A Night at the Museum

David, Hilde, Sam and Victoria

by Hilde Garcia

When I was a kid, I remember reading From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg and dreaming I could also run away to a museum. I understood Claudia and no one appreciate me. But I lived in Florida and there was no Metropolitan Museum of Art.

When I grew up, I went to the Metropolitan. I still wanted to run away and spend the night. The allure of the armor, the paintings and the sculptures were all so thrilling as they loomed in the darkness.

Over the years every time I visited any museum, I still wished I could hide among the exhibits and come out when the coast was clear and solve a mystery like Claudia. I would explore all the nooks and crannies, and the places that said, “Do Not Touch.”

Hilde and Victoria

For my 44th birthday, my wish came true. I found myself in a museum sleepover. Yep, I was in my Hello Kitty pajamas and I was really going to spend the night inside of the Noah’s Ark exhibit at the Skirball Museum in Los Angeles. It was dark all around me. My twins sleeping next to me breathed deeply. I slipped on my socks and prowled through the corridors. Every step made my heart beat as floorboards creaked and people stirred.

Our magical sleepover began with playtime in the ark, which my children know extremely well from their previous adventures. Micah Cover performed a hilarious magic show for us. Then after a yummy catered dinner by El Pollo Loco, we participated in a magic workshop with Micah and took an oath as magicians to learn how to do magic.

And no, I’m not posting how to do the tricks we learned because we took an oath.

Victoria, Magician and Sam

We made a magic card trick of our own, sorry can’t tell you what it was- top secret. We decorated magic boxes and licked fruit Popsicle bars. I had the lemonade flavored one. My kids went for the strawberry.

After dessert, we took a private tour of the Harry Houdini Exhibit. During the Scavenger Hunt, we were given puzzles that once complete, pointed to a part of the exhibit with answers about Houdini’s life.

If that wasn’t magical enough, we got magic gift packs to take home with some tricks we could use. Before we all turned in, our fearless and fun leader, Michael, read George Shrinks and Huge Harold. Only a few small fry yawned, but all stayed awake.

Upon our arrival, my daughter had picked out the most perfect place on the ark to sleep- right by the kitchen area under the rope bridge and it was our own little private Idaho. I slept in an exhibit as I had dreamed I would.

Sam, Hilde and Victoria

In the morning, we finished our magic boxes and had breakfast before we left the magical place that was Noah’s Ark and return home.

I must tell you that dreams do come true for kids, even if they have to wait a long, long time for them. When we write, we really do make a difference. I wonder if E. L. Konigsburg knew that she would be inspiring a generation of children to runaway to a museum.

How many amazing books inspire kids to follow the hero or heroine of the story? As authors, we must continue to create magic in our books no matter where they take place, so that children will still wish to spend the night in a museum or in a castle.

To all of you that have dreamed the same as I have, I can tell you this much, it was the coolest night and I highly recommend it.

Let your dreams prowl among the exhibits where the signs say “Do Not Touch.”

For more information about The Skirball Sleepover:

Membership:

• http://www.skirball.org/get-involved/membership-levels-and-benefits

Not sure you need to be a member to participate in the sleepover.

July Newsletter:

• http://www.skirball.org/general-info/July-2011

In the newsletter there is a link to the sleepover:

• http://www.skirball.org/programs/forfamilies/magical-skibrall-sleepover

But forget your sleeping bag. An Airbed is the only way to go!

Mina Javaherbin In Conversation with The Pen And Ink

by Lupe Fernandez

Edited by The Management

Exclusive Announcement!
The Secret Message written by Mina Javaherbin, based on a poem by Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet and illustrated by Bruce Whatley, will be part of an anthology taught in all 4th grade classes across USA. Mina was elated with joy. This publication brings approximately one million readership for her book. 

Mina began writing The Secret Message in 2000. The text for The Secret Message was submitted to the 2004 SCBWI Barbara Karlin Grant for emerging, unpublished picture book writers and The Secret Message was a runner-up. Mina received the award at the Century Plaza Hotel as about two thousand other writers clapped for her. This she said she’ll never forget. After mentioning this award on her resume, Mina was noticed by Studio Goodwin Sturges which sold the book to Disney-Hyperion Books in 2006. The book came out late October of 2010. 

Mina Javaherbin

The Craft

Mina is a professional architect. She uses her architectural education for writing as well. She says, “Creative thinking has a universal gestalt and understanding the different medium of expression can help the artist apply his or her education in interchangeable forms of art.” 

“Everything I learned about Writing I Learned in Architecture” is the title of a lecture she is hoping to offer in her architecture school alumni lecture series one day. 

Rumi

We talked about this in specific and she has interesting points in comparing blueprints to story outlines, foundation to plot, structure to voice and finally the infamous ARC of a story which comes directly from the word architecture.

Inspiration
Mina Javaherbin is also the author of Goal!, illustrated by A.G. Ford. In Goal!, a South African boy who plays soccer with his friends in an unsafe neighborhood. The boys deal with the bullies by standing together and thinking together as a team.

Soccer inspires Mina for its egalitarian nature. “It’s played all over the world.” The problems addressed in Goal! are not unique to one country. “People can learn to rally together and stand up to bullies. Soccer is a practice.”

For Goal! “The entire idea came to me in one sitting. I've been working on so many versions of soccer and nothing worked... once I realized that the games are going to be in South Africa I had the image of Ajani playing in the not so safe streets of a township and then everything flowed in.” Mina had watched the apartheid movement taking shape on their black and white TV in Iran Later she found out that activists such as Nelson Mandela had played soccer in prison to boost their morale.

The text of Goal! reads like a poem. “It reads like football cadence,” Mina said, “Action, movement. Poetry and Picture Books go together. It’s music to the ear. Literature has its own language and of course I wrote in metaphor.” Mina had minor changes from her editor. “The text should be ready to go, especially for a first time unknown author.”

High Praise

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

The Archbishop Desmond Tutu called Goal! “Uplifting and inspiring…and a gift to all soccer fans around the world.”

When the Nobel Peace prize winner Tutu wrote a quote for Mina’s book obtained by the Candlewick Press, Mina cried with joy, she said that she wrote a thank you letter for Mr. Tutu, “It was surreal to write a letter to Archbishop Desmond Tutu.”

The following are a list of awards and accolades for Goal!

• IRA Award Winner. IRA=International Reading Association 
• Nominated for California Young Readers 2011-2012 
• An Irma Black finalist 
• Nominated for the Texas Blue Bonnet Award 
• NYPL pick for 2010 
• Finalist for Chickadee Main Award. 
• Smithsonian pick for 2010 

Collaboration
With both books the publishers had asked, which artists Mina liked. Mina gave a list to her publishers. She said that in her experience her publishers did their best to accommodate back and forth collaboration between the author and the artist and that she was delighted about this.

Charlize and Mina

Charlize Theron
At a function for the Center For Living Peace in Irvine California - Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project, Mina met Charlize. “It was a charity function. Charlize is gracious, very pretty inside and out she had asked the kids, ‘What do you recommend to help stop the spread of AIDS?’ The kids had responded to Ms. Theron, ‘Give us a place to play soccer. Lighted fields at night so we can play. With no electricity, there’s too much sex, there’s nothing else to do at night.’ With this Charlize Theron is in the process of not only offering medication and lectures and awareness but also creating fundamental alternative option to channel the youth’s energy.”

A Sequel? 
When this interviewer asked Mina if there would be a sequel to Goal!? She said there would be “another book.” This interviewer suggested the following titles: 

1. Touchdown!
2. HomeRun!
3. Hole-In-One!

Mina responded, “You’re not that far off.”

Last Thoughts

“I think the enthusiasm of the author,” Mina said, “to promote (their book) will excite the publisher.”

“Don’t give up.” 

“Get creative; there is nothing more fun out there!” 

___________________________________________________
The Pen And Ink Blogspot would like to thank Mina for this interview.

For more on Mina Javaherbin:
Visit her website.
Watch the exciting book trailer for Goal!
Listen to Mina read an excerpt of The Secret Message.
Representation by The Red Fox Literary agency.

High School Time Machine

by Lupe Fernandez – Class of 1980

I attended a high school reunion in August. It’s been thirty-one years since I graduated from Sunset High. Stepping into the Crow Canyon Country Club in San Ramon, I felt transported through time. In an instant, the goofy kid became the responsible, pillar of the community adult, the flighty social butterfly became a stern mother of three, and the student voted mostly like to succeed is dead.

My idea of fun at a reunion was asking questions such as

“Did you like high school?”

“Did you have to fend off unwanted advances from boys?”

“Can you tell me about that traumatic experience of being taunted?”

Other alumni were drinking, talking and dancing.

I thought about the teenage life I didn’t live. I thought of a different story. What if I had an affair with a teacher and fell in love? What if I married a high school sweet-heart and she got pregnant with somebody’s baby? What if I asked the popular girl out for a date and she said yes? What if I tried to burn down the gym and never got caught? What if I adopted the slacker life style and fought with my parents about college? What if I became a literary sensation and couldn’t handle the fame? What if I had gone drinking on overnight school trip and committed a crime?

What if I saved the school from some horrible disaster of my own making? What if I joined a cult? (Joining a cult was a big fear in my teen days.)

All these possibilies. Lives unlived. I was a well-behaved, bored, shy, sarcastic kid whose regrets have regrets.

In those days, Warsaw Pact Forces occupied Eastern Europe, ready to jump off into Germany. Iran held American Embassy personnel hostage. A disease emerged – today known as AIDS - with causation unknown, treatment non-existent and death guaranteed.

What if World War III broke out and my school survived? What if someone I knew was a hostage at the American Embassy and I hated my fellow Iranian students? What if I caught the mysterious disease and developed immunity?

I’m grateful to have avoided those scenarios.

I can’t go back in time and revise my past. Writing stories that take place in high school, during those uncertain years of out-of-fashion smells, ill-fitting conversations and awkward clothes, allow me a small measure of instant replay to satisfy romantic wishes or fashion an exciting life.

I’ll never know why that one girl dumped me after a week of going steady, so I’ll have to make something up and live with it.

What if…

Review of The Aviary by Kathleen O'Dell

by Kris Kahrs
Edited by Lupe Fernandez

The Pen and Ink Blog has always been a fan of homegirl, Kathleen O’Dell, she of the popular Agnes Parker series. So, in the interest of fairness, this blogger will be up front and simply say you must read everything Kathleen O’Dell has written. There, now that we’ve shared something, I feel so much closer to you, dear reader. To help you with your new mandate, Ms. O’Dell has given us The Aviary. It is everything this blogger looks for in a novel as well as her stock portfolio: believable characters, beautiful use of language, a brisk pace and a freakin’ good story with enough twists and turns to put the Ikea floor plan to shame. 

Kathleen O’Dell’s sixth book, The Aviary, is a middle grade mystery set in a nineteenth century coastal town. Clara Dooley and her mother (the property caretaker) live in the old Glendoveer mansion with the bedridden owner, Mrs. Glendoveer, the housekeeper, Ruby and a large cage of five shrieking birds in the backyard. Clara’s been homeschooled her whole life due to an indeterminate heart condition. Her mother equivocates on all of Clara’s questions regarding her father’s disappearance and the kidnapping and subsequent drowning of the Glendoveer children. Although the loving Mrs. Glendoveer treats Clara like her own, it is life in a gilded cage for the young girl. Until the day Clara meets her new BFF, Daphne. Daphne’s questions about the town rumor that the Glendoveers may have been responsible for the demise of their children makes Clara realize she needs to clear the Glendoveer name and bring the responsible villain to justice. As Clara and Daphne turn up more pieces to the puzzle, it becomes apparent that the frightening birds in the aviary are part of the mystery too. Clara teaches the birds to talk and discovers their true identity. 

Ms. O’Dell is a master of handling complex subject matter in a simple fashion without patronizing the reader. Although this feat appears easy enough, it can make an author apply to dental school. She adroitly handles the period setting of the story by not dwelling on historical detail, but generally addressing the differences in broad language in order to move on and get the story told, all of which, the middle grader reader will appreciate. 

The Aviary is the rare (cough) bird that both adults and their middle grade readers will share for their school reading or just for the enjoyment of it. 

For more on Kathleen O’Dell 

Interview with The Pen And Ink Blogpost

Kathleen's Website

My Publishing Contract: A Love Story

Glorious Contract. Note halo around it.

by Susan Berger

I have just signed a contract with Beach Lane Books!

“Hooray!” you say. “How did this happen?”

I’m so glad you asked. 

Last year, after doing a number of posts on first line/paragraphs, I decided to bring an archived picture book out of my file cabinet. The manuscript, The Undertoads, had the benefit of too much wonderful advice. I’d rewritten it so many times that I’d lost my impetus. After I read The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood and All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon, I thought perhaps there might be room for The Undertoads as a mood piece.

I showed it to Pen and Ink. They gave me more excellent advice. Armed with three wonderful critique partners, I polished The Undertoads’ rhyme and rewrote it both as a story and as a mood piece. I wanted to submit it to Allyn Johnston at Beach Lane Books. I composed my query letter and the Pen and Inkers polished it. Hilde Garcia was the final polisher on all things query. 

Beach Lane Books rejected it.

Rejection Letter

After the usual internal dialog Of course, it’s not any good. Why do I think anyone would want to read what I write? I perked up and concentrated on the fact that it was a beautiful rejection letter. It was hand written AND the letter had stickers on it. 

I decided I wanted togive Allyn a gift for sending me such a nice letter. I decided to send her Log. 

Log is the only picture book I ever wrote and illustrated. I didn’t think anyone would understand it without illustrations, so I drew one log, one hog, one frog, one bog and one dog. I scanned the images and printed several copies of each and then moved the illustrations around on the dummy pages. I scanned the final result into a PB manuscript. 

Here’s the letter I wrote Allyn:


November 24, 2010 

Dear Allyn, 

In honor of the Holidays, I am submitting to you my version of the Great American Novel. 

Log has everything: The Circle of Life, The American Dream, The eternal struggle of Sentient Beings vs Nature. 

AND it can be read in ninety seconds. (I mean who has time to read these days.) 

With Joy 

Susan J Berger 

I sent Log off without a SASE because it was a gift. I never expected to hear back. I wanted to make Allyn laugh. 

Six days later I got a phone call. “This is Allyn Johnston. You didn’t send a SASE.”

I didn’t answer right away because I was pretty sure I was hallucinating. Then I said something lame, like, “You have to give me a minute to get my heart back to normal.” 

Allyn said I’d made her day. She said she had been sitting on the floor of her living room, opening mail and feeling crappy. “I opened your envelope and saw the query and grumbled ‘I don’t want to read anyone’s “Great American Novel”.’” Then she said she started reading and laughing. She read it to her son and he thought Log was hysterical.

Allyn didn’t like my illustrations and I couldn’t say, “I’m fine with that” fast enough.

Then Allyn said the magic words:

"I think we can do business together.”

As soon as she hung up, I keyed her name to the phone number. I couldn’t wait to get to the meeting at Kris’ and show the group my phone. The amount of joy in that room could have lit Los Angeles. I know we are all going to get published. It’s just a matter of when. 

I emailed Allyn as she requested. And then… 

Nothing...

December…January….In February… I mailed her a revised ending for Log. I thought she might have changed her mind about publishing the manuscript, so this time I sent a SASE.

Nothing…. 

On St Patrick’s Day, I got an email from Allyn: 

Hello there, O Patient Susan! 

Many apologies for the delay in making things official with you for your very promising and funny picture-book text. We would indeed like to buy it. 

What followed was the deal memo which amazed me in its completeness. (Theme Park rights were covered.) 

Of course I said “Yes!” and added a request to come to La Jolla to sign it. I offered to bring Hilde’s amazing chocolate chip cookies. 

And then….May…June…July…

August 4th. The 2011 SCBWI conference started on the 5th. I decided to email Allyn before she left for the conference. 

Dear Allyn, 

I'm looking forward to seeing you at the conference and hoping Andrea is coming too. I'll be the one with the Log on my shoulder at the Saturday night party. Pen and Ink decided to come up with a T-shirt for the pajama party. I think you'll like it.

I guess I'm not supposed to pitch you again till after I sign the contract for Log, which is too bad cause I want to query you with War and Peace For Challenged Readers (alternate title: Cat and Rat) and The War of the Noses, (alternate title: Monks and Skunk) 

Blessings, 

Susan 

Allyn replied! 

And I have the contract for you--haha! Will be e-mailing it for you to print, review, sign, and then return for your advance due on signing! 

Hilde and I planned to ambush Allyn with Hilde’s cookies before Allyn’s first conference breakout session.

The ambush was successful, if you discount Allyn’s shock at being approached by two strangers with cookies. When we saw her after her Sunday session, “What the heck is a Picture Book?” Allyn said that Marla Frazee tasted the cookies and said, “Where did you get these? They’re divine.” Hilde promised to give Marla the recipe. 

The contract arrived by email on August 19th. I printed out three copies and returned them by snail mail. I signed the I-9 form and faxed it back to Simon and Schuster. On September 4th I got my copy of the signed contract. On September 9th, I received a check for the first part of the advance. 

I’m waiting for the editorial letter or an email from Allyn so I can make the changes she requests. After that I will be eligible for the second part of the advance. 

The Check

It’s hard to wait. I want everything to happen now. I want to know who the illustrator will be. I want to see the finished book.

I also know that Allyn is the conductor of this symphony called Log on Log and I’ve become a member of the orchestra. And, Ms. Johnston, I’m very happy to be under your baton.