Look me in the eye when I'm talking to you. I kid. You can look wherever you like. But you may want to know a little something about this. Heck, you new picture book authors and illustrators might also want in:
Ezra Jack Keats New Writer and New Illustrator Awards
Attention Publishers:
The New York Public Library and the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation
I think it's safe to say that the biggest news of the moment is the opening of the brand spanking new teen and children's literature department within The Library of Congress. It opened as recently as October 23rd and "features access to kid-friendly Web sites, public programs, new books, and even a media room where they can view webcasts of young adult and children’s authors." Which, to my ...Read More
When an author wants to write their first fantasy novel for children, they'll sometimes fall back on the books they themselves loved as kids. If they were Alice in Wonderland fans they might go the route of Neil Gaiman's Cora...Read More
This has been a season of firsts. I did my first Albert Whitman preview a week or so ago. I'll be doing my first National Geographic preview in the future. And I've certainly never done a Lerner Publishing Group preview before! That's the nice thing about New York. Even if the publishers ain't local, there's no reason for them not to say howdy when they happen to be in town.
And howdy it was! Two lovely ladies, Lindsay Matvick and Terri Reden,...Read More
I'm allowed to be a fangirl once in a while, I think. Now I don't often get a chance to interview an author or illustrator from my own youth. Inevitably they're either dead or no longer working in the field of children's literature. But you know, there was one artist around when I was a kid that has stayed in my brain. The guy who really introduced me firsthand to the works of C.S. Lewis, Kenneth Grahame, J.M. Barrie . . . basically almost every classic I know today. His name was Michael Hague and to this day the man is s...Read More
A conflict of interest question has arisen regarding the National Book Awards in the Young Person's category over at One-Minute Book Reviews. The writer is Janice Harayda, an award-winning journalist and former book editor of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland who has been a vice-president of the National Book Critics Circle. It makes for interesting reading. I understand the argument (in brief: Since Small illust...Read More
For the first time ever, I am indulging in a Video Interview for the WBBT. Our subject is Dan Santat, one of the wonders of the illustration biz. This is, without a doubt, one of the best interviews I've ever done, and it's all thanks to Dan.
The following will appear during this interview at some point: Lightsabers, clones, chicken puppets, Rock Band, the digestion of hamburgers, L.A., New York, tears, sweat, and very little blood.
Here are two versions of the interview, depending on what your computer can take. This is a Vimeo interview in full:
