Monday, June 2, 2014

AFCC Day 4

The family of birds outside my window kept up with their early morning wake-up calls today and it's just as well as I was accompanying the super Sally Gardner to her interview at Channel News Asia.  I picked her up at the hotel and the taxi floored it to the studios by 8am.


Sally after her interview


We exchanged our identification for passes and waited for Kumuda who arrived a short time later. Sally's segment was scheduled for 8:40am and one of the producers escorted us to the studio.

No photos were allowed - presumably for security issues- so I couldn't take any photos, but as soon as she was seated and miked up, the interview began. She did a brilliant job and with the interview done, we headed back to the hotel for muffins and coffee. Thanks, Sally.






Back at the library, we sat in for Leonard Marcus' talk, 'From Golden Age to Librarian's Nightmare:Illustrated Books Over the Years'.  And after that I attended 'New Zealand: Small Nation, Big Writers' by Chris Szekely and Frances Plumpton.



Leonard Marcus

Chris Szekely

Then we had to set up for Emma's launch of 'Princess Petunia's Dragon'. Award-winning author Andrew Weale did an amazing reading. I wish I could read like him. I wish he had read at my launch! We all loved his performance and Emma's book launch was a hit!





Emma Nicholson

Emma and her princess


Andrew Weale: Genius Storyteller!

Emma, Linda, Emily, Simon and Sarah dashed off for the 'First Pages' manuscript critique session and at lunch they discussed the outcome. They all agreed that the critique session was helpful but perhaps a tad harsher than the previous years'.


Simon and Sarah



The authors I love to tease the most. Linn, Pauline and Emily

We had an agents meeting with Helen and Sarah of Jacaranda to discuss our upcoming projects which are progressing along nicely so let's keep our fingers crossed. Then I hopped on the escalators to catch 'The Future of Fantastic (YA) Fiction' with Sally Gardner, Payal Dahr and Lara Morgan.


The panel

There was barely any room there as it was as stuffed as I am after one of my sister-in-law's famous roast beef dinners. Still I managed to find a seat next to Emily Lim at the back of the room. Topics included the importance of language consistency and POV of the characters and Hollywood's adaptations of authors works.

Once the panel discussion and Q & A was over, everyone headed straight for Sally to get that all important autograph. Emily and Linda cut right in front of me. It's no wonder I 'lovingly' call them competition.


Fatima Sharafeddine

With our books signed, Denise and I joined Andrew and Emma at the Hanis Cafe for a drink before it was time to go to for the literature lecture: 'The Book As An Interactive Tool Between a Child and Language in the Middle East'. Fatima spoke about her experiences as a children's author in that part of the world. To say it was a fascinating talk would be an understatement.

After the talk, a buffet dinner was laid out for all the participants, but Denise and I had to meet Emma and Andrew for a vegetarian dinner at Funan Center. We rendezvoued at Raffles, where Emma and Andrew were having drinks before adjourning to the restaurant. The food was fantastic as usual and with full tummies, we headed home for a good night's sleep before the last full day of the AFCC.



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