Catching Up with Jacqueline Harvey

So for two weeks, my good friend best-selling author Jacqueline Harvey was in town for school visits and the Singapore Writers Festival. Ken, Emma and I caught up with her for dinner right after the WTA finals and we all went to the dimsum restaurant at ION which is a favourite. Jacquie, her sister Sarah, Mum and had lunch there last year, so we decided to try it again. And as usual it was good!

Mum and I caught up with her again after Dave Liew's book launch and then again on Saturday at the American Club. My friend Channie's daughter Drew and her BFF Sarah are huge fans of Jacqueline's and when I told them we were friends they just had to meet her. Since they missed out on meeting Jacquie last year, we arranged for them to meet her at the club.  So over burgers and chocolate lava cake, the girls got their own one on one with the creator of Alice Miranda and Clementine Rose.  And They went home with signed books and posters. How cool is that?

After lunch, Jacquie went back to work on her next best-seller and I headed back home to work on my next afternoon nap.

A few days later members of the SCBWI Singapore group wanted to meet with Jacquie so Kenneth and I arranged dinner at Grandma's a local restaurant that is known for Peranakan cuisine. Jacquie ordered the chicken curry and chatted with the rest of the members who all hoped her best-selling magic would rub off on them over dinner.

When the weekend rolled around, Jacquie was back at the Singapore Writers Festival conducting two work shops. They were brilliant and the parents were as enthused as the kids.

 It was a fun two weeks catching up with Jacquie, though she probably had an overdose of the David Seow experience, I was also glad that I managed to catch up with Jacquie's husband, Ian before they left for their tour of the UK. I look forward to their next visit and hopefully next time I'll be able to catch up with Sarah too. 

SCBWI, NBDCS, AFCC, and Children's Publishing in Singapore.

Dinner with Linda Sue Park in 2011

SCBWI Singapore is  relatively small in terms of how big most SCBWI regions are, but in three years it's grown from a core group of six members, including RA Kenneth Quek and coordinator Catherine Carvell, into a group of about 40 members with an average of 17-18 members attending the monthly critique meetings.

In a span of three years, our authors have won awards, published books and have been signed to literary agencies. Even the most jaded publishing type will have to admit that this has been quite a feat for a country where children's publishing is still in its relative infancy.

SCBWI members at AFCC 2012

Speaking with Shamini Flint and Emily Lim at AFCC 2012

On the SWF panel with David Almond, Emily Lim, and John Dougherty

Our  group has been lucky enough to have dined with Linda Sue Park, Wendy Orr, Jacqueline Harvey, and Lisa Yee to name a few. 

Dinner with Ian and Jacqueline, and Lisa Yee

Dinner with Tom and Wendy @ AFCC 2013

Dinner with Jacqueline Harvey

Some of us have been to the Bologna Children's Book Fair and The London Book Fair. We've been asked to speak at festivals and we've attended them too. 

At the Bologna Children's Book Fair

Kenneth dining with Leonard Marcus @ Rules in London

I credit the growth of our group down to two key members: RA Kenneth and  group coordinator, Catherine, our leaders. They are extremely passionate about children's books. Kenneth is also the Deputy Director of the National Book Development Council of Singapore and one of the festivals under his portfolio is the Asian Festival of Children's Content.

Catherine, Sarah, Emma and Kenneth @ AFCC 2012

Mr Rama

Evelyn Sue Wong, Ruhksana Khan and Trevor Kew

Conceived by Mr Rama, Director of the NBDCS, the festival has grown exponentially in recent years. The glitterati of children's literati  that have graced the event include: Wendy Orr, Candy Gourlay, Susanne Gervay, Naomi Kojima, Kathleen Ahrens, Dianne Wolfer, Vivian Kirkfield, Ruhksana Khan, Sarah Odedina,  Helen McAleer, Andrea Pasion-Flores, Helen Mangham, Jayapriya Vasudevan, Cynthea Liu, Alvina Ling, Mio Debnam, Linda Lingard,  Holly Thompson, Leonard Marcus, Steve Mooser,  Norman Jorgensen, Chris, Cheng, Edmund Wee, Yusof Gajah, James Foley, Trevor Kew and many, many more.  It's a great place to meet publishing professionals-- from authors and editors to agents and publishers - and learn more about the industry.

Susanne Gervay @ AFCC 2013

Book signing for Emma's Elephant.

Emma and Wendy Orr

Naomi, Mio and Kenneth @ AFCC 2013

Tuting Hernandez, Myra Garces Bascal, Susanna Goho-Quek, Chris Cheng
and Mr Rama at the joint book launches of ' Water' and 'Beyond Legends, Folktales and Myths'.

The AFCC/Book Council team 2013

CLICK THIS LINK TO REGISTER FOR AFCC

Now this year's AFCC is going to be bigger than ever before and will span five whole days including a media summit, seminars for parents and teachers, talks, workshops, manuscript and illustration critiques, book launches and much, much more.

Now a few friendly words of advice for any first time authors and illustrators out there who will be attending this MUST-GO-TO event.

1. Don't approach editors, publishers and agents with your manuscripts. This is neither the time nor the place to do so. Instead you can submit your manuscripts or artwork for the First Look and First Pages critiques or the pitch session.


2.  Watch, listen and learn. Watch, listen and learn. Watch, listen and learn.

3.   As the sessions run concurrently, pick and choose your sessions wisely. 

4. Enjoy the festival.

Lunch, Dinner and a Walk at the Botanical Gardens

Jacquie, Sarah and Mum

So after dinner at Jumbo Seafood restaurant, I met up with Jacquie and her sister Sarah for lunch with Mum at Paradise Dynasty, a Shanghainese Dim Sum restaurant for lunch. Mum was insistent that there should be no shellfish in the food and gave specific instructions to the servers. However, when she tucked into the fried rice, she suspected something shell-fishy and promptly sent the dish back; the waiter apologized profusely, promising us free dessert. I was more than okay with that, but then the manager returned with the fried rice, saying that the suspect morsel was indeed chicken. I avoided eating the dish after that for obvious reasons. :)


After lunch we headed to PS Cafe (brand endorsement here; I expect free cakes from now on) for a post-lunch coffee before Mum suggested  a mini tour of the prewar houses in our neighborhood and then heading back home for a bit of a chat. It started raining on our way home and by the time we stepped through the front door, the lightning flashed and the thunder roared. Sarah and Jacquie were trapped with us for the next couple of hours!! 

No, seriously we had a very nice chat and when the rain let up we walked down to Newton Hawker Centre, where Sarah and Jacquie were meeting a friend for dinner. I  took a slow walk back up Orchard Road and by the time I got home Mum was fast asleep, snoring. Proof that she had just as good a time as I did.

The next day, Jacquie and Sarah kindly invited me out for dinner at Clarke Quay- yay, they weren't sick on me yet- on their last night in Singapore. After walking around a bit, we dined at the very hip Indochine Forbidden City. It was delicious. Dinner was great but the company was better!  We made a post meal trip to Little India to see the Diwali lights. It was packed with people, ready to celebrate the holiday. Sarah and Jacquie bought a few trinkets for their neice before deciding to head back to the hotel. I was surprised that we were able to book a cab relatively quickly as usually it's never that easy. Thanks for dinner and a fun night out, Jacquie and Sarah!

The Botanical Gardens

Jacquie had one last full day of school visits before jetting off to London, so Sarah and I made plans to walk to the Botanical Gardens and Nassim Road.

So at around 9:30am the next morning, give or take a couple of minutes, Sarah and I set off from their hotel to the Botanical Gardens. It was hot! and I was drenched within minutes. We made our way around the gardens, including the Orchid Gardens before grabbing something to drink at the cafe and walking up  Nassim Road, one of the poshest neighborhoods in town. Those houses are unbelievably massive and the architecture of each house is completely different: some are modern; others are throwbacks to prewar days; some are neo classical with ornate columns. Sarah took photos of some of the more eye catching ones. After three hours - I was sweat-soaked and smelled like a sad sack of sardines - we made it back to the hotel. Sarah had some last minute packing to do before heading back to Sydney and I had to run some errands. And so sadly, a really fun week had come to an end all too soon. We have to catch up soon, Sarah and Jacquie, be it in London, Sydney or Singapore. Thanks so much for a really fun week!

One of the houses on Nassim Road

Dinner with Jacquie Harvey @ Jumbo Seafood

L to R: Sarah, Simon, Jeff, Catherine, Jacqueline, Emma, Evelyn

Best selling author Jacqueline Harvey's back in town for school visits before heading off on a promotional tour of the UK for her best-selling Alice-Miranda and Clementine Rose books. (If you haven't started reading them yet, what are you waiting for?) So we, of course, had to take the opportunity to catch up with her for dinner. 

So last week, Catherine, Emma and I went for a food tasting at Jumbo Seafood Riverside Point. We're getting rather good at food tasting if I say so myself; we must have been royal food tasters in previous lifetimes. After our extremely well-honed and sophisticated palates were convinced that the cuisine was suitable for a best-selling author, we booked a table for 12, not realising that unforeseen circumstances would prevent some of our members from being able to make it at the very last minute. And the fact that Jaquie is allergic to shellfish. Sorry, Jacquie.

Catherine and Emma decided on the menu, the invitations were emailed and everything was set.  Emma and I planned to meet Jacquie at her hotel and we would make our way to the dinner venue from there. As with most plans, they never go according to plan. The one BIG hiccup was that I walked to the hotel and it took longer than I expected. Do most  Friday-evening pedestrians not understand the meaning of "Excuse me, please?" If that's the case, I'll just bark "Move it!" the next time someone is in my way.

By the time I got to the hotel, Emma and Jacquie were already in line for a taxi and that was great because we didn't have to wait too long to get one and then we were off to Jumbo Seafood, where Catherine, Jeff and  Simon were already waiting.

Now, why do restaurants take reservations when they can't give you a table on time? If you haven't realised it already, I'm not the most patient of people. 

Moonbeam

Anyway we eventually got our table and, in hindsight, I'm sure it wasn't as long a wait as I thought it was. Evelyn arrived just as we were being seated and the moon was high in the night sky when newly minted Moonbeam winner Sarah Mounsey made it to the restaurant after a trek from the MRT station.

Our fearless SCBWI leader, who's out of town, sent a message inquiring about the evening's proceedings. The ever efficient Kenneth Quek wanted to know if everything was going well. I was about to reply but my phone ran out of batteries. So he was kept in suspense for the remainder of the evening.

Chilli Crab 

When the food arrived, we had a hard time understanding what our waitress was saying as English was not her first language. She looked a tad annoyed with me when I asked her something repeatedly and later in the evening she kept rolled her eyes when I asked to look at the menu! Jumbo Seafood, your food's good but your customer service is much to be desired.

Chilli crab and Mantou buns

Deep fried baby squid

Asparagus

Now I would fill you in on our dinner conversation but you can't really do that justice on a blog post, can you? But what I will say is that it was great fun catching up with Jacquie and we can't wait to do it again.  Catherine, Emma, start planning! :) Thanks everyone for making it a fun evening. 

Here's a link to Jacqueline's website: http://jacquelineharvey.com.au

Blogger, Google+,Facebook, Twitter, and Pumpkin Soup = A few hours with Two Authors

This morning Catherine Carvell kindly invited me over to her place to discuss how best to optimize social media to gain traffic for our respective blogs. So after a couple of hours we successfully synced our blogs to facebook, twitter, google+ & everything else you can name. 

Catherine's office is ultra tidy and organized, the complete opposite of my workspace. Taking a place of pride on one of her shelves is the 2010 Pitch Award that she won this year when she went to the SCBWI WA retreat in Rottnest. I'm sure it's only the first of many to come. :)

Catherine's Rottnest Pitch Award

Famished  after a couple of hours of social media coordination, we then lunched on yummy freshly baked bread from Cedele and Catherine's famous Pumpkin Soup- YUMILICIOUS! And we topped off the meal with some really yummy biscuits for dessert.

Post lunch we decided to revisit a project we have been working on for some time. I don't know how we got anything done because Catherine's ideas had us in stitches the whole time. It looks like it's going to be hilarious!

Catherine working on our project. Clue: The back scratcher is part of the story.

Then it was time for Catherine to head out on the school run and I headed out for my afternoon walk at the Botanical Gardens. Thanks for a great day, Catherine, and for my back scratcher from Cambodia. It's great, the best!

I'll be catching up with Catherine and most of the SCBWI Singapore group tomorrow when we head out for dinner with Jacqueline Harvey. We're really looking forward to it. Till then people!

My Cambodian back scratcher.