Connecticut Children's Book Fair 2018 Round-up

For those of you just landing here or trying to recall something you saw here about this year's Connecticut Children's Book Fair, here is a linky-list to all my posts on my experience there.

• Some Of Those Who Were There 
• Steve Light
• Robbi Behr & Matthew Swanson
• Janet Lawler

Connecticut Children's Book Fair 2018--Janet Lawler

I concluded my trip to this year's Connecticut Children's Book Fair, just over a week ago, with author Janet Lawler's discussion of finding ideas for writing. Janet was the only writer writer whose presentation I saw. By which I mean she was the only one who doesn't do her own illustrating.

Janet gave a list of ways writers get ideas and showed how some of them led to her books. What interested me here was how does a writer, who is an adult after all, decide whether an idea can be used for a children's book rather than an adult book?

• For instance, Janet talked about emotions being a source of ideas and made the point that children's writers have to keep kids' emotions in mind. (This sounds obvious, but new writers struggle with leaning too much on adult characters' minds.) She's written mothers' love poetry that became children's picture books like If Kisses Were Colors instead of poetry collections for adults.
• Janet gave a terrific example of getting a book idea from the news. She saw an article about a man who got into trouble for building an outsize snowman that caused problems when it melted. From that she wrote Snowzilla. Now, yes, I spend a lot of time watching things like Stranger Things and The Haunting of Hill House. But I think a story about a giant snowman did not have to become a picture book. It could have gone a much different way. 

I've been obsessing about this situation for the last week. I'm thinking Janet's presentation could become a writers' conference workshop. No, not on how to come up with ideas, but on deciding who they're for once you've got them.

Janet's most recent book is Fright School. 

Connecticut Children's Book Fair 2018--Robbi Behr & Matthew Swanson

I wasn't planning to go to Robbi Behr and Matthew Swanson's presentation. They write for a few different age groups, and once again, I didn't know which one they'd be talking about. But I found myself with a hole in my schedule, they were talking, and there was a free chair. This is what is known as one thing leading to another.

They turned out to be right on the button for me. Or, I should say, right on a button. Robbi is an illustrator and Matthew a writer. They are a little (or maybe a lot) intimidating in that they run a couple of presses and also publish with traditional publishers. They also have a great patter. Also intimidating.

Editing Hybrid Books

What was meaningful for me, though, is that their new series, The Real McCoys, is what Robbi and Matthew call a hybrid book. It's not actually a graphic novel, but is traditional text with a lot of graphics. I have toyed with the idea of doing a graphic novel version of one of my earlier books. But this hybrid business sounds interesting, too.

The two particularly interesting points they made about their work on this kind of book:

• While Matthew, the author, has an editor for the text, Robbi, the illustrator, works with the publisher's art director who acts as an editor for the graphics. She showed a couple of examples of what she means by editing. And, yes, it did, indeed, look like editing.
• The text has to be edited and complete before the graphics are done. You don't want to spend time and energy creating graphics for a scene that will be changed or even dropped altogether. So authors and illustrators of this kind of book are working on different aspects of the book at any particular time. And if it's a series book, which The Real McCoys is, they may not even be working on the same book.

So stopping by that presentation was certainly worth while.

Connecticut Children's Book Fair 2018--Steve Light

This year I was looking for something specific at the Connecticut Children's Book Fair. I wanted to hear from authors who write for younger readers, maybe chapter books. I have a picture book manuscript out and about and after corresponding with one editor about it, I began to think about turning it into something chapter-bookish. A lot of the writers covered two age groups, and there was no way of predicting which one they'd be speaking about. Many of the speakers were both authors and illustrators, and there was no way of predicting which their talk would be about. On top of those considerations, I had to pick out people who were speaking around the same time, because I didn't want to stay there all day or end up going twice.

Steve With One Of His Journals

So you know the careful thought that went into planning my trip.

The first speaker I saw was Steve Light, an author/illustrator I hadn't heard of before, though I suspect I'll be hearing a lot about him in the future.

Writing Talk

• Steve finds plotting the most challenging part of his work. I am guessing a huge majority of writers would agree with him there.
• While working with plot, he creates backstory that may never appear in his books. He has created sculptures and maps of worlds. I found this intriguing. Imagine backstory for a picture book that ends up being more extensive than the picture book. Imagine a novel that is the backstory for a picture book. Excuse me. I've got to go write this down in my journal. 
• He may use a recurring element in his work, like acorns or oak trees. He could have been talking about illustration, but this is something I do, too. I'll use a recurring joke or something that turns up a few times to define character or support a later event in the book. 

Art Talk

Steve With A Fountain Pen

• Steve sometimes draws with fountain pens. I have a bit of a history with fountain pens, not drawing, of course, and have a lovely Waterman pen I like to use when writing letters. 
• He also creates little inspiration books when he's working on a project. These are small books that he fills with small down-loaded images of art work that he turns to for ideas. Kind of like Pinterest boards? But classier? 

Builders And Breakers

I was particularly taken with Steve's book Builders and Breakers. It's one of the most attractive construction books I've seen. The blueprint endpapers...the finely drawn (with fountain pens?) double spread...the story that begins on the title page, making use of every part of the book. Builders and Breakers has been recognized by the Society of Illustrators and a two-page spread of Steve's original art for the book will be included in its 2018 Featured Artists Exhibit.

So I bought two copies for young family members.

Some Pretty Impressive Swag

I am not a fan of book bling and marketing swag. Melissa Stewart was quoted in a SCBWI article last year saying that creating swag is a waste of natural resources. My issue is the other end of the bling life cycle. Creating swag is just generating trash. I've signed hundreds of bookmarks that I knew were going to be balled up at the bottom of backpacks and tossed out by parents at the end of the week. (Whoops. Did I just let slip that I only cleaned my kids' backpacks on Fridays?)

Nonetheless, I have to say, Steve Light had some incredible book swag for Builders and Makers last weekend. In addition to a lovely poster version of the book jacket, he was giving out cloth bags with rulers and pencils all stamped with the book's, author's, and publisher's names. And a little notebook, maybe a lot like the one he uses for his inspiration books. This is useful stuff! Great stuff!

I took a set for a Christmas present for another child. It will be a little while before this treasure stash ends up in a landfill.

Connecticut Book Fair 2018--Some Of Those Who Were There

I was off to the Connecticut Children's Book Fair yesterday afternoon for the first time in three years. In the past, the Book Fair raised funds for the Northeast Children's Literature Collection at UConn's Dodd Research Center, though I'm not sure if that's the case, anymore.

My excursion will, of course, initiate a series of blog posts. Today we'll begin with the Connecticut children's writers I talked to who were doing signings yesterday afternoon (There were others, like Barbara McClintock, I didn't get a chance to speak with.) and a couple of random thoughts.


Connecticut Authors Signing

The first person I met was Susan Hood. And I mean I literally met her. We had only corresponded by e-mail. Susan won the Connecticut Book Award this year in the Young Readers Juvenile division for Double Take! She's also the author of Ada's Violin, which I liked a great deal.

I just missed Sandra Horning's presentation this year, though I caught her back in 2015. I did catch up with her during her signing today. Her most recent book is Baby Code. I apologize for forgetting to have her hold it up.






I also met Brenna Burns Yu for the first time. I wanted to connect with her because she's the debut author and illustrator of Hazel and Twig The Birthday Fortune, which won the Tassy Walden Award for New Voices in Children's Literature while still in manuscript form.  (I don't know which year.) The Tassy Walden is a Connecticut award and a number of winners and finalists have gone on to publication. So Brenna is part of a Connecticut literary circle.

Random Thoughts

Arthur Yorinks was originally scheduled to attend this year's fair. He couldn't make it, but some of his books were offered, including  a beautiful stack of Company's Coming, which my beloved followers know, I'm sure, is a very important book to me. It even became part of a baby shower in our family. What's more there was another stack of Company's Going, Yorinks' follow-up book. I got pretty excited about this, because I thought both books were out-of- print. Which they may have been, and now they're back.

David Small illustrated both these books.

Yorinks wasn't the only person missing from the Book Fair yesterday. I used to know one or two booksellers involved with the Fair, but a new store is running it, so my contacts are gone. I used to sometimes see an archivist from the Northeast Children's Literature Collection there, but she's retired and moved away.

I was very happy to see Billie Levy there, though, who is a major presence in Connecticut children's literature. How big a presence is she? My husband, a civil engineer, asked me last night if Miss Billie had been at the Fair. She is a children's book collector whose 8,000 piece donation got the Northeast Children's Literature Collection off and running. And then she continued to collect more. I've been seeing Billie at UConn children's lit events for years. Billie was there, so all was right with the Connecticut childlit world yesterday.

Over the next few days I'll be covering the three discussions I attended.

 

A Book Fair Is A FAIR

Selling apple crumble.

This morning I spent four hours at a local fair working at our church's food booth. Since today is Sunday, it was like religious observance, but different.

Evidently the church does well selling apple crumble at this event and even expected to sell out before the end of the day. Nonetheless, our shift started at nine in the morning, and there were long periods when we discussed favorite bike trails and current events. All three of us took turns going to the pig race. We saw a lot of bored looking vendors. The pierogi people across from us, for instance, didn't break a sweat all the time we were there.

People walking by.

After about three hours, I suddenly started recalling other fairs I've been to. We're not talking PTSD here. Like the pierogi people, I wasn't sweating. No heart palpitations. But I did experience a flashback to fairs and festivals where I'd been selling something, but not food. I was selling books. Mine.

Selling books.

When authors are at fairs and festivals, they've got a spot with their books, just like the vendors at traditional fairs. There can be a lot of them there. They're just sittin', by themselves, watching people walk by. Killing time. You've got your people like Tomie dePaolo who are the blooming onions of the book fair world. The rest of us are apple crumbles and pierogies.

My apple crumble buddies were great at selling the crumble, while I just handled the money. They engaged people passing by. They touted the apple crumble's good qualities. ("Home made!") We had this terrific guy with us who at one point said to someone going by, "Good stuff! I just had some!" I imagined him with me at a literary event calling out, "Good book! I just read it!"

It was around that point that I thought, Eww. This is just like selling books. I don't do this well. The realization took the joy out of the incredibly beautiful autumn fair day, let me tell you.

At least I knew my professional future wasn't dependent upon apple crumble sales. That was a relief. It was more like my immortal soul was at risk, because, as I may have mentioned earlier, I was working at a church booth.

C'etait bon.

I also knew that at the end of my shift I was going over to the French Social Club's booth for some poutine, which has never, ever been available at any book fair/festival I've worked. That would make the book selling ordeal so much more tolerable.