When Things Don't Go Your Way, Go Theirs

ALA 2008. What an exhibit booth might look like.

In the publishing game there are these things called 'exhibits.' These are places that a fraction of the publishing company's staff go to in order to display the company's books and discuss services, exchange ideas, share knowledge, and learn from the folks on the frontline who are putting said books into the hands of little children who will then read them. Exhibits are good. They are fun and, on the surface, easy.

But we all know that something nefarious lurks beneath the surface. Something there is that does not like order and organization. Chaos, I guess. A quieter sort of chaos, however. One more like a sunburn than a fever. Makes it hard to sleep, but a little aloe vera and you will soon find comfort enough. Maybe an aspirin.

This year is Charlesbridge's 20th anniversary. So, we created a banner of such beauty and whimsy (Possible? Yes.) to hang in our booths at exhibits such as IRA, BEA, and ALA. It's easy:

Step 1: Create a banner. (Enter chaos at a slow burn . . . "Here is what I've created for your exhibits." "Change it." "Oy, can it be less expensive. It is a recession, you know." "How about this?" "Uh . . . getting there." "Now?" "Ah, it's whimsy is a thing of beauty.")

Step 2: Ship it. (Time to apply a liiiiittle sunscreen. Theoretically, you fill out the shipping papers, box up your stuff, and give it to someone who puts boxes on a truck, takes them to where you've told them to take them, removes the boxes at the final destination, and goes away. Voila! Shipping defined. However . . .)

Step 3: Hang your banner! (And here is where your skin starts to really blister. Hang 'em if you got 'em, sucka!)

Step 3 is where we got hung up (or not, as the case may be) this year at ALA. We had a slight snag with Step 2 after BEA when our shipment came home sans banner. It did show up some time later, and just in time to make it into the ALA shipment with hours to spare. Ah, the hectic fast paced, but certainly glamorous (no one's complaining), life of the exhibit planner.

All's well? You wish. I do, anyway. How could it go wrong, I pondered. Banner with shipment on skid encased in shrinkwrap. All those boxes are now as one. Nothing nor nobody can tear them asunder.

You naive, simple-minded, oh-too-trusting exhibit planner. Ha, ha, ha. That banner is not going to ALA. You'll never know where it went. Did it even make it to Chicago? God in His Heaven only knows.

BUT! Here is where the aloe vera comes in. No banner? Not the end of the world (but all you ALA attendees were deprived of the sweetest booth banner this side of the Pecos). No banner, but you gotta do something. So, lovely, talented Meg Bencivenni--School and Library Marketing at Charlesbridge--fashioned the loveliest and most talented booth banner in the WHOLE WORLD! One co-worker dubbed her Meg-gyver for using her wits when the pressure was on. With just some tape and a few zillion catalog covers, Meg made do. (See Meg reading about the perfect fairy tale exhibit booth?)

AND, here's where the aspirin comes in: the lovely and sympathetic Elizabeth Bird, blogger Fuse #8, saw fit to recognize the ingenuity of an exhibitor without a banner by declaring Charlesbridge the winner of the Best Last Minute Banner Because the Real One Didn't Get Delivered Award (Scroll down just past Neil Gaiman and just before the Storm Troopers).

From Fuse #8. Meg's clever interpretation of a booth banner,
called "Booth Banner For Banished Banner"

If you are interested (if you're still here), this is what the banner is supposed to look like:

Now close your eyes and imagine it ten feet wide and with Meg proudly standing in front of it.

Now my tale of woe is ended. To quote Bob Dylan, "Nothing was delivered/And I tell this truth to you/Not out of spite or anger/But simply because it's true."

Posted by Donna, hapless exhibit planner.

BEA: An Editor's Recap

The hustle and bustle of BEA stood out in dramatic contrast to the quietude of IRA. The convention floors were jam-packed; it was challenging to move up and down the aisles on Friday, especially upstairs with the adult publishers.

FRIDAY
My first appointment was a no-show. My next appointment: also a no-show.
Sigh--that's BEA for ya. But during that time I met an sales rep from a company that makes custom maps--could be a useful contact.

Rosemary Stimola (Dianna Aston's agent) stopped by, and we chatted for a while. I showed her Sue Rama's books, as I knew she'd love Sue's art.

Janet Ginsburg (Stewart Murphy's publicity person) also stopped by. We had a long talk about her other projects (she's a freelance journalist, has a few interesting websites going).

Next, Alyssa Pusey (Charlesbridge editor) and I met up for drinks with Kara LaReau, editor at Scholastic (formerly of Candlewick). Kara was the editor of BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE, among other fabulous books, and is a successful picture book author herself. We had a good schmooze session and caught a cab to the Copacabana for the ABC Dinner.

I caught up with various publishing friends during the cocktail hour. Ralph Masiello was our guest at the dinner table, and he was fantastic! He engaging and entertaining. He brought limited edition prints for them, walked around the table and talked and listened--really made the guests feel welcome, forging a personal connection they will remember for long time. Unlike so many personable authors, Ralph didn't make it all about him. He was a thoughtful and respectful "host." I hear we're trying to book him for NEIBA.

At dinner, I had a lovely chat with two of our guests, Ken and Mary Lou Manske from The Book Look in Stevens Point, WI. Kim (Courchesne) and I also had a chance to talk about marketing/editorial relations and various book projects; a fruitful discussion.

SATURDAY
This was an amazing day all around. Only three of the six guests showed up for the tour of the Museum of Natural History, alas (maybe they didn't realize that it was a small event?), but those of us who were there will not soon forget it. Darrin Lunde (pronounced LUN-dee) is a fascinating person, and OK, so he happens to look like Tom Cruise. A sane, two-feet-on-the-floor, taller, much more intelligent Tom Cruise. I learned a ton about the field of mammology, about the museum, and about being a curator. We saw several specimen vaults and the library stacks where they keep the field journals of the scientists on expedition (going back a hundred years!). The museum itself is an interesting piece of architecture, and Darrin knew all the back passageways and seemed to have an access key for everything. He wanted to work at the museum since he was a little boy, and his love of his job was truly inspiring to see. He's off to Gabon later this year to do more fieldwork. What a life.

I was really interested in how the Museum's work crosses so many
disciplines: lots of science, of course, but also anthropology, geography, and as Pat Wynne stressed in her portion of the talk--art. The dioramas of African animals in the first floor of the museum seemed ordinary until Pat explained how they were created and their historical significance; the room will be a named a historical landmark at some point, no doubt.

We saw elephant skulls and teeth, whale vertebrae, a crazy rodent with no face, and countless other treasures. My favorite stop on the tour was the room of the flesh-eating beetle (I'm so juvenile), used to strip the skulls and bones of specimens clean. The beetles are kept in sealed crates in a room with a strip of gooey sealant across the doorway so they don't get out.
The stench in the room was pretty impressive. Pretty darn cool.

After the tour, I met with Darrin for about an hour to discuss book projects. We focused his approach for his chapter book series and talked about what other animals could follow up MEERKAT and BUMBLEBEE BAT. He also had a neat idea about a stand-alone nature picture book. It was a dynamic discussion, and I was reminded again how important in-person meetings can be as far as developing ideas. It's much easier to "read" someone and figure out how to be most helpful. I really enjoy the challenge of facilitating creative expression, especially with an author like Darrin who has so many interesting stories to tell. And speaking of enjoyment, I also really enjoyed the huevos rancheros and margaritas that Darrin, Pat, and I had at the amazing Mexican restaurant across the street from the museum. Life as an editor has its perks.

Back at the booth, I met Ellen Kushner for the first time and had a fabulous conversation about her Interstitial Arts Foundation, which promotes books (and other art forms) that defy categorization. The organization is trying to raise consciousness for these kinds of books and generate discourse about them. In publishing, we know the challenge of getting a book out there when it doesn't neatly fall into categories ("But where do I shelve it?"). But many of today's innovative, interesting titles refuse to fit neatly into categories. Our own HONG KIL DONG comes to mind. I'll be percolating about this more in the months to come, but it strikes me that a panel discussion or workshop at an SCBWI might be a good place to start talking about the opportunities, and challenges, of these types of work. And let's not ignore books that incorporate other artistic media--i.e. a picture book about
dance: how does an artist capture motion and movement on a static page? How can a picture book capture the feeling of a piece of music? Art that connects to other modalities of artistic expression is only richer for it.
Though difficult to categorize and promote.

I also chatted with Deborah Kogan Ray, who seems very excited about her art for FLYING EAGLE. Looks like we'll make the due date! Deborah is quite well-connected and well-published, and it's always good to see her and check in on her work.

Then Alyssa and I were off to dinner with Harold Underdown and his family.
His daughter Simone (almost six) is absolutely adorable, and I used her shamelessly as a living laboratory; we read WIGGLE AND WAGGLE, JUSTINA ALBERTINA, and AGGIE AND BEN at the restaurant. Plus she taught me to tap dance and curtsy. In front of the entire patio. She's a great reader, and it was interesting to see how she approached the books. We editors always think we know a book inside and out by the time it gets published, but leave it to a kid to make us see it in a new way. The most touching moment of the evening was when Simone asked if I could take her to the potty instead of her mom. The ultimate compliment!

For me, Saturday encapsulated the work we editors do (uh, not the potty part, though). We seek out and develop writers, helping them tell the stories they are burning to tell (meeting with Darrin Lunde); we talk about books and what they mean, figuring out how to get the word out and make connections (discussion with Ellen Kushner); and we make books that teach kids to read and make sense of the world around them (Simone). I was getting chills, I tell ya!

And that's all she wrote.

Posted by Yolanda

Jenny goes to the Big Apple and the Big BEA

While it was Mary Ann’s 20^th BEA, it was my first. The remnant of a cramp in my left foot and a bag full of galleys and other freebies are the only reminders from an all too fleeting weekend in the Big Apple.

I got into the City late Friday night. My friend, Sean Crowley of Marshall Cavendish, was waiting for me at the Fung Wah – that’s right I took the Fung Wah – drop-off. After an even later dinner in Little Italy, we made the trek back to his apartment in the Bronx and to my surprise, it was nearly 2 AM.

I woke bright and early Saturday morning, excited to get to the convention center. I was eager to check out the scene myself because I heard so much about previous BEAs, and Sean filled me in on everything I missed on the first day. BEA turned out to be everything I expected and more. I didn’t have to work in the booth all day, so I was free to wander about as I so chose. I sat in on some sessions with new authors, looking for more good reads. I stopped by the Kane/Miller booth and chatted with Sondra, who I met at TLA. She handed me The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley, and said I had to read it. Now, I have to buy it. It’s a funny picture book that compares the lives of Riley the Rat and Norman the Human.

With the likes of Ken Burns, Alan Alda, Khaled Hosseini, and Alan Greenspan walking around, there was one face I didn't expect to see: Dog the Bounty Hunter. I was so surprised by his presence that I felt compelled to take a picture sure that no one would believe me. The one signing I considered standing in line for was Stephen Colbert’s. The line was far too long, so I did the next best thing. I took a picture of myself with his cardboard doppelganger. Look how excited we are to see each other, just like old friends.

I tried to avoid the Charlesbridge booth for fear of crowding it, but my efforts were futile. It was like fighting gravity. I met with Lisa Greening of Left Bank Books, who has done wonderful things for the literary community in St. Louis, Missouri, including coordinating the Big Read Festival. Donna Bateman, author of Deep in the Swamp, will be there this year.

By the end of the day, my feet were aching. I looked forward to the bus ride back to Boston and all the new books I had to read.