One of the fun things for me being in the NYC book business is getting to work with creative people directly. Here is a cover design that I designed with Zetta Elliott. It is for her young adult novel, A WISH AFTER MIDNIGHT. You can see this and other work by Zetta here.
I e-mailed my dummy last week to Candlewick and didn’t hear back right away. I took this as nothing too unusual. I know how busy editor’s and designers can get. A week later the designer that I will be working with e-mailed to check on the status of the dummy. I realized they didn’t get it 
Fortunately I also sent it to my agent the same time I sent it to my house. She e-mailed me to say that the way they realized that the dummy was sent was through the authors who read my blog 
So, now that I realize people read my blog outside of my mom, and SVA comrades, I will be talking more about art and less about cupcakes and celebrity sightings here in NY.
I’m so gonna be using this story in panel discussions some day.
Oh, and did I mention
Kirkus Reviews has selected BIRD to be featured in the upcoming Editors’ Choice special edition on children’s books. I’m still dancing.
Last night I attended the I AM A MAN exhibit at
MoCADA - The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art.
Charly “Carlos” Palmer, a very talented painter residing in Atlanta, GA., was showing alongside Hank Willis Thomas, Russell Frederick, Rah Crawford, Radcliff Bailey, Leroy Henderson, Fahamu Pecou, Jefferson Pinder, Terrence Jennings and Juan Sanchez. I met Carlos about seven years ago in a figure drawing/painting session at the Atlanta University Center. It was great seeing him at the show and seeing two of his latest pieces.
I also shook hands with Fahamu Pecou, owner of Diamond Lounge Creative, and the mind behind the ongoing series Fahamu Pecou is the sh@@. I’ve been following both of these artist’s careers for many years now. It’s so wonderful to meet them here in New York
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Talking with Carlos was extremely refreshing. Through the years I stayed in touch, sending him e-mails to keep him informed of my work and visiting his web site to stay informed of his. His paintings are truly inspiring and I hope that our paths will cross again sometime in the world of art. Another testament to staying in in touch and encouraging one another is my e-friendship with Nicole Tadgell. She and I were once crit buddies online. We have since then published multiple books with Lee and Low and continue to communicate via snail mail and through the internet.Hopefully one day we’ll actually meet in the flesh.
Alice Walker once said to me that “we are all in this together”. At the time I thought, I’m in a itty bitty row boat, while you’re in a yacht that can fly. But now, I get it. We are all creative people trying to share our gifts with the world. I believe that if we work hard at what we do, we will all get there eventually….wherever “there” may be.
BTW, Kirkus Reviews has selected BIRD to be featured in the upcoming Editors’ Choice special edition on children’s books. I’m doing a happy dance
A pic of me and my 83 year old aunt for ya. It was her first time seeing a digital camera. Her reaction when I took the pic and flipped it over to show her the image on the screen…”Shut yo’ mouth!”
It’s two in the morning. I just finished the sketch dummy for my next book, WHITE WATER. To be published by Candlewick 2009. Yawn! YAY! While visiting Atlanta for my best friend’s wedding I was able to hop on over and get a few pics of Opelika, Alabama, where the story takes place. I never found the bus depot (it was torn down a few years back), which is a pretty significant place in the story, but the Opelika main library had a nice sized picture collection that featured lots of great shots of buidlings in downtown Opelika. The librarians there were SUPER helpful. Once the book is out, I plan to hand deliver a copy.
Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for “The Vagina Monologues”, wrote the following about Sarah Palin.
Drill, Drill, Dril
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it’s their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one.? Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
I don’t like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story — connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world.? Unfortunately, this is not a joke.? In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God’s plan.? She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin’s view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, “It was a task from God.”
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist’s baby or not. She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States . She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God’s name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S. , but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression. If the Polar Bears don’t move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, “Drill Drill Drill.” I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent.? I think of pain.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?
Eve Ensler September 5, 2008
a starred review!
My editor sent me a glowing review last week from KIRKUS only to find out a bit later that it was actually a starred review! We all did a little dance. Yay. This is what KIRKUS said:
Elliott, Zetta (Starred)
BIRD
Illus. by Shadra Strickland
Nicknamed Bird at birth, Mehkai idolizes his older brother Marcus. As they mature, both brothers excel in art. However, Marcus’s drug experimentation spirals into an all-consuming addiction. While Bird’s drawings are intricate and controlled, Marcus’s colorful graffiti sprawls, depicting a bird in flight. Bird’s conflicting emotions about Marcus authentically reflect his African-American family’s turmoil when his brother dies. His late Granddad’s friend responds to Bird’s despair with quiet strength: “You can fix a broken wing with a splint / and a bird can fly again / But you can’t fix a broken soul.” Elliott’s sensitivity for her subjects resonates with Strickland’s distinctive mixed-media art. Shifting perspectives and colors reflect Marcus’s deepening addiction; his signature cap alters accordingly. Off-kilter lines exude the random energy and volatility of an addict. In two powerful double-page spreads, a doorway separates the brothers; Bird, flooded in light, reaches for Marcus, but his brother remains in the darkness. With unusual depth and raw conviction, Elliott’s child-centered narrative excels in this debut. (Picture book. 8-12)
It’s almost time! I received my first copy of BIRD in the mail last week. I can hardly believe it’s a real book. The cover and book design was beautifully done by Susan and David Neuhaus at Neustudio. To join in our excitement and book happenings you can join Bird’s facebook page, and of course, stay tuned to the blog as I continue to post updates.
Today while researching 1950’s Alabama for my next book, I came across this great photo of Joan Baez and Susan Sarandon talking during the Selma to Montgomery March. The photo is dated 1965. It’s amazing who life will bring your way.
