Author Care Everywhere

Last month over 100 hundred authors visited more locations than you can count on all said authors’ fingers and toes. It was terrific fun and most of the events were rip roaring successes. Inevitably we do hear of the odd event where things did not go completely smoothly. Few and far between as they are,  its always important to figure out what didn’t go according to plan and why.

The word ethos came up several times – more specifically how a host venue feels about a visiting author or illustrator.  It can vary from being the highlight of the month to a vague annoyance for venues where they grudgingly rearrange the furniture for the author and barely tolerate the presence of young readers.

Coincidentally two authors both posting about author care this week Amanda Craig on literary festivals and Sarah Webb on school and library events. Two different styles of events  but  it would seem that word ethos is common to both their concerns….

I’d have to keep doing it…

It’s a particularly busy time for everyone with Children’s Book Festival.

Want to know how everyone is getting on this October?  go here, here, here, here, here and here.

In the meantime here is something to ponder, it might give us all a reason to do more and better all year round.

Overheard in a bookshop last Thursday evening. A mother talking to her friend about her young son. “I wouldn’t want to start reading to him at night because then I’d have to keep doing it”

Reading Association of Ireland – winners

Big Congratulations to  Celine Kiernan and Conor Kostick who won RAI awards last night. Conor was presented with the Special Merit Award not just for his shortlisted title Move but for his wider contribution to the genre of political and science fiction. Celine scooped the 2009 Award for The Poison Throne. Bravo to all.

More details on reading.ie

libraries and publishers – how it can work

During 2008 we tracked 255 author events, including the big name ones. They generated book sales of £36,229 and were attended by 14,433 readers. In addition more libraries are now tried and tested venues for author events.

The Reading Agency in the UK has been pioneering a new way for libraries and publishers to work together for the last four years. Helped significantly by The National Year of Reading 2008, last year shows a bumper year for Reading Partners. It is almost too obvious an idea isn’t it – strategically matching publishers and libraries but you would be surprised at how little is does happen. Libraries are a phenomenal literary infrastructure with committed staff, some extraordinary buildings and a regular audience but it isn’t always easy to get publishers and libraries to work together. CBI’s work during Childrens Book Festival is often spent brokering relationships and building partnerships for events and it s very rewarding when events come together and even more rewarding when long term relationships are built.

More about the scheme over on bookbrunch today

Ebooks, digital publishing and children

Publishing, But Not As We Know It

For the first time, we have a generation of children who are reading more off screens than they are off paper. With developments such as eBook readers, writers producing novels and comics for mobile phones, online fan-fiction, digital book piracy and the panic-inducing Google Book Settlement, the book industry is in turmoil. Text is evolving and the traditional methods of production, marketing and even education are being left behind. This is nothing short of a revolution, and everyone involved in the book industry is faced with embracing it or losing touch with young readers.

CBI brings a panel of speakers together to discuss how to carry children’s books forward into this new age of publishing.

The Irish Writers Centre, Parnell Square, Dublin 1 Thursday June 11th 6.30-8.30pm

Chair Oisín McGann

Panel - Georgina Byrne, County Librarian, South Dublin Libraries; Sam Holman, Director, Irish Copyright Licensing Agency ; John McNamee, President European Booksellers Federation ; Peadar Ó’Guilín, Author

More information on www.childrensbooksireland.ie | 01 872 7475 info@childrensbooksireland.ie

PS – Eoin Purcell has some terrific links and thoughts  related to e books

Events Epidemic

Lots of events happening in the next week……..

First up is Pj Lynch, in St Patrick’s College on Thursday 23rd April at 6.30pm. In celebration of UNESCO World Book Day, Cregan Library, St Patrick’s College Drumcondra, Dublin, will present a special event with P.J. Room E201, St Patrick’s College Drumcondra.To RSVP, email info.library@spd.dcu.ie

Also on Thursday, in Cork city library- French graphic artist Stéphane Heuet will be in town not only to launch a new graphic novel by teenagers with author John Sexton and illustrator Alan Barrett but he will also be participating in a public event on Thursday afternoon. For more information please contact cork libraries 021 4924900- libraries@corkcity.ie

On Saturday Walker Books and Church of Ireland College of Education in Rathmines are presenting ‘The Story in the Picture’ on 25th April 2009 in the College in Rathmines. Featuring illustrators Patrick Benson, Bruce Ingman and Niamh Sharkey along with Deirdre McDermott and Lizzie Spratt from Walker Books.Cost €35 (students €20) to include coffee/tea and lunch. For further information contact vcoghlan@cice.ie or telephone 01 4970033.

On Saturday April 25th from 2.30pm, Derek Landy will be celebrating in the National Gallery of Ireland as part of Family Fun day. Derek will be in The Shaw Room from 3pm and will be signing books as well- more info from the National Gallery of Ireland – www.nationalgallery.ie or info@ngi.ie

On Monday 27th at 7pm, US academic Jack Zipes will be addressing the theme of The Reconfiguration of Children and Children’s Literature in a Globalised World. St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra. More information from celia.keena@spd.dcu.ie or janeohanlon@poetryireland.ie

The story in the picture

Yipee, a full day of chat about picture books –

Walker Books and Church of Ireland College of Education in Rathmines are presenting ‘The Story in the Picture’ on 25th April 2009 in the College in Rathmines.

Featuring illustrators Patrick Benson, Bruce Ingman and Niamh Sharkey along with Deirdre McDermott and Lizzie Spratt from Walker  Books

Venue: The Church of Ireland College of Education, 96 Upper Rathmines Road, Dublin 6.

Cost €35 (students €20) to include coffee/tea and lunch.

Bookings: The Reading Centre@The Church of Ireland College of Education (Please make cheques payable to ‘The Church of Ireland College of Education’)

For further information contact vcoghlan@cice.ie or telephone 01 4970033

Tamar Institute in Palestine wins the ALMA

More international awards for work with children and books and reading…

The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award was announced today in Bologne. The swedes take the legacy of Lindgren very seriously and every year they make an award to an individual, individuals or organisations who are active in reading promotion. And by serious I mean – the prize totals SEK 5 million (equivalent to approx. USD 578,000, 445,000 EUR). Lindgren is an extraordinarily important  figure in  children’s books and the Swedes are determined to celebrate her with this important prize.

As they say

“The prize aims to strengthen and increase interest in children’s and young people’s literature globally. The award is designed to strengthen children’s rights at global level.

This year’s recipient is Tamer Institute for Community Education, Palestine.

Tamer Institute for Community Education
The Tamer Institute for Community Education in Ramallah is an independent organisation that has carried out reading promotion work for children and young people in West Bank and Gaza since 1989. The Tamer Institute was founded to give children access to books and alternative learning as children’s and young people’s schooling, leisure time and lives suffered from the troubles in the area. The Tamer Institute also hands out reading passports. Holders get a stamp for every book they have read. This is a clear symbol of the fact that there are no borders for those who can read books. As Astrid Lindgren said: “Good children’s literature gives the child a place in the world and the world a place in the child”.

The Tamer Institute is the hub of a network that works with writing workshops, storytelling, drama and literary discussion for children and young people. They supply libraries with children’s books and they train librarians and parents. A national reading campaign is organised every year, culminating with National Reading Week. In 2008, the campaign reached 52,000 children in refugee camps and remote villages and communities, who took part in literary discussion, drama and drawing and writing workshops.

The Tamer Institute also carries out youth activities. The young people, who have often participated in Tamer’s work since they were children, publish their own newspaper, Yara´at, among other things. They use it to publish their thoughts, poems and stories. When the Tamer Institute was founded, there were virtually no Palestinian children’s books. The organisation has now published more than 130 titles and several of the children who attended the Tamer Institute’s writing workshops have started to write their own books as adults.

Despite difficult circumstances, the Tamer Institute works tirelessly on many levels to create a better situation for Palestinian children and young people via literature. Their conviction that words can tear down walls has resulted in innovative reading promotion activities of an unusual breadth, for which reason the Tamer Institute has been awarded the 2009 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

www.tamerinst.org

Bravo Poetry Aloud (and famous Seamus of course)

Seamus Heaney has been awarded the ninth David Cohen Prize for Literature. A popular winner Seamus accepted the award with his usual wit and warmth.

A great part of the prize? – he gets to select a recipient for the £12,500 Clarissa Luard Award and he choose Poetry Aloud organised by The National Library of Ireland and Poetry Ireland. Congrats to one and all.

Photo below via Book Brunch featuring Seamus and Maire Heaney along with Aongus O hAonghusa of the National Library and Jane O’Hanlon of Poetry Ireland. In accepting the award Jane said it was

“A heartening expression of support which acknowledged the organisations’ commitment to high-quality literary arts practice with young people.”

Monstrous Marketing Machines begin march for Colfer and Adams

The marketing machine for Eoin Colfer’s sequel to the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is swinging into action. Cover has been released and Penguin and Pan Macmillan are vowing to work together to promote both Colfer’s new title and the backlist.

Here’s what Eoin had to say at the launch-

All this hitching and adventuring went on for five books and then Douglas Adams passed away before he could write book six. Hitchhiker has been heard on radio, seen on tv and enjoyed on the cinema screen, there was even a musical version. But the story could never end, until now. I am going to continue on where Douglas left off. Unfortunately for me, he left off on rather a large cliffhanger. Everyone was dead. Which means I have rather a large challenge ahead of me, but it is one I am looking forward to.

The book will be out later this year. It will be called And Another Thing. And I really hope you will board the spaceship with me so we can travel through Douglas Adams’ hilarious galaxy together, which will save me having to hang around in your driveway.

And here’s some eye popping sales stats from the Bookseller -

Global sales for the Hitchhiker books are 16 million, with Eoin Colfer’s global sales standing at 18 million.