AFCC Day Six

I arrived late on day six because I had to take care of a few things to take care of before heading out. I was sorely disappointed that I missed Candy Gourlay's keynote talk.  I did, however, make it on time for The Nuts and Bolts of Self Publishing: The Good, the Bad and the Fabulous, a panel discussion by Sarah Mounsey, Emma Nicholson, and Hidayah Amin.  Award-winning author, Emily Lim, moderated the session.

The multiple award-winning, Emily Lim, moderates the panel.

All three ladies have self published their books to great acclaim. Emma's already been signed to an agent, Sarah won the Bronze medal in the MoonBeam Awards and and Hidayah scored a double whammy when she won this year's Hedwig Anuar Children's Book Award and the Grand Prize for the Samsung Kidstime Awards. Congratulations to all three ladies who shared their invaluable insights into the adventurous and sometime treacherous world of self-publishing.

The Bronze Medal Moonbeam Award winner, gets ready for her talk.

Sarah addresses the audience.

Two-time winner, Hidayah Amin, takes to the podium

Author of the popular  Princess Petunia's Dragon,  Emma,  takes her turn.

Later in that afternoon, I attended the most anticipated event for aspiring authors, The First Pages Critique with Sarah Odedina, Shirin Yim Bridges, Ying Chang Compestine and Edmund Wee and moderated by Kathleen Ahrens, who always does a brilliant job of reading the manuscripts. First Pages is always a nerve wracking experience for any author. During the session, the first 100 words of the author's manuscript are read aloud and then critiqued by the panel.

The Panel: 

Edmund Wee, Sarah Odedina,Ying Chang Compestine & Shirin Yim Bridges

To the uninitiated writer, it may feel like you've been sentenced to death by literary firing squad. The wait to hear your manuscript being critiqued is unbearably indescribable and when they finally do get to yours, beads of perspiration embroider your brow, your heart practically hurtles right through your rib cage and you can almost feel the unmistakable trickle of pee running down your leg. Relax, it's all part and parcel of the course. You're not a real writer until you've peed on yourself.

Ying Chang Compestine and Shirin Yim Bridges

Most of the time it's not as bad as you think it will be. But sometimes it can seem like an editorial blood bath!  Am I joking? I'll leave that for you to decide. But it's an experience that every writer should go through. It's good for you.

Authors: Sarah, Simon, Helle and Linda  anxiously await literary execution or salvation.

The surviving members of the critique session made their way down to the festival bookstore, Closetful of Books, for a spot of shopping before taking a group photo with the SCBWI members.

I managed to grab a few minutes with friend and best-selling genius of an author, Candy Gourlay, whom I missed at last year's London Book Fair. Candy was off to London a few hours later, so our meet-up was all too brief, but we did manage to take a photo. Candy says I never smile, but I beg to differ - see the photo below.

Candy  says I never smile! See I do!

Singapore's best-selling award winning author, Emily Lim took time to catch up with her American counterpart, Ying Chang Compestine before the group left  for  Boat Quay for the SCBWI AFCC Family dinner organised by Catherine Carvell.  After a full day of sessions most of us wanted to unwind, relax and fill our tummies. I, on the other hand, opted to go for the literature lecture, which was conducted in Chinese with live English translation.

Emily and Ying

Stanley, the nickname I've given my stomach, began to growl and so  I skipped out on the Q & A session and shared a cab to the  SCBWI Dinner with Best-Selling author Chris Cheng. 

And we all spent the night, eating, drinking, catching up with old friends and making new ones. All in all, it was another pretty awesome SCBWI/AFCC dinner. 

Emily and Helle

Catherine and Kathleen

L to R: Chris, Avery, Kathleen and Catherine.

Simon and Dave Liew

Linda, Helle and Simon

Adan and Felicia

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

Asian Festival of Children's Content, Day One: Launch and Hedwig Anuar Children's Book Award Prize Presentation

The Asian Festival of Children's Content kicked off  it's week-long series of events including:  talks, workshops, masterclasses, speed pitching rounds and, the very first ever AFCC retreat on the Indonesian island of Bintan.

While a select few authors and illustrators were on their way to a literary adventure of a lifetime with Andrea Passion-Flores, Sarah Odedina, Candy Gourlay and Catarina Sobral, the majority of the delegates were at the Mochtar Riardy Auditorium of the SMU Administration Building for AFCC's opening ceremony and Hedwig Anuar Children's Book Award prize presentation.

Book Council Chairman, Claire Chiang delivered the opening address before Guest-of-Honour Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs,  Minister of Communications and Information, Yacoob Ibrahim, spoke of the stories his grandmother regaled him with in his childhood.

Then Edmund Lim, Chief Judge of the Hedwig Anuar Children's Book Awards spoke briefly of the judging process and before the guest-of-honour was invited back on stage to present the prize.

After a few moments of keeping the audience in suspense,
The nominees were:  'Hidden in Plain Sight' by Su-Lin Ang, 'Letters to Aly' by Li-Ann, 'The Mango Tree' by Hidayah Amin, 'Not in the Stars' by Pauline Loh , The Diary of Amos Lee: Monkeying in Malaysia' by Adeline Foo, illustrated by Stephanie Wong. 

After a few moments of keeping us in suspense, the emcee announced that it was a tie. The winners of this year's award
'The Rock and the Bird' by Chew Chia Shao Wei  and Angee Neo and 'The Mango Tree' by Hidayah Amin and Idris Ali.

Congratulations to the winners and the finalists, well-deserved, well-deserved. 

 My publisher Edmund Wee is all smiles below after securing a second consecutive win with one of his books. Do you think it's a good time to ask for a royalty increase? Thanks, Edmund, we love you!

Book Illustrators Gallery Launch

Last Saturday I attended the launch of the Book Illustrators Gallery aka BIG at the National Library, which is the first  BIG (pardon the pun) event leading up to the annual Asian Festival of Children's Content. 

At the inaugural launch of BIG back in 2011, around 30 illustrations were featured.  But this year illustrators from Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Korea, Lithuania, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan and the United Kingdom submitted  their works for consideration.  Out of the 150 entries, 103 were eventually selected for inclusion for the BIG.   It's really encouraging to see so many talented illustrators from around the world who are interested in having their artwork displayed at the BIG during the AFCC!

Book Council Ex-Co Member Koh Juat Muay and Gallery Curator Susanna Goho

One of the featured illustrators was my friend, Dave Liew and I convinced him to pose for a quick snap with his illustrations right before the launch. Oh, before I forget, my genius illustrator Soefara also has an illustration on display. 

David Liew

This year renown and popular illustrator Lee Kow Fong spoke about his journey as an illustrator.  He told the audience that it's never too late to start illustrating as he went for an illustration course  in the United Kingdom at the age of 39! I have to say that's very inspiriting  and there's still hope for me. In fact, I may just

follow suit even though I'm only 31 +++++++......

Lee Kow Fong

Next, Festival Director and Deputy Director of the National Book Development Council of Singapore, Kenneth Quek, delivered his opening address before presenting guest-of-honour, Venka Purushothaman, with  a  token of appreciation from gallery curator Susanna Goho.

Kenneth addresses the guests

Kenneth Quek,  Venka Purushothaman, and Susana Goho-Quek 

After the official launch, I managed to catch up with the guest-of- honour, Venka Purushothaman, Provost of Lasalle College of the Arts, to ask him about his thoughts on picture book illustrations.

What are your thoughts on children’s picture book illustrations?

Picture books, in terms of illustrations, are highly developed with much scope to grow. What I see is a lot of really in-depth reflection and reflexivity that’s emerging amongst young designers, illustrators and storytellers.  It’s something we should develop as a community of practice. With picture books people might look at the illustrations as images that inherently support the story.  But, in actual fact, illustrations have a whole ecology and economy of ways of telling stories and they have their own vocabulary, so I think it’s very important for us to celebrate that field and very specifically find ways to build discourse around it. Events like BIG (Book Illustrators Gallery) help build discourse. It’s not just about the images but what they really mean and how do they deepen our understanding of the world around us. So I think it’s a very significant area to be developed extensively through a community of practice.

Can you remember your first picture book?

Not really. I was a child who grew up on Mad Magazine. I was a child of the 70s. [At that time]  It was very much about the Walt Disney and Hanna Barbera way of illustrating  [cartoons] that influenced every young person through the medium of television. Television was the ‘book’ from which we loved to understand illustration. Having said that, the segue-way into the literary world is a very different aspect of it. In a sense the field of illustration and picture books were very divorced from each other. Things were illustrated in order to teach something. While the picture books are able to tell the story without the words. Of course there are historians who say that this links into cave paintings and whole structure of storytelling. In contemporary medium you have books, television and radio that tell stories in different ways.

Does Lasalle have a course on picture book illustration?

We actually do. We don’t teach it as a full course but we do have image and illustration [modules] on several fronts. First of all in Lasalle, the designers have to do storytelling through image making. Everything in art and design is about a story. But how do you express it? We have students who partner with art therapy students and they have created books just for the  therapeutic world. In the fine art world, we have been working with the medical sector with medical illustrations. Storytelling is a massively big part of the college and we believe that art and storytelling is not divorced.

What do you think of the illustrations you see here in Singapore?

The Singapore illustrations are phenomenal and there’s a lot of raw energy emerging and it requires a lot more mentorship and guidance and referencing to other international illustrators and people who have established practices.

Thank you, Mr Purushothaman.

Now, if you'd like to check out the Book Illustrators Gallery, head on down to the National Library. The exhibition runs until the 11th of June.