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Yoga isn’t only for adults. More American parents are introducing their children to the ancient practice which originated in India. Preliminary studies show it is beneficial for reducing stress and improving mood. Certified yoga instructor and author Susan Verde wrote I Am Yoga, a picture book which helps children explore mindfulness through relationships and movement. The book is one of several kid lit collaborations between Verde and the New York Times bestselling author and illustrator Peter H. Reynolds. His relaxed illustration style helps convey Susan Verde’s message of peace, stillness of mind, and tranquility.
Susan Verde and StoryMakers host Rocco Staino were joined by — via satellite — kid lit singer and songwriter Emily Arrow. Arrow has written and performed songs based on children’s books. Together, Verde and Arrow collaborated on a song and music video for I Am Yoga. Emily Arrow’s song lyrics draw heavily from the book. Arrow’s latest CD, “Storytime Singalong, Volume 1”, is a combination of songs based on popular kid lit and tunes for young readers.
Watch Susan Verde’s interview at the Westchester Children’s Book Festival.
We’re giving away three (3) prize packs including of copy of Susan Verde’s picture book, I AM YOGA and Emily Arrow’s STORYTIMESINGALONG, VOL.1 CD. The giveaway ends at 11:59 PM on May 25, 2016. ENTER NOW!
I Am Yoga Written by Susan Verde, illustrations by Peter H. Reynolds
Published by Harry N. Abrams
An eagle soaring among the clouds or a star twinkling in the night sky … a camel in the desert or a boat sailing across the sea yoga has the power of transformation. Not only does it strengthen bodies and calm minds, but with a little imagination, it can show us that anything is possible. New York Times bestselling illustrator Peter H. Reynolds and author and certified yoga instructor Susan Verde team up again in this book about creativity and the power of self-expression. I Am Yoga encourages children to explore the world of yoga and make room in their hearts for the world beyond it. A kid-friendly guide to 16 yoga poses is included.
ABOUT SUSAN VERDE
Susan Verdeis an award-winning children’s book author, elementary educator, and a certified children’s yoga instructor. Her books highlight the unique manner in which children see the world. Her stories focus on their interactions with their surroundings with emphasis on problem solving in a calming and mindful way. Susan’s books are used to teach children how to express gratitude and to support each other.
Susan became a certified kids yoga instructor and children’s book author, after several years in the education field. “Her stories inspire children to celebrate their own, unique stories and journey. Her writing also inspires adults to let their inner child out to dream of infinite possibilities… and maybe come out for a spontaneous game of hopscotch every now and then.”
Susan’s latest book, The Water Princess, will be published in late 2016. The book is another collaboration with he bestselling, award-winning, author and illustrator, Peter H. Reynolds. Peter and Susan have collaborated on The Museum, You & Me, and I Am Yoga. Susan lives in East Hampton, New York with her three children and dog.
Emily Arrow is the 2015 winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest in the Children’s Category for her song “The Curious Garden Song”. The song was inspired by the book THE CURIOUS GARDEN by Peter Brown. Emily was also a finalist in the 2015 Great American Song Contest and the 2014 John Lennon Songwriting Contest. Emily Arrow creates literature inspired music for children, cultivating an appreciation and love for singing, songwriting, literature, and art. She performs storytimes of her original music regularly in Los Angeles at Once Upon A Time Bookstore and Children’s Book World. Emily is touring in support of the album at schools, bookstores, and libraries around the country!
Originally from Ohio, Emily played the piano, read a lot of books, and led a neighborhood “kids only choir.” Fast forward to now and…she’s still silly, she still sings incessantly, and she still loves books! She is a graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston and earned her graduate-level teaching certification in Orff-Shulwerk Levels I & II. After graduating Emily became a K-6 music teacher at a performing arts-based elementary school in Los Angeles. During her time teaching, she found that her passion was collaborating with the library, art, and technology departments. Which led her to her current career as a kidlit singer/songwriter!
Oh my gosh what a great ,creative and funny book interview.
The book is so wonderful for kids to read and to learn yoga.
The drawings are so cute.
And the song was a perfect “Fit” with the book.
Rocco was so funny-a great sport-and for a first timer doing yoga –‘Great Job’.
Rocco you should definitly be a comedian–so funny.
Super Interview.
patte
Kristin said, on 5/12/2016 11:23:00 AM
Great interview! Sweet song and kid-topic. Love, love it! Great job Susan, Emily, and as always, Rocco!!
Once or twice a month I receive a letter or an email from a songwriter informing me that they have become the victim of a scam, and more often than not the stories are exactly the same: “I signed a contract too quickly, I paid a lot of money, the quality was awful, I can’t get in touch with them, etc.” It’s always awful to hear, and while I handle Songwriter’s Market and thus usually hear about the incidents involving songwriters, this same type of unfortunate story happens across all publishing mediums. Scam artists and shady companies are out there in droves and it’s important to see the telltale signs of a scam before you sign your name along the dotted line. Here are a few things to keep in mind.
1. Paying Money Up-Front
This is the biggest tip-off in any market, medium, or genre of publishing. Anyone who requests large sums of money up-front in order to review or accept your work—be it a song, a short story, an album—is likely a scam artist.
A legitimate publisher will pay you for your songs or stories and will offer you money up-front and/or royalties. They will not request you pay them any sum of money in order to be included in an anthology or on a compilation CD. Remember, money should come IN, not go OUT.
Yes, there are a few literary magazines that request reading fees (I personally avoid them when possible) and there are legit contests that have fees in order to enter, often hovering around the $10 or $15 mark. Even then, you should be wary and conduct research to verify this is money well spent. You can find a lot about a legitimate magazine or publisher through a simple Google search. If you do find reliable information and you feel comfortable with paying a small fee for a clearly reputable contest, then you might be all right as long as the fee isn’t going to be a financial burden (and yes, I too have been in the situation where losing $15 is a financial burden). But if you can’t find much quality info about a publisher beyond their own website, then AVOID them!
Side Note: Self-publishing is a slightly different animal since that always requires some sort of financial investment on your part, but again, please make sure you are dealing with legitimate people who have a track record of quality products. The same tips provided here can apply to your dealings with self-publishing firms.
2. Contracts Can Sound Too Good to Be True
That’s because they are. Understand that once you sign a contract stating you will pay someone $100 for ten demo CDs or for the promise that they will send your demo to “major” record producers and radio stations, they could very well just produce those CDs as cheaply as possible and mail them off to whoever they wish, likely to people who will never even see the envelope much less listen to the CD. While there are reputable demo creation companies out there who can help novice songwriters, you need to take the process very slowly, no matter how much they might rush you or how much they promise, and discuss any contract with a lawyer and other experienced industry professionals. The same goes for writers, novelists, poets, screenwriters, etc. Before you sign ANY contract, have a legal representative review it with you.
If you don’t have a clue about how to find help with this, check in with the folks over at Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (www.vlany.org
) for more information about how to protect yourself. Also check out www.rightsofwriters.com. Remember: No company, legit or scammer, is going to look out for you first, themselves second, so take the time to do the research and protect yourself.
3. Are Samples Available?
Again, avoiding fees is rule number one, but if a publisher is asking for a few bucks to enter a contest, or a demo company is willing to record your song for a nominal fee, you may think, “Okay, that’s not a lot of money.” It still goes against the “Money in, not out” maxim, but they seem well regarded and you don’t find anything alarming in a Google search. Fine, but you MUST ask for a copy of a previous CD, a copy of a previous anthology, or a book from a previous winner before you agree to anything. This will likely end up being a digital copy, which is fine since they can’t mail out free print copies to just anyone who asks. A legit operation will have digital samples you can either preview online or download. If they won’t even offer you that much, move along. It’s not worth it.
Legitimate companies are proud of their work and always have samples ready for those interested. The companies who are trying to prey upon the uninformed will be dodgy about displaying past work to the general public. Be careful when you find these companies. And even if you get a sample, make sure you research the other artists who signed with the company or publisher. Be 100% sure you’re getting into something well respected and worthwhile.
4. Research, Research, Research
I’ve brought it up again and again because research is your most valuable weapon against scam artists. If you don’t properly research a publisher or record company and sign a bad contract and send in your money, there is very little that even the savviest of lawyers can do for you without you having to incur legal fees. Make sure you verify all companies before you sign anything! For songwriters, check with the ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, or SOCAN. For writers researching agents, check with the Association of Author Representatives. There are also numerous scam reporting websites online, such as www.pred-ed.com
. Check in with as many as you can before making a decision. Never let your excitement get the better of you, and never pay up if you cannot afford to lose out on that fee.
If you do find a scam artist or have fallen victim to one, let us know via snail mail so we can update our listings accordingly.
For Songwriters: Songwriter’s Market, F+W Media, 4th Floor, 38 E 29th Street, New York, NY 10016
Be sure to include a complete description of the situation and samples of the publication or CD/demo provided by the publisher, but please know we cannot “investigate” claims, confront publishers on your behalf, or help in the way a lawyer might be able to, but we can adjust our own listings to keep scammers from reaching as many people as they might otherwise. Every little bit helps. Good luck out there!
Rebecca Sugar writes some of the best songs for Adventure Time, and she also writes some of the best stories for the show. This is an earlier work of hers that demonstrates the further depth of her brilliance.
Songwriting Without Boundaries Lyric Writing Exercises for Finding Your Voice by Pat Pattison Writer’s Digest Books, 2011 ISBN: 978-1-59963-297-1 $17.99, paperback, 240 pages Infuse your lyrics with sensory detail! Writing great song … Read more
On July 21, 2011 Irene Watson and Victor R. Volkman spoke with humorist and songwriter Tom Cornett. He is a Midwestern writer who has collaborated with country singers in Nashville as well as writing and co-writing novelty (comedy) songs and parodies. Tom is a student of the observational school of comedy and enjoys putting a twist on reality. He releases his comedy music under the pseudonym “Twisted Tom“. He spoke with us on a variety of humor writing points including:
Basics of comedy songwriting
Observing human nature as the source of the absurd
I've got something that's probably only a bad cold that caught up with me after five months on the road, so I was asleep last night by about nine... and awake this morning at six.
I finished typing the Dying Earth story for Messrs Martin and Dozois, who were sitting on an otherwise completed book drumming their fingers against their tabletops in a worried manner and waiting for me to finish touring. It's an odd story but it made me happy, and, while I get to do some Jack Vance impressions (no-one but Vance can do Vance properly) I got to do me too.
(I don't think I've ever had an Alex Ross cover on anything I've done, and it was lovely to see it...)
....and, now that it's been shown full size on the back of Previews, I don't think there's any harm in putting up Andy Kubert's cover, in its original uncoloured version. (which is the one I can find on my computer.) (If anyone grumbles I'll take it down.)
...
I've been pondering the word prevaricate on and off for a number of years. I'd used it once in Sandman to mean someone not making up their minds, and Emma Bull, reading it, said "You mean procrastinate. Prevaricate means to lie." And I changed it before it saw print, realising that if she thought it was being misused, so would many other readers. Then, eighteen years later, I read an article on how to hang Rothkos which contained the sentence "Rothko was always prevaricating over how his art should be shown," said Waldemar Januszczak, art critic for the Sunday Times, and decided to research.
I think it's a word with shades of meaning, and while in the US it tends to get used simply as "to lie" (as in "All politicians prevaricate"), in the UK it's more often used as a synonym for Equivocate -- i.e. to avoid giving a straight answer... even to tergiversarate. And it's the equivocation, with its implications of putting off a decision that then shades over into meanings that aren't simply "to lie".
And after writing that I just found some people arguing with each other about that on a French/English board, as if it's a new meaning that's just come along. The Big Oxford English Dictionary that I need a magnifying glass to read lists as Prevaricate definition #2 "To deviate from straightforwardness; to act or speak evasively; to quibble, shuffle, equivocate." And it gives examples going back to 1651. (Squints. Checks with magnifying glass. Nope, 1631.)
...
Joe Gordon asked if I could mention this excellent Vertigo Encyclopedia interview up at the FPI blog, which I do, partly because I still feel guilty for not ever reading Alex's book A Scattering of Jades, copies of which were pressed on me in proof by friends, and which, like so many books people give me, never made it off the to-be-read pile.
A few people have sent me links in to the Io9 article on How Sandman Changed the World. It's over at http://io9.com/5086663/5-ways-that-sandman-changed-the-world if you want to read it. I guess I have the same problem with it I do with a lot of Io9 stuff -- it's an article that reads like someone was assigned it, and sort of blogged it out in a bit of a hurry without any research or real thought. I don't think that Sandman actually did any of the five things he lists it as having done, and a lot of the things presented on the page as if they're facts are opinions, and dodgy ones at that. (Which sounds remarkably ungracious, considering it's a blog entry that says nice things about Sandman. If so, blame it on the author being in bed with a cold.) (And, before people write in asking about the "lost Sandman role playing supplement", and before it makes it into Wikipedia, the Mayfair Games Sandman someone talks about in the comments is more or less entirely fictional. I think I had a chat about a potential Sandman game with Dan Greenberg, who wrote the DC Magic supplement, but it went no further and Mayfair went down soon after -- I've never before encountered the idea that the two things were linked, and no Sandman game was ever written, made, solicited or cancelled.)
On the other hand someone sent me a link to this article on children's literature at http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=6403. It's a fascinating essay which I agree with parts of, disagree with parts of (I really rate A.A.Milne as a humourist, children's writer and playwright, and my five-year-old love for the Winnie The Pooh books is all-consuming), but love his journey from premise to conclusion. If we are in a golden age of children's literature, it's probably mostly because of Sturgeon's Law. There are a lot of books being written right now, after all.
Also ran into this article by Roseanne Cash on songwriting (which I suspect applies equally to writing of all kinds) which I really enjoyed: so much of the magic is made by turning up and crafting something, simply by doing the work, and it's so hard to convince people of that, and it doesn't make the magic any less for it.
It's for Skim, a graphic novel [Jillian] created with her cousin, author Mariko Tamaki. The book, published by Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, is one of five titles short-listed for the $25,000 G-G prize in children's literature (text), with Mariko Tamaki cited as the sole creator. If you give a writing award to a comic and ignore the art, you're being foolish, short-sighted and fundamentally failing to understand what comics are or what comics writing means.
And it's never too late to fix things.
Now, before I head off on some barking mad Jeremiad against short-sighted Canadians, I shall drink some chicken soup and go to sleep.
I Am Yoga
Oh my gosh what a great ,creative and funny book interview.
The book is so wonderful for kids to read and to learn yoga.
The drawings are so cute.
And the song was a perfect “Fit” with the book.
Rocco was so funny-a great sport-and for a first timer doing yoga –‘Great Job’.
Rocco you should definitly be a comedian–so funny.
Super Interview.
patte
Great interview! Sweet song and kid-topic. Love, love it! Great job Susan, Emily, and as always, Rocco!!
This is a great combo/book and song.