Kidlit Con Providence

A week ago today I was in the thick of children’s books everything at Kidlit Con Providence, and I’m still unpacking all the goodness.

I checked into the Hotel Providence with my travel mates, Lyn Smith and Kirsten Cappy.

Author and illustrator Jarrett Lerner joined us in the hotel bar for dinner. He got our robot groove going.

sketchbook portrait by Jamie Hogan

This year’s organizer, Charlotte Taylor, gave welcoming remarks and thankful applause to author and blogger, Mia Wenjen, who gathered the panel participants last fall. I learned about the conference via her @Pragmatic Mom.

LeUyen Pham gave a stellar keynote address!

sketchbook portrait by Jamie Hogan

Her family fled Saigon in 1975 when she was two. She grew up in the Outer Mission of San Francisco, watching Apocalypse Now at the age of 9 with a father obsessed with war movies. Her mother somberly read Vietnamese fairy tales, full of suffering. Inside the family walls was Vietnam, outside was parsing information about a confusing American world. Books became her way IN.

LeUyen Pham gives the keynote at Kidlit Con 2019

One favorite was Amelia Bedelia, which was a fave in our house, too. She loved how Amelia bravely fumbled at everything, and “countless idioms were explained at last.” LeUyen said, “We get the first shot at young kids. Can we inspire them, imprint a moral code, create an impression on their development that speaks a truth? All division ends when a story rings true.” I was completely moved by her presentation, and ready to roll.

Concurrent sessions were held in the downstairs ballroom and an upstairs meeting room. Lyn and I headed to STEM Stories, where a fantastic panel was moderated by Paula Willey, librarian at Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.

Anita Sanchez, Richard Ho, Heidi Fiedler, Jason Viola, and Sara Levine talk about their STEM books at Kidlit Con Providence.

As a naturalist, Anita Sanchez knows kids have fears about nature, and her mission is dispelling misconceptions in books about unusual topics like poison ivy. Richard Ho was a space nerd as a kid, but discovered in a college astronomy class that the math is HARD. He took a different approach in his Red Rover, written from the voice of Mars. How to reach little “needers of facts” by empowering them to understand complex but comprehensible problems is a challenge, but a valuable one.

Heidi Fiedler said good non-fiction needs to be accurate, with illustration providing a visual entry, but retaining some mystery, so not ALL questions are answered. Someone said, “Illustration can do what photography cannot,” which I am all about. Jason Viola has been making comics and zines for many years, and one about manatees led to his first book about polar bears, characters that can make the overwhelming topic of climate change more tangible for kids.

Sara Levine is a veterinarian, college professor, and takes unusual approaches to nature subjects in her books. She enjoys comparing humans and animals, and raised the issue of gendered covers, which she considers an unfortunate problem in children’s publishing. What makes a “girl book” or a “boy book” is a topic that deserves it’s own panel!

Up next for me was How to Take Great Photos of Books and Grow Instagram Followers, led by two kidlit bookstagrammers, Charnaie Gordon of @hereweeread and Lauren Neil of @picturebookplaydate.

I’m still figuring out Instagram, and their info was helpful. Bottom line: the kidlit bookstagram community is a happy and positive place.

Sketchbook portrait of Charnaie Gordon © Jamie Hogan

After lunch I attended What We’ve Learned as Debut Picture Book Authors, moderated by Charnaie.

Charnaie Gordon, Gina Perry, Andrea Loney, Gaia Cornwall, Alison Goldberg, Jannie Ho, and Emma Otheguy at Kidlit Con 2019.

They each discussed their circuitous path to publication. Gina Perry worried about bad reviews, sent kits to indie bookstores, and said, “Nothing went to plan but plenty of surprises turned out better than my best laid plans.” They all agreed that kids’ publishing is an opaque world with many unspoken rules, but the reverberations of a book out in the world is humbling. But that doesn’t stop Jannie Ho from wearing a chicken hat to her book events!

Next up was To Market, to Market! Getting Your Picture Book Into Readers’ Hands, with Traci Sorell, Michelle Cusolito, Sarah Lynne Reul, Jeanette Bradley, and Christy Mihaly. I was way in the back on this one, and don’t have a photo, but it was packed with good ideas. Jeanette Bradley, said online support and joining a group of debut authors was essential. Traci Sorrell, whose book We Are Grateful won numerous awards, said “Mine what you have!” She used the Cherokee holiday to celebrate the launch of her book, and advocates getting to know your indie bookstore. “Indies know each other, find one and build a relationship with them.”

During a snack break, I browsed the sea of books.

Titles galore by conference presenters!

I joined Lyn in the ballroom for the final session of the day, Big Issues in YA. Author Chris Tebbets and Unconventional Librarian Pam Brown Margolis led an interactive crowd-sourcing of issues and relevant book titles.

Author Chris Tebbetts talked about current young adult novels.

Pam Brown Margolis got the crowd out of their chairs.

To be honest, I was running out of steam by this point. And the issues were heavy. Really heavy. This is what young adults are facing: drug use, gun violence, sexual violence, racial injustice, physical abuse, war, gender identity, disabilities, terrorism, immigration, suicide, poverty, online shaming, call out culture. Anything positive?? LOVE. Family. Social justice.

List making at Kidlit Con 2019

It was a major relief to leave the hotel and walk among the murals of Providence.

Ocean State girls, Lyn Smith and Kirsten Cappy.

This one’s a winner!

Photo © Kirsten Cappy

We walked over the highway to Julian’s where Pink Elephant was on tap. Comparing our notes on different sessions, we agreed: so much to distill!

Visit Julien’s for the charm and the mussels.

Back at the hotel, no rest for Curious City, who was editing a slide show for her panel the next day.

On a rather wet Saturday morning, we met up with Megan Frazer Blakemore, fellow Mainer, for a quiet breakfast at Small Point Cafe.

Small Point Cafe puts cat faces in your froth!

Megan is a mom, author, librarian, all while pursuing another degree plus teaching a course in children’s literature at Maine College of Art! Whew. I needed more coffee.

Back at the conference, Varian Johnson gave a keynote talk on the successes and failures that led to his award-winning title, The Parker Inheritance. Self-deprecating, brilliant, and so real: If it was easy, everyone would do it.

Varian Johnson has distractions from writing.

He said, “We do the best job at self-sabotage.” He creates a color-coded schedule and gets up to write at 4:15 AM for 90 minutes, declaring, “The day got my best for writing.”

I headed to Don’t Forget the Chapter Books!

Jarrett Lerner moderates a panel of chapter book authors: David Kelly, Megan Frazer Blakemore, Debbi Michiko Florence, and Kara LaReau (not pictured)

There was talk of formulas, templates, word count, hooks, problems, and the formats that publishers expect for this age range, which was also in debate. The distinctions are apparently messy, but books aimed at 3rd to 5th graders are hugely important for building confidence and growing readers who enjoy reading. Kids like to read up, it’s aspirational. Jarrett likes to throw in words that are vocabulary-builders, like the word epiphany, which he used twice in a recent book. No point in writing down to your audience.

Next up: Person, Pacing, and Presentation: What Makes a Good Comic/Graphic Novel?

A panel with Mel Schuit, LeUyen Pham, Alex Graudins, and Dr. Laura Jimenez discussed the gravitas of the graphic novel and comics format.

For years, I received Charlesbridge emails from Mel Schuit, but had never met her. She has the biggest smile and the hottest lipstick.

Sketchbook portrait by jamie Hgoan

She also succinctly covered the architecture of comics: frame, panel, gutter, tier, encapsulation, moment to moment, action to action, subject to subject, scene to scene, aspect to aspect. Throw in non sequiturs, dialogue, sound effects, and narrative text, and you’re deep into dynamic stories without even realizing it. The cognitive load of all this makes for slow reading, which is wonderful.

LeUyen Pham’s background in animation and film helped her sense of framing, and making the reader feel the physical.

Alex Graudins discovered as a visual learner that visual stimulation creates more brain activity. The universality of a comic means the gutter (the space between panels) could represent a minute or a million years.

During the lunch break, I went solo across the river to RISD, my college turf.

This made me feel right at home, given that there was no river or Waterfire when I was a student. Providence was a seedy town in the late 70’s and I loved it.

My old haunt, Carr House, was closed, as was the Nature Lab. Spring break:(

I had a quick salad in the mostly deserted Portfolio Cafe where a mural captures the iconic RISD lawn.

I snuck back into Reaching Readers Part 1: Getting Your Book to Kids where Lee Wind moderated a panel including Anika Denise, Debbie Kovacs, Barbara Fisch, and Josh Funk.

The emphasis was on online communities. Librarians as allies. If you go to a book signing, embrace whoever is there, tell your story. Booksellers and librarians are your proxy. Josh said, “Never say buy my book. But always say, buy my friend’s book!” Anika suggested making a checklist of related organizations for partnering. Someone said, “Swaggitize!”

After a little break, I went back for more: Reaching Readers Part 2: the Gatekeepers with Sam Musher and Karen Yingling, both librarians, and Melissa Fox, a book nutty bookseller from Kansas. I have no notes on this. I was in need of a snack.

Saving the best for last, the finale session for me was A Dash of Play and a Sprinkle of Surprise, moderated by Kirsten Cappy.

Curious City site illustration by Marty Braun.

Isabel Roxas‘ zine got picked up at a comics festival. “How I look enriches my life,” she said. Her point of view informs everything she does.

Isabel Roxas talks inspiration.

Janet Costa Bates and Nancy Tupper Ling at Kidlit con

Everyone discussed their tools for finding inspiration, including huge pink post-its and mood boards.

Oge Mora, Caldecott Honor winner and a recent RISD grad, talked about using her sketchbooks to revisit ideas, taking textile classes, and her paper obsession. Here’s my collage ode to her.