Greetings from San Antonio! It's such a beautiful city. I'll try to write about NCTE/ALAN next week, because I'm still in the middle of things (NCTE just finished yesterday, ALAN starts today), but I wanted to share a few photos and videos from last week's National Book Award ceremony. I attended for the first time, and was both excited and intimidated. First of all, it was black tie, so I needed to dress appropriately. Second of all, I knew the majority of attendees would be on the adult side of the industry--in fact, at the Hachette Book Group table, I was the lone representative of the Young Readers division. But we were hosting Young People's Literature judge Holly Black and her husband Theo, so I knew they'd be some familiar faces there.
(unfortunately, I didn't take a good picture of my dress, but it was black chiffon, knee length, with a beaded waist)
Here is our dessert:
And here is a video of committee chair Daniel Handler announcing the winner:
[video to come--I'm having some technical difficulties]
Congratulations to winner Judy Blundell for What I Saw and How I Lied. Although she's published perhaps a hundred or so books under pseudonyms, this was the first time she's published under her own name. She gave the sweetest, most sincere thanks to her editor David Levithan, thanking him for "Giving me my voice." (Of course I remember how the editor was thanked!)
Congratulations to all the winners and nominees. Check out these great interviews with the Young People's Literature nominees from a while back in PW.
****
I received some unbelievable news right before the awards--Wabi Sabi debuted on the NY Times Best Seller list at #8! This is my first NY Times bestseller, and I must say, it was unexpected. I'm still in shock.
Speaking of Wabi Sabi (and I often do, don't I), remember that video I mentioned, the one we were filming when I almost lost the art for a second time?
Well, it's finally ready to be viewed. Check it out here.
I think it turned out quite well! And a last little coincidence that links this with the National Book Awards is that I ran into the filmmaker who interviewed Ed at the award ceremony, he was helping film material for Publisher's Weekly.
Anyway, that's all for now. Looking forward to all of the great ALAN presentations. Until next week! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
9 comments:
Alvina,
That's a wonderful video! I am such an admirer of Ed Young's art. I chose him as the subject of my picture book illustrator study--a paper I wrote for a children's literature course when I studying to be a school librarian. Young is a master of so many different artistic media.
I'm so glad this book is such a success for the artist, author--and you!
Alvina,
Everything looks absolutely great except the dinner, which looks like a melted baseball next to a baseball mitt.
douglas
Wow! Congrats on the NY Times Bestseller debut! What a gorgeous, breathtaking book. I smell Caldecott! :)
post a better photo of the dress, I want to see what you wore!
re: the dessert, they actually also had pumpkin pie--it was one of those alternating dessert dealios, which always kinda perplexes me--why not just give everyone the same dessert, so people don't have dessert envy? In this case, I was so stuffed from my steak that a poached pear was perfect, but I must admit that at the time it seemed an odd choice.
I tried to take pics of my dress on my computer when I got home, but they didn't really turn out. I'll take pics when I'm back in NY!
I love the video--very inspiring. Alvina, what happened to the art? ALL of it was lost? How did it end up at a church?
meghan
Meghan, you'll have to go back and read my four-part Publication story of WABI SABI! It's from about a month ago. It's a complicated story.
Congrats on the NYT #8!!!
The lost and found art story of Wabi Sabi makes all it's lovely
positive happenings all the more positively wonderful...(even that story ended miraculously well)
but NOW....
best illustrated ...
and bestseller...
THE BEST !!!
topangamaria
Post a Comment