fun with friends

I have decided that if my children's book career fails, I am going to go to pastry school and become a cake decorator. Really, a cupcake decorater. Or maybe just a cupcake maker. Obviously, I'm hoping that children's books continues to work for me, but I thought it would be nice to prepare with a cheerful Plan B.

So, in the case that Plan B must be put into action, I've been doing some self-teaching. Most recently, some of my fellow blue rose girls got together for a belated birthday tea party...which I insisted on making cupcakes for. I was determined to master a whipped chocolate ganache frosting and make them my best cupcakes ever.

I didn't think I had succeeded but when I put the cupcakes on Libby's beautiful, antique dinnerware, I was suddenly charmed. They looked so great! Almost like a magazine! I had real potential, maybe I should switch Plan B to Plan A! I was quite excited...
until I realized that it was not my cupcakes, but Libby's plates that were the magic. They were so gorgeous that even the ugliest cake would have looked lovely. It makes me wonder if my illustrations would look better served on them too.

Janet Wong

A couple of weeks ago I got to see my friend, the indomitable Janet Wong speak at the North Shore Reading Council. To me, indomitable is the perfect adjective to descibe Janet. Within an hour of conversation, she had convinced:

-me to write The Year of the Tiger
-me create product designs and sell them on my website
-Elaine to get her poetry published
-and a visiting friend to illustrate picturebooks

And she hadn't even started her formal presentation yet!

Which, as always, was great. Janet is one of those speakers that doesn't need a formal speech prepared or ordered slides--she is one of the few authors I know who can just stand,speak and be completely engaging and fun. She and her talk is much like her poetry-- direct, thoughtful, intelligent, sometimes sad,and sometimes hilarious but at all times mesmerizing.

*And you can meet Janet in NYC, at the event below! Come, I guarantee by the time she has finished speaking, you will be convinced into starting your own children's book empire...

Going to NYC

Panel: Fusion Stories: Next-Gen Asian American Books for Young Readers
On Thursday, June 5, 7pm
@ The Workshop
16 West 32nd Street, 10th Floor
(btwn Broadway & 5th Avenue)

Parents and teachers, having trouble finding Young Adult novels that speak to you and your kids? Fusion Stories is a new website that aims to tell Asian American stories for this generation of young readers. These aren't traditional tales set in Asia or stories of hard-scrabbling immigrants. Instead, Fusion Stories offers fun, relatable stories about teen-dating, growing up biracial, eyelid surgery, and just feeling like you don't fit in. Fusion novelists Grace Lin, An Na, Janet Wong and David Yoo talk about the next generation of young adult literature featuring Asian American characters. Bring your kids for treats from the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory!

Grace Lin is the author and illustrator of Year of The Dog (Little, Brown Young Readers, 2005) and over a dozen books such as The Ugly Vegetables (Charlesbridge Publishing, 1999) and Dim Sum For Everyone! (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2001). While Grace's books cover the Asian-American experience, she believes that "books erase bias, they make the uncommon everyday, and the mundane exotic. A book makes all cultures universal." Year of The Rat (Little, Brown Young Readers) continues the story of Grace, a Taiwanese American girl, as she navigates the challenges of growing up "different" in an upstate New York community.

An Na was born in Korea and grew up in Southern California. She is the author Wait For Me (Penguin, 2006) and A Step From Heaven (Penguin, 2001), a Michael L. Printz Award winner and National Book Award Finalist. In her latest, The Fold (Penguin, 2008), Joyce Kang never felt pretty enough especially when compared to her older sister, but when her plastic surgery crazed aunt offers her the chance of a lifetime - to change her eyes forever - Joyce must decide what she believes is beautiful.

Janet Wong is the author of eighteen books for children, mainly picture books and poetry collections, including The Dumpster Diver (Candlewick Press, 2007) and TWIST: Yoga Poems (McElderry/Simon and Schuster, 2007). A former lawyer, she chose to write because she wanted to "do something important - and couldn't think of anything more important than working with children." In Minn and Jakes Almost Terrible Summer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), we learn that Jake has a Korean grandmother, which makes him one-quarter Korean, or "Quarpa," as he likes to call it.

David Yoo is the author of Girls For Breakfast (Random House, 2005), which was named a NYPL Best Book for Teens and a Booksense Pick, and Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before (Hyperion, Sept 2008). In Stop Me a resigned loser Albert Kim captures the affection of his dream girl Mia, only to get bumped to the sidelines when Mia's uber-popular ex, Ryan, gets cancer. David teaches adult fiction workshops at the Gotham Writers Workshop and writes a monthly column in Korean Journal.

Co-sponsored by the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory

$5 suggested donation; open to the public

hometown

I've been traveling so much that I tend to forget about the place where I actually live. I've been in the Boston area for more than 12 years now, on and off, and I think it's one of the best places for a children's book author and illustrator. I love when children's books seep into the real world like...

a children's bookstore called Curious George,
or a tree made into Pooh's house,

and a statue of ducklings.

egg auction

So on Saturday, I drove 2 hours (I kind of didn't realize how long of a drive it was going to be) to go to the Open Fields Egg Auction where, if you remember, I contributed an egg to be auctioned off. And I'm really glad that I did. Like the snowflakes, nothing compares to seeing the original art in person. They were so lovely, I was quickly circling my list to for possible bidding. Did I want Marla Frazee's? Ashley Bryan's?

Or should I bid on my own? But, unlike Robert's Snow, the auction for the eggs is done live, not anonymously online. So, if I tried to up my own egg price, it would be quite obvious that I was a big loser. Darn!

Luckily, I didn't need to--it went for a very respectable price. It did make me wonder what that broken egg might have gone for.

And I got to get in on the action as well. In a heated competition with a grandfather who seemed to be buying up all the eggs (he must have thought of them as investment property) I finally won the egg I had my eye on...

It's called Twilight, by Mary Peterson. She's not a children's book illustrator but she's a beautiful egg painter, don't you think?

happy birthday to me

shift

After a presentation at a recent school visit, I was rather surprised to see a group of third graders in the library reading my blog. I was pleased that I had made such an impression that they wanted to learn more about me; but I suddenly realized that maybe my personal blog is...too personal.

So, I have begun to shift things around regarding my blog(s). I'm trying to separate things more--I've made a gracenotes blog which I will attempt to make my "official" blog. It'll have almost all the same posts as I have here minus the more inner thoughts. I don't really want to close this blog down or make it invitation only just yet-- but if those of you who have me on a blogroll could change the link to gracenotes blog, I'd appreciate it. It's kind of strange to say, but I don't want any new readers on this blog. I feel like those of you who already read this are friends, tried and true. And while I always welcome a new friend, I feel like the gracenotes blog might be a better way to make an acquaintance. Especially if they are third graders.