Archive for June, 2008

I spent Saturday and Sunday back in my hometown celebrating my mother’s retirement after 30 years as executive director of Mississippi Cultural Crossroads. We had an Open House in the MCC Gallery, featuring snippets from 18 years’ worth of Peanut Butter and Jelly Theater shows and spent time honoring the organization’s current and former board members, quilters, and actors/actresses. Here are some shots I took of the program.

Here is Felicia Harried (right), the MCC Board President, introducing Tara Wren-Douglas, the new executive director. Tara began participating in MCC programs in middle school and continued through high school — serving as an actress with Peanut Butter and Jelly Theater and an editor of the oral history magazine I Ain’t Lying.

Here are Malinda and Albert Butler, both of whom taught my sisters and me (she taught chemistry and physics and he taught Mississippi History and civics). Albert served on the MCC board. He also served the county for years as a supervisor.

Here is Nancy Batton Butler, another former Board Member, sitting with her daughter Beth, who was a Peanut Butter and Jelly Theater actress and later an employee and photographer with MCC. Nancy retired recently from her job as the town librarian.

Both of my sisters came home for the event, too. Here they are pictured with school friends.

Emilye with Rosie Coleman Thomas, who was an actress in the first troupe of Peanut Butter and Jelly Theater.

Jessica with Jackie Martin whose mother Elizabeth served on the board.

The Mississippi Arts Commission welcomed me to its Artists Roster. You may remember I wrote earlier this year about the application and panel review process. I am pleased to be included in this select group of artists. I will be included among the dramatic and literary artists. One of the primary benefits to being included on this roster is that schools and nonprofits may use grant funds from the Mississippi Arts Commission and other local arts agencies to pay my fee for programs or workshops. I am looking forward to being out and about with Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator in the fall when school starts up again.

I made a photo fabric book for my college roommate’s family; her “baby” was one year old last month and I visited just in time to take some photographs while she was still crawling and doing some very cute baby-like things. As you can see, the book is a take-off on the children’s classic Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

I designed the book using Adobe InDesign, printed the pages onto Printed Treasures fabric, and made the pages as if they were mini-quilts. I put buttonholes in each page and attached them using strips of fabric sewn together to make a ring so the pages could turn easily. It is so much fun to work with images and color! Of course, it helps when you have an adorable subject. I have only made one more like this one and it was for some friends who were expecting their fourth child — each family member had a page of his or her own.

I mean who could resist a smile like that?

Richard joined me Saturday for a reading and signing at Yellow Dog Books in Madison, a town just north of Jackson. I read Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator to the little people who showed up for storytime and we signed the stock. It was the first time Richard and I were able to do a whole event together and the first time he’s signed books. I’ll be posting a photograph later.

My second visit to A.W. Watson Elementary School also went well. This time I had three groups, one each of third graders, fourth graders, and fifth graders. Here’s a photograph (once again taken by Patty Crosby) of my multimedia production. I read from an actual copy of Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator and I also display an electronic version on a screen or electronic white board. After I have finished reading the book, I talk about how it came to be published. Typically, the questions from students range from questions about snails to questions about writing.

Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator appears on “The Big Summer Read” list of recommended books for 3-6-year-olds, compiled by the Reading Rockets‘ children’s literature editor. “Each book was chosen based on age, reading level, topic, writing quality, illustrations, and overall excellence … (with) a special effort to highlight newly published books,” according to the Reading Rockets website.

In addition, Mary Harris Russell, writing in the Chicago Tribune, included Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator on a list of recommended nonfiction titles. See the full article here.

Today I visited the junior high I attended from fourth through ninth grades to share Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator. The school — called A.W. Watson Elementary School — now serves Claiborne County’s school children in grades K-5. I did three presentations — one each for kindergartners, first graders, and second graders. The kindergarten teacher turned out to be the mother of my best friend in junior high and high school. I put together a coloring page for the students to work on while I was showing others the wolfsnail. My mother came along to take pictures and captured a terrific shot of the wolfsnail extending its radula.

Our second day of sessions featured three sessions by Carolyn Yoder: research, writing, and working with an editor. She worked behind a table stacked with books, advanced reader’s copies, and galleys. She read to us and pointed out ways authors used their research (including photo research) to make their books shine. Factual errors, she said, are most likely to creep into a manuscript in photo captions and captions that accompany illustrations. Ditto, with the back matter, because it tends to be completed at the end of the writing process — when the author is a bit tired. Those are the places to triple (and quadruple) check the material.

In between sessions, Carolyn conducted a dozen formal critiques with participants who had sent manuscripts ahead of time. She provided about 4 pages of hand-written comments on each manuscript. While she was working with individual writers, other participants read material from some oral history magazines and completed a short assignment: to find a telling anecdote, to write some dialogue, to identify setting and details, etc. In the afternoon, participants read from their work.

By the end of the day, we were comfortable enough to ask lots of questions.

And make our own observations.

After supper and Carolyn’s final session of the evening, several participants read from their published work. I finished that session by reading some excerpts from I Ain’t Lying magazine, an oral history journal I edited in high school.

We wrapped up our Making History Come Alive conference today. We had a fabulous three days with author and editor Carolyn Yoder. Among other things, she edits the Calkins Creek imprint of Boyds Mills Press and acquires history and world culture articles for Highlights for Children. We began with a tour of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History archives and library. MDAH staffers Forrest Galey, Jane Phillips, De’Niecechsi Layton, and Heather Weeden took us on an extensive tour of the public areas, the stacks, and the work rooms. We saw things that blew us away, including the heavily illustrated diary of an American soldier who spent time in a German POW camp during WWII and school records listing every educable child in particular Mississippi communities and what courses were offered in their schools. Every one of our out-of-state visitors went away impressed with Mississippi’s commitment to preserving Mississippi’s history.

Next on the schedule was Carolyn Yoder’s speech, “Making History Come Alive: Behind the Scenes at Calkins Creek.” She talked with us about titles she’s edited in the four years since the imprint was launched. Above all, she stressed the need for writers to do extensive research, including consulting primary resources, before embarking on writing historical fiction or nonfiction. When submissions come in to her for Calkins Creek or for Highlights, she consults the bibliography first. If it includes only a few children’s books and internet sites, she doesn’t even read the manuscript.

We then had three local panelists discuss how they “make history come alive” in their own jobs. Stuart Rockoff, director of history at the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, talked about collecting, preserving, and sharing the history of Jewish communities across the South that were losing populations, and the communities’ unique stories with them. Terri Thornton, fourth grade teacher at Power APAC, talked about teaching Mississippi history by asking her students to conduct oral history interviews with their grandparents. Heather Weeden, historian at MDAH, told us the best ways to approach archivists at MDAH for help.

I’ll post more about this conference in the coming days.

During my recent visit to the Little Shop of Stories, I picked up several books for the boys (and me). We’re reading The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall, and it is just as much fun as The Penderwicks was last summer. It’s working for all three boys. After I started reading it in the car on a recent trip, my 13-year-old took it and read ahead. The 9- and 11-year-olds beg for a read. Yesterday, I had to read in the morning during my 9-year-old’s bath because he was heading off to camp and would miss the evening read. They love the references to Jeffrey, Cagney, and Churchie, who were main characters last summer, but play minor roles in this book.

I also picked up Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, which was a BIG winner with my 13-year-old computer techie. Interestingly, it has been just as BIG a hit (or BIGGER) with his father, a slightly taller computer techie. I’ll probably be next in line.

I’ve also been reading up a storm to get ready for a conference with Carolyn Yoder, editor of the Calkins Creek imprint at Boyds Mills Press and editor of world culture and history topics at Highlights for Children. On BMP list, I’ve read Jeannette Rankin: Political Pioneer by Gretchen Woelfle, By the Sword by Selene Castrovilla, John Adams: the Writer by Carolyn Yoder, and Blue by Joyce Moyer Hostetter.