insists and says "Are you sure? Please?" I often fold and say yes. I need to stop that. Because this past year, I've said yes to things, and then have not followed through with the task in a timely manner, and that's contributed to this constant sense of guilt.

2) Stop counting on weekend and vacations and holidays to "catch up" on work. Weekends and vacations are "me" time! And it never really works, anyway. (This is an example of "guilty play days.")

3) Don't stay at the office past 9 pm.

4) Work towards "Inbox Zero"--I think this is probably too lofty a goal, so to be a little more realistic, I'd like to have under 20 emails in my inbox by the end of each day (Let's call it Inbox Twenty). If you're curious as to what Inbox Zero is, watch this (rather long) video:



5) While at work, work. Less socializing and web surfing. Sure, Twitter and Facebook and blog reading are also work-related for me, but I need to stop checking the sites throughout the day. Once in the morning, once during lunchtime, and once after 5 pm will suffice.

6) Acquire at least two picture books, two middle grade, and two young adult projects this year.

7) Read a little before bed at least five times a week. Read at least one published book per month.

8) Tidy my office at least a little bit once a week.

And, of course, I resolve to keep all of my resolutions! Really! And if I

Display Comments Add a Comment

Earlier this year, when I looked back ten years ago to when I first started my career in publishing, I hadn't realized that we were also nearing the end of the decade and the beginning of a new one (although...technically 2011 is the beginning of the new decade, right? Details, details!).

Before I do a "look forward" to 2010, I thought I'd look back at the last decade. So, let's see. What were "The Oughts" all about for me?

-I spent most of The Oughts not eating candy. I'm not sure exactly when I made that New Year's Resolution to not eat candy (I'd look back in my diaries to check, but am on the road right now! I'm literally up in the air on the airplane, to be exact), but it was at least eight years ago, because I know I was still living in Boston. Wow. Almost a decade of barely any candy!

-I've spent all of this decade working in children's book publishing and loving it. I went from being an editorial assistant to a senior editor (with a few steps in between).

-I moved to New York from Boston.

-I've lived in four different apartments, have had twelve different roommates.

-I survived a traumatic break-up and an eviction.

-I've been in three serious romantic relationships.

-I dated people I met online, met at parties, met at bars, met while sharing a taxi, even!

-I met The Randoms: my "new" group of friends who I've now known for almost five years.

-I traveled a ton, including to Australia, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, London, Bologna, Florence, Iowa, Oregon, Austin, Canadian Rockies, Toronto, Montreal, and more.

-I spoke at countless SCBWI conferences, attended multiple ALAs, IRAs, BEAs, and NCTEs.

-I went to countless weddings, two funerals, visited friends and families with babies (distributing kid's books along the way).

-I got out of debt.

-I edited two books that were New York Times bestsellers, one Golden Kite winner and one honor, an Edgar Award winner, an Al Roker Book Club pick...and more! I love and am proud of each and every book I've acquired and edited. And I'll always remember my first!

-I took tens of thousands of photos, including hundreds of food.

-I continued my obsession with Karaoke.

Display Comments Add a Comment

Re-posted from the Blue Rose Girls.

I'm on vacation, at my parents' home in Southern California for the holidays. I made it out of New York on the last non-canceled flight to Los Angeles Saturday afternoon during the snow storm! Speaking of the storm, I was actually a teeny tiny bit sad to have escaped, because I really love snow, and there's something so special about the first big snow of the season. But I was happy to live vicariously (whil in 70 degree weather) via lots of photos and videos online. Here's my favorite:



This year really flew by. I'll try to do a proper wrap-up in the next few weeks, but today I'll direct you to agent Nathan Bransford's great "Year in Publishing" post.

And here's a recent article about a business practice in publishing that nobody talks about. In fact, I know very little about how this works and found the article fascinating myself.

I was a guest blogger over at the Debutante Ball last week, and posted about research--how I researched to find my dream publishing job, that is! Read it here.

Also, related to Meghan's post about eBooks, this is an interesting article about an experiment regarding the issue of DRM, or digital rights management.

And finally, in honor of the sad news that actress Brittany Murphy died over the weekend, and also the recent news of Kirkus's demise, I was reminded of my post from this past May about Bad Reviews, which referenced both subjects (albeit somewhat indirectly). And will add that despite my negative feelings towards some of the reviews in Kirkus, I was saddened by the news. It really is a loss to publishing. You can read more thoughts about this over at the Horn Book blog.

And to conclude this random post, let's get back to snow. Anyone who knows me well knows that my favorite snow book, which is also my favorite picture book of all time, is The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. Other snow books I love are Robert's Snow by Grace

Display Comments Add a Comment