Congratulations – with a Nod to Cats on Wednesday

Today I am happy to announce the winner of our drawing for a copy of Mara Price’s new book, Grandma’s Chocolate. I decided to use a cat pitcher instead of a hat, in honor of my usual Cats on Wednesday post.

Thanks to all the visitors and commenters who stopped by on Mara's Virtual Book Tour.

And congratulations to Sarah Wones Tomp. Sarah, please send your mailing address and your book will be sent to you!

Blog Tour Finale -- Laura Lacamara's Floating on Mama's Song

I have very much enjoyed being part of Laura Lacámara’s virtual book tour this week! Laura is guest blogging again today, the last day of the tour, to announce the winner of a copy of her delightful book, Floating on Mama’s Song.

Thank you Diane, Megan, Tina and René for the wonderful job you each did hosting and conducting the Blog Tour interviews. Many thanks, also, to my fellow interviewees, Katherine Tegen and Yuyi Morales, for your heartfelt responses. It’s been more fun and enlightening than I could have anticipated.


Thanks to everyone who visited and posted comments.  Now (drum roll, please) announcing the official winner of the book giveaway contest:

Janelle, a/k/a “Brimful Curiosities,” gets a copy of Floating on Mama’s Song.

 
Be on the lookout for my next picture book release, The Runaway Piggy (Illustrated by Laura Lacámara, written by James Luna), to be published by Piñata Books on November 30, 2010!

If you missed any of the earlier tour stops, here are links to the host sites:

Monday, Aug. 30 - Floating on Mama's Song synopsis, reviews
Out of the Paintbox - Diane Browning

Tuesday, Aug. 31- Laura Lacámara (author) interview
On Beyond Words & Pictures - Megan Frances

Wednesday, Sept. 1- Katherine Tegen (editor) interview -- Publication day!
Tales from the Rushmore Kid - Tina Nichols Coury

Thursday, Sept. 2 - Yuyi Morales (illustrator) interview
Latin Baby Book Club - René Colato Lainez

Blog Tour -- Laura Lacamara's Floating on Mama's Song

Laura Lacámara and I are members of the fabulous SCBWI Westside Illustrators Schmooze. (Yes, my friend is multi-talented – an author AND an illustrator!) Last autumn we both spoke on an SCBWI panel, about what then seemed to be the far-off release of our first picture books – which we each wrote for, and dedicated to, our mothers. On Wednesday Laura’s first book, Floating on Mama’s Song – “a lyrical, uplifting tale” and “a magical celebration of family, music, and happiness” illustrated with the “stunning art” of Yuyi Morales – will be released by Harper Collins. I’m so pleased to be kicking off Laura and Yuyi’s virtual book tour!

Laura is guest blogging today, with information about her tour:

“Thank you for visiting my blog tour for Floating on Mama’s Song, and I hope you will come visit my website. The tour continues all this week. Friday please come back here to Diane’s site and I will announce the winner of a copy of Floating on Mama’s Song. Everyone who posts a comment here or on the tour stops listed below will be entered in the drawing. Good luck!

Tuesday Megan Frances (On Beyond Words and Pictures) will interview me. Megan asked to interview me months ago, before the idea of the blog tour. Thank you, Megan!

Wednesday Tina Nichols Coury (Tales from the Rushmore Kid) will be interviewing my editor at Harper Collins, Katherine Tegen. Tina created the beautiful tour banners – thank you, Tina!

Thursday René Colato Laínez (Latin Baby Book Club) will have an interview with the co-creator of Floating on Mama’s Song, illustrator Yuyi Morales.

Friday I announce the book drawing winner, here again at Out of the Paintbox.”

Thank you Laura. And here’s a preview of your lovely book, for those who will have to wait until Wednesday to buy one. Floating on Mama’s Song is a bilingual book, written in both English and Spanish, with both languages sharing each page. What a great way to learn a language!

Floating on Mama’s Song is the story of Anita, whose Mama loves to sing. She sings such beautiful, happy songs that one day something magical happens. Everyone who hears her music floats high above the ground. But then Mama stops singing. Can Anita find a way to bring back happy times and magical moments for her family?

In addition to being a Junior Library Guild children’s book selection for Fall 2010, Floating on Mama’s Song is getting great reviews:

Booklist praises it as a folklorish collaboration between Laura’s smooth-flowing story and the glowing colors of Yuyi’s illustrations.

Kirkus says “Together author and illustrator offer a story filled with whimsy and humor about the power of voice and family.”

Library Journal declares “a stirring Caribbean tale…..both the English and Spanish versions of the story are fun and easy to read.”

Remember, tomorrow the tour will be hosted (and Laura will be interviewed) by Megan Frances on her blog On Beyond Words and Pictures.

Signed, Abiah Rose Blog Tour Winner -- and a Birthday Salute!

I'm happy to announce the winner of a signed copy of my just-released book, Signed, Abiah Rose.  The commenters' names all went into a hat and the name pulled out was......illustrator Carolyn Le!  Thank you so much for visiting and for your lovely comments, Carolyn.

And much appreciation to everyone for contributing to the blog tour -- it was a fun 'trip.'

Today is Flag Day, which for years I celebrated as the birthday of my Siamese cat, Scout, named after the heroine in To Kill a Mockingbird.  My Scout was an extremely excellent cat, and much loved.  She lived to the ripe old age of 20, and is still greatly missed.  I painted her portrait in her heyday.  I'm posting it here in her honor.  Happy Flag Day!

Signed, Abiah Rose Blog Tour -- and a Big Thank You!

Well, the tour is actually over…. I’m sorry about the tantalizing ‘to be announced’ and ‘mystery guest’ – technical difficulties prevented inclusion of the finale tour stop. We’ll do it next time!

Being a new author/illustrator and new (non-technical) blogger is such a learning curve! There are so many things to take in, so many things to try, so many rules to bend and break-at-your-peril. Being inexperienced made this a very intense week, with little sleep and lots of attention to lots of details. And lots of nice feedback, and supportive friends and hoping the rough edges don’t show. Or at least don’t stand out. And while the tour was beset with glitches, near disasters and actual mistakes (how did comments get turned off yesterday?!?), I’ve had fun, and learned a lot, and (virtually) met some very nice people!

Thank you all for touring with me! Thank you, Abigail Samoun, for making Abiah a book!  And thank you Tina, Megan and Mary for being such great tour hostesses!

Catherine Linka, hostess extraordinaire of Writer to Writer, has written a review of Signed, Abiah Rose. As her post is flattering to me, it would be unseemly for me to recommend it – so I won’t look while you click over to her blog, Write Minded …….. 

No wait a minute!  Don't forget to check back Monday for the name-from-a-hat drawing for an autographed copy of Signed, Abiah Rose!

Signed, Abiah Rose Blog Tour -- and Confessions of an Illustrator

At this year’s SCBWI Writers Day Mary Peterson and I sat together in Nancy Sanders’ workshop and learned how blog tours work -- so now I’m very pleased Mary is hosting today’s tour stop. She’s interviewing Signed, Abiah Rose’s illustrator (me, again) at her blog A Beautiful Fish.


Doing the illustrations for Abiah was both fun and frightening. I couldn’t wait to get started. I could do this … even though there were so many paintings at once, and that deadline looming. I figured out how many to do a week, and paired up the simple ones with the complex. Finishing them and stacking them up gave me a wonderful sense of accomplishment, but where did the time go? Dozens of cups of green tea and boxes of crackers (caffeine and nervous food) and I was nearing the deadline. I have to admit I begged for a bit more time, and thankfully got it.

“Wait! Wait! Just a bit more detail over there”, and “I’m not quite happy with those trees,” I lamented, as my sister (tech support, psychiatrist and mail courier) grabbed illustrations from me and rushed to FedEx, while I kept painting on the next batch. I finished them! All of them. Off to the publishing house! But my perfectionist-self continued to suffer and agonize that I didn’t have just one more day (or two) to keep painting. Wasn’t there time for do-overs? You mean you like them?

I was never ‘through’ with the illustrations – even today I’d like to make changes. Well one thing, or maybe two, or three, or…..


Friday, if technical problems allow, the tour will include a (for now) mystery guest!

If you're just now joining the tour, prior stops include Tina Nichols Coury's Tales From the Rushmore Kid and Megan Frances' On Beyond Words and Pictures.

Don't forget to leave a comment at any of the tour stops -- you might win a signed copy of my book!

Signed, Abiah Rose Blog Tour -- and I Hit the Editor Jackpot!

My good friend and fellow Schmooze-group member, Megan Frances, is interviewing the editor for Signed, Abiah Rose today on her site, On Beyond Words and Pictures.

Like most first-time writers I believe I approached working with an editor with a combination of positive emotions and a little trepidation. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much trepidation, perhaps because I had briefly met my editor, Tricycle’s Abigail Samoun, and attended two of her workshops at the SCBWI Summer Conference.

As it turned out, working with Abigail was very comfortable. During the editing process she asked thought-provoking, probing questions. These caused me to delve deeper into my own story. Sometimes they challenged me to know ‘why’, or ‘where’ or ‘when,’ not necessarily to change it, but to be sure it was authentic and true. And surprisingly we didn’t, after all, shorten the story; sometimes I felt it was surely getting longer, and definitely getting better. Thanks to Abigail the manuscript became a richer, more polished story.

I’ve heard that editing isn’t what it once was, but I have to believe Abigail is an editor of the old-fashioned kind, in the best possible sense of the word.

Remember, comments posted here and on the other blogs on the tour make you eligible for a signed copy of the book!

Tuesday, June 8
Interview with Signed, Abiah Rose author - me!
Tina Nichols Coury
Tales from the Rushmore Kid

Wednesday, June 9
Interview with Tricycle Editor, Abigail Samoun
Megan Frances
On Beyond Words and Pictures

Thursday, June 10
Interview with Signed, Abiah Rose illustrator - me!
Mary Peterson
A Beautiful Fish

Friday, June 11
To be Announced!

Signed, Abiah Rose Blog Tour -- and the Perils of Writing and Illustrating

The blog tour is hosted today by Tina Nichols Coury on her site Tales from the Rushmore Kid.  I’m honored she agreed to kick off my blog tour.  Tina’s interviewing the writer half of me, which brings to mind some thoughts I had while working on my picture book.

At SCBWI workshops I have often heard advice about the roles of authors and illustrators and how to not get in each other’s way. These tips apparently apply even if the author and illustrator are the same person.  In my case the two kept ignoring each other in their desire to get their own way. My dummy was full of examples of this. Who were all those children who kept popping up?  The manuscript only mentioned four.  Artist-me wanted to include a baby. Writer-me insisted on including a wagon (several, actually). Wagon wheels are no fun. Writer-me tried to include a Native American that illustrator-me couldn’t find period-appropriate costumes for. Not in detail. Both of me really got annoyed, but we have declared a truce, and we’ve promised to consult each other more next time.

By the way, the author of this book failed to anticipate the confusion resulting from 1) predictable mis-pronunciation of the title character’s name and 2) the reading of the title.

1. Abiah is a Biblical name, and is pronounced uh-bye’-uh.
2. When reading the book title out loud, it goes Signed (pause) uh-bye’-uh Rose. Without the pause, it too often sounds like Signed by a Rose…….which, unfortunately, could also be the title. (Read the book – you’ll see.) Writers. They don’t think things through.

Remember, comments posted here and on the other blogs on the tour make you eligible for a signed copy of the book!

Tuesday, June 8
Interview with Signed, Abiah Rose author - me!
Tina Nichols Coury
Tales from the Rushmore Kid

Wednesday, June 9
Interview with Tricycle Editor, Abigail Samoun
Megan Frances
On Beyond Words and Pictures

Thursday, June 10
Interview with Signed, Abiah Rose illustrator - me!
Mary Peterson
A Beautiful Fish

Friday, June 11
To be Announced!

Signed, Abiah Rose Goes on Tour -- And a Box of Books

So it’s time to kick off Signed, Abiah Rose’s virtual book tour. Here again is the schedule for this week. And don’t forget that leaving a comment on any of the host sites (including this one) makes you eligible for the drawing for a signed copy of the book. Hope you’ll come with us on tour….. Tomorrow Tina Nichols Coury will be interviewing me as the author of Abiah, which will then be available in bookstores!

Monday, June 7      Here at Out of the Paintbox

Tuesday, June 8     Tina Nichols Coury's Tales from the Rushmore Kid

Wednesday, June 9  Megan Frances' On Beyond Words and Pictures

Thursday, June 10    Mary Peterson's A Beautiful Fish 

Friday, June 11       To be Announced!

Today I’m following the lead of blogger Catherine Ryan Howard.  She has a post called ‘Things you Can Do When a Box of Your Books Arrives’ which made me laugh out loud.  Catherine was right on the mark about first-time-author instincts when your first books arrive in the mail -- I just got mine from Tricycle.  Thank you, Catherine!   I’m doing what you suggested!

This is amazing!

Just LOOK!

What fun!  My book is rubbing shoulders with Melissa Sweet and Lisbeth Zwerger!

Check out Catherine’s blog (Catherine, Caffeinated).  She has LOTS of helpful tips on her site.

And don't forget to come on tour!

Signed, Abiah Rose Goes on Tour Next Week!

Monday I will be kicking off a virtual book tour for my previously (and often) mentioned first picture book, Signed, Abiah Rose. Because……. Tuesday is the day!  It will be officially ‘out’!

I am very pleased to have official stops on the tour at the blogs of Tina Nichols Coury, Megan Frances Abrahams and Mary Peterson, who will variously be interviewing the author, editor and illustrator of Signed, Abiah Rose.  And there will be an opportunity to win a signed copy of the book, which will be awarded to a randomly-selected (names in a hat) commenter on any of the following sites:

Monday, June 7       Here at Out of the Paintbox

Tuesday, June 8      Tina Nichols Coury's Tales from the Rushmore Kid

Wednesday, June 9  Megan Frances' On Beyond Words and Pictures

Thursday, June 10    Mary Peterson's A Beautiful Fish

Friday, June 11       To be Announced!

Stop by Monday, when I will unveil my box of books – you’ll have to wait till Tuesday to get one in a store!