what can you do with one red shoe?

I posted this on my personal blog, but since I just found it so hilarious I thought I'd post it for the readers of this blog too!

My college years were during the age of grunge and combat boots were the rage. In attempt to be cool and artsy, I bought a pair of bright red Doc Martens--mainly because I loved the color and they were on sale (I was a poor college student!), even though they were a good 2 sizes too large on me.

Needless to say, over the years, I realized that these oversized, red boots made me look like Ronald McDonald and weren't very comfortable. But somehow, I didn't have the heart to throw them away. So, I left them in storage at my parent's house where they have been for years.

Recently, when I returned to visit, I saw this is what my mother had done to them:

Ha ha!

Coincidentally, my mother's creative gardening venture is the same project Anna titled her book on.

Next, I think my mom should consult Anna on what to do with my old cassette tapes of the Cure.

the making of my cover

My book BALTO is coming out in August and so I'm working on a section for it about how the cover was made. My uncle carved the cover for it and then I painted the dog onto the wood. I have finished a page showing the inside of his shop.



Go here to check out the page.

I'm going to make a simple page that shows kids how a sign is made as soon as my uncle gets around to taking some photos for me. I feel bad that I'm giving him projects! I already invaded his space with my camera.

A photo journey of ALA Annual 2011

   




Happy Fourth of July, all! It's been a hectic time for me, so I thought I'd just share my ALA experience in photos:

oyster po' boy at Mother's

boxes galore!

almost finished with set-up

done!

blackened drum fish at K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen

Laini Taylor and I at the DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE party

The party turned into an 80s Dance Party!

Beignets at Cafe Du Monde

Karen Healey (author of Morris finalist GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD) signing books

Grace Lin (DUMPLING DAYS), Kelly Barnhill (THE MOSTLY TRUE STORY OF JACK), and Andrea Davis Pinkney (BIRD IN A BOX) at our Middle Grade breakfast

Bryan Collier and his wife Christina at our luncheon with the Coretta Scott King committee to celebrate DAVE THE POTTER

Banana's foster from Brennan's, originator's of this classic dessert. Served at our dinner with the Caldecott Committee to celebrate Bryan Collier and DAVE THE POTTER

at the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet

Bryan accepts the Caldecott Honor for DAVE THE POTTER

Luncheon with Grace and the Geisel Committee

Rebecca Sherman, Grace, and me at the Geisel Award ceremony

A giddy Grace with her award!

Sara Zarr (HOW TO SAVE A LIFE), Daniel Handler (HOW WE BROKE UP) and Karen Healey (THE SHATTERING) pose at our YA luncheon

Paolo Bacigalupi with his Printz Award for SHIP BREAKER

Jewell Parker Rhodes accepts the Coretta Scott King honor for fiction for NINTH WARD

Bryan accepting the CSK medal for illustration for DAVE THE POTTER at the CSK breakfast

It was an extremely busy, but celebratory and rewarding ALA for me, and for Little, Brown. It was also my first trip to New Orleans--I loved the city, and would love to go back soon.

Till next time...

Letting go

This is (I think) the first time I've ever posted done two posts, one about something I planned to do AND one about what happened when I actually did it.

Some of you may remember when I decided to go to ALA. Everything about it was a new way of doing things: first, partly because I hadn't flown anyplace in three years, I packed really carefully, even measuring my bag to make sure I could carry it on! Perhaps because of this, I actually liked the clothes I brought and felt appropriately dressed the whole time.

I also spent quite a long time making business cards -- or rather, I made one (the red one below, taken from the jacket flap of THE HOUSE BABA BUILT) and an old friend, who said,

"You should go armed," made the other. I love it!

The top card is from our fortune teller. Grace said I could go first, adding (as a joke) that if my fortune was good, she would get one. The fortune teller looked alarmed:
"Hey, I'm just the messenger!" she said.
The reading was, I thought, uncannily accurate - and to for once have a record of these things, I'll tell it here.


She began by asking me to choose a deck: one of the many fun things about her was that she had 5. I chose a variation on the classic Rider deck; Grace chose the fifties retro one (the red convertible in her post below represents the card The Lovers! Very cool!). Other fun things about our fortune teller were her sparkly green eyeshadow, cool glittery nail polish, deep laugh, and warmth.

First, she gave some explanations -- including that the time period for the reading was about a year.

In this next year, I will have a whole new beginning--money will be easier and STAY easier; I'll take a long vacation (already planned -- I had just told Grace about it that morning). For my projects to come to fruition (and they will, though it may take the full year), I will need to "think outside the box" and do things in a completely different way than I have before.

That is what will lead to the completely new beginning, shown in the last card (the Ace of Wands). I also got one of my favorite cards in the deck, and one that has I think come up almost every time I've had my Tarot cards read -- The Fool. This does NOT mean that you're an idiot, but rather -- well, you can look up all the meanings of the cards in the previous link.)

After our reading, we went to lunch at NOLA, where I had one of the best meals of my life -- Grace unfortunately had to leave before she could even finish her crabcake, as she had a signing.

But although that was sad, it was like everything else at the conference: it had its upside.On my way out, I praised the meal in some detail -- and the person I was talking to turned out to be the chef who had created it!

His whole face lit up, and he gave me a card. At the conference, I got to meet Joyce Sidman (someone I've long admired), Russell Freedman (whose work I have often read aloud to a child who loves American history --I admire him a lot too!), and too many other people to list here. Little, Brown gave me buttons for and a copy of a new book I love -- ME...JANE by Patrick McDonnell. It's about Jane Goodall's childhood and is one of the most perfect picture books I've ever seen. TWO of Anna's books were on display in the same booth -- DISAPPEARING DESMOND, shown in Grace's post Wednesday, and

A PHOTO FOR GRETA, which the NY TIMES called "a paean to paternal love."

The whole conference was like that: things just seemed to happen as they were meant to, even when I thought I was making foolish choices. As it turned out, I only spent a few hours at the actual conference (a friend's child was there and we spent nearly all of Saturday sight-seeing: she got HER fortune told, too, and said it was "similar" -- to reality. It did seem to accord with what I know of her life -- and when the fortune teller read her palm, she burst out laughing at how stubborn she was). In the evening, we watched CASABLANCA -- her choice -- and we both laughed a lot and loved it, though she was disappointed in the ending.

Maybe I was just in a really good mood from spending time with friends and seeing a city I loved and eating great food and just having so much fun. Maybe the meditating I've been doing really is changing my point of view, and making me worry less and see the positive side of things more. But the fact that she loved Casablanca so much made me think that the classics, in all the arts, will always matter: and that is encouraging. Sometimes seeing all the YA and paranormal that is so popular and so different from what I write myself is discouraging -- but one of the many things I took away from this conference is that there is room for all kinds of writing. A person (eg, my young friend) can love TWILIGHT and CASABLANCA.

KEYNOTE TALK

Like Grace, I'm wiped out. I was in Philly for a talk. Here's why I'm tired: I worked on this powerpoint presentation for over a week. Tweaking photos and putting music to little videos and being completely anal!

For this video I wanted to show how I watched a lot of astronaut footage to make my Astronaut Handbook.



I got this video off of YouTube. Most people would have thought that was good enough... but nooo. I didn't like the music. So I spent I don't know how long putting new music to it - tweaking it, and so on. I wanted to create a "mood."

Everything I did for the talk was like that! Every photo I put up had to be tweaked and made in beautiful B&W and so on. I drove myself nuts! I sat for 8 hour periods at the computer and didn't move. On the day I was supposed to drive to PA I was still at the computer working on the talk. Guess what time I arrived? 1:30 am! This is because when I transferred the talk to my laptop I lost a lot of the images and I had a mishap where Powerpoint froze and I lost everything I'd been working on! Blah. Save your work often is the lesson on that one.

And of course when the big day came I wasn't at all satisfied with what I had. I think it went over well, though, and lots of teachers said they thought it was great. It was filmed so I suppose I could see for myself.

This Land Is Your Land: A Poetry Friday Post to Celebrate Independence Day

I'm posting a video today of Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen leading thousands of Americans in singing This Land Is Your Land at the Lincoln Memorial to celebrate the Fourth of July.

**********

 

At Wild Rose Reader, I have a post titled Let's Celebrate the Fourth of July with Poetry!!!

 

The Poetry Friday Roundup is at A Wrung Sponge.

 

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!

ALA 2011 or how I ran out of marbles: Part 1

My last public event for this school year was the ALA convention. I was excited because I was finishing with a blast-in New Orleans, the Geisel Honor Award--I knew it was going to be a lot of fun. However even with such prospects of delight, I have to admit, even before getting on the plane, I was tired.

A while ago, I wrote about how an introverted person like me can only last so long. As I said then:

...my most natural state is introverted--there are only so many visits I can do in a year without stammering incoherently. I'm kind of like a jar of marbles--every visit I do I am less one marble until I am empty.

So, after the last couple of months being full of events and visits (which were all lovely!), my marble jar was pretty low when I got to New Orleans:

Which is perhaps why I had a bit of envy at the LB Middle Grade Breakfast when the other amazing authors Kelly Barnhill and Andrea Pinkney gave such mesmerizing and spirited readings (Andrea sang! Not fair!).

However, the librarians were still very kind to me and many came to my signings (I had two):

But it was only at the LB one that I signed advanced reading copies of Dumpling Days!!

Eeks, eeks, eeks! I can't believe people will be reading it soon!

Then it was a blur of convention exhibits:

pleased to see my friend Anna Alter's Disappearing Desmond and Thanking the Moon!

plus a screening of the movie The Library of the Early Mind (which I am in for about 10 seconds):

Trailer: 'Library of the Early Mind' from Backspace Productions on Vimeo.

and a panel discussion afterwards with the hilarious and highly energetic Jack Gantos and Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket):

I can't believe I'm rubbing elbows with these two!

Trying to keep up with the fast wittiness of those two was no small feat, let me tell you. Luckily, earlier in the day I was able to sneak off to the famous Cafe Du Monde to ingest copious amounts of caffeine and sugar:

frozen coffee and beignets!

and my friend Libby Koponen and I had our tarot cards read!

I was hoping they would tell me I would get through the conference without collapsing.

What do you think?

(I actually don't really remember much of what she said, except something about how I like having lots of projects and thoughts going on in my head...I guess all those projects distracted me...)

Check for ALA 2011 Part 2 & 3 tomorrow and Friday at my personal blog.

Greta art activity

One of our readers (Hi Naomi!) recently ran a lovely art activity with her students using A Photo for Greta. She had her students bring in a self portrait, then draw themselves as a character in a book (like I did here). Such a great idea, thanks for the pictures! I love seeing how kids and teachers use my books.

from the BRG archives: inspiration

Some quotes that keep me working, or help me to look at my work in a new way:

"When you write don't think, listen." -Madeleine L'Engle

"Nobody ever gets what they want and that is beautiful. Everyone dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful." -They Might Be Giants
(This one I stole from Linda, she sent it to me several years ago and it hangs on the bulletin board next to my desk)

"I was tracking something very slippery, very elusive, and had to use every sense I had to stay on the trail - other people were distracting. Later, I discovered what I was hunting was my own spirit." - Ana Forrest

What are some of yours?

Originally published October 17, 2006

GRIZZLY BEAR: An Animal Mask Poem



Last week, I had brunch with Grace at one of our favorite restaurants—Henrietta’s Table in Cambridge. Grace has been getting on my case. She’s been encouraging me for months to send out my poetry manuscripts to publishers before I become a grandmother and a part-time daycare provider for my first grandchild. We talked a lot about my poetry during brunch.

Yesterday, Grace and I had a long talk on the phone about which manuscripts I should get back to work on. The discussion reminded me of a get-together I had had with Grace and Janet Wong a couple of years ago. That day, they gave me advice about the poetry collections that I had already written. In fact, they even gave me a great idea for a brand new collection. I returned home and I began work on it right away. The new collection, titled Docile Fossil,  includes poems about dinosaurs and other extinct animals, fossils, the La Brea Tar Pits, and the Petrified Forest. 

One thing I had forgotten about our conversation that day was the suggestion both Grace and Janet had given me about my collection of animal mask poems. They thought the collection included poems about too many different kinds of animals—and that it needed a narrower focus. They thought I should include only poems about animals that children might see in their backyards or neighborhoods. After talking to Grace yesterday, I remembered their suggestion—and got back to work eliminating poems from the collection...and thinking of subjects for new poems. Grace and I decided on a tentative title for the collection: Backyard Voices. It will include poems about earthworms, a butterfly larva, a silkworm pupa, crickets, a snail, a slug, a spider, frogs, a baby bird trying to break out of its shell, and a number of other little creatures.

Here is one the animal mask poems that I had to cut from the collection:

GRIZZLY BEAR
by Elaine Magliaro

I’m grizzly bear. I’m fierce and fat…
And dangerous. Remember that!
My teeth are sharp as sabers.
My curvy claws can cut like saws,
And when I prowl the woods I growl
And frighten all my neighbors.


I rule the land. This forest’s mine!
I ain’t NOBODY’S valentine!
Don’t think that you can be my friend…
My dinner?
Yum!
GULP!


The End

********************

At Wild Rose Reader, I have a cento poem that I wrote for a retiring music teacher who worked for many years at the school where I taught. She was fabulous!

The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Carol’s Corner this week.