by Teri TerryLast week I was very lucky to attend a training day for new authors of Orchard Books and Hodder Children's Books in London. The fast track course was designed to orient, energise and focus new authors, especially - but not exclusively - those new to the publishing process. That's me!It was run by Author Profile, recently founded by publicist and Vampirates author Justin Somper, and
Check out this fantastic article in the Wall Street Journal profiling Robert L. Forbes, author of our wonderfully whimsical children's book LET'S HAVE A BITE! A BANQUET OF BEASTLY FEASTS. It's always fun for us to read author profiles instead of traditional reviews--especially when they lead lives as interesting as this. Go here to read the full article, but here's an excerpt you might enjoy! You can also keep up-to-date on the life and times of Robert Forbes and events surrounding the publication of Let's Have a Bite! on Facebook and by following @robertlforbes on Twitter.
As happy and well adjusted an adult as Mr. Forbes seems on the surface, I can't help but believe his latest book, published this week, "Let's Have A Bite! A Banquet of Beastly Rhymes," with drawings by the New Yorker cartoonist Ronald Searle, isn't the result of night terrors. "The Giant Panda at the zoo just sits and chomps on fresh bamboo," goes one poem. "His belly is like a cooking pot, Which happens when you eat a lot. He's content to do not much but chew. Which is all he seems to do (That and poo!)"
People often take a stab at children's books after reading "Goodnight Moon" to their own kids and becoming convinced they can do better. But Mr. Forbes hasn't read to his son Miguel in decades. Miguel is in his thirties. Miguel is Forbes's president of television and licensing.
It seems Mr. Forbes simply has crazy rhymes going through his head. He'll wake up in the middle of the night, don his special Edward Beiner reading glasses with built-in reading lights, write for a couple of hours, roll over and go back to sleep.
"I write to amuse me," he said. "I write stuff I'd like to read." Such as, apparently, "A chicken-stewing cat named Shauna slipped on her sweat in the sauna. She moaned on the floor, 'I must reach the door, Or I'll be a fricasseed goner.' "
Mr. Forbes said he contacted Mr. Searle, who lives in the south of France, and whose work he collects, out of the blue, fully prepared to be rejected, but figuring it couldn't hurt to ask. But Mr. Searle said yes. "I'll write a couple of lines about the poem," Mr. Forbes said of their collaborative process, "and a month or two later back this package comes with all these illustrations. It's like a little boy opening a Christmas present."
This is actually Mr. Forbes' second book of poems and critters. The first, "Beastly Feasts," also illustrated by Mr. Searle, was published in 2007. And Mr. Forbes shot the photography for "A Year of Dancing Dangerously," about his wife Lydia Raurell's successful quest to be crowned newcomer of the year on the pro-am ballroom dance circuit, though partnered with Brian Nelson, her professional dance partner.
Mr. Forbes divides h
When I was a little girl growing up on the island of Cyprus, I had a record that I listened to over and over again. It was a recording of Vivien Leigh reading some of Beatrix Potter's most well known stories. Soon Mrs. Tiggywinkle, Hunca Munca, Peter Rabbit, and Mrs. Tittlemouse were old friends of mine.
Many years later my soon-to-be husband bought me the Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter, and I read the stories to my students in a Washington D.C. public school. Though some of my children had very difficult lives and were quite tough and hardened, they could not resist hearing about the duck who almost got eaten by a fox, and about the bad rabbit who almost got turned into rabbit pie. They would pretend that they were not listening as I read out loud, but I knew they were.
Some years later I began to read Beatrix Potter's stories to my own daughter, and when we got a pet duck, she was called Jemima. I am sorry to say that our Jemima did not have much more sense than the original did. However she did give us many delicious eggs.
Today, on Beatrix Potter's birthday, I give thanks for Beatrix's beautiful illustrations and her memorable characters. I give thanks that Beatrix found the courage to defy her parents, and that she went ahead and wrote her timeless stories.
Holly Hobbie has long been admired for the little girl character that she created many years ago. Her images of the child with the big bonnet has appeared on everything from lunchboxes to summer dresses. Then she brought us Toot and Puddle, a wonderful pair of little pigs whose stories reminded us of how important the simple things in life are. Now Holly has a new character to share with us. Meet Fanny on Through the Looking Glass Book Review
Little Brown publishing has created some wonderful Fanny activity pages for your children.
You can find out more about Holly Hobbie on the
profile page that I have created for her.
Now that you've killed someone (full disclosure: on the page!) That’s a question I ask myself all the time. Since I’m working with a coauthor on a fairly procedure-heavy mystery, complete with dead body, we need to make sure that when we show the death scene being investigated, we do it accurately. So I was very happy to run across this source on How Stuff Works. It covers finding, understanding, and documenting the evidence. All very CSI.
There are a bunch of other fun links, from autopsies to lock picking to luminal to money laundering.
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this is progress! It sounds fantastic - that's sharp of Hachette to support their authors in this way. I hope it catches on!
It really was a great day - as well as learning stuff, made us feel part of the place. <br />(Not to mention the benefit of now knowing a few faces to look for at the Christmas party)
Really interesting post, Teri! The brand thing was definitely mentioned at Winchester a couple of times as well.<br />Good to see cake (two sorts) make an appearance.
The cake does look very good! I think I would herniate if someone asked me to do a mock radio interview - well done you for surviving!
I needed cake to get through it :O)<br /><br />What it did was reinforce how important it is to have it solid exactly what you want to get across about your book, yourself.
herniate! what a good word!
Hmm and what persona are you planning to take?
Perhaps I could go with brain wiped teenager? It wouldn't be that much of a stretch :O)