Nancy Opalko, youth services librarian at Oxford Public Library, introducing Hester.

Hester Bass delivering a singing telegram to the lunch crowd.

Hester siging copies of her book after the luncheon speech.

Cynthia Wetzel, a librarian at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, introducing Ellis Anderson.

Ellis Anderson, author of Under Surge, Under Siege, winner of the nonfiction award.

Read more about Under Surge, Under Siege here.

Donna Fite, librarian at Purvis Public Library, introduces Mary Anna Evans.

Mary Anna Evans, author of Floodgates, won the fiction award.

Read more about Mary Anna Evans and her books here.

Marty Coleman, librarian at First Regional Library and chair of the Author Awards Committee, giving Hester her award.

You can read more about Hester and her books here.
Also, if you have read this far and are still interested, you can see last year’s award winners.

The Work-in-Progress that I submitted for evaluation is tentatively titled “Not White.” It is a coming-of-age memoir.

In addition to the fellowship, I applied to be included in the MAC’s rosters of Artists and Teaching Artists. This will be my second three-year stint on the roster of Artists (for the literary arts) and the first stint with the Teaching Artists. In addition to Diane, who helped with the roster process, I also thank Kim Whitt, the program director with oversight of the teaching artist roster.

The final piece of good news is that all my struggling earlier this year with my Picture Book Work-in-Progress is really bearing fruit. I’m nearly ready to send it out into the world — again. Wish me luck!

Here’s a leaf I saw on the tip of an Island north of Seattle. Even with expanses of water, I am drawn to veins in a leaf.

Here I am with Keith Baker, the author and illustrator of LMNO Peas, at the 2011 Best Books for Kids Award Party in Seattle. Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature was nominated in the nonfiction category.

The 2011 Best Books for Kids were: We Are in a Book! by Mo Willems (Read Aloud), How to Clean a Hippopotamus by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page (nonfiction), Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave by Laban Carrick Hill (Multicultural), and The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester by Barbara O’Conner. You can see a list of all nominees here. I enjoyed spending a few hours with people who love books and are committed to getting good books into the hands of all children. I hope to be back in Seattle one day and Page Ahead will be on my list of places to visit.

Books nominated for 2011 Best Books For Kids

More Nominated Books

Even more nominated books.

Page Ahead Display

Darby DuComb, Page Ahead board president

Cecelia McGowan, a Best Books judge

Stefanie Malone, a Best Books judge.

A Best Books judge.

Marilyn Carpenter, a Best Books judge.

In addition the partnering with the Children’s Book Council to select Outstanding Science Trade Books, the NSTA also has a program called NSTA Recommends. Growing Patterns is an NSTA Recommends title and the review appears here.

I am grateful to the committee members for their consideration. Science teachers, environmental educators, and librarians use these lists as they develop curricula and build collections.

In other news, I sold two more photographs to Highlights High Five, a magazine for 2- to 6-year olds. I can’t show you the photographs now, but I will when they appear in the magazine.

I am just about ready to send the new manuscript out into the world again. I have gotten a lot of good feedback from writing colleagues, librarians, reading friends, and family members. I revised accordingly. I’ll keep you posted.

Also, Growing Patterns has been nominated for a Cybil Award in the 2010 Non-Fiction/Informational Picture Books category. The Cybils awards are given each year by bloggers for the year’s best children’s and young adult titles. The Growing Patterns‘ nomination came from Jennifer Wharton of Jean Little Library. Thank you, Jennifer. Read her review of Growing Patterns here.

Finally, a new librarian friend sent along some photos from last week’s Mississippi Library Association Author Awards dinner. So, Richard makes a rare public appearance on the blog.

This is the first time the MLA has given a Youth Award and I was delighted to be the first recipient. During the award speech and also during a session earlier in the day, I gave a short preview of my newest project, which unlike Wolfsnail and Growing Patterns, comes out of my childhood. It was fun to see Gloria Liggans, my school librarian from 4th through 9th grades, and many other librarian friends I have made since I started writing books for children.

My friend Irene Latham gave the luncheon speech for the MLA conference, telling the story behind publication of her book, Leaving Gee’s Bend, published by Putnam.

The story included everything a story must, including ever-more-difficult obstacles. She shared photographs from Gee’s Bend in the 1930s, photographs of quilts made by Gee’s Bend Quilters, and a Ludelphia doll that was made for her by a school librarian.

Irene’s next novel is a contemporary one, titled Don’t Feed the Boy, which is forthcoming from Roaring Brook Press.

It was nice to have Irene join Richard and me at the awards dinner.

We cooked a bit of a celebratory dinner the next night, using a brand new cooking pot called a tagine. We made a lamb tagine (the meal is named after the cooking pot), masala dosas, and a spinach salad. I am no good at food photography, but these will give you an idea of what we ate and how we made it.

Emile Henry Tagine

Tagine base

Lamb Tagine from Mark Bittman's cookbook

Dosa

Masala filling for Dosa

The committee voted in February to add the children’s award to its list, which has traditionally included fiction and nonfiction for adults. A list of previous award winners can be found here.

In other news, my friends at Boyds Mills Press shared today that a professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois is using Wolfsnail in a course on using children’s literature to teach.

When I posted photographs from our recent trip to Oregon, I forgot to include this one, which is actually one of my favorites. Somehow it didn’t get flagged. I hope you enjoy the two semi-circles in the composition as much as we do.

Crater Lake, July 2010