Wednesday, October 3, 2012

KidLitCon 2012 through Images Part 1: Friday PreCon

So as my presentation at KidLitCon this past weekend was titled: Oh, You Mean the Caterpillar Guy?: Viewing Illustration as High Art and Using Visual Literacy Methods to Enhance Our Evaluation of It, I figured what better way to look back on this weekend then by creating a recap through images (well mostly images)! (I should say that unfortunately I didn't think of this idea until I got home, so if I would have had this in mind there are a few other things I would have photographed, but hopefully you'll get a good sense from what I have...)

Hope you enjoy this first part about Friday's PreCon, soon to be followed by part 2 about Saturday and later this week I'll be posting a recap of sorts of my presentation, including images, the Prezi slideshow, and videos!

Friday's PreCon

So, Friday's precon started with heading out to my first publisher preview which was at Simon and Schuster! I was a bit early and when I arrived I finally found the room for all of us KidLitCon-ers on the 17th floor filled with goodies:

Awesome raffle prizes:


After settling down we got to hear from author/illustrator, Meghan McCarthy about her new picture book biography of Betty Skelton along with a bunch of awesome details about her work process, pictures of her work area and the many distractions that plague her! :) Here's an image from her website for her new book:


After Megan, we got to hear from Simon and Schuster's Library Marketing/Editorial team about a bunch of interesting upcoming titles for the Winter and Summer seasons.  I was really excited to hear from Caitlyn Dloughy, the Editorial Director for the Atheneum imprint and editor for William Joyce!  She spoke about Joyce's new books that are coming out about the mythology behind characters from the childhood imagination like Jack Frost, Santa Claus, the Sandman, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.  It was so cool because we had just been talking about these books and specifically the movie in my Fairy Tale class!  They sound and look awesome, as does the film's trailer which we got a sneak peek of and I just LOVE Joyce's illustrations!

(Really enjoyed meeting Jen from Larkin's Book Bloggers and Liz from the new blog Pen & Oink)

During our about two hour lunch break I scrambled around trying to find a few things I needed to get, and ended up sort of skipping lunch, snacking on some Justin's chocolate hazelnut butter as I walked past MoMA, and made my way a bit tiredly to Harper Collins, once again early. 



But when we got to our floor, we were greeted by the friendly Molly Thomas, and my rainy, gloomy tired feeling slowly lifted as we all entered a wonderful conference room with more waiting for us and the chance to hear from all the wonderful children's/YA imprint editors at Harper!:


There were so, so, so many great books to hear about coming from the various imprints at Harper Collins!  I'm hoping to in the near future put up a list of the books that I'm most excited about from Harper Collins, once cover images are more readily available on the internet!  The one that sticks out that I'm definitely excited for is Maryrose Wood's fourth installment for the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series!!

(Enjoyed meeting Charlotte from Charlotte's Library, Sheila from Wands and Worlds and you can find her here on RebelMouse, Sondra from Sonder Books, Liz from A Chair, a Fireplace & A Tea Cozy, Kelly from Stacked, and I can't remember your name :/ but I loved talking to you, you're right next to Kelly in this picture so if you're reading this please comment below because I wanted to check out your blog :) And I know you were helping with non-fiction picture books for Cybils I believe but I can't remember your name! :/ )

A few hours after the publisher previews were through, which as you can probably sense went WONDERFULLY thanks to Monica Edinger's careful planning, almost 60 of us met up at IchiUmi, a Japanese buffet, to have dinner and hear from Newberry winner and just one of the nicest people I've ever met, Grace Lin.  Here she is with her beyond cute baby girl:


Grace Lin gave a wonderful talk during dinner tying in her life story with the work she's doing now as an author/illustrator.  I had never heard about her background but it was so interesting to hear about how she grew up and her development into the artist she is today.  I related so, so, so much to her, especially when she spoke about how at one point in art school she came to realize that up until that point she had been so busy trying to be this "technically" good artist, copying the great masters, worrying and trying to prove what a great artist she was, and she realized that she hadn't developed a style that was her own, something that only she could create.  She spoke about how she moved beyond this and came to the work she does today along with the influence that fairy tales, both Western ones like those illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman and retold by the Brothers Grimm and Chinese fairy tales had on her.

 In case you can't see the image she has on the screen in this photo, here it is below, this is literally one of my favorite pages from any picture book, and it just added to my sense of completely relating to Grace Lin's talk!:


I can't wait to read her books now, especially after hearing the huge influence fairy tales had on them (because if you can believe this I haven't read any of her books!!)

I know there won't be any way for me to remember everyone, but I so enjoyed spending time with all of you at dinner that night!  Loved getting to talk with Monica and Betsy, illustrator Melanie Hope Greenberg, and the blogger from Storied Cities and What Do We Do All Day? and I feel really silly because I can't remember your name!! Sorry!  And I also really enjoyed meeting and talking with author Geoff Rodkey, whose new series, starting with the book titled Deadweather and Sunrise , I'm really looking forward to finding and reading!  Rick Riordan describes it in the following way, and it just sounds awesome: "A great book...Lemony Snicket meets Pirates of the Caribbean with a sprinkling of Tom Sawyer..."

Really, really delicious sushi from IchUmi, I definitely recommend it if you're ever looking for a variety of sushi and Japanese food in NYC:

So, that's it for Part 1, Friday PreCon at KidLitCon 2012!  Thank you so much to Betsy Bird and Monica Edinger for all the work and planning that went into this weekend.  Please stay tuned for KidLitCon through Images Part 2: Saturday Con!!

Oh, and here's the first images of my KidLitCon loot :)  I ended up trading and not taking all of these home with me, since they sort of didn't fit in my luggage, but here's the original piles, not including picture books! :




14 comments:

  1. OMG how coooooooooooooooooooooooooool. Thank you so much for the recap and pictures. That was a real treat.

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    1. So glad you enjoyed it Juju!! It was a great weekend and I'm so glad I ended up going :) I'll be posting part 2 soon and also a post on my presentation later this week!

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  2. What a big pile of books, what a great summary and what a pleasure to meet you in person!

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    1. I know, I had to whittle it down a bit in order to get back home haha

      It was so wonderful to meet you as well! I wish we could have talked more!

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  3. What a great recap of a wonderful KidLitCon2012. I was at Holiday House instead of Simon & Schuster, so it was nice to see what went on at a different publisher.

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    1. Thanks! Glad it was helpful :)

      I'm really glad I found your blog, I heard it mentioned at one point over the weekend and wanted to find it because I'm really interested in children's books about WWII as well! Looking forward to reading your posts :)

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  4. So great meeting you and I'm really bummed I missed your presentation (I heard so many good things)!

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    1. It was wonderful to meet you too!! Aw thanks :) I'll be posting my prezi, videos and images from my talk soon. I saw yours, since I had to miss your talk too (!) and it was really interesting!

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  5. Thanks for the play by play - with photos! Have always wished I could attend one of these...
    - AZ

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    1. You're welcome! This was my first time and it was wonderful :) Hope you can make it soon!

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  6. Lovely lovely to see the pics and hear more about kidlitcon

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    1. I'm glad you enjoyed the post :) It was a great weekend!

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  7. Success! I've snuck into yet another KidLitCon post! I really enjoyed hearing Meghan McCarthy speak as well as Grace Lin. It was neat hearing about the process Meghan went through to create her book. Nonfiction picture book authors must see the world differently than the rest of us -- always looking for inspiration.

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    1. Haha, are you in one of my pictures? Which one, the third one? I couldn't remember your name so I didn't put a link to you in there! :(

      And I totally agree about non fiction writers! It sort of reminds me, although even more creative, but it reminds me at least of how I feel when I'm picking a project to do research on and finding all the pieces of the story to create a critical paper/project :)

      And by the way, LOVE your blog!!

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