AFCC Day Five

For most of the week, I was down with a horrid cold and cough that just wouldn't go away, so when I wasn't at the festival I was resting at home.  I spent about two weeks preparing for the talk with Sarah

and I would have done more but I just felt so incredibly exhausted all the time.  Constant coughing will do that to you, won't it?

Anyway, Auntie Susanna and Claire kindly showed up to support us. So did Emma before she decided to skip out on us to go to something better. Thanks, Emma.

Through the lead up to our presentation, Sarah was worried that we would be only speaking to about two people since we were speaking during the same time session as Ying Chang Compestine.

I almost missed the session entirely as I was heavily medicated and thought our session started at 11:30 instead of 11:00 but at 10:30 I realised my mistake and high-tailed it to the library just as Sarah was setting up.

After a mini debate on whose computer we should use, we decided to use Sarah's since the thumb drive she used seemed to 'kill' mine. I have to say that Sarah was worried about the 'David Seow' experience I would unleash upon her but I have to say I was rather well behaved, even though she made several unauthorised changes to our slideshow presentation that I was not privy to before hand.

Sarah, payback will be coming. Oh yes, it will be coming.:) We discussed our different strategies when it comes to approaching our school visits. Sarah's the grown-up; I'm the kid.

The hour seemed to go by rather quickly and I hope the people from our session got something out of it and that I made some small measure of sense. Thanks to Claire for taking the photos.

After our session, Claire, Simon and I met with my long long long suffering agent. Helen Mangham from Jacaranda to discuss the group project we are working on before we headed out for lunch at the library plaza.

At the plaza, I met up with Andrea Pasion Flores, my other long long long suffering agent, and Ying Chang Compestine. As the buffet line was a tad long, Claire and I decided to go for a chicken rice lunch before I decided to head home for a short rest before the celebrating Our Stars Event in the evening. That didn't work out because I couldn't catch a cab.

My long suffering agents: Andrea, Helen with Ying.

Myra and Auntie Susanna

Then while I was at the Plaza I ran into Myra who took a photo with Auntie Susanna as a group of children were performing a rather nosy number on stage.

What is this? I thought and then I heard the narrator say 'Emma's Elephant. They were performing an adaptation of my story! They reprised the performance several times over the next few days and I have to say that I enjoyed each successive performance more and more.

Performing Emma's Elephant

I was still unsuccessful in my attempts to hail a cab, so I took refuge in the air-conditioned comfort of the Pod and I decided to stay there until the Celebrating Our Stars event commenced.

Celebrating Our Stars

Guest-of-Honour, Minister of State, Ministry of Education & Ministry of Communications and Information. Ms Sim Ann, launched the night's proceedings with an opening speech before NBDCS Chairman Ms Claire Chiang invited her onto stage to unveil three books that have recently been translated into other languages: Dr Tan Wee Kiat's 'Our Pledge', Sharon Ismail's 'What Sallamah Didn't Know' and Edmund Lim's 'Where's Grandma'.

Managing Editor of Amour Publishing, Ruth Wan delivered an informative presentation on the trends in children's publishing in Singapore.

Ruth Wan.

Ruth asked me for a quote about the relationship between author and publisher and I equated it with that of the relationship between spouses: you help each other through good times and bad.  Basically the book is your baby and your there to help each other raise it to be the best it can be. I also wanted to add that since my publisher is my literary spouse I would need a royalty increase, but then I thought the better of it.

Popular author Neil Humphreys brought some levity to the proceedings, sharing his take on the children's book scene. Then Deputy Director of the Book Council, Kenneth Quek, a connoisseur of all books and children's books, in particular,  took to the podium for a few words.

Kenneth Quek

Malavika and Sue Quek unveil Magic Bird by Ken Spillman

There was one last official part of the night before we could all hit the buffet line, and that was the launch of Ken Spillman's book, 'Magic Bird' illustrated by Malavika.  Ken wasn't able to attend and he was definitely missed.

Then it was time to mix, mingle and munch on the buffet.  I mingled with Sarah Odedina, whom I met at AFCC 2012. We were on the same plane to Bologna that year as well.  It's always great to catch up with Candy, though for some reason she never seems to think I smile. :)

After eating my fill at the buffet, I decided to go home to take my meds so I could head out early for Emma and Sarah's panel discussion the next morning.

Andrea and Candy

Andrea, Catarina, Edmund and Sarah

Michael Heyman and Alycia