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a ceiling in Fes, Morocco |
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welcome to the archives...
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March 10, 2003
I just returned from a week in Boise, Idaho schools. I visited ten schools--in all parts of the city--and was impressed with the teachers' and administrators' commitment, energy and caring. Struggling for funding--as are all schools, nationwide--the educators in Boise are finding ways to awaken kids to learning, to life, to their futures. Thanks, Boise!! I really had a wonderful time.
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March 25th, Utah
REALLY enjoyed myself in Utah last week at Utah Valley State College in Orem UT. The Forum on Children and Literature is a co-effort of the college and SCBWI--and it was one of the best run conferences I have ever attended. It was great fun. Thanks to everyone who contributed to making the event such a wonderful experience.
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April 7th Barcelona Hills Elementary, CA
I really enjoyed my day at Barcelona Hills Elementary here in CA. The students were wonderful--we had a great time talking about how kids lives have changed over the past 300 years--and how they haven't changed at all. Thanks to everyone for making my day there very special.
April 9th, St. Francis de Sales School
Days just don't get any better than this one. The school, the staff, and most especially, the students, were incredible. Everyone was so kind and so thoughtful...I floated through the day. The questions raised by students were among the best I have ever heard. Even lunch was amazing...incredibly involved parents and staff--I had truly wonderful time.
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April 27-28 Los Angeles Times Book Fair, UCLA campus, LA CA.
I
I ove this event. Every year, tens of thousands of people come to a beautiful place to celebrate the written word. It is so successful that they are going to add a special children's-books event to be held in the summertime. This year BIG GUY BOOKS sold hundreds of books to people who kept saying, "I've never seen anything like these!" Our illustrations are produced like movies--storyboarded, cast, shot, and then the digital magic begins... Kids raised on video images relate to them instantly--and want to read them. It's so much fun to watch children's faces light up, to watch them turn the pages... It really is Stealth Literacy TM ....
BIG GUY BOOKS
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MAY 4,5,6,7
I left TN wishing I could stay longer. But I had to get to Orlando FL for the International Reading Association's national conference--as always, it was a well organized and wonderful event. I was happy to meet many teachers who are using THE UNICORN'S SECRET series in their reading programs. I can't tell you what it means to me to hear that the books are the "keystone" for so many 2-3rd grade readers--the first books they have *insisted* on reading!!!
I am dismayed to hear so many educators sounding discouraged and exhausted from dealing with unprecedented budget cuts, both state and federal. Educated adults can think for themselves and run their own lives--and their country--well. Education is the foundation of freedom. Please, let's all speak out locally and nationally, write letters, get involved. No child left behind is a great slogan and the programs should live up to it. If they aren't working that way where you live, please make your voices heard. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you.
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May 1,2,3...
I had a wonderful time in beautiful Maryville TN (Knoxville area). My great grandparents lived near this lovely little town and so I got to meet relatives I have never had the joy of meeting before. Blount County has built itself a library that any city (of any size) can envy. Bringing in the best of both library and community center design, they have created a wonderful community treasure!!
I visited a middle school and an elementary and am here to tell you the kids in Maryville are bright, polite, and great company. I had a terrific time and hope to return soon!!
PS..there was a grand, flash-and-boom thunderstorm, the kind of sky-splitter we NEVER get out here in southern CA...I used to be scared of lightning and thunder and still am a little...when I was about nine I was in a flooded field when Lightning struck a tree not fae from me. It knocked me down--a weird, invisible battering-ram feeling. But this storm was so beautiful that it reminded me of my childhood home in Colorado and I loved it.
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May 28-June 1...
Just returned from BEA 03. As always, Book Expo America was wonderful. I got to meet a few of my book-heroes and had a wonderful time signing and working in the Big Guy Books booth. BGB continues to be an adventure and a great ride. The books are flashy-cool and color-soaked and every single page looks like a still-shot from a special effects movie. We are aiming at the video generation and hoping to lure kids back to reading with our serial time-adventure/mystery. So far, it is working. Our fan mail and boys' reactions to the books is thrilling.
Three well-credentialed (and any number of hopeful) movie producers asked about
THE UNICORN'S SECRET series (from Aladdin Books:)
I have hopes that someone who can see the heart of the series will take serious interest..not every book is movie-adaptable, I know. These would make the leap to visual art very well, I think.
BEA was so much fun! Acres of books! What could be better?
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June 23
I am writing, writing. I just finished the first of four books in the first set of HOOFBEATS books. Ahhh...I really like the way it came out. It's the kind of horse story I would have loved as a girl, and the wonderful thing is that there will be three more books in the set. I will be able to develop the kind of friendship between the girl and the horse that I so treasured with my own horses.
I am also working on a YA fantasy trilogy and the dark, edgy stuff is a nice way to wake up every morning. This idea began as a 300 page fizzle over fifteen years ago--a story too complex and too intricate for my skill level back then. It is now going directions I hadn't seen, getting deeper and deeper. I have great hopes for this trilogy.
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June 25th
Just a note to say that foggy mornings are a gift. There is something incredible about the sun sifting its way through a fog, so that the day begins silent, soft and subtle without the explosion of a sunrise...this foggy morning is so beautiful that I am putting it into the first scene of the third Hoofbeats book. A foggy morning in Independence, MO, the dust rising under hundreds of hooves as people wait to begin their journey west.
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| Rosie, looking guilty. |
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June 30, 2003
Rosie, the puppy in my life, has had a very busy morning.
While I was writing...
She tiptoed into my office...
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July 12. 03
Some writers keep several books going at once. I do, and it creates an odd kind of existence. I am now spending early mornings in a place where magic is degraded, an ugly con game. Afternoons and evenings are spent in 1847 Missouri with horses, oxen, and the sound of iron cladding on wooden wheels grating westward over a trail that is really a thousand trails. One or two late nights each week I am agonizing over the misery of a boy who lives within a dome in a manufactured culture that has no reference point, no awareness that anything else exists or has ever existed.
Once in a while, when I am gardening or on a plane or doing something besides writing that allows my thoughts to drift...I find myself worrying about how upset one character will be when she finds out about another being hurt--
--and then I realize they are in separate books.
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July 20, 2003
Just back from Comic-Con.
It's a fun and interesting four days in San Diego--a huge convention hall of amazing art, superheroes and terrific t-shirt slogans. My favorite this year: Living the Vida Nerda
Stan Lee, the creator of the Spider-Man and X-Men characters (and so many more!) was kind enough to stop by the Big Guy Books booth and give us a quick grin as he leafed through our newest release: X-MEN, Ultimate Picture Book. Almost everyone who sees the innovative Big Guy Books versions of Stan's beloved stories and characters loves them, but Stan's continued enthusiasm and praise mean a great deal to us.
His reaction to the new book:
“It’s not only terrific—it’s indescribably terrific!!!!”
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July 30th 03
It looks like I will be attending the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association, Upper Midwest Booksellers Association, and the North East Booksellers Association conventions in October.
I can't wait to meet more booksellers. I have a theory about people who own indie bookstores. It is too complex to lay out here in the blog, but it boils down to this: Civilization depends on you people--as does, not coincidentally--my career.
So contact me at
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
for any reason. I would LOVE to do signings while in your area, visit schools, libraries, buy you lunch, whatever...
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| Art copyright, Omar Rayyan 2003 |
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August 3 2003
Just got to see the interior art for the eighth title in The Unicorn's Secret. Omar Rayyan continues to amaze me.
Visit http://www.theunicornssecret.com
to see more.
For more blog entries: more blog!
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August 19, 2003
Just back from SCBWI's international summer conference. It was wonderful. It is always wonderful. SCBWI is an organization created to nurture and educate writers and illustrators of children's books. I go to one of their international conferences nearly ever year--they have two. One is in LA, CA in the summer. The other is in NYC in the winter. If you are serious about writing for children, and would like to save yourself five to ten years of wandering alone in the wilderness, visit http://www.scbwi.org
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August 19, 2003
I came home from SCBWI to find a postcard from PAGES, one of the best bookstores in the land. Darlene Daniel has decided to begin a new chapter in her life--one full of family and other pursuits. She is closing her lovely store. It will be missed and she will be missed. Every author who signed books in her store felt treasured, renewed and re-inspired. Darlene and her incredible staff guided thousands of parents and grandparents to books that opened the world for young readers. Children visiting the store were introduced to the magic of story, the joy of reading.
Waaaah! I hate it when wonderful stores close. But I certainly understand the wish to free energy and time for family and other pursuits. Pages and all who made it wonderful will be missed. My warmest good wishes to Darlene, her family, and her staff.
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| Copyright, Omar Rayyan 2003 |
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August 26, 2003
I began to go through the file of email fanmail I have received on this little 8-book saga, thinking that I would print some out to show the movie folks. I have been telling people for almost 2 years that the emails stream in, 3-5 a day, but somehow, I never did the math. Tonight, I counted them. There are almost 2500.
Some are written by children who have mastered strange fonts and flashy email formats. Some are a few lines, full of six-year-old spelling. Some are from kids in their teens, telling me they read all eight books in two days and asking when my YA fantasy is coming. Some of them are from parents and grandparents telling me my books made a child they love into an enthusiastic reader. All are wonderful.
I am not sure if people realize what an odd job writers have, sitting alone, lost in our own minds for months at a time...but letters from people who love the work are a precious anchor, a very meaningful gift.
I have answered most of these letters and continue on through the file, answering...but I would like to thank you all here, too.
Thank you so much.
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October 6, 2003
I am traveling to meet booksellers this month. The Mountains and Plains Booksellers convention in Denver was a special treat for me. I grew up south of Denver and don't get back as often as I would like. It was a beautiful weekend with perfect weather, changing leaves and books, books, books!! Thanks to everyone who stopped to see the newest title--Patch. These books are something wildly different in the world of children's reading. Pirates, a cannon battle, caves, mysteries--and illustrations that look like stills from a special effects movie--does it get any better for boys 5-10?
Thanks to everyone who owns an independent bookstore and sells civilization, humanity, and hope to their friends and neighbors. If there is a bookshop near you with its owner on the premises, go in and see what you have been missing at McBooks.
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October 20, 2003
I so enjoyed my visit to UMBA's convention. The Upper Midwest Booksellers Association is full of dedicated booksellers, and like all booksellers, they are a smart, interesting batch of people. The reception for the Time Soldiers series was, as always, wonderful. Big Guy Books is beginning to bloom, nationwide, and I am thrilled. We would love to be the comic books of the new millennia--we would love to help a generation of visual-learners, challenged readers, ADHD kids and that vast population of boys who are entranced with video games become lifelong readers. The best moment of the show was the boy who took a book from my hands and sat down in the aisle to read it. His mother watched, astonished, explaining to me that he doesn't read. I *love* that.
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November 1, 2003
I had a wonderful time at AASL in Kansas City. I met so many school librarians!! If there is a more committed, energetic, bright-light group of people in the world, I have yet to find them. Thanks to all who came by to tell me that The Unicorn's Secret has done well with your students. *Nothing* makes me happier than that. Thanks for your exuberant response to the Time Soldiers series, too.
NEBA was in Providence RI this year. I had never been there. I danced my way through the bright fall leaves (southern Californians are autumn deficient).
Thanks to all the booksellers who listened to me talk about the Time Soldiers series: Big Guy Books Teachers and librarians get it instantly--they know we are in our second generation of video-drenched kids and see the potential of this book-video hybrid to bring kids to reading. Booksellers are more cautious. These don't look like traditional books, I know. But kids' reactions convince me that a reality-look graphic novel for middle graders will be a hit for most boys--and for some--will be the doorway into reading.
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November 28, 2003,
Thanksgiving Day was beautiful, about 75 degrees, wispy clouds, very blue skies. This year's pear harvest is in bowls in the kitchen--not yet even mellowed to amber--and the pear tree, confused as always by California weather, is in full bloom again. The persimmons and pomegranates are coming ripe, the last of the sapotes are on the ground. Oranges are a month or more off this year. We are planting, planting....cycads, palms, birds of paradise. Some of the palms are from seed gathered in napkins, pushed into purse or pocket from travels here and there...wherever I saw an interesting tree with seeds I could reach or ground-gather. I scattered poppy and coreopsis seeds and hope to have a spring meadow of blooms. May wildflowers grace your fields, wherever you are.
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December 5, 2003
I spent part of the day planting irises. Gardens are full of memories for me. My mother and my grandmothers all had iris beds--so did many of the women who came west in covered wagons--which is what prompted me to begin mine this year. The first Hoofbeats books are set in 1847 and I came across mentions of iris roots in several journals as I researched the journey. Women packed the roots in tins, in flour sacks, in trunks and satchels and they made it to Kansas, to Colorado and Oregon. The roots can dry out and shrivel and still manage to revive and grow when tucked back into warm soil. I bought bronzes and blues and copper-pinks. I should have planted them two months ago, but thought I would take the chance. I know how tough they are, how many women they helped turn bleak land into a home.
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| art copyright, Omar Rayyan 2003 |
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Feb 10 2004
My week in Houston area schools was absolutely wonderful, perfectly organized, so well thought out by my hosts.
Thanks to you all for making me so welcome! I met so many committed and passionate librarians and educators--and so many wonderful kids. I had such a good time and, as always, was reminded why writing children's books is the best job in the world. I am so fortunate and so grateful. Thank you.
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May 4th
Just finished the first book of Larach and the Silver Mare, the second set of four Hoofbeats books. It is set in early Medieval Ireland and the research has been slow....and fascinating. I love the way the first book has turned out. Larach, the nine year old daughter of her family's king, simply came alive for me the first time she spoke on the paper. It is such an interesting experience for a writer when it happens this way. I have begun the second book and I can't wait to listen to Larach tell me more of her incredible story. She is in terrible danger, just now, but is keeping her wits and her hope and faith--and is determined to keep any harm from coming to the foal.
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