SENDAK FELLOWSHIP 2011?!?!
Posted March 15, 2011

Rumor has it it's happening again. Can't wait to hear who the four are who get chosen. Whoever they are they're so incredibly lucky they don't even know the half of it.


My Oven + My Fence
Posted March 10, 2011

My oven died. Without warning. Unrelated to the problem that killed it, it was also apparently never hooked up properly and was a continuous threat to explode the entire time we'd been using it. Fun. We now have a new oven.

In other news, the fence that was knocked over by September's tornado, which also knocked the chimney off the roof and into my neighbor's roof and through their renter's bathroom, while their renter was in the bathroom, was finally fixed. Five months later. Luckily the renter was "dropping the kids off at the lake" and not bathing because the tub was totally crushed. Too close for comfort. This has been an expensive month already.


Fall, 2010
SENDAK FELLOWSHIP
Posted Dec. 31, 2010

After dropping my daughter off for her first day at a new preschool, I got on a train to Maurice Sendak's house, where I lived for the next month. Or not in his house exactly, but in the house next to his house, which is also his house but which is not the house he lives in.

I was one of four author/illustrators anonymously selected as this year's innaugural Sendak Fellowship recipients. The whole thing was top secret and we were asked not to say anything until after it was over and for all I know we're still not supposed say anything. Sorry. But I have to say something because it was one of the most important months of my adult life.

Not becuase I have anything to show for being there. I do not. Not because Maurice Sendak is such a brilliant, scary, warm, funny, dark man... which he totally is. Not because the three other fellows, Antoinette Portis, Aaron Renier, and Paul Schmid are all alarmingly smart and depressingly talented, which they are. Not because Dona McAdams and Lynn Caponera, who put the Sendak Fellowship together, are nicer and more accommodating than any two people I've ever met. But because the fellowship reminded me of why I started writing and drawing in the first place. To play and have no clue what I was going to do next and to have that not knowing not feel like being lost in the bad way lost usually feels, but like it was exactly where I was supposed to be.

It seems easy enough. Get lost and be happy. Anyone who writes or draws picture books knows what it's like to feel lost. Looking at your blank computer screen and empty pads. Or staring at words and pictures you can't believe you ever thought were even remotely competent for one millisecond. It does not inspire happiness. But for one pointless, unexpected month in a secret place with woods large enough to get lost in and a room of my own with a door and four of the smartest writers and drawers of kids books I know living right there, I happily did nothing but draw on the walls of my room for a month. I don't have any pictures to show. But two months later my brain feels like it's ready to start its first day at a new preschool.

So as another year comes to a disappointing close (they're always disappointing no matter how good or bad they are) and we're all thinking about what to do better next year or where we'd like to be that we aren't right now, I hope everyone finds some way to get a little bit lost in the good way not knowing where you are or what you're supposed to be doing always is.

Happy new year!



Saturday, June 5, 2010 • 12:00 to 2:00pm
ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR
(OR, WRITTEN BY THE ARTIST)
Books of Wonder | 18 W. 18th St. NYC
"Books of Wonder is thrilled to announce that on Saturday, June 5th we will be hosting a wonderful group of SEVEN talented authors and artists who have both written and illustrated their latest picture books – including two beloved Caldecott Medalists!...On hand will be Caldecott Medalist URI SHULEVITZ...; Caldecott Medalist ED YOUNG...; author/artist GREG FOLEY...; Chair of the Illustration Department at Parsons School of Design, STEVEN GUARNACCIA...; author/artist LAURA LJUNGKVIST...; debut author and illustrator, DUNCAN TONATIUH...; and ROBERT WEINSTOCK..."
click here for more info



Monday, 1974
Hank Aaron eclipses the celebration of my birth by becoming the all-time homerun king of Major League Baseball.



Saturday, 1967
Was born.

Friday, 1077 AD (give or take a year)
The Bayeau Tapestry was completed.

Thursday, 3400-3200 BC
Writing is invented.



Tuesday, 38,000 BC
Art is invented.

Wednesday, 13,730,000,000 BC
There is a universe...finally.