Don't forget! Fall Inside Story is on a THURSDAY at 7 p.m. at Santoro's Books!

Tell a friend and be sure to RSVP to Santoro's Books!

Sincerely,
Jaime Temairik
Pamela Greenwood
Inside Story Co-chairs

Where were the trumpets?

A new Karen Cushman book came out and I didn't see any fanfare or hoopdeehoo.
Odds are it is great and I look forward to getting my hands on it (I do miss the beautiful Trina Schart Hyman covers, though.)

Here are the notes I took of her keynote speech at the 2006 Seattle SCBWI Annual Conference. They may be a little nonsensical but so am I...She and Jane Yolen share the Butt In Chair mantra.

Jaime

Last Friday morning I met with nearly 3,000 other ladies and a few gentlemen to take part in the Breast Cancer 3 Day Walk. We walked 60 miles in three days, camped on baseball fields on a hill somewhere in Kirkland, ate highly refined carbohydrates, nursed numerous foot injuries, got sunburns, became intimately familiar with port-a-potties and did alot of talking and thinking about why we were doing this enormous amount of walking.

My tentmate, the next Newbery winner, walked in celebration of her friend Mary, a breast cancer survivor. I walked in memory of Aaron's mother, Sue Bitney, who passed away about six years ago after a long battle with cancer.

The whole weekend was very emotional. There was lots of fun. But definitely I did alot of thinking. Especially of what it would be like to lose a parent or a friend for such an assinine reason as a disease or a poorly managed nation. I did lose my grandfather, who was like a father to me, before his time, I think, and our family hasn't been the same since. I imagine all the spouses who lost their soulmates and all the sons and daughter who lost their mothers--everyone feels that same void.

There's no easy answer or fix to fill that void, however. But my goal has been to keep my grandfather's spirit--his humor, his habits, his compassion alive in me and find ways to celebrate that in every season and through the kinds of books I hope to make for kids. My grandfather was great with kids and I haven't found a better bedtime story reader yet.

So I hope Aaron and I can find ways to celebrate his mother and my grandfather in the coming years. Walking 60 miles seems like a strange thing to do. But I'd walk to the ends of the earth to show the people I love how much I care and 60 miles seems like a nice gesture. And 60 miles is nothing if it gets us one step closer to finding a cure for breast cancer.

I'm not normally on a soapbox so forgive this burst:

If there is a cause close to your heart what are you waiting for? Find a way to get involved and help make some positive things happen in this world of ours.

Jaime

August 2005--around the 20th this time last year--I was in the hospital so:

Appendixes in humans are vestigial (my favorite word) organs. Much like other vestigial body parts--hips in snakes or brains in politicians--we don't use our appendixes anymore but most people still have one.

In these animals and others (but not us) the appendix helps break down plant material/cellulose.
In HUMANS you have a 7% chance of developing acute appendicitis. Before 20th century medicine a case of it was usually fatal.

According to some medical texts the appendix, like the tonsils, is in a constant state of very very very mild inflammation. Because of its goofy location it is easily blocked and THAT's when your tummy starts to hurt in a strange spot, you can't pass gas, you may start to get a fever, chills, nausea and be stuck in the ER for five hours while they determine you've got some appendix troubles...

Appendectomal Timeline and Fun:

1763: French surgeon Claudius Aymand performs first successful appendectomy.
1886: First U.S. appendectomy performed by Dr Robert Hall...who died of a ruptured appendix in 1897. Ouch.
1939: "Something is not right!" Madeline gets her appendix out in Paris.
2003: World's longest appendix of 9.2 inches removed from a 55 year old Pakistani man. Yikes.
2005: A friend at work and I BOTH come down with appendicitis a few hours apart. We both undergo laparoscopic appendectomies (different hospitals and surgeons.) Our office thinks it might be contagious. Geniuses.

...I think that is enough for now. Surgery of any kind is pretty gruesome* to describe. The biggest thing about this whole experience for me was POST surgery. A few days after coming home from the hospital I discovered my right arm was so weak* I couldn't draw or write. That freaked me out. The thought of losing my life/the anesthesia bill was one thing but losing my ability to draw was heart breaking. I was already in a lot of pain and super depressed. And I've got a very inventive imagination. So I imagined not being able to draw for the rest of my life and being stuck in a dead end job. Eventually my arm came back to me. But August of last year I did some deep soul searching while looking at my three new scars.

So! Here I am in 2006--appendix free and happy to have use of my drawing arm so I can draw ALL DAMN DAY.

Jaime

*Okay so I found out from Bebeth, fellow appendectomer, that during surgery they inflate your abdomen so the surgeons have room to manuever. When you are sewn back up they DON'T uninflate you! The air then needs to dissipate/be absorbed by your body somehow (Docs feel free to correct me) and it often travels up. So you might have a bit of air by your shoulder or back muscles or something. This pressure was freaking out my right arm making it too weak to draw or write for about a week. I am praying that kids who get appendectomies these days are better informed than I was by my nurses and doctors (really iffy bedside manners.) My surgeon was wonderful, Dr. Wan-Lin Horng, but I really didn't get to talk to her since I was knocked out for most of our time together.

Linda Smith is the excellent author of (among other titles) Mrs Crump's Cat and Mrs Biddlebox. During a Haystack workshop Marla Frazee told us some heart wrenching stories about working on the art for Biddlebox while Linda was losing her memory and life to cancer. I love Mrs. Biddlebox more than ever now, but can't get through it without crying. As long as I never meet David Roberts maybe I can get through the delightful Mrs. Crump's Cat without bawling.

NOT just because this is the story of an exquisite yellow cat that closely resembles my exquisite ginger haired felon/cat. The text is crisp, lyrical and funny as I assume all of Linda's books are. David's illustrations are wonderfully lanky, spot on glimpses into my ideal home and village (looks like a British drizzle and tea cozy kind of place to me.)

The book is tall and he makes excellent use of the page height in every spread. Roberts does some great things with perspective and layout--delightful triptych panels that I'd love to see more of in other books. Mrs. Crump (and her bosom) and her new cat have some excellent expressions and I recommend this book EVEN to dog lovers.

America has finally done something better than England: the US version of Joseph Delaney's The Last Apprentice: Book One (called The Spook's Apprentice in Britain) is GORGEOUS. The American version seems to be the only one that is illustrated with dark dark dramatic chapter headings by Patrick Arrasmith. I would post a scan of one, but it is so much fun to discover on your own--go get it!

This book is a great bedtime read--very scary, EXCELLENT tension building. So excellent, in fact, that I was forced by others to turn the light out at 11:30 and stop reading only to wake up at SIX the next morning to finish a chapter that had my goosebumps all a flutter.

So what if it came out last year, I'm glad to be slow on the uptake: The sequel to Book One: Revenge of the Witch is Book Two: Curse of the Bane and it comes out August 29th! I hardly have to wait now.

Jaime

It has been 1 and 1/2 weeks since my official move to freelance illustration. I'm missing human contact. Logan and Bebop, as much as I've always talked to them, have never replied back except for the occasional yawn or bottom toot.

So coffee shops are my office away from office. I'm not there to chat people up or anything, but I like being around entities with opposable thumbs and the possibility of dialogue. Preferable to a library BECAUSE there is coffee and more noise AND they are open much earlier. I love their warmth, the cozy places to sit with a good chair and table and neverending coffee. Also most coffee shops don't require me to vacuum or do the dishes--some big distractions at home.

But the other morning while at Besalu I felt like this career move was proving to be an exceptionally sedentary and posterior heavy one. That there's more sitting now than with my office job! It reminded me of the long hours I spent drawing at VFS and my favorite teacher noticing that everyone's bottom was getting larger. Chair Ass, he called it. The mark of a good animator. And now everyone is following Jane Yolen's advice of Butt In Chair. SCBWI is breeding a nation of good books and wide bottoms.

Jaime

My cold is in full swing.

On top of that I spent two hours at an allergist this morning getting my arms poked and prodded with essences of things like dust mite poo and birch tree (my only allergy is to the former, however, which is completely disgusting and common.)

The only saving grace about this experience--alone in an exam room for hours and being itchy and not allowed to itch--was reading the current issue of the Horn Book I'd brought along (wouldn't it be nice if there was a special medical office/doctor for children's book authors and illustrators where, instead of germ infested issues of Parents and People, there was Horn Book and Children's Writer and some nice pens and paper to draw or write with? And chocolate?)

I love the Horn Book. There is always at least one startling or brilliant nugget in each issue that makes you glad to be alive and care about children's books. This issue I was very taken with reading Lynne Rae Perkins's Newbery acceptance speech. I haven't read Criss Cross yet but this speech has me thinking I'd enjoy it very much. The speech isn't available online through Horn Book so you might have to shell out the ELEVEN dollars to buy a copy. Good lord. Another article by her editor, Virginia Duncan, is available online...and there's an archive of past Lynne Rae Perkins's Horn Book bits.

Here's sneezing at you,
Jaime

Of the rest of my life sans office day job and I have a severe head cold.

Logan is very bored. And that isn't a box of cookies I'm holding but the remote.
Actually I've been getting some things done but mentally I'm on a couch with Days of Our Lives.
Thank you, Kelly, for the pencils to make this drawing and thank you, Aaron, for making this day possible.

Jaime

Hey everybody!

When: After work today, Friday, 5 p.m. and on

Where: Nectar Lounge in Fremont 412 N. 36th St. Seattle, WA. 98103 ph.
206-632-2020
http://www.nectarlounge.com

Why: I quit my job! Come drink with me as I embark on my children's
book illustration career. My four weeks notice is up!

Also leaving my company today is a good friend, Bebeth, who just got
her Peace Corps placement to Kenya.

Sorry for the late notice but I am a little slow on the uptake and
Bebeth came up with this idea yesterday...(not the quitting but the drinking)

Yippee!