Podcast #156
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Announcements
- It’s PiBoIdMo! I give my gratitude to Tara Lazar for inviting me to be a part of her guest bloggers. Check out the 30 Day Picture Book Inspiration Infographic. She already has an amazing 224 comments on it.
- It’s Picture Book Month! As one of the co-founders, I’m supporting Picture Book Month with a month-long celebration right here on the show, so come back every Wednesday for the festivities! Also check out the Picture Book Month site here!
- I sold my young adult novel, Dancing with the Devil to Diversion Books, due out last week of March, maybe first week in April.
Indie Publishing Experiment
- I’m starting an experiment in indie publishing. You can be a part of it – it’s totally free – and learn from my successes and failures for your own process. Just in time for the holidays, meet the cutiepieface star of Little Chicken’s Big Christmas:
I’m creating a Launch Team for Little Chicken’s Big Christmas. Team members will get a review copy of the book and in exchange will be asked to post an honest review on Amazon during a specific time period, probably somewhere around Thanksgiving. If you want to stay on top of this and be on the team, follow my process, and learn more on how to market your own independently published book, I’ve created a special mailing list just for this purpose.
UPDATE: Membership is now closed, but I’ll be keeping everyone in the know as this adventure progresses through my blog and podcast!
In This Week’s Episode You’ll Hear
- How Tomie dePaola says he’s not an icon and you won’t believe how he says it. Seriously. You will not.
- About the quote “The courage to allow yourself to fail.”
- About Tomie’s Tomie dePaola Award
- How to surprise Tomie.
- The name of the best author he ever worked with for character development.
Check out Tomie’s latest book
Even Tomie uses video!
Zen Master Tomie from Jarrett Krosoczka on Vimeo.
Sometimes I use affiliate links. if you click on them and buy what I recommend, I earn a referral fee. You do not pay any more than if you found the same thing through a search engine. It’s akin to going to a restaurant and getting a recommendation from the waitress on what’s good. You don’t pay more for the food she suggests, but you might tip her for her service.
In any case I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, recommend a product or person I don’t believe in or trust. Otherwise, how would you believe me next time?
3 Comments
Taurean Watkins
Another great episode!
First off, congratulations to you and Jerry on the upcoming “Little Chicken’s Big Christmas” (I signed on to be part of the marketing and this ties in with my plans for T.A.A. CARES, an initiative I started to spotlight projects as a way for me to give back to authors with my time and/or money as many writers helped me get to my first book sale this year.
I KNEW we’d not seen the last of L.C. touching on the interview where you and non-icon “Zen Master Tomie” talking about characters that endure, but I do have to take issue with how “Young people” today would not know of classics or create characters with the care and thought talked about.
What about-
The Gruffalo (Words: Julie Donaldson Illustrations: Axel Schaffer, 2005)
A Visitor for Bear (Words: Bonny Becker Illustrations: Kady MacDonald Denton, 2008)
“I, Crocodile” by Fred Marcelino
(Just so you know, Katie, it’s Mar-say-lean-o, *Wink*)
This guy was a fab illustrator for so many author’s books, and this was his only original effort that he both wrote and illustrated, at least that I could find. I reviewed this book on my blog recently-
http://talkinganimaladdicts.com/weekly-readings/
You might want Julie Falatko to review it, in fact I’ll send her an e-mail myself, hearing her reviews on your podcast, I think she’d love this book and how ends, though I found it a bit sadistic I still loved it, and it would be a great companion to Jon Klassen’s “I Want My Hat Back” and re-spark that “Did he, or didn’t he to a certain rabbit” debate…
Anyway…
Fred’s art in general (Like in I, Crocodile) has a way of being old-fashioned and charming without being too cutesy, if I could illustrate, he’d be my IDOL! I may not be an illustrator myself (Yet…) but I have a strong artistic eye if I do say so myself, and I’m no less visual even if I can’t illustrate myself.
Back to my list of recent contenders for memorable characters-
Fancy Nancy (Words: Jane O’Connor Illustrations: Robin Preiss-Glasser, 2005)
Fox and Fluff (Words: Shutta Crum, Illustrations: John Bendall-Brunello, 2004)
Most recently: The Snatchabook (Words: Helen Docherty Illustrations: Thomas Docherty, 2013) I saw that when I went book browsing last weekend, and I will be buying it, but I read far enough at the store to know how ALIVE the art and words are, and rhyme that rivals any classic pre-dating my year of birth (1987) you can name! Julie may want to review this one, too, but I may beat her to punch with this one!
These are fairly recent examples (If were talking original pub dates of these books, not necessarily the author and or illustrator’s age), and these are just in the picture book realm.
There are more novels (I’m primarily a novelist myself) than I can name here, but the ones I feel aren’t getting enough love-
The Daring Adventures of Penhaligon Brush by S. Jones Rogan (Gripping and well told first story in a two book series. What illustrations we do get are charming)
A Rat’s Tale by Tor Seidler (This author made me want to BE an author myself, this book has a special place in my heart as the first book I bought for entertainment with my allowance at 14, and Fred Marcelino’s art for this book and the cover belongs in a museum, there’s a companion book pseudo sequel that’s also good, but different illustrator as Fred sadly died shortly after, though the art in that book’s good as well, it’s more angular, which better fits the different protagonist in that book.)
“Time Stops for No Mouse” by Michael Hoeye (First in a four book series. This won some honors, and rightly so, but the other three are just as good)
Even if there are no interior illustrations or the characters aren’t visually depicted on the cover for some of the books I mentioned in novel category, those characters were strong, funny, and capable of going toe to toe with any classic you can name.
Sorry if I sound mad, Katie, I know you two were mostly joking around, but I have passion for every book I’ve mentioned/read/reviewed/will review soon listed above.
Tomie, if you ever see this comment, while I can’t speak for others, I’d like to think I’m one of those “Young People” who CARE about characters, and I do read and respect the classics, but there can be a DANGER from the writing side, of being intimidated by what’s come before you, and I still struggle to fight that sometimes.
This is a big reason why I’ve never been a fan of the “Comparison” thing when trying to query my books, because it comes off catty, even if you’re not egotistical to boast “I’m the next Harry Potter” and for those of us who were not in marketing outside the context of publishing, this learning curve is HARSH. Period.
But at the same time, particularly for us non-illustrator authors, we don’t necessarily want rehash what’s come before, but it’s HARD to do something new when we also need to think about. Not just trends (Which are impossible to predict anyway) I feel at times people unmeaningly confuse “Timeless” with “Dated” and I think that warrants a podcast discussion.
Sometimes the “Personal, yet universal” aspect to characters isn’t as obvious to access as we’d like.
Tomie, I respect illustrators like you and Katie, but we non-illustrator writers have our own crosses to bare, and I know too many authors now (Before their careers took off) who are doing it to think otherwise. Sure, there are the pretenders, but they exist in any industry, and they aren’t the ones who will revise a manuscript 1,000 times in a 10 year period to make the sale.
Okay, rant over, and seriously, it was a great episode. It got me more motivated to get some more ideas flowing for PiBoIdMo 2013. I may not be where I want to be with the few attempts I’ve made with picture books, but I do have ideas, and this challenge is custom-made for me!
I’m also doing NaNoWriMo 2013, too, and before you get the wrong idea, I’m only able to do it because edits on my debut novel have slowed down at the moment, otherwise between blogging and working on new videos, PiBoIdMo would be all I could handle! (LOL)
Take care,
Taurean J. Watkins (Taury)
P.S: I shortened all my teaser videos for my debut novel GABRIEL, and hoped this one in particular fixes the length issues from before-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjzzhGiXEVY
Katie
Thanks for the comment, Taury!
Taurean Watkins
You’re welcome. Again, I’m sorry if I sounded mad in my comment above. I just had to respond to the challenge posed in the interview.
I know you were mostly joking around, but seriously, us non-illustrator writers have our crosses to bear, and just because we can’t draw, sculpt or paint doesn’t mean we don’t have an eye for visuals…
Okay, I’ll cut my mini-rant there.