The blogasaurus is bunched after the CBI Conference and other events (lots of work and not enough sleep) so I’m taking a day or two off. In the meantime – enjoy these bits and pieces:
I love this design series ‘In a perfect world’ from Design Festish:
Back on Monday for Bisto Book of the Year announcement and lots more!
There were a few cake mentions last week – namely Joe O’Brien and Patrick Ness and Sarah Rees Brennan. And with all this cake I got to googling… and look what I found!
Karren’s Specialty Cakes has some fancy looking book munchies:
and then I came across something of a different scale altogether – introducing the Spiderwick cake!
I think I’ve dropped enough hints. I’m just gonna kick back and wait for the cakes to roll in…
Some authors get lots of fan mail, pictures, blog comments or even emails – but Alfie Green author Joe O’Brien is the only one I know to have gotten a cake in his honour!!
Needless to say – Joe was over the moon when one (very dedicated) mum managed to bake an Alfie Green birthday cake for him – on behalf of her son (a very dedicated fan) Ryan Brown.
Now I’m wondering if there are any authors out there who have some other crazy gifts?
And Mrs Brown? I’d love a slice of cake!!
Something to bring the weekend that little bit closer – every painting in the MoMA in 2 minutes.
I’m not advocating for an exodus from the island – but has anyone else been looking at the mid-term line-up for Seven Stories? No?
They’ve gone Lauren Child crazy.
Monday had the very lovely Lauren dance through the building and sign some books. And yesterday and today they were giving away trade secrets in their Making Pictures: Collage Illustration Workshop.
So what’s left for the rest of the week?
How about the Absolutely MUST Make my Pictures Move Now: Animation Workshop? Or Utterly Me, Clarice Bean on loop every 30 minutes… And there is the new fangled and presumably very pretty Lauren Child exhibition to boot.
Anyone else fancy a trip to Newcastle?
Something to whet the appetite for the week. Beijing has become home to the World Chocolate Wonderland – a 20k square-metre confectionary masterpiece.
A reported eighty tons of Belgian chocolate was used to create replicas of famous sites, including the famous Terra Cotta Warriors and the Great Wall of China.
The University of Cambridge officially opened their Centre for Children’s Literature last Thursday. The centre will focus on poetry, film and multimedia text, including picturebooks – while teaching and promoting writing for children.
The centre aims to treat television programmes, comics and films as texts and to study the messages and ideas that children pick up from books and other media.
We live in a multimedia society. If we just pretend these things do not exist, we could lose a very important dimension of children’s competence at interpreting stories. Children’s literature and culture are not created in a vacuum: you need the social context. If what we regard as trash is popular with young people, we need to know why and whether, as researchers and teachers, we can offer them something that addresses the same needs but also deals with these themes in a critical and ethical way. – Prof. Maria Nikolajeva
The centre has announced opportunities for PhD research in relevant fields – children’s and young adult literature, childhood studies, children’s reading, multimediality and visual literacy among them.
More from the Times UK.
Terry Pratchett is heading to Ireland this weekend – in fact he’s head to the Falls Hotel in Ennistymon to be exact. That’s right, the first Discworld Convention is on in Ennistymon* this weekend with Terry Pratchett. (Apologies for the repitition folks, I felt it was necessary)
There are a slew of writerly folk heading the same direction – including a personal favourite, Diane Duane. (Peter Morwood, Colin Smythe, Bernard Pearson and Jack Cohen are on the bill too.)
To help whet the appetite (for those lucky enough to have gotten tickets) Sanjida O’Connell talks to Sir Pratchett in the latest New Scientist -
I intend to go on living for as long as possible, and no one really knows how long that is, because PCA is rather odd, and also I’m rather odd. I have quite a large brain – although my teachers would line up to tell you I never used any of it very much – and so I’ll keep going.
One of the best parts about being away has been visiting bookshops. Getting to grips with how books are sold, and written, for a completely different market. But kids love good stories no matter where they are – and how cool is it to see Judi Curtin, Roisín Meaney, Eoin Colfer and Darren Shan in a tiny bookshop in Hong Kong??
Eoin Colfer has been the big traveller so far – every shop we’ve visited in China and Thailand has stocked at least one of his books, and many have his entire back catalogue, just in case. The real moment of pride was finding the O’Brien Press editions of Judi Curtin in Hong Kong. The guys in the shop thought I’d lost my mind when I jumped around holding Alice and Megan Forever – though they were kind enough to give me a crash course in the who’s who of Hong Kong kids lit. Fun!
We’re gallivanting in Thailand at the minute – island hopping and struggling through the torturous hours of blue skies, long sandy beaches and crazy Thai masseuse. As per usual – plenty of pics on Flickr.
It’s official. At last night’s launch of Sixteen After Ten – an anthology of work by the Trinity College Creative Writing M.Phil students – the school announced that Richard Ford (Pulitzer, Pen and Faulkner winning US writer) has been appointed associate professor for the next three years.
There will be a series of readings and Ford will also act as American writer in Residence throughout the college. There’s plenty of him to go around…
And to make things fair: a belated congratulations to Harry Clifton (Poetry professor for the UCD Creative Writing MA) on winning the Irish Times Poetry Now Award.
More from the Irish Times.
An article from the Economist on the difficulties in publishing picture books:
Not all are quite so gloomy. Booktrust, a charity, has launched the Big Picture campaign to raise the profile of picture books. At the Illustration Cupboard, a London gallery, John Huddy reckons the market is correcting itself, rooting out inadequate contenders. Panicky book folk may be talking their business down—but new ways to sell cheaper products across borders must certainly loom.
Time for a new kind of picture book? More on picture books here.
Interesting shortlist for the 2008 awards (not an O’Brien Press book on the list… or too many other Irish publishers!) Delighted to see Siobhan Dowd, deservedly, on the list alongside Tom Kelly and Michael Scott’s The Alchemyst. Some disappointing omissions (Enda Wyley/Derek Landy) and a few unexpected inclusions: Caitriona Nic Sheain and Jessica O’Donnell who are both new to me.
Two names that are not strangers to the shortlist, Oliver Jeffers and Kate Thompson both make a reappearance – and the grand-daddy of Dublin literature Roddy Doyle (also up for an Irish Book Award) is the last name on the list. Now, time to get reading.
Full shortlist:
The Alychemyst – Michael Scott
The Black Book of Secrets – FE Higgins
Discover Art – Jessica O’Donnell
Gaiscioch na Beilte Uaine – Caitriona Nic Sheain agus Andrew Whitson
The Last of the High Kings - Kate Thompson
The London Eye Mystery - Siobhan Dowd
The Thing with Finn - Tom Kelly
Titanic 2020 - Colin Bateman
The Way Back Home - Oliver Jeffers
Wilderness - Roddy Doyle
There’s only a few hours to go before Children’s Books Ireland announce the shortlist for this years Bisto Book of the Year. I have tried (and failed) to get a hint of who is on the list… but I have come up with a few names I’d like to see nominated.
I’d be very surprised not to see Enda Wyley’s The Silver Notebook (O’Brien Press) on the list – or Karl O’Neill’s The Most Beautiful Letter in the World for that matter, another O’Brien Press book. And, on the list of O’Brien Press releases, Conor Kostick’s The Book of Curses might make an appearence…
A few others that I’d really like to see nominated: Skullduggery Pleasant, Derek Landy, Michael Scott’s The Alchemyst, Siobhan Dowd’s The London Eye Mystery, Brendan O’Brien’s The Story of Ireland, Eoin Colfer’s Airman and/or Artemis Fowl : The Graphic Novel and Donough O’Malley’s Monkey See, Monkey Do.
I’m sure that I’ve missed a few great titles here so I’m really looking forward to reading the full list later today. The CBI site has more on the awards.
The talented Steve Simpson has kindly given an illustrators view on working in children’s books. Steve has worked with Irish language publisher An Gúm and recently finished a book with Scholastics in the US – as well as working with An Post and countless others. Who better to ask!?
On Irish and UK publishing:
It’s possible that picture books are becoming inviable in the UK but I can’t imagine there has ever been much profit in Irish picture books for a long time. The market is very small and many of the books that do make it into the bookshops are obviously published in Ireland, lots of Irish names, Irish references, Irish towns and green postboxes. This mostly makes them unappealing for export.
As the potential market is tiny, the fees paid to illustrators are, to say the least, unappealing (others might use stronger language). Some of the fees I’ve heard are far below the national minimum hourly rate and with that they expect to retain all copyright (and even the artwork in some cases). If you want to make a living as a children’s book illustrator you need to look further a field.
On working in the US:
I’m only just entering the market but my dealings so far have been very good. I’ve been able to keep my copyright and the contracts seems quite generous by Irish comparisons. I haven’t heard of any pessimistic forecasts.
A little encouragement for the newbies:
Children’s book illustration is a fantastic area to be involved in, I can’t think of a more idyllic career path. Getting started is always a struggle though. The current Irish scene may appear unattractive to established illustrators, however it can be a great opportunity for upcoming illustrators. You might not make too much cash but you will be published. Just remember to hold on tight to your copyright.
(Thanks again to Steve for answering my rant-like questions. You can gawk at his work, here, or read more from him over at Scamp)
The short list for the 2008 Blog Awards is up online. Congratulations to everybody listed – here’s quick look down the list for Best Arts and Culture (sponsored by Poetry Ireland) :
Could it be three years in a row for The Sigla Blog? Or will there be a new winner this year? Either way, I’m looking forward to meeting everyone at the awards in March. Best of luck!
Powered by WordPress | Content is copyright David Maybury, unless otherwise stated.