I created this poster in hopes of drawing attention to the first anniversary of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami which devastated Japan.  The image on my poster was inspired by Takata Matsubara Forest, a forest of 70,000 trees that was wiped out by the waves that swept over Rikuzentaka’s Takata Matsubara Forest. Only one tree survived and it became a beacon of hope for all of Japan.  A limited number of signed posters are available through the contact feature of my  website www.ellyrubin.com   All funds from the sale of the poster will go to Japan Disaster Relief Fund-Boston.

Here I am in my burly sweater from LL Beans and a scarf and some gloves.  This is symbolic to where I thought I’d be this holiday break.  I should be on the ski slopes, zipping across the ice, or meandering through fields on my cross country skis, or sledding, or….

Okay, none of those things happened because here in Maine we seem to be experiencing the dreaded mud season.  Humph!

So instead of winter fun, I’m living an odd Southern Maine phenomenon where every single parent chooses the exact same thing to do, then we all squeeze into these tiny places of kids delights, or we move from one thing to the next searching for a place that can accommodate just one more family.  That’s right every single place we’ve been this week has been mobbed, which gives me a quiet anxiety.  Just saying.

So, I’m thinking of jumping in the car and heading off in search of winter.  I’ve heard rumors of snow, I wonder if it’s true.  In my head it all sounds just marvelous.

In KL Going’s The Liberation of Gabriel King, Gabe has to face his fears. And he has lots of them: spiders, his best friend Frita’s brother, jumping from the rope swing into the river, going into fifth grade. His list goes on and on. The book is extraordinary, in my opinion. Paralleling Gabe’s journey to liberate himself from his fears is the historically accurate, emotionally charged, and deeply moving journey of Frita, her family and the rest of their community to liberate themselves from the oppression of racism.

That entwining of the two—the mundane personal struggle with the striking social, political (and yes, personal) struggle—is well worth a blog post in and of itself. Maybe one for another time. Right now, though, I want to focus on Gabe. At one point in the story, he has dinner at Frita’s house, and Frita’s father gives an impromptu lesson about oppression. Gabe understands it immediately and fully, and he retells a story his own father had told him, about a group called the White Citizen’s Council and how Jimmy Carter had stood up to them and what the black community must have felt. Gabe says, “I bet they felt some oppressed, and they must have had to be real brave.” And Frita’s mother responded, “I think we’ve got ourselves another Peace Warrior.”

And this is, indeed, true. Despite Gabe’s outwardly meek and subservient behavior—his outward landscape—he has a secret identity tucked away inside. He is a Peace Warrior. And this got me thinking about just how many people have a secret identity like that on the landscape of the inside. Lots of us do. And sometimes it is even secret from our own selves. My daughter, Zory, is a perfect example of someone with that kind of dual landscape. She is in the process of identifying the internal, secret one and then learning how to bring it to the outside. As someone who is close to Zory; who can see the outward landscape but who knows what is just waiting to grow from the inside to the outside, I have been thinking hard on how to identify that inner landscape. I have to look beyond the biggest outward characteristics (raised voice, let’s say, or quick body movements…ummmm…think temper tantrum) and search, instead, for the smaller, more subtle ones. Ones like a single deep breath in the middle of the tantrum or a split second eye contact or an almost imperceptible reach of the hand. These are the windows into that inner landscape. The natural, organic one hoping to burst forth.

I wonder how this duality parallels the landscape around us. The obvious example is the volcano ready to erupt. The less obvious ones are the flowers and plants about to push through the earth just before spring. What are others? And how can we use these overt and hidden landscapes in our stories?

Tam

For the third year in a row, New England SCBWI will be offering Special Interest Group discussions, or SIGs, at our Spring Regional Conference. These informal moderated talks will give you a chance to meet members with similar interests to share valuable resources, tips, and information.

The following moderators and topics are scheduled:

Friday, 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm in Worthy
Theresa Milstein – Blogging as Platform
Karen Day – Writing Middle Grade
Heather Kelly – First-time Conference Goers
Janet Lawler – School Visits
Melanie Cataldo – Social Networking
Greg Fishbone – Writing Funny
Lynda Mullaly Hunt – Marketing

Friday, 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm in the Ballroom
Special Q&A Session with Jane Yolen

Saturday, 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm in Highland
Kip Wilson – Magical Realism
Brendan Gannon – Apps, Ebooks & the Digital Marketplace
Kathy Quimby – Targeting Your Submission Correctly
Padma Venkaraman – Working with an Agent
Cathy Rossini Lapierre – Developing and Sustaining a Long-range Career
Lisa Papademetriou – Overcoming Block
Kristine Asselin – Work-for Hire
Erinn Manack – Talking w/ Editors & Agents Before Pitching

Saturday, 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm in Charles
Matt Forrest Esenwine – Children’s Poetry
Sally Wilkins – Historical Fiction
Natasha Sass – Publishing Trends
Susan Carlton – Controversy in YA
Cloris Stock – Plotting
Loree Griffin Burns – Nonfiction
Alicia Gregoire – Online Presence
Chris Friden – Writer’s Groups
Charlene McManis – People of Color in Books

This, in the Fall 2012 Sneak Preview, from Publisher’s Weekly!

I’d like to welcome Hazel Mitchell to my blog today.

Welcome to my blog, Hazel!

Thanks, glad to be here!

1. Folks always love to hear about all that led to a contract and that exciting phone call or email. Could you tell us a little about how you were chosen to be the illustrator for Hidden New Jersey? – Sure. Yes, this one was quite exciting, because it came from all places, Facebook. The developer for the book saw some of the work I had posted on my fan page and thought I would be a perfect fit for the book. So she sent me an email and we went from there.This is the third book in the series, Michigan and Ohio have already been published.

2. Your characters are so expressive. Could you tell us a bit about the technique and materials you used for your illustrations? Working on this book was like doing a jigsaw puzzle. Each page is different, dealing with a specific area of the state, (although there are some themes that run through the illustrations … children canoeing and the little bumblebee who is the ‘mascot’ of the book – as well as the hidden objects throughout). My first task was to read through the research for each page, find out about them and sketch out a design for each page incorporating all the different facts. The rough sketches went for approval and then I worked up a final drawing about 150% larger than the final page. I scanned each drawing at high resolution and then used photoshop to add the final colouring. I also had to decide which objects would be hidden on each page and where I would hide them.

3. Did you do a lot of research and field trips to the places mentioned in the book? Do you have any interesting stories to tell us about that? All my research was done online, unfortunately. I live in Maine and the book was completed in about 4 months so there wasn’t a lot of time for field trips. Luckily my husband is from New Jersey so he was able to help me a lot! I really enjoyed finding out more about the state … it is so much more diverse and historic than I imagined. Linda Barth, the author, lives in Somerville New Jersey, and is an historian, so her fabulous research really helped me.

4. Which of the illustrations was the most challenging and why? I think one of the most challenging illustrations was ‘The Gateway’ that looks at the proximity of New York City and involved bridges, the Statue of Liberty, the Colgate Clock, a horse, the skyline, ferries. There was a lot of detail to incorporate and I wanted to make the design quite dramatic.

5. Did illustrating this book open any new avenues for you? This was my first real non-fiction book and I really enjoyed doing it, so I hope I will do more. Who knows, I might even get to do another state!

6. Do you have any new projects in the works? I will be working on the final book in the first series of ‘All Star Cheerleaders’, a four book series by Anastasia Suen, published by Kane Miller. I am also working on writing and illustrating my own picture books so hope that in the near future one of those will be in a bookstore near you!

To find out more about Hazel Mitchell and her books, and to see a trailer of Hidden New Jersey, visit her website at http://hazelmitchell.com/

SCBWI is teaming up with Lit World to help make World Read Aloud Day a transformative event!

Worldwide at least 793 million people remain illiterate.

As a global literacy movement,

World Read Aloud Day is about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people. World Read Aloud Day motivates children, teens, and adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another, and creates a community of readers advocating for every child’s right to a safe education and access to books and technology.By raising our voices together on this day we show the world’s children that we support their future: that they have the right to read, to write, and to share their words to change the world.

To find out more, I skype-IM interviewed Author, Storyteller, Founder of Picture Book Month and Proud SCBWI Member Dianne de Las Casas about World Read Aloud Day and how she’s getting involved.

Lee: Hi Dianne! Thanks so much for agreeing to talk about World Read Aloud Day!

Dianne: It is my pleasure!

Lee: I love the mission of the project: “Imagine a world where everyone can read…” – is that what got you involved?

Dianne: Yes, I love LitWorld’s message of global literacy. Plus, I write picture books, which are meant for the read-aloud.

Lee: So I saw on twitter that you’ve booked the day with skype visits. Tell us about that.

Dianne: As founder of Picture Book Month, participating in World Read Aloud Day was such a natural fit. I love their mission of a global literacy movement. Kate Messner, an amazing author, who is the Skype Author Visit Queen, organized a page on her site that lists authors willing to Skype with schools on World Read Aloud Day. I wanted to be involved so I placed myself on the list.

Lee: And then schools contacted you?

Dianne: Yes, the schools contacted me. I have five schools booked in the US and Canada for half-hour Skype Author Visits. It’s going to be a very busy day. LOL

Lee: Wow! And what will a skype visit include – I’m guessing you reading one of your books out loud?

Dianne: I will definitely storytell/read one of my books and do a Q&A session with the students who range from Kindergarten to 6th grade. I am going to highlight Dinosaur Mardi Gras

and Blue Frog: The Legend of Chocolate.

In addition, the schools can access my online, free downloadable activities that accompany all of my books.

Lee: Very Cool! Would you recommend getting involved in World Read Aloud Day to other SCBWI members?

Dianne: Yes! Do it for the cause. But it’s also a great way to get good book publicity.

Lee: I’m glad you brought that up – everyone’s volunteering their time and expertise, but it’s building your readers and platform and yeah, helping contribute to a wonderful cause – a world where everyone can read.

Dianne: Laissez les bon temps rouler! Let the good times roll!

And she even ties it up with a Mardi Gras sign-off! Thanks, Dianne!

Additional information on World Read Aloud Day can be found here.  You can also check out the the suggestions in the Read Aloud Day Activity Kit (PDF) or come up with your own creative ideas to get kids reading!

And share your experiences on March 7th with SCBWI – email your photos and stories to

chelseamooser (at) scbwi.org 

Highlights will be complied into an article for the scbwi website and publication in the May/June Bulletin.

Illustrate On, Write On, and Read Aloud!
Lee

If you dug a hole to the center of the Earth and then dropped a brick down it, it would take 45 minutes for the brick to hit the bottom.

______

Bill Bryson, A Really Short History of Nearly Everything