A Serendipitous Story, The School Run to End All School Runs, Come to My Write Away Workshop, and The Shock of the Dilis

SCHOOL RUN | COME TO MY WORKSHOP FOR YOUNG WRITERS | DILIS | BOOK LAUNCH

A SERENDIPITOUS STORY

I was featured on the front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer yesterday! Find out about my identity crisis here (just in case you are not from the Philippines, the nay in 'Pinay' sounds like 'buy').

Thanks to Ruey for writing such a comprehensive article that had to be continued on two further pages. But no thanks for mentioning my age within the first two sentences! It was also Ruey who gave Shine a very nice review last August.

My mom rang me at my hotel first thing. 'CANDY! You're on the FRONT PAGE of the Inquirer!'

When Ruey interviewed me, he said it might appear on the Culture section of the Inquirer, not on the front page, so this was very exciting indeed.

I was interviewed by Ruel de Vera of the Inquirer. We met at a fascinating restaurant called Ziggurat. The menu was created by Filipino cooks who used to work for the dictator Khadafi. Delicious!

But searching for a copy of the Inquirer in the hotel lobby, I discovered they only stocked the Star.

Then, as I was eating breakfast a pretty smiling woman approached me. 'Don't you recognise me? It's Olga, your classmate!'

OMG. Olga was a childhood playmate. I hadn't seen her for maybe 30 YEARS! Olga then took me to meet her family. I couldn't help but notice that one of them was leafing through the Inquirer. 'This is Renato Reinoso, CEO of the Inquirer,' Olga said.

CEO? Of the Inquirer? Whaaaa????

And yes, they gave me a copy.

THE SCHOOL RUN TO END ALL SCHOOL RUNS

Last week, I was in Hong Kong and visited Bradbury and Glenealy schools. I was supposed to visit Peak School as well but sadly that chance was blown away by Typhoon Kalmaegi.

With children at Bradbury School. Photo by Mio Debnam

In Glenealy's beautiful school library. Photo by Mio Debnam

This coming week, I'll be visiting:

Beacon Academy (Laguna)
Xavier Nuvali
Alpha Angelicum Academy
Poveda
Ateneo de Manila
Beacon Academy (Makati)
Colegio de San Agustin
University of the East
Miriam College
St Theresa's College (my alma mater!)
(With two more schools the week after -- view the schedule)

Whew!

I will be telling the young people from these schools about my long journey to becoming an author. It's definitely gonna be fun, it's probably gonna be tiring ... I just hope it won't be FATTENING as well.

Filipino hospitality is so unstinting I usually find myself offered tasty treats at every single stop of a Filipino book tour.

Sadly, I am usually far too polite (and greedy) to refuse. Alas, poor waistline. I knew her well.

WORKSHOP ALERT! ASPIRING YOUNG WRITERS, THIS IS FOR YOU

On Saturday morning (27 September), I'll be running a Write Away workshop.

Write Away writing weekends are open to young people 7 to 17 years old. The current programme offers opportunities to interact and write with a published author  -- and this Saturday, it's gonna be me!

The Saturday workshops are run by Where the Write Things Are, a centre for lovers of writing of all ages. The centre is the brainchild of Neni Sta Romana Cruz, author of some of my favourite Filipino children's books and a fellow journalist from the Marcos era.

What am I going to do? Well, I don't want to spoil the surprise but there are going to be lots of chances to write and draw and show off your work.

Contact 0917-6240196 or writethingsph@gmail.com for more info. ASAP! It's this coming Saturday and places are limited!

THE SHOCK OF THE DILIS 

During the Manila International Book Fair, my friend Blooey took me to an ice cream parlour where we had this:

Yes, that is fish. Dried anchovy. We call it dilis.

What was it like? It was like Caramel Salt ice cream, except instead of salt, you have crispy bits of dried fish, and instead of caramel, your ice cream is made of chocolate sticky rice porridge.

Was it good? Ye-es, but I think if you're not from the Philippines, it might be a taste that needs a bit of acquiring!

... AND FINALLY

It's just five more days till the launch of Shine, Philippine edition. Are you coming?

< Diaries of Definitely UN-Wimpy Kids

Diaries of Definitely UN-Wimpy Kids

The first comic diary I read was this comic
made by Sarah McIntyre, illustrating
a diary she kept when she was a teen.
Here'sSarah's blog post on where she got the idea.

Where do you get your ideas?

That has got to be the most frequently asked question I've encountered in school visits. The children also tell me (though in politer words): 'You're OLD. You've already had a lot of experiences. We're YOUNG. What experiences do we have to write about?'

The answer? A lot. But you've got to pay attention. And keeping a diary is one way of learning how.

Last summer, I ran a three day workshop for South Friern Library in Barnet. I asked the kids to keep a little diary during those three days.

I made the diaries myself, folding sheets of A5 paper in half and stapling them together into a little booklet which I handed out at the very beginning of the course.

I got the idea from the graphic novel course I attended last winter, run by comic maker Emily Haworth Booth.

When Emily asked us to keep a comics diary, I was a bit worried.

I mean, I'd been starting and abandoning diaries since I was a teenager. I just didn't think I could keep at it. Writing was already my day job and writing some more didn't seem like fun.

But keeping a diary in comics was different. I couldn't stop! I filled my drawing book in no time. Changing the medium somehow freed me to express myself.

A frame from one of my comic diary entries in which my daughter begs for a pet dog.

So when I asked the kids to keep their own diaries, the rule was: do whatever you like, as often or as little as you like. Draw, write essays, write poetry, write captions, paste pictures, whatever.

DIARY KEEPING TIPS

1. Write as little or as much you like. But try to write regularly. Turn diary keeping into a habit.

2. Diaries are not all words. If, like me, you like drawing, then draw! I keep comics diaries! Experiment to find the best way to put your thoughts down.

3. You might find it easier to write to somebody, which is why so many write ‘Dear Diary’ – in The Color Purple by Alice Walker, the heroine keeps a diary in which she writes to ‘Dear God’.

4. Diaries are not just about keeping a record. Ask questions. Someday when you re-read your diary, you might find you know the answers.

5. You can also print out a photo you took during the day and caption it. If you're posting photos on social media, you might already be keeping a sort of diary!

6. Make lists. Check out the opening chapter of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend below.

7. Have fun!

Writing is not just about writing. It's about paying attention to the world around you. Noticing things. Trying to see things through other peoples' eyes. Digging under the surface. Thinking. Asking questions.

All these will feed into the writer you are going to become.

Ask questions, maybe someday you'll know the answer. From My Diary by Sarah McIntyre

The diary exercise was new to me. I hadn't tried it before. This time though I was going to see the same group of children for three whole days. Guess what? They loved it!

Right now, I'm getting ready for a school tour in and around Manila. I'm doing a few school visits in Hong Kong too. If I'm visiting YOUR school, you might want to have a go at keeping a diary ... I'd love to see what you do with it! For inspiration, have a look at these pages from the diaries of the children at my South Friern workshop:

Click on the images to enlarge

If you're a teacher or librarian and would like to get your kids to make diaries, do get in touch (scroll down to the contact form) and I'll send you a pdf of my Dear Diary Flyer.

I'M GOING HOME TO MANILA TO LAUNCH SHINE, PHILIPPINE EDITION ...

... AND I'M GOING TO BE SPEAKING IN A LOT OF PLACES! 

13 Sept Saturday Afternoon HK	SCBWI Hong Kong	Part One - A Writer is Just a Rabbit Staring at Rabbit Holes. Writers are like rabbits staring at rabbit holes that represent character, story and setting. We must dive in, go as far as we can go, in order for our stories to reveal themselves. Candy will talk about how there are no half measures in unfolding a story and how we are all better authors for the journey we have to take. Part Two - If Everyone's Now Got a Platform, How are You Going to Stand Out? We are all wise to the internet now, all tweeting, blogging, Facebooking. But is anybody listening? Candy Gourlay was an early adopter of the Internet, blogging before Blogger was invented, learning web design before content management systems became ubiquitous, and trying out every new thing that came along from MySpace to Tumblr. She will be discussing the author's biggest challenge: being discovered by readers. There will be tips and tricks and strategies. But be warned. Ultimately, it will be about writing a good book.
15 Sept Monday Morning HK 8.35 am	Bradbury School	School Visit
15 Sept Monday Afternoon HK 12 pm	Glenealy School	School Visit
16 Sept Tuesday HK 8.30 am	Peak School	School Visit
20 Sept Saturday Pasay City 8 am	Manila International Book Fair - Mall of Asia: Meeting Room 8, SMX Convention Centre	Why I Write for Young Readers. I will be speaking to an audience of educators - librarians and teachers who are already at the frontline of the reading battle. They already know the value of fostering a love of reading in their students. I will argue that that is not enough. Our educators must not only seek to create readers, they must also empower their pupils to become writers.
22 Sept Monday Biñan, Laguna 8 am	The Beacon Academy	School visit
22 Sept Monday Calamba, Laguna 12pm	Xavier Nuvali	School visit
22 Sep Monday Biñan, Laguna 2 pm	Alpha Angelicum Academy	School Visit
23 Sept Tuesday Mandaluyong 1 pm	Poveda	School Visit
23 Sept Tuesday Quezon City 1 pm	Ateneo de Manila	School Visit
24 Sept Wednesday Makati 11am	The Beacon Academy	School Visit
25 Sept Thursday Makati 8 am	Colegio de San Agustin	School Visit
25 Sept Thursday Sampaloc 2 pm	University of the East	Lecture
26 Sept Friday Quezon City 8 am	Miriam College	School Visit
26 Sept Friday Quezon City 3.30 pm	St Theresa's College	School Visit - my alma mater!
27 Sept Saturday Makati 9.30 am to 1.30 pm	Write Away Event (Where the Write Things Are, )	Workshop
27 Sept Saturday Makati 4 pm	National Book Store, Glorietta I	SHINE BOOK LAUNCH and signing. Yehey!
1 October Wednesday Tanauan, Batangas	Ambulong Elementary School and Janopol Elementary School	I will be fulfilling pledges I made to the Authors for the Philippines auction, delivering signed copies of my books, one CD set of Tall Story, and a school visit care of the Sambat Trust. I will also be opening one of the Sambat Trust's school libraries!

... and now some brazen promotion for my favourite charity:

Your old car can pay for someone's education. 

Shine is Launching in the Philippines

ABOUT THE COVER   |  YOU'RE INVITED TO THE LAUNCH  |   SCHEDULE OF EVENTS IN HK & MANILA

I give you, SHINE, the Philippine edition!

FIRST REVIEW

Shine's already had its first review in the Philippine papers - thanks to Ruel de Vera for liking it! 

Thanks to my classmate, Carmen Montano for sending me this photo.
You can also read the review online

COVER REVEALED

I'm extra proud of Shine's cover because the artwork was created by one of my best buddies from university, Ricky Villabona. Here is what Ricky looked like when he was a baby.

Ricky is on the right.

As teenagers working as 'gophers' for the American network
news during the turbulent events that led up to a revolution
in 1986 Philippines 

Ricky and I were teenagers together, Communication Arts majors at university (Communication Arts would be the equivalent of Media Studies, I guess). We worked together on many student film and TV projects. One of our short films even placed fourth at the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines Competition!

When we graduated, I went off to become a journalist and Ricky became a fashion photographer and then a director of TV commercials like this one:


Today, Ricky is an artist and thanks to Facebook, we're still great friends -- I can ask him to make art for my cover and he doesn't get upset when I post his baby picture on my blog.

Ricky V

BOOK LAUNCH

So if you haven't unfriended me yet on Facebook, you should have seen this invite:

I couldn't resist Photoshopping this cover from a 1930s Liwayway magazine. The translation: Candy - "Come to the launch of my new book!"  Boy - "As long as I don't have to make a book report."

So ... are you coming?

HERE'S MY SCHEDULE

13 Sept Saturday Afternoon HK	SCBWI Hong Kong	Part One - A Writer is Just a Rabbit Staring at Rabbit Holes. Writers are like rabbits staring at rabbit holes that represent character, story and setting. We must dive in, go as far as we can go, in order for our stories to reveal themselves. Candy will talk about how there are no half measures in unfolding a story and how we are all better authors for the journey we have to take. Part Two - If Everyone's Now Got a Platform, How are You Going to Stand Out? We are all wise to the internet now, all tweeting, blogging, Facebooking. But is anybody listening? Candy Gourlay was an early adopter of the Internet, blogging before Blogger was invented, learning web design before content management systems became ubiquitous, and trying out every new thing that came along from MySpace to Tumblr. She will be discussing the author's biggest challenge: being discovered by readers. There will be tips and tricks and strategies. But be warned. Ultimately, it will be about writing a good book.
15 Sept Monday Morning HK 8.35 am	Bradbury School	School Visit
15 Sept Monday Afternoon HK 12 pm	Glenealy School	School Visit
16 Sept Tuesday HK 8.30 am	Peak School	School Visit
20 Sept Saturday Pasay City 8 am	Manila International Book Fair - Mall of Asia: Meeting Room 8, SMX Convention Centre	Why I Write for Young Readers. I will be speaking to an audience of educators - librarians and teachers who are already at the frontline of the reading battle. They already know the value of fostering a love of reading in their students. I will argue that that is not enough. Our educators must not only seek to create readers, they must also empower their pupils to become writers.
22 Sept Monday Biñan, Laguna 8 am	The Beacon Academy	School visit
22 Sept Monday Calamba, Laguna 12pm	Xavier Nuvali	School visit
22 Sep Monday Biñan, Laguna 2 pm	Alpha Angelicum Academy	School Visit
23 Sept Tuesday Mandaluyong 1 pm	Poveda	School Visit
23 Sept Tuesday Quezon City 1 pm	Ateneo de Manila	School Visit
24 Sept Wednesday Makati 11am	The Beacon Academy	School Visit
25 Sept Thursday Makati 8 am	Colegio de San Agustin	School Visit
25 Sept Thursday Sampaloc 2 pm	University of the East	Lecture
26 Sept Friday Quezon City 8 am	Miriam College	School Visit
26 Sept Friday Quezon City 3.30 pm	St Theresa's College	School Visit - my alma mater!
27 Sept Saturday Makati 9.30 am to 1.30 pm	Write Away Event (Where the Write Things Are, )	Workshop
27 Sept Saturday Makati 4 pm	National Book Store, Glorietta I	SHINE BOOK LAUNCH and signing. Yehey!
1 October Wednesday Tanauan, Batangas	Ambulong Elementary School and Janopol Elementary School	I will be fulfilling pledges I made to the Authors for the Philippines auction, delivering signed copies of my books, one CD set of Tall Story, and a school visit care of the Sambat Trust. I will also be opening one of the Sambat Trust's school libraries!

... and now some brazen promotion for my favourite charity:

Your old car can pay for someone's education. 

I Filmed the Guardian's Quickfire Interview by Mistake

Apologies if you've seen this already on Facebook or Twitter - I just wanted to post it on my blog for the record.

The Guardian has been featuring one of the eight nominees for its Children's Fiction prize each week and this week was my turn. It looks great -- though I really ought to send Random House Publicity a new photo, I've got a few better ones now I think. You can check out the features on the other nominees in the list below.

I'm a really bad one for reading emails carefully. I saw the words "make a video" and "answer the quickfire interview" ... and thought they wanted me to make a video answering the quickfire interview.

Well it turns out what they wanted was for me to make a video introducing Shine and then -- separately -- they wanted me to WRITE DOWN my answers to the quickfire interview.

Well, I made the Quickfire Interview video and only afterwards, read the email again. Duh.

Never mind. It was really fun making the video anyway -- and because you geeks always ask, I made it using the webcam of my laptop, propped up on a tall pile of thick books. The sound is pretty good considering I didn't even use a microphone.

Here's the video the Guardian really wanted:



Guardian Weekly Feature on the Children's Fiction Prize Nominees (So Far)

Flora in Love by Natasha Farrant

Phoenix by SF Said

The Dark Wild by Piers Torday

Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo

The Lost Gods by Francesca Simon

Shine by Candy Gourlay

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

She is Not Invisible by Marcus Sedgwick

If you're a kid and you love reading and you have an opinion about what you read, why don't you join The Guardian's Young Critics Competition? You can enter on your own or as part of a school group. If you win, you get a full set of the 2014 nominee books plus book tokens! Come on, you know you want to join! Find out more

Upcoming! Workshops and lots of talking

Before I go on holiday, here's a quick heads up about some forthcoming appearances.

18, 19, 20 August 2014. I'm doing a three-day writing workshop for South Friern Library in Barnet for 11 to 15 year olds. Stories, characters, plot! We're gonna have fun! They have only a couple of places left and the booking form has been closed but you can ring the youth team on 020 8359 3100 to see if you can still bag a place. Details

13 September 2014 (tbc). I'll be speaking to writers and illustrators of SCBWI Hong Kong. I AM SO EXCITED!

18 September 2014. I'll be appearing at the Manila International Book Festival. I'll announce timings and locations later.

20 September 2014. Shine - the Philippine edition - launches at the Manila International Book Festival! Woo hoo! Remind me to contact all my old classmates so we can turn it into a grand reunion.

22 to 25 September 2014. Touring schools in the Metro Manila area.

27 September 2014. I will be the guest author of Where the Write Things Are's Write Away class at the Canadian American School in Manila.

8 October 2014. I will be speaking at Warblington School as part of the Havant Literary Festival programme.

There's more but I need to pack now. See you when I get back!

P.S. I've been blogging over on Notes from the Slushpile: What Writers Can Learn from Illustrators

Awesome Art by Children

Awe is just a little word - but it captures how I feel about the art made by children.

I'm not much for decorations and bric-a-brac but I do cover the walls of my house with art made by my children (and their friends) over the years. To me, these are more precious than anything I could buy in the shops. There's an incomparable energy to them -- and life is magic when seen through the eyes of children. Here are a few examples from my walls:

My two sons playing ping pong. The artist is disputed. Both sons claim they drew it.

Wonderful 3D art by my neighbour, Hugo, when he was four.

Batman! 

Spiderman!

Recently, I visited Grafton Primary School near Holloway.

The minute I saw the giant snake winding its way along the length of the ceiling, I knew I was in for a treat. A lovely enthusiastic teacher showed me around (so sorry, I couldn't find the piece of paper where I scribbled down her name). I could tell from the members of staff I met and the children that there was a real passion for art at Grafton. Apparently the school even holds after school art sessions for parents and children.

Giant snake in Reception

More of the giant snake.

In one classroom, the ceiling was hung with sailing ships.

Art by the photocopier

I would love to have some of this art on my wall!

Art is such a feature of the school that one of the teachers
made this to introduce a new lesson

I think this might have been for RE

A map of London

One room was a rainforest of strange creatures

Is that a bird combined with a squirrel?

What about this Reindeer-Giraffe-Bird?

An Ostrich Zebra and an Eagle Lizard

A Tiger Snake and Giraffe Butterfly!

A Cat Fish.

There was even a Green Man in the corner of one corridor.

I love these framed self portraits. 

It reminded me of FRAMED by Frank Cottrell Boyce, in which during a flood, precious works from the National Gallery are temporarily moved to safety in a grey, grey Welsh town. When the townspeople inveigle the National Gallery to allow them to see the art, it has a magical effect on the whole town.

I felt privileged to have had a peek at the treasure trove on the walls of the school. I walk past Grafton almost everyday. Who knew?

Afternote:

Knowing my love for children's art, my son recently sent me this link to paintings by the artist Telmo Piper recreating his childhood drawings.

Mind blowing!

What Telmo's childhood rendition of a snail would look like in real life. See more

Afternote 2:

And it was really, really nice to meet such happy teachers. Like these guys: