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Okay, yes. I just attended the SCBWI Los Angeles National Conference. And yes, I’m going to the Winter Conference in New York. And well, fine I’m at the Mid-Atlantic SCBWI Conference this weekend but I am not, I repeat NOT a conference junkie.
 
A conference junkie would squeal when seeing writing friends from long ago and far away. I saw a bunch of friends from my time at VCFA and friends I met as far back as 2004 at the Highlights Chautauqua Writer’s Workshop. I did not squeal once. But I did hug a lot.
 
A conference junkie would take notes furiously filling up pages and pages in her notebook or lap top. I didn’t even bring a notebook. But I did reuse all the pages in my folder writing down crucial information such as: “Figure out what your character is most afraid of and make them face it,” (Caroline Abbey), “We are allowed three lines for a positioning statement. That’s it,” (Chelsey Eberly), and “The moments that define us are when we choose to loose something to gain another,” (Abby Ranger).
 
A conference junkie would sidle up beside famous people and have perfect strangers take their picture.

 
No. No. New England Crystal Kite winner Brian Lies and I go way back. I knew him WAY before he became an “overnight success.” (After 25 years of hard work.)
 
So you see, I am not a conference junkie.
 
(How many days until New York?)

My local bookstore, Westwinds Bookshop, celebrated its 65th anniversary last weekend!.

*Picture book, fantasy for preschoolers through second graders
*Bats (the animal) as main characters
*Rating: The strength in Bats at the Ballgame is definitely the illustrative talent of Brian Lies–cute concept and some clever text, like Cricket Jacks!

Short, short summary:

So, what do I do with this book?

1. This is a great book to share during summer school, in those warm spring months before school is out (or your home school children are ready to have a break), or even in the fall around World Series time. There is quite a bit of “baseball lingo” in here, which your boy and girl baseball players will appreciate. Ask students to make personal connections with the text, as they have all probably at least played baseball/softball in P.E. or at recess. Ask them to write a paragraph about what this book makes them think about in their own lives. (It could be any sporting event, actually.)

2. You can teach word choice and sentence fluency, two of the 6 + 1 traits of writing, with this book. Word choice is an obvious lesson since Lies has written descriptive text, and it rhymes. Don’t you love the way he chose to write Cricket Jacks instead of Cracker Jacks? Even that one simple word makes an entirely different book–this is word choice at its finest. As for sentence fluency, when you read a rhyming book like this out loud, your students can really hear how the text flows. Look at the punctuation, too, and/or transition words to see how these keep the text flowing.

3. Brian Lies has beautiful illustrations. Give your students a chance to study them. What do they notice? How do the illustrations and the text work together to tell the story? If your students really love his work, then share (and compare and contrast) one of his other books such as Bats in the Library.

I thought I would start with Brian Lies latest book cover, which recently won Brian the Crystal Kite Award.  I figured one look and you would see why his book won that award and too many others to list.

Brian Lies is a native of Princeton, NJ, who graduated from Brown University in 1985 with a degree in British and American Literature. He attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for two and a half years, and began doing editorial page illustrations for numerous publications, including the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and Christian Science Monitor. He illustrated his first children’s book for Houghton Mifflin Co. in 1989, and has since illustrated twenty others, including his New York Times bestsellers Bats at the Library (2008) and Bats at the Beach (2006), as well as Hamlet and the Enormous Chinese Dragon Kite (1994) and Hamlet and the Magnificent Sandcastle (2001), which he also wrote. Brian is a frequent contributor to Cricket, Spider, and Ladybug magazines, has shown his work in galleries around the country, and enjoys visiting schools to talk with students about writing and illustrating stories. He and his wife, Laurel, live in Duxbury, MA with their daughter, a cat and a hamster.

I love how Brian shows us his process. Here’s Brian:

In setting up a scene, I draw from imagination, but bring in research. For Bats at the Library, I wanted the setting to be my favorite library building, the Riverside (IL) Public Library, in the town where my Dad grew up. I live in Massachusetts, and hadn’t seen the library in the 28 years since my grandparents died, so I flew to Chicago and spent three days in the library, taking over 300 photos, doing detailed drawings of the building, and working on revisions, with an eye to having the feel of the building infuse the writing. I’m not slavish about copying from reference photos—I don’t set up a complete scene and then just copy it. But I like to get details right—that helps readers slip into the world I’m trying to create—and so lots of different elements I’ve seen will find themselves in a drawing I do after the research. When I visit schools, I talk about using unusual, specific details in both writing and artwork to create a feeling of reality within a story. A car in the driveway is dull; a blood-red convertible with ivory seats and a broken headlight awakens the brain and draws you into the storyteller’s voice.

Brian’s final sketch. When I’m working on a book, I get feedback on my sketches from the art director. He may have some production concern I’m unaware of, and has a fresh eye and can point out inconsistencies or weaknesses in storytelling I can’t see because I’ve been too close to the story. My editor also comments on the pictures as well as the story, and between the two of them, I’ve got a great team to help steer the story to its strongest self. 

The transfer. When I’m painting one of my pictures, the first step is to transfer a copy of the finished drawing to the paper on which I’ll be painting, most often Strathmore Series 400 or 500 vellum surface paper. I use

Betsy Davany e-mailed me yesterday to let me know she won the New Voices in Children’s Literature: Tassy Walden Award for her middle grade manuscript titled, Savannah’s Mountain. 

She was quite excited, because ever since the news broke yesterday she has had newspapers and editors contacting her about the win.  We are quite excited too for Betsy.  Even though Betsy lives in Connecticut, she really is a New Jersey member and belongs with us, well at least that is how we feel.   

New Voices in Children’s Voices in Children’s Literature: Tassy Walden Awards program is sponsored byEvergreen Woods and Barnes & Noble with additional support from Helen H. and J. Sanford Davis. The Tassy Walden Awards ceremony is scheduled for May 18, 2011. It will be held at the Blackstone Memorial Library, Branford, CT at 7pm and is free and open to the public. So if you live in the area, it should be enjoyable to attend and hear the winners read selections from their manuscripts.

Betsy says, “Savannah’s story started as a first page, read at the very first SCBWI event I attended. Kathy Temean took me under her wing and encouraged me to sign up for the March 2007 Mentor Weekend. When she told me there would be a first page session, I decided to venture away from writing picture books to follow the voice of Savannah, an eleven-year-old girl. The writing caught the attention of the two editors present, one asked me to send her the first fifty pages of the novel. At that time, only the one page existed. Guided by belief in the work, and with much patience from the editor, I completed fifty pages, and then went on to finish writing Savannah’s story. The novel is currently with several editors at this time.”

In case you didn’t notice.  The Crystal Kite Awards were announced this week.  New Jersey had two members make the finals, but they were up against some stiff competition with the winning book.  I’d like to point out how valuable it is to win this contest.  I already have ordered four of the winning books.  Books I would have not thought to order.  Isn’t that what an author wants?  I think, “Yes.”  So don’t stick your nose up or take for granted these contests.  They can really make things happen for you.  I have listed three regions below: 

Pennsylvania/Delaware/New Jersey/Wash DC/Virginia/West Virginia/Maryland
Kathryn D. Erskine – Mockingbird   (Philomel Books – Penguin Young Readers Group)

           
          Lightwing McFrog, Manager of the New York Echoes

It's Small Graces time again, and look at the beauty that's up for bidding this week, September 13-17th: an original acrylic painting by author/illustrator Brian Lies, based on his latest picture book, Bats at the Ballgame (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010)!

This is the third book in the New York Times Bestselling Bats
series -- official pub date was September 6th, and this week it's listed at #7! The 4" x 6 " painting is one of several baseball card profiles; I must say I'm quite fond of McFrog's long whiskers and that NY cap (shhh . . . don't tell my NH Red Sox relatives)!

As before, 100% of the proceeds of this FCB auction will provide support for author/illustrator visits and residencies in under-served urban schools. Don't miss your chance to own this one-of-a-kind, signed, unpublished piece of art at an affordable price, while helping a good cause. Just click through to Ebay to place your bid!

Check out the Bats at the Ballgame trailer:




♥ To find out more about Small Graces, click here.

♥ The Foundation for Children's Books is here.

♥ Visit Brian Lies's official website.


Copyright © 2010 Jama Rattigan of jama rattigan's alphabet soup. All rights reserved.

They've been to the beach. They've patronized the library. And now, Brian Lies' adorable bats are going to watch--what else?--a baseball game. The third installment in this highly appealing series is full of charm, visual humor and--if you are a Red Sox fan--a couple of in-jokes for your reading pleasure. One of the reasons the bat books are so much fun is the opportunity they provide for sight

Have I mentioned that Brian Lies is a brilliant, brilliant man enough times yet? I LOVED his work in Bats at the Beach, I mean...come ON! Could the illustrations be any more awesome? If anyone knows of any upcoming book signing trips to Southern New Mexico, I would be forever in your debt!

Anyways....I really think the newest title from this, ahem, brilliant author, Bats at the Library, is even more wonderful than the first title and definitely worthy for our Halloween Week Extravaganza! This time, our furry bat friends end up in one of my favorite places in the world, a library, and spend their night becoming immersed in books, reading each other stories, and, of course, photocopying their bodies on the public copier. Gotta love those bats!

The illustrations are, once again, fabulous, and the text has a wonderful rhyming lilt that children will love to listen to. I highly recommend this title, as well as Bats at the Beach, for story time read alouds or just for some one on one time with your kiddos.

I have to admit, I am not a fan of bats, as many children probably aren't either, due to a rather traumatic experience when I was but a wee 6 year old. Lived in a huge old house, bats came down the chimney all the time, parents would chase them with pillowcase....to make a long story short, one got stuck in my hair while I was eating breakfast at the table and my dad was chasing it through the kitchen. Ummm....scary! So for me to enjoy the bat books is a big step! And if any books will make you love bats, it's these!

If you're interested in learning more about the fabulous Brian Lies books or to purchase, click on the book cover above to link to Amazon.

And please Mr. Lies...keep writing the "bat" books!

My good friend and fellow critique group member, Brian Lies, has the most wonderful fabulous amazing new book out: Bats at the Library.

I was there from the get-go - watching this glorious book grow from a seed of an idea to a reality.

This one's gonna go places. You heard it here first...

Read about it here.

Go, Brian!

Today's word of the day is: Workshop

I'm back from Nashua, where the New England SCBWI conference was a huge success and my four-hour workshop on web design and blogging was well-attended and well-received. The grand finale was a live update of my website to include news about the presentation itself, thanks to a kind volunteer photographer in the audience.

That's my new website design in the background, and see how exhausted I looked by that point? Since I was presenting for both sessions on Sunday, I didn't get to attend the equally well-received workshops going on at the same time:

• Toni Buzzeo on self-promotion;
• Brian Lies and Lita Judge on illustration;
• Sarah Aronson on point of view;
• Harold Underdown on an overview of the basics;
• Debra Garfinkle on humor writing;
• Emily Herman and Anne Sibley O'Brien on writing tools;
• Sarah Shumway on pitches; or
• The Write Sisters (Janet Buell, Kathy Deady, Muriel Dubois, Diane Mayr, Andrea Murphy, Barbara Turner, and Sally Wilkins) on critique groups and collaboration

Yikes! As I step forward, my knee-high clamming boot sinks effortlessly into the tidal mud, right up over the top. No resistance whatsoever. I feel a jolt of reptilian-brain panic, and back up hastily into safer ankle-deep mud. I’ve just missed being swallowed up by a tidal marsh!

On the grassy shore twenty feet away, four people laugh. This has all been captured on film by a film crew from Scholastic Book Fairs, shooting a segment for this spring’s author interview DVD. A Charlesbridge book I illustrated, Donna M. Bateman’s Deep in the Swamp, is one of this spring’s featured books. The DVD will go to every school in the country hosting a Scholastic Book Fair.

It had seemed like a good idea to film an introduction with me standing knee-deep in a saltwater marsh a few miles from my house. The producer wanted me to wade through the water, beckon with an arm to the camera and call out, “Come on! Let’s go deep in the swamp!” But when the crew arrives for the filming, we find that the tide is at dead low. There’s nothing but a narrow serpent of water lying in the middle of a sea of mud.

After the close call, we shoot a few more takes of me tromping around in mud, but my on-camera confidence flags. I’m no longer sure I’ll get out of this without a call to the fire department to haul me out with a ladder truck, and embarrassing photos in our local paper.

After the outdoor filming, we drive back to my home studio. Glaringly bright lights go up in my studio. Will the circuits blow? We tape an interview, and I try to act natural. I do a sketch of a mother alligator from Deep in the Swamp, while a camera looms over my shoulder. I’ve seen animators and other illustrators drawing on TV, and they all seem so talented and sure—drawing with quick, beautiful strokes. This drawing looks scratchy and rough to me. Are those other illustrators really as confident as they seem on camera?

It all seems to go quickly, but it’s been several hours. It’s dark outside now. The bright lights are turned off, and my office feels shockingly dim. I work in this light? The film crew packs up the cameras and lights, packs them in the van, and drives off into the night. It’s been a lot of fun—but I won’t be wandering out onto tidal mud again anytime soon!

'Tis the season of giving. Why not give a critter a home - not just for the holidays, but for life?

There are many cats and dogs in local animal shelters who would love to be a part of your household. If you want to and are able to share your home with a pet, please save an animal who desperately needs a home. You'll have a friend for life.

When choosing a pet, please do not let age be a factor. Yes, baby kittens are adorable, but so are older pets. The adoption rate of adult cats and dogs is much lower than that of the newborns and toddlers, so to speak. Just because a shelter pet is older doesn't mean it has had a hard life; perhaps he had a great life until his owners discovered their child was allergic to dogs. Just because a shelter pet is older doesn't mean she is ill or bad-tempered; perhaps she is the very picture of health and manners, but hasn't found the right human yet.

Perhaps that human is you.

You'd be shocked by how many people think non-humans are disposable. They aren't. I value all forms of life. A cat isn't a dog and a little girl isn't a bunny, but they are all animals. People are animals too. Don't forget that.

If you have some spare change, consider donating it to a shelter - especially a no-kill shelter. You'd be surprised how little it takes to save a life.

If you cannot adopt pets or do not have the funds to make a monetary donation, you can give them attention and love by donating your time and being a volunteer. You will bring some light into their lives, and they will do the same for you. Call your local animal shelter and ask if there is a volunteer program or donation system in place.

I also encourage you to donate your blankets to shelters. Such a simple gesture, easy to make, yet not often considered. Think of how cold it gets at night. Be thankful if you have a home and a bed to sleep in, because you're luckier than many others. If you have a heater, a thick comforter, and warm clothing, you're luckier still. Just because an animal has fur doesn't mean he or she is warm. Many animal shelters do not have adequate heating. Many do not have enough beds to go around, let alone blankets. Kitties won't mind if there are cartoons on their sheets, and neither do hounds. Neither will people, for that matter. If you find you have an abundance of old bedclothes, donate some to an animal shelter and some to a shelter for displaced persons. (Please wash your old blankets before donating them.)

One last thing: If you have pets at home already (or after acting on the recommendations in this post), please do me a favor and pet them for me.

This post is in memory of my cats, Twinkie, Hollywood, and Spooky. I miss you, little girls.

Last week, after hearing about a stage production of The Great Gatsby, I stated that I'd be posting more often about plays and stage adaptations of books, and hinted that I had some exciting news. Thank you for the curious and supportive comments and emails. Between those notes and the gentle nudges of my fellow cast members, I've summoned up the courage to post something personal now.

Those of you who read this blog but do not know me in real life may only associate me with books and reading. You may know that I'm a bookseller and a journalist. You may not know that I'm an actress, a singer, a dancer, and a writer. All of these things relate to storytelling and communicating. Ever since I can remember - and my earliest memory takes place when I was two years old - I have loved telling stories. Not lying, but imagining, creating, sharing, directing, writing, reading books, and, most of all, performing.

I'm lucky because I've known since childhood what I wanted to do with my life. Rumor has it I came out of the womb talking, singing, and dancing, and I haven't stopped since. I've always loved performing. I've always loved writing stories, plays, scripts, and songs. I write something new every day - though typically it's just in my head, and I really ought to make a habit of putting it all on paper or typing it up - and I'd much rather sing and dance through the streets than walk along in silence, even if I'm by myself. I'm constantly thinking, constantly creating or re-envisioning something.

I promised my cats that they would be in every movie or a TV show I wrote, and that they could watch themselves on screen. I knew they couldn't be in my plays because Twinkie would see the audience as a threat to her human, Holly would wander offstage to get petted by a kind stranger or lick something shiny, and Spooky would hide. I wish like crazy that I had had a camcorder, because now I don't have any moving pictures featuring my cats. Not one. Only flat photographs and memories both painful and joyful.

I've always pursued my performance interests, though not always to the degree I should due to different factors such as time and money. As a kid, I couldn't exactly jump on a plane and go to Los Angeles or New York to audition for something. I was busy with school and then I was busy with work. I was so intent on being good, safe, and stable. I still am.

This past year, I took care of Holly, and I don't regret one minute of it. It was hard enough leaving her alone all day while I was at work, so I did not want to be gone all night at rehearsals or filming, to put my dreams ahead of her needs. There was no way I was going to do that.

It was, at times, hurtful when people said, "Why are you staying home instead of going on auditions?" Didn't they understand that she needed medical attention on a daily basis? This was especially true this past spring. Wouldn't they do the same for their loved ones? If people pooh-poohed my efforts and dismissed her as "just a cat," I would ask them how they would feel if it was their child or their friend. If they said, "That's different," then I knew they didn't get it and they never would.

After I lost Holly in April, I had to tell myself (and listen to others who told me) that it was okay to get back out there, to go to auditions and rehearsals and shows rather than stay home every night. I thought of everyone who would be watching me in the audience, even if they were no longer with me, even if they were four-legged.

In late June, I re-subscribed to casting notices and updated my resume. A week later, I had an audition and got a part in a play. The day before that play opened, I was offered another role in another play. Perhaps things do sometimes happen when and as they should.

Despite my being so invested in these shows, I was reluctant to post about them at this blog. I rarely post about my personal life here. Bildungsroman is for books, for other people, not for me. I reveal very little about myself on the internet because I value my privacy, but if you know me in real life, you'll see the heart I wear on my sleeve.

The first play I mentioned is closing this weekend. Shortly after the cast was finalized, we began rehearsing almost every weeknight in July. We opened the first weekend in August. Three days before we opened, I became the stage manager as well. We've had a good run this past month, and I've had a lot of fun. I hope that tonight's show goes extremely well, and that tomorrow's matinée ends things on a high note. I thank those of you who have come to see the show. If you care to attend the final performances this weekend, tell me now so we can get you tickets!

The second play has been rehearsing for a month now, yet I still can't believe I was cast in it. Talking myself into auditioning for this show was a very challenging, very personal experience for me, and that's a story I won't be sharing here - not just yet, anyway. For now, I'll simply say that I saw it as a test for myself. I dipped my toe in the water, and someone invited me to swim. Even if I hadn't gotten this role, I think that all that I went through beforehand was worth it. However, now that I have it, that's being further proved. New tests have been presenting themselves at every single rehearsal, and I couldn't be happier about that. I love a good challenge. I'm nothing if not determined.

So what am I doing?

The first play is The Hollow, the play based on the Agatha Christie novel.

The second is Spring Awakening, the play that inspired the Tony Award-winning musical.

Yes, you read that correctly. Now you know why I'm on top of the world right now.

I really enjoy the view from here.

Twinkie would have been twenty-two years old today.

Happy birthday, little brown cat. I miss you.