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After a shaky start, the Bears on the Stairs launch in Waterstones went well.

As I made my way to the shop, I was a bit worried: not only were we bang in the middle of the holiday season but, having rained for days, Saturday was really hot & sunny (always tricky for events - who wants to be indoors?). Sure enough, come kick-off, I had only two little girls - oh no!! Fortunately,

several more arrived shortly afterwards, so it wasn't embarrassing. Quite a relief.

This is me preparing to eat a tasty-looking member of the audience...

Waterstones

did a lovely window display for me. Those with eagle-eyes will spot Supermarket Zoo alongside my books. That's the latest from my friend Caryl Hart, who is in-store next Saturday, so mark that in the diary.

At the end of the event we sold a surprising amount of books, which helped to offset the modest turnout. I was pleased we sold well, since Waterstones had been great and ordered in tons of stock, not just of Bears on the Stairs but quite a few other titles.

I sat in the shop for another hour, chatting to customers and gradually signing my way through all my stock, so they would keep the books in-store and not send the surplus back to the publishers.

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Lately the blog posts have been flying out a little late ... including this one  ...
Here are some happy snaps from the double launch last Friday night at Balgowlah of Kate Forsyth's terrific new title the Widkin's Curse and also her sister Belinda Murrell's book The Ruby Talisman (which my wife tells me is great). Launches are nearly always fun and especially with folks like this ....

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Grandma Kernik: Davey, honey? Are you up? School will be starting soon.

Grandma Dolores: Well, David. Would you like some cold cereal?

Grandma Kernik: I don’t understand. How is that a school on your computer? You kids.

Me: It’s an online school, Grandma. You don’t even have to leave the house.

Grandma Kernik: Well, I wouldn’t go out in this old thing anyway.

School’s in for Summer

If you can’t tell from my typing, I’m waiting for video to compress and upload. Even as I enter the home stretch on the Sparky Firepants Digital Illustration School launch and still intensely fascinated by how awesome it’s turning out to be, I’ve got more fantastic ideas ready to hit the page. As soon as I wrap up the launch, I’ll be moving right into more very exciting and cool things.

Before I go into that, I need to let you know about a special offer on Digital Illustration School. It would be very wrong of me to not let you in on this, since you were nice enough to hang out here today.

The first course in the school will be ready for download on Tuesday, June 2. For the first week that it’s online, I’m having a Grand Opening Special. The rate for the Vector Course Value Pack will be reduced (ok, slashed) for a whole week.

Two things you need to know to take advantage of this:

1. I’m going to send out a discount code via e-mail. If you want to get the code, you need to sign up on the site before June 2nd.
2. The sale ends at midnight on June 9th. After that, the price almost doubles.
3. This is just for the Vector Course Value Pack. The other stuff is priced so cheap I’m almost giving it away as it is.

To recap, that means that for the first week, the price on the Vector Course Value Pack is $175. After June 9th, it goes up to $295 and stays there. Forever.

I don’t know about you, but even as a “creative type” with my limited math skills, that sounds like quite a deal.

If the course isn’t your thing, it’s cool. Maybe you know someone it would be perfect for, in which case you would be an amazing friend if you told that someone about this killer deal. Also in which case you could potentially earn some cash, since I’ll pay a whopping 25% commission if your someone purchases anything on the site. I’m going to set up an affiliate program soon but for now I feel really happy about offering you $43.75 just for helping an artist learn some mad new digital skills.

So before you forget, go sign up now.

How to Get and Keep Illustration and Design Jobs

The next exciting thing being hatched by my madly manic brain is a series of blog posts that will tell you how to get work as an artist.

I was thinking about how I’ve been getting art-type gigs for a really long time now. I was also thinking about how I used to hire people for art gigs. So with all this golden knowledge collecting dust in my noggin, it’s borderline criminal to not share all the inside information.

So I’m kicking off a series of blog posts that tell you how to get work as an artist. I’ll tell you everything. What to say (and not to say) in an art job interview, how to deal with the monotony of production work, and even deep, dark secrets about portfolio reviews that will probably make you angry… but at least you’ll know how it all works.

What about working at a design McJob while you pine away for that glorious freelance illustration career? Yep, I’ll clue you in on that stuff, too. I’ve done it. You can do it. There are just a few things you need to know that your boss isn’t going to tell you.

What about freelance gigs? How to get them, where to get… and where NOT to get them.

Right here, on the blog, read it when you need it.

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That's really the gist of it.
My friendliest people:
This Wednesday marks the inaugural Bradford launch event: a reading at the New York Public Library!
Not only will I be regaling you with a snarkalicious, scandal-filled snippet from book one, GoldenGirl, but you will also get to hear from some other fabu teen authors, including a few personal favorites. (I won't name names. A lady never. Suffice it to say, they are all groove-tastic).

I hope you'll come out to hear the reading, prepped with lots of question-y thoughts and comments. Bonus points (possible bribery involved, in point of fact), if you have an actual teen in tow.

The gory deats:

January 7 -- Teen Author Reading Night (6-7:30, Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL, 425 6th Ave , at 10th St .)

Claudia Gabel, Friends Close, Enemies Closer
Bill Konigsburg, Out of the Pocket
Micol Ostow, Golden Girl
Marie Rutkoski, Cabinet of Wonders
Eliot Schrefer, School for Dangerous Girls

We'd love to see you!


Muchos besos,

Meeks

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the academy? One of the best parts about being a debut author is getting to write your dedication and the acknowledgements--you know the place where the author thanks everyone including the mailman and sometimes makes little inside jokes or refers to friends with nicknames? And most of us enjoy reading them because they give us a little glimpse into the author's world, and sometimes even into the research for the book.

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Dracula by Bram Stoker

It's been more years than I will admit since I last read this one, but I can still close my eyes and be right there in Dracula's castle!

Summer Sisters by Judy Blume

This one resonated with me--I had a friend just like Caitlin. In the book, a girl says that everyone says that, but it's true.

Joy School by Elizabeth Berg

The epitome of an older boy crush. What girl couldn't identify?

The Black Stallion by Walter Farley

Horse + shipwreck + island= amazing!

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

My imagination <3>

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Team Edward. 'Nuff said.

The Outsiders by SE Hinton

Groundbreaking, raw and lyrical. Plus gorgeous boys.

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Boarding school books are always a fave, but this one is special.

Sarah Dessen-Can’t pick just one

They're all so good, so clever in such a real and simple way. She has a gift for being every girl in every town.

It’s Happy Bunny-Jim Benton-Can’t Pick Just one

Sarcasm at its most perfect.

~Brooke

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We recently launched Powers of Persuasion: The Inside Story of British Advertising by Winston Fletcher. Today, I am pleased to be able to bring you an original essay by Winston on the period where the British led the way in the advertising world. Check back tomorrow for photos from the party at London’s Somerset House.

Conventional wisdom has it that America is the home of advertising, where it all began. That is not quite right. Unquestionably America is the world’s largest advertising market, and American advertising agencies now dominate the world. But advertising began in ancient Athens (if not earlier), and advertising agencies started in Britain more than a century before they appeared in the USA. During 1970s and early 1980s British advertising led the world. It did so creatively – but it did so in other ways too, which underpinned the creativity, making it more effective and successful.

The emergence of Britain started slowly. At the Cannes Festival, which was then – and still is – the arbiter of global advertising creativity, Britain was outpaced by the USA throughout the 1960s, and in 1970 and 1971. Then the British climb began. In 1972 British and American advertising agencies took home an equal number of Gold Lions (4 apiece), and Britain won the cinema Grand Prix. The next year Britain won more awards than any other country, though most of these were Silvers.

In 1974 the British Gold rush really got going. That year Britain collected 18 Gold and Silver Lions and the Palme D’Or. In 1975 the festival moved to Venice for a year, and the British trade press headline simply read ‘Venice Goes British’. Come 1976 the festival returned to Cannes and the headline ran: ‘Britain Sweeps The Board’. The Brits had again pocketed the Palme D’Or, plus 10 of the 19 Gold Lions. In 1977 it was ‘Britain Comes Out Best Again’, with the Grand Prix for television and another 6 Gold Lions. Then, in 1978, Britain reached its zenith. The Brits won the Grand Prix for both television and cinema – a rare occurrence – and garnered a massive 80 Gold, Silver and Bronze Lions.

After 5 years at the top, there followed a couple of relatively fallow, but not wholly unsuccessful, years (1979 & 1980). But in 1981 the British made a come back (‘Britain Comes out Best Again’) with more Gold and Silver Lions than any other country. And Britain’s creative leadership continued throughout the first half of the new decade, when it collected 45 Gold Lions against America’s 23.

What caused this burgeoning of British advertising creativity? A combination of factors. Commercial television had begun in Britain in 1955, and for the first two decades British television advertising was dominated by American advertisers – particularly household cleanser and other packaged goods advertisers, whose approach to creativity was strictly formulaic. Every commercial had to abide by the ‘proven rules’. During the 1970s British advertisers started to become much more important in their home markets, and more confident, and allowed British creativity much more freedom. Creativity flowers in freedom. Moreover this occurred against the background of a recovery in Britain’s economic performance, after a long period of economic tribulation. But probably most important of all, there happened to be in London during those years a raft of quite exceptionally talented advertising people, who worked both as colleagues and as rivals to outperform each other creatively, in a highly charged competitive atmosphere.

Additionally, their creativity was underpinned by other developments which also helped British advertising leap ahead. More or less simultaneously, two London agencies (Boase Massimi Pollitt and J Walter Thompson London) invented a new system of campaign development called ‘account planning’. Account planning integrated research into the creative process in a way that had not been done before, and in a way that creative people found far more sympathetic than they had found earlier systems. Account planning spread slowly at first, but it is now generally accepted around the globe as the best way to develop new campaigns.

At the same time, in the mid-1970s. Britain developed the world’s best system of advertising self-regulation – a system that maximises creative freedoms within responsible constraints. And advertising began to be used more and more by British Governments to promote worthwhile social causes, from blood-giving to drink-less driving. Simultaneously Britain began to build what has become the world’s largest advertising archive, ‘The History of Advertising Trust.’ Out of this ferment of activity two commercial giants emerged: Saatchi & Saatchi and the WPP Group. Both joined the world’s advertising leaders, though Saatchi & Saatchi later stumbled and fell.

For the British advertising industry the second half of the 20th century was a heady era – when it reached peaks that it will probably never quite achieve again.

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Ever wanted to go deep into the Amazon but didn't have enough frequent flier miles or bug repellent? Well here's your chance! Join Nina Nelson as she gives you the full tour!

Pic 2 shows me (I’m the one without the mustache) and the “real” Juan Diego. I’m sipping the tea that the camp cook made for my bellyache. After Juan Diego explained that I had an upset stomach (in what I’m assuming was Portuguese) the cook picked up a machete, went out back, returned with a bunch of leaves and brewed me a tea. Half an hour later…I was all better. Cool, huh?

These are the huts where we stayed. No electricity, HUGE water bugs (roaches on steroids for those of you who have never lived down South) that kept leaping out from unexpected places and mosquito netting around the beds. Strangely enough, this looks just like the research camp where I had Sara and Tirio stay when they went back to the Amazon. Hmmmmm. I even have a little (or should I say HUGE) discussion between the two of them about the water bug/roaches!



As for the local party animals:

This is Pablo..or is it Pedro? Anyway, this clown and his swine brother used to be wild piggies but had become semi-tame after being fed scraps from the kitchen. They were a constant source of entertainment for us and I envisioned their antics a lot when I wrote about Sulali’s pet tapir, Tambo.


Another friend of ours was, Willie the Macaw. I used him as my muse for the parrots gnawing at the clay lick leading to Tirio’s tributary. Willie was rescued when some poachers caught him and tried to take him overseas to sell. Juan Diego told us the poachers stuff the baby birds in paper towel rolls and then hide them in their luggage. Grrrrr….I’d like to show those poachers what a paper towel roll stuffing feels like! Anyway, Willie was unable to go back to the wild and now lives at the lodge. Here he is hanging out with my sister.


Here I am feeling like I’m on the movie set of, Honey, I Shrunk the Author. This is a banana leaf. The locals use them as roofing material for their huts. I used them in the book as Mother Nature’s umbrella to shield Tirio from the many downpours I put him through.

And THAT was my experience in the Amazon rain forest. And THAT is what helped me to write Bringing the Boy Home. I just wish I could have added some howler monkeys or birds as background music. I guess you’ll have to go to the Amazon jungle to hear THAT for yourself.

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I love to be caught off-guard when I’m writing. I pray for those magic moments, especially on days when I’m dragging myself to the keyboard.

My first surprise was when Luka’s sister, Karara showed up:

I was typing away at a scene and out of the corner of my mind, this teen girl walks in carrying a basket on her hip. Her hair was divided into eight braids and she had attitude. I remember thinking “Well, hello, who are you?” And while I typed, she rolled her eyes and flipped her head, and in no uncertain terms let me know exactly who she was. She’s one of the strongest characters in the book and definitely one of my favorites—and she was totally unplanned. Magic.

My second surprise came when I left a gate open in a scene:

Luka was doing a trial run of his “seeing” test and when he gets to the wash area, he notices that the entrance gate of the wash area—usually closed to keep caiman out—is ajar. I have no idea why I wrote it that way, perhaps to create an eerie mood; anyway I went about my merry way and forgot about it. But several months and several chapters later, a friend reminded me during critique group, “You left the gate open back in the Punhana scene; is that going to come into play later?” To which I replied. “Hmmmm, I did, didn’t I? Better figure that out.”
And lo and behold, in the next chapter, that gate being open provided the perfect puzzle piece to connect two pieces of the story. Yeah, I planned it that way all along.

My last surprise, was the biggie: how the boys were related:

I had no idea, but I knew I didn’t want to it to be obvious. The truth is, up until a certain point, their stories were not related: Tirio was in Florida and Luka was in the Amazon, so I didn’t have to worry about the relationship. But then, when the time came for their paths to cross, I remember thinking “Oh, man. I really painted myself into a corner here.” So I strapped my 14 month old daughter in the Kelty backpack, leashed up our two Weimaraners, Abby and Eli, (RIP-Eli) and headed for a little wooded trail by our house.

(Not hard to imagine a jungle scene when you’re walking through this, huh?)

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Last week was hot, but this week will be even hotter! We've got N.A. Nelson in the house all week for the launch of her debut novel Bringing the Boy Home! Whoo hooo!

Tirio was cast out of the Takunami tribe at a very young age because of his disabled foot. But an American woman named Sara adopted him, and his life has only gotten better since. Now, as his thirteenth birthday approaches, things are nearly perfect. So why is he having visions and hearing voices calling him back to the Amazon?


Luka has spent his whole life preparing for his soche seche tente, a sixth-sense test all Takunami boys must endure just before their thirteenth birthday. His family's future depends on whether or not he passes this perilous test. His mother has dedicated herself to making sure that no aspect of his training is overlooked . . . but fate has a way of disturbing even the most carefully laid plans.




N.A. Nelson was born in London, England and grew up on a cattle farm in rural Missouri. Living on a thousand acres of wilderness provided plenty of opportunities for adventure, but it also created a sense of wonderment about what else was out here. After graduating with a degree in tourism, the author strapped on a backpack and has been exploring the world ever since. Recent journeys include the jungles of the Amazon and the glaciered peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

How the book came about: “The idea for this story came from an experience I had while staying at a scientific research camp in Brazil. On my second night there, I developed a stomachache and asked our guide, Juan Diego, for some local medicine. He translated my problem to the camp cook, who grabbed a machete, went into the woods, chopped some leaves off a tree and brewed me a mild flavored tea.

As the cook handed me the cup, I realized that I was about to drink the same tea that he prepared for his own family. All of a sudden, the differences between us—our skin color, our country of origin, our place in life—disappeared. We were both just flesh and blood trying to make a sick person feel better. This realization actually became a theme of the book itself and allowed me to write about a culture of which I was not actively a part.


REVIEWS


"Told in two distinctive voices, this imaginative and beautifully realized novel, set in the Amazon, tells the story of two boys from the fictional Takunami tribe, who on the eve of their 13th birthdays must endure the soche seche tente, a test of manhood. If a Takunami boy successfully completes this ordeal, he will have warrior status in the tribe and be allowed to meet his father, who psychically guides him during the experience. Tirio, who was ousted from the tribe because of a bad foot, has not been formally trained. But now that his birthday approaches, he has been hearing the voices of his ancestors and knows that despite his lack of preparation, he is being called upon to meet his destiny. Luka, who has spent his childhood working toward this moment under the tutelage of his strong-willed mother, is ready. Their stories connect in a surprising yet totally believable way, giving psychological depth to this richly hued novel about the winding turns of destiny and the bonds between father and son, tribe and family." ~Kirkus Review



"Refreshing, well put-together, and completely original." ~Teensreadtoo.com (5 star review)

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2K8ers love a good blog party, but nothing beats a debut author's first real world launch party!

I had my book party (Alive and Well in Prague New York) at the wonderful Bank Street Bookstore in my neighborhood in Manhattan. Friends and family braved fierce heat to come out and help me celebrate.



This is me and my super fabulous editor Jill Santopolo, who is an excellent author in her own right. She introduced my reading. I was pretty nervous about it but it was a sympathetic audience and they cheered me on. Afterwards I signed books.

This is my friend Keith Bunin who is a terrific playwright and screenwriter. He was one of a group of friends from high school who came out to show their support. It’s neat to have friend who actually knew me as a teen read my teen book!


Here are some other friends and my awesome-beyond-words agent Alyssa Eisner-Henkin. Writer Kathryne Alfred is in there too along with a couple of other friends. After the signing we headed out for food and drinks at a nearby restaurant.

And here’s another group that came out to support me: some Class of 2K8ers! This is me with Donna Freitas, Courtney Sheinmel and Nina Nelson.

It was so much fun to celebrate my book’s arrival in the world and I’m so grateful to everyone who came!

Thanks for a wonderful week, Daphne!

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Alive and Well at the Class of 2K8 blog this week, is Daphne Grab! We're so excited to get to send the week launching her debut book Alive and Well in Prague, New York! Welcome, Daphne!

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On May 8, 2008, The Japan Foundation in Toronto, Canada, hosted the launch of Naomi’s Tree, a picture book about friendship written by Joy Kogawa and illustrated by Ruth Ohi. It was a fascinating event that included a display of the real sketches and final artwork for the book.

We were there with our audio recorder running. We captured Joy Kogawa’s introduction of the book and Ruth Ohi’s explanation of the illustration process and then a demonstration of her technique.

On this edition of Just One More Book!!, excerpts of the book launch event and an interview with Joy Kogawa and Ruth Ohi.

Thank you very much to Ken Bole, President of The Canada Japan Society, for making us aware of this event.

Click here to view our photos of the event.

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