The Houdini Box by Brian Selznick - picture books make me feel like drawing

I had a fabulous surprise in the post yesterday. Wrapped in plain brown paper, this book arrived. It was from Sarwat - author of the unputdownable goth lit adventure Devil's Kiss - who has just come back from his triumphant first BEA (marred only by the small matter of being mistaken for a terrorist at the airport in New York).

Sarwat harvested a massive haul of books at BEA which he duly shipped back to London and offered up on his blog on a first come, first served basis. I of course leapt at the offer.

And here it is - The Houdini Box by Brian Selznick, the guy who wrote and illustrated The Invention of Hugo Cabret, winner of the Caldecott Medal. I just stared at it for many long minutes. Check out the illustrations on the inside pages:

The text was sparse and the cross-hatched pen and ink drawings were lush.

I was so bowled over that I grabbed my sketchpad, brushed off the cobwebs and spent the evening drawing.



See what one picture book can do?

Our new Children's Laureate Anthony Browne, writing in today's Education Guardian, said:

Most adults will tell me: "I can't draw!" Children, too, as they get older, say the same thing. Something happens to our creativity as we go through the education process; most of us lose touch with it. A stifling form of self-consciousness invades us, whether it be in drawing, writing, singing or (in my case) dancing...

Just before this unhelpful self-consciousness creeps into children, many of them are encouraged to move away from picture books and move into "chapter books" - books without illustrations. Perhaps there's a connection? Read it all

We need more books like The Houdini Box.

What Matters?

I am so buried in work and hayfever at the moment that this blog is suffering serious neglect. But  I'm trying to keep things going by microblogging on Twitter so do follow me if you want Notes from the Slushpile in mini form.

Meanwhile, here's something that really cheered me up from marketing guru Seth Godin's blog:

• When you love the work you do and the people you do it with, you matter.
• When you are so gracious and generous and aware that you think of other people before yourself, you matter.
• When you leave the world a better place than you found it, you matter.
• When you continue to raise the bar on what you do and how you do it, you matter.
• When you teach and forgive and teach more before you rush to judge and demean, you matter.
• When you touch the people in your life through your actions (and your words), you matter.
• When kids grow up wanting to be you, you matter.
• When you see the world as it is, but insist on making it more like it could be, you matter.
• When you inspire a Nobel prize winner or a slum dweller, you matter.
• When the room brightens when you walk in, you matter.
• And when the legacy you leave behind lasts for hours, days or a lifetime, you matter.

Nicola Morgan's hilarious DIY video

Yes you can! Make your own promotional video that is - and you don't need a camera or video skills or sound equipment. All you need is a computer, wit and the text-to-movie website Xtranormal ... as Nicola Morgan (Deathwatch
) demonstrates on her blog, Need2bPublished:

If you can't see the video, watch it on YouTube

Further Education: be published, be seen and be sold.

I admit it. I'm becoming increasingly dependent on YouTube videos to keep my blog updated regularly.

But seriously, you guys, I am interested in your FURTHER EDUCATION. Especially you PUBLISHED writer guys, the ones who are no longer on the slushpile, the ones who have a book out, or a book about to come out, the ones who are still asking yourselves everyday, 'should I have a website?' 'should I blog?' 'should I do a video?' 'is it worth the time?'

My answer is ... AAAARGH. Some people don't deserve their success.

Anyway, here is John Green (again!) showing you guys how to keep faith with your young audience:

If you can't see this, view it on YouTube

Moral of the blog post: if you're about to be published, be seen by your audience and your book will be sold. You can't procrastinate over marketing your book (unlike when you're writing it).

On Retreat with SCBWI

It's been an eventful last few days and I thought I'd blog about it before it was too late as my life is currently feeling like a 33 rpm record running on 45 or was it a 45 running on 33 (remember those? LPs? Record players? If not, then I'm pleased to meet you ... I'm rather keen on younger readers.)

I attended the launch of Devil's Kiss, the goth-lit teenage novel by my fellow SCBWIite Sarwat Chadda. I felt rather underdressed when he greeted us with his spear and shield.

The Dulwich Picture Gallery was a fab place to hold the launch, the weather held for most of the evening and the food was delicious! People queued to say nice things to Sarwat but I thought the greatest compliment was paid by this teenager sitting outside the crowd of wellwishers, totally glued to the Devil's Kiss.

There were several Undiscovered Voices authors there - Steve Hartley, whose Danny Baker Record Breaker, is due to be published by Macmillan, me, Margaret Carey, and Briony Pearce - who after winning UV, wrote another novel and had another baby (good news about this very soon ... ). Which reminds me, the deadline for the 2009 Undiscovered Voices competition is the 1st of June!

Here is Bryony and family (the baby came in chain mail and her little girl came in a princess gown ... all made by Briony with one hand while typing up her novel with the other.

Immediately after the launch, a small convoy (well, two cars) of SCBWI people drove up the motorway to Pendrell Hall in Wolverhampton to join SCBWI's weekend retreat. Our author in residence was Mary Hoffman, who I think has pretty much reached the status of national treasure. When she began to read from the latest Amazing Grace book Princess Grace, I wanted to climb onto her lap and suck my thumb.

We had two editors spend time with us, Jasmine from Oxford University Press and Non from Catnip. Here's a nice photo of Jasmine:

There's lots to report of course - we learned so much from Mary and the editors, we ate a lot, laughed nonstop, and despite it being a retreat, I was so happy to be writing without any hindrance (and without having to stop to cook for the family!) that I barely slept, pounding away at the laptop into the wee hours! I hope to find the time to blog about the nuts and bolts but for now I just want to share these piccies!

Till next year!

Maureen Johnson manages to be funny in a serious book video

MJ is one of the funniest YA bloggers around and here's her new video!

It looks  like the Scholastic had this serious video made and Maureen got hold of it before the release.

If you can't see it, watch it on YouTube.

The Textonym for 'BOOK' is 'COOL'

I learned the word 'textonym' for the first time last night on the Radio 4 programme, Front Row.

There was an interview with David Wark of Chambers Dictionary who has actually written a programme to uncover textonyms in the dictionary. Wark explains on his blog:

Some of the these are happily serendipitous, others potentially disastrous, and some yield connections that would probably never otherwise be made.

Employers, be careful if you choose to text your candidates the outcome of their interviews - selection and rejection may be semantically distant, but they are perilously close together in the world of predictive text (keys 735328466). A night out can quickly turn from merriness to messiness, but thankfully it's easy to adjust your message accordingly (637746377). Read more

I'd always found it amusing that texting 'Mum' on predictive text often turned up 'Nun' . On his Facebook profile, my friend, Daoud, now calls himself 'Fante', which comes up when his name is entered in predictive text . My Filipino maiden name 'Quimpo', rather cryptically emerges as 'Ruins'.

But isn't it cool that the textonym for 'Book' is 'Cool'?

A propos all cool things, a panel of teenagers have been picked to shadow the judges of the Orange Prize for women's fiction.

How refreshing in an age where its customary for the older generation to bash young people for being into technologies that the oldies themselves are resisting.

Go, young people!

Performing authors and Fiona's video

My friend Fiona Dunbar's new book Tiger-Lily Gold has just come out and to celebrate she made this video (I helped!)

Meanwhile, Nicola Morgan (Deathwatch) is aiming for a world record in school visits.

Anthony Horowitz (The Power of Five: Necropolis) is appearing in a virtual event targetting nine thousand children in 216 schools.

And big name authors are guaranteed roles at a proliferation of children's book festivals to draw the crowds.

The Book Brunch children's column wonders "how much the life of a children’s author has become about personal contact with children as well as contact through books ..."

 Have we lost anything since the days when we only knew writers and illustrators through their books? When we weren’t necessarily sure what sex E B White, E Nesbitt, P L Travers, and L M Montgomery were, let alone what they looked like? (Though A A Milne and C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien had got famous enough for us to know.) Was there something to be said for imagining an author through his or her work? P L Travers looked liked Mary Poppins in my head.

Is the standard of performance getting too high for authors who are "merely" good at writing? So it is not enough to write a gripping tale: you also have to be Eoin Colfer in front of an audience. Or do these showmen do the whole profession the favour of giving it glamour, and making kids want to be in it, as they want to be other kinds of celebrities? Read more

Should we resist the demands of our ever-more-swiftly spinning world? Should we insist that writers be allowed to do only that, write?

I recently acquired a Flip Mino - one of those easy peasy pocket camcorders.

I figure the Flip would make it easier for me to build up some useful footage for a future marketing campaign.

There is never a better time to surrender to the inevitable than now.

Sue and Sarwat Reading at the Crystal Palace Book Festival

Book Crow put this up on his website and I'm thrilled because I went to the book festival but missed these readings by my SCBWI friends -

The Quiet Woman and the Noisy Dog by Sue Eves

Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda

I wanna be an illustrator

That's right. I've always wanted to be an illustrator. But there are always too many practical things in the way. For now I content myself with watching wonderful videos like this. 

Speed Painting Masters Angouleme 2009 HD !!
Uploaded by pixeltv

The first artist featured is Moebius a.k.a. Jean Giraud, a favourite from my teenhood.

Psst. I want one of those drawing gadgets too!