This year the Federation of Children’s Book Groups are
celebrating a big anniversary and I was honoured to be invited to be on a panel
with Lantana Publishing who are publishing my next two titles You’re Safe With
Me and You’re Snug With Me, both illustrated by the very talented PoonamMistry.
The conference itself runs for three days, each year a
different regional group organising it in conjunction with the national
committee. I was invited for a panel event on the second day and I was a bit
intimidated that we were going to follow James Mayhew and we will be the
warm-up act for Jacqueline Wilson, the super-woman of children’s literature,
especially writing stories that represent misfits and unique kids, like I was.
So I was proud to collect my badge which said speaker. And then I realised I knew quite a lot of people there, either
because I’ve met them before at various school events or friends on Twitter or
Facebook.
We setup our presentation with the help of Stewart Jordan, the
amazing theatre manager.
Our panel was made up of three women – Alice Curry, founder
and publisher at Lantana Publishing, Mehrdokht Amini illustrator of two
beautiful books with Lantana Publishing and yours truly, writer of You’re Safe
With Me.
We discussed how books can span from local to global and the
other way round and what does that mean to Mehrdokht and me as creators. We
discussed how sometimes tensions will arise between commercial appeal in the
western markets vs. the authenticity of the content. We also discussed how
Alice makes choices for her list – which story, which culture and the creators.
The audience was made up of librarians, teachers and people
who love books and they not only listened to us tell our stories, they laughed
in the right places too.
They also had a hall full of publishers showcasing their
books and I was proud to be on three tables – OtterBarry Books, MMS Publishing
and Bounce representing all my books. There was also Brenda’s Bookshop and I
got to sign advance copies of You’re Safe With Me. The illustrations by Poonam
Mistry were a big hit and everyone could see how excited I was about the book.
It was my first FCBG conference and it was fun to be there
on their Golden Anniversary. I got to listen to Dame Jacqueline Wilson speak
and it was wonderful listening to the master. I got to meet so many other
authors, friends from twitter and wonderful people of the book world. And yes
there was cake!
2 comments:
Your session was fascinating, fun, and important, Chitra. And your new book is a beauty!
Often used to attend those Conferences, but I've been unable to attend for a while, so thank you for reminding me of lovely times, Chitra, and I'm glad that you enjoyed your weekend.
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