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

The Asian Festival of Children's Content 2015

It's almost time for the biggest children's literary event in the region - The Asian Festival of Children's Content - or AFCC as it is popularly known. 

If you're an aspiring author or illustrator, it's the place to be. This year the conference will be a week-long affair that includes a Teachers Congress, Parents Forum, and the Writers & Illustrators Conference as well as masterclasses, seminars, workshops and a media summit. 

Wendy Orr

With Sally Gardner

Susanne Gerry

Candy Gourlay, Wendy Orr, Sally Gardner, Susanne Gervay, Naomi Kojima, Marjorie Coughlan, Corinne Robson, Leonard Marcus, James Mayhew, Christopher Cheng, Ken Spillman, Andrew Weale, Norm Jorgensen, James Foley, Suzy Lee, Yusof Gajah, Emily Lim, Shamini Flint, Dianne Wolfer, Eliza Teoh, Mio Debnam,Adeline Foo, Sarah Odedina, Otto Fong, David Liew are just some of the illustrious speakers who have graced the event. 

Now if you're hankering to get your work discovered, I've got some great news for you. All aspiring authors and illustrators will  have a chance to pitch their story ideas at speed pitching sessions and they can also have their illustrations or stories critiqued at the First Look and First Pages critique panels. But space is extremely limited at each of these sessions so register quickly if you don't want to miss out on your potential big break. 

Leonard Marcus and James Mathew

Ken Spillman

Attendees will get a glimpse of the glitterati of the literati at the first awards of the literary award season. Just like Hollywood has the Golden Globes, The Screen Actors Guild Award and The Oscars,  AFCC has the SPBA, The HACBA and The SKTAA.

After weeks of anticipation, the authors and illustrators nominated for the Scholastic Picture Book Award,  Hedwig Anuar Children's Book Award, and Samsung KidsTime Author Award will finally find out who will walk away with the coveted prizes! 

Good luck to all the nominees. OK, I know everyone says that it's an honour to be nominated and it doesn't matter if they win or lose; the nomination is the award enough. Blah, blah, blah.  I say that's absolute rubbish! Rubbish, I say. Everyone wants to win! They really, really, do. Having been a previous Hedwig Anuar Children's Book Award nominee and speaking from experience *wink wink, nudge nudge*  I have to say I think it's a lot nicer to  accept the award and collect the winner's  cheque than to plaster a smile on your face and applaud graciously when someone else is announced as the winner.   (I'm an author, not an actor for crying out loud. LOL!;)) But I have to concede that if winning is not an option saying you were a nominee is the next best thing.

The Hedwig Anuar Children's Book Award

Though some say The Asian Festival of Children's Content is similar to the Bologna Children's Book Fair of the East,  but going back to my earlier Hollywood references, it is really more like the Oscars, the Oscars of the Asian children's literature scene. OK, so there won't be any paparazzi, red carpet appearances or even a red carpet for that matter. You won't have style reporters quizzing you about your AFCC fashions ( seriously what do children's writers and illustrators really know about fashion anyway?) and Wolgang Puck will not have a legion of his chefs whipping up a five-star Michelin banquet at the AFCC closing dinner. But that doesn't mean you should skip the festival! You'd be CRAZY if you did. It's a MUST ATTEND event! How are you going to get discovered if you're not willing to be seen, people?

Anyway this year's country of focus is China and I think that's fantastic as it's probably the biggest market for children's books around and it's still growing. Now, if you're like me  --a Chinese person who can't speak a word of language --  don't worry, the sessions will have live translation.

Oh, and this year, I'll be speaking on conducting school visits with my fellow author, Sarah Mousey, aka my biggest competition :). 
As you can see from the pic below, I've decided to shrink her down and made her bio really, really, really small. Hey, it's my blog and I can do what I want to!

You should come to our session so you can hear Sarah speaking in Chinese. (Through a translator  if we have one. If we don't, then some might not understand what Sarah's saying at all. LOL.
Sarah, you'll have to start your own blog to get back at me! :) :) So come on, people, what are you waiting for?  Register now! 

CLICK THIS LINK TO REGISTER

Win Tickets for The Asian Festival of Children's Content 2012

LINK: CLICK  HERE  TO WIN 

Two Weeks Till AFCC

ARRGGHHH!!! It's two weeks until the publising event of the year and I have just started work on my powerpoint presentation--well, ok more or less, more on the less than the more side.

As mentioned in my previous posts which you may or may not have read, depending on how often anyone besides myself frequents this blog, this is one event you cannot miss! If you're a teacher, there's the Asian Primary and Preschool Teacher's Conference on Saturday and a Parents Forum on Sunday. Aspiring authors and illustrators will get a chance to meet publishing heavy weights like Alvina Ling, Sarah Odedina, Suzy Lee and Leonard Marcus. You can register for the event here:Asian Festival of Children's Content.

On to Bologna, Baby!

17th March 2011

Chris Cheng

After checking in, Kenneth kindly bought us breakfast while we waited for our connecting flight. After some initial confusion we found our gate only to find it packed. A verifiable who's who of publishing was on the plane, including Chris Cheng and his wife Binnie whom we had met at the immigration line at Heathrow. Thanks to Kenneth, they had changed their flight to the same one that we were on. Kenneth had checked us in online and we were seated at the back of the plane. 


I overhead to ladies talking about wanting to change seats. "Oh no, we can't change seats. That's the only way they'll identify us is by which seat we were sitting in if the plane goes down!" Ok, this really calmed my nerves. Sarah Odedina, editor of the Graveyard Book and Harry Potter was seated about two rows in front of us. 

Sarah Odedina

In  First Class was Chris Cheng and Arthur A. Levine, who I was to meet later on the bus to the Terminal at Bologna airport.

Arthur Levine

After a 1:45 minute flight over the Alps we touched down. Chris Cheng introduced Arthur to Kenneth who in turn introduced Arthur to me. What a nice, personable man, I thought. 

The Alps

The taxi line at the airport was horrendous. All the flights seemed to have arrived at once. While inline I chatted to Chris about the state of publishing in Singapore and the struggles that the writers here face. Soon enough it was our turn to hop into a taxi and head to our hotel, Il Convento dei Fiore di Seta.