Blogger Appreciation in July

So, I thought this week was Blogger Appreciation Week. Turns out that it doesn't start until September 14th (mark those calendars). At any rate, I'd still like to send some appreciation out into the Blogosphere for some wonderful posts about The Storm In The Barn that have recently popped up. Please do click on the following and consider bookmarking these fine blogs!

educating alice

Writing and Ruminating

Shelf Elf

UPDATE: Kelly at Writing & Ruminating just posted a dramatic recreation of our recent caffeine-fueled, rambling, digression-prone sit down interview. It was great fun and we even talked a little about the new book. Go read it HERE, if you are so inclined.

UPDATE #2: Kerry at Shelf Elf just posted an interview with me HERE!

Sideshow!

Sideshow: Ten Original Tales of Freaks, Illusionists, and Other Matters Odd and Magical is now available from your favorite purveyor of quality literature. I contributed a graphic short story to this fine anthology that also includes stories from David Almond, Aimee Bender, Cecil Castellucci, Shawn Cheng, Annette Curtis Klause, Margo Lanagan, Danica Novgorodoff, Cynthia Leitich Smith, and Vivian Vande Velde. It's a dark and wondrous strange collection and I couldn't be happier to be a part of it. My story, Jargo!, concerns a freak that freaks out the other freaks.

Sideshow was edited by the brilliant, multi-talented Deborah Noyes. Deb has written a guest post over at Teenreads about Sideshow. Go Read It!

UPDATE: And here's another interview!

Thank You, ALA!

Just a quick note to thank all the wonderful people I met at the ALA convention. Your passion for books and libraries is inspiring. Also a big thanks to my new pals Tony Fucile , Chris Van Dusen, and Silas House who made signings and speaking in public far less daunting (p.s. get their BRILLIANT books!) and to all my friends at Candlewick Press for bringing me along for all the fun. And it was great to see old friends like the incomparable Holm siblings, Jenni and Matt. The banquet was amazing and for detailed coverage, I'll send you to the blog of the smashingly tattooed Ms. Bird.

And Neil Gaiman is as cool as you would think and also amazingly gracious and nice.

A Good Reminder

Two of a Kind by Jacqui Robbins has just been released. Here's a small anecdote that reminds me that the Children's Book Industry – with its publishing expos, conferences, reviews, competition, and big awards – is still, ultimately, all about making books for kids.

ALA Chicago

Hey there, librarians! I'll be at your annual shindig in the Windy City this weekend. On Sunday from 2-3, I'll be signing ARCs of Storm In The Barn (and possibly copies of Sideshow) at the Candlewick booth (#2147). If you're wandering the stacks, please stop by and say howdy. As added enticement, I'll be signing alongside the immensely talented Tony Fucile and Chris Van Dusen! Hope to see you there.

Newsarama Interview!

An interview I did with the comics website NEWSARAMA is now up! It's fairly detailed about Storm in the Barn but I think spoiler-free.

BOOK TRAILER!

Grab your popcorn and check out the trailer for The Storm In The Barn!!!

If you're so inclined, you can visit my own cozy section of YouTube by clicking HERE. That way you can see some of the videos that I actually like and recommend as opposed to the random stuff YouTube spits out on the generic page.

Paint First, Ask Questions Later

A little experiment to loosen up. I plopped down a few splashes of paint without thinking about it and then later went back with a brush pen and quickly doodled the first thing that came to mind.

Ruff

Japanese brush pen and watercolor sketch.

The Gunsel

The Coming Storm

Only three long months until my graphic novel The Storm in the Barn is released! About this time last year, I was finishing up the pencilled pages. They still needed inking and painting, but it seemed momentous enough to take a snapshot of the stack.

Some early reviews have started popping up on the web such as here and here. Previews magazine has just named it one of their June Staff Picks and Graphic Novel Reporter has called Storm in the Barn one of the Hottest Graphic Novels of the Summer. And last but certainly not least, Storm made a list of recommended new graphic novels at BEA last week.

A book trailer will be debuting sometime next month and I'll also be revamping my website, so keep checking back.

Winter Sketch

Back to the Drawing Board

Stitches

Just one more quick word about David Small. I just finished reading an advance copy of his new graphic memoir, Stitches. It is as good as graphic storytelling gets, told with breathtaking precision and, of course, masterful drawing. It comes out in September.

I Came, I Saw, I Bid Successfully...

...woohoo!!!!

Thanks to all the wonderful booksellers that I met at last night's ABC silent auction. You folks know how to throw a fine shindig.

ABC Auction!

I've donated this bookish little fella for the Association of Booksellers for Children's annual auction shindig. This year they've put all of the auction items online for your viewing pleasure. I'll be at the auction, so if you see me, be sure to say howdy.

Will Draw For...

I'll apologize once more for my lack of recent posts. I had two book deadlines one after another and I'm just now coming up for air. Unfortunately for the blog, that means that I did very little drawing over the last 2 months that was not for a book (can't show you that stuff quite yet).

I did however take a smidgen of time to draw this ukulele lady for a uke festival poster competition. The prize was a shiny new Ohana ukulele. Alas, I didn't win but here's my entry. I made the drawing with a port inktense pencil (seemed appropriate).


And then I gussied it up in Photoshop. She's supposed to be sitting on grapes since we're talking wine country here.

There are no sour grapes on the Planet Ham, so if you are in that neck of the Northern CA woods, check out the fest. I'm sure it'll be fun. And if you'd like to commission me in exchange for a nice ukulele, apparently I will consider it.

Spells!

I'm very excited to be involved with the Spells Writing Center in Philadelphia. It's based on (but not officially affiliated with) the 826 Valencia centers. I'll be posting more and more about this venture in the future. In the meantime, zip over to their site and check out the upcoming events (including the Zombie Fundraiser, of course).

p.s. The Indefatigable Brian Biggs did the lettering for the above postcard image. The Incombustible Adam Rex is also rumored to be lurking about Spells Headquarters.

Madame Collara

Apology/PSA

This baby eagle is here to tell you that despite appearances, I have not abandoned my blog. April was a deadline month, and I was feverishly at work finishing a new picture book (more on that later). But I promise to start posting regularly again ... with some big stuff coming up.

Until then, if you are anywhere within a reasonable distance of Philadelphia, you should get down to the Rosenbach Museum to catch the extraordinary Sendak exhibit that closes on Sunday! Go, go! It's rainy today so there really is no better time to go to a museum, right? Right-ho.