Faculty Voices: Emily Jenkins (e. lockhart) from Scotland

Hello from Scotland. My (infrequent) faculty Inkpot posts have all been a little bit about professional author stuff and some thoughts on going about it. This one will be more of the same.

I’m writing this in early August, currently traveling for my publisher in the UK and Ireland. Very often books come out in a different order or at different times in foreign markets—because translation takes time. Even in English-speaking markets, there can be a delay, or the books might not come out at all. For example, I had my first adult book come out in the UK and Ireland — and my first three YA books, but after that, I had no publisher there for many years. There wasn’t much I could do about it. However, when We Were Liars came out, I got a new publisher, and that publisher bought my older YA up and brought it out as new. 

I’m here for two reasons, then. The first is is to tour bookshops and do a festival (YALC—the Young Adult Literature Conference) for books that I wrote a long time ago. That’s an interesting thing to do, as the books haven’t been particularly popular, and I’m not sure which ones to talk about, particularly. I had to re-read them before getting on the plane! 

As I write this I have done two events where I didn’t sell many books except We Were Liars— so I will adjust my presentation tonight. The first event I tried talking through my older titles super fast — a sentence about each. Then the conversation was about YA literature generally, writing processes, etc. At the second event, I didn’t mention the older books at all, but my interviewer gushed a lot about one book — though she actually never explained what it was about. So for tonight, I think I’ll choose one or maybe two to talk from and even read from. These events are supposed to be literary conversations, and nobody wants to hear a sales pitch—but they are supposed to sell books. So I am thinking on the road about how to learn from the events I have had so far. 

The second reason I’m here is to generate pre-publication excitement for my September 2017 book, Genuine Fraud. For my first four YA books I had no idea that publishers set things in motion before publication for certain titles. But they do. They might mail out ARCs in special packages, bring the author to conferences full of booksellers, teachers or librarians, and they might have parties. In this case, we had a bookseller party one night (chain buyers, indie stores etc.) and a blogger party another night (video bloggers). There were goodie bags and speeches and the blogger party had cupcakes (see photo). It is part of my job to put these images on Instagram and Twitter — to find amusing ways of extending the reach that events might have. There was also a tea with Irish children’s librarians and booksellers, and I filmed a lot of video (not my favorite thing to do!) that will be rolled out when the book is released. For example, I made a video for a chain bookstore recommending five titles; and I made many videos describing the book that will go onto online book sites. 

My job is to have prepared something of a schtick about my book, to have figured out a number of ways of talking about it that are appealing—and to try to connect with people. I try to get my hair to behave itself, but it doesn’t really matter if I fail. I try to adapt to each situation, and to learn from the publishing team what they think is working—it’s a good chance to refine what I’m doing in front of crowds, to understand it and to try and get better at it. 

I am super tired and a bit homesick, but I’m also thrilled to see Edinburgh, Dublin and London, and to meet all these readers. I’ve gotten to know the YA book community a bit, and everyone has been welcoming and wonderful.

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Read Emily Jenkins (e. lockhart) faculty bio here.

   

Faculty Voices with Emily Jenkins

Emily Jenkins/E. Lockhart

Hi Storytellers!  All my Inkpot posts thus far have been about some aspect of the non-writing writer’s life – professional adventures, I guess you could call them. This one is no different – I’m going to report on YallWest, which is a teen book festival.

There are not so very many teen book festivals out there – but the number is increasing I think. North Texas and YallWest started up just this year. They’re different because most book festivals are geared to a broad audience and feature a wide range of authors. These can be tough if you’re a children’s book person, though occasionally they’re lovely. Teen book festivals are all YA all the time.  That means very often teens come in enormous school groups and book club groups in matching T-shirts. Librarians and teachers organize field trips. The atmosphere is bordering on raucous. Panels can be goofy or important, but they’re nearly always relaxed. (Note: I’ve never been to it before, but this year’s

Twin Cities TeenLit Con is May 9, and I’ll be there with Hamline’s own Gene Yang, Hamline guest speaker Matt de la Pena and the insanely popular Gayle Forman. Plus more!)

Okay, the report: YallWest is an author-run festival and a spin-off of the successful YallFest. Both festivals are organized by Margaret Stohl (Beautiful Creatures, etc. ) and Melissa De la Cruz (Blue Bloods, etc.) – and there are loads of hijinks, lots of parties, and extended opportunities to sign books – all elements I associate with teen book cons as opposed to general ones.

They work you hard – and I find most authors prefer it that way. Why fly across the country to be on a single dignified panel when you could be on two panels (one while wearing a tiara), run a trivia game, sign books for a full hour, give away free cupcakes and t-shirts and sign for another hour, read aloud embarrassing juvenilia and then put on a pink wig and dance backup for an all-author rock band? That’s what my day looked like. I was in front of readers all day long at YallWest. Exhausting, but super fun and productive.

How do you get invited to these festivals? As an author, your publisher pitches you if they think you’re a good fit. Then the conference organizers decide whom to invite. You can ask to be pitched if you have a new book with that publisher and if you really want to go – especially if you can offer to make things easy. That is, if you have a free place to stay, you let them know (as I did for YallWest), or if you’re local to the area – and that reduces their costs. Of course, you can just GO as an audience member, and I recommend it if you’re starting out as a YA writer. You’ll see a lot of writers and get a sense of how people conduct themselves on panels – what makes a good discussion, what connects with the audience, how authors sign so as best to connect to their readers, and so on. 

I’ll leave you with a picture that gives you a sense of the YallWest vibe. That’s the back-up dance team: left to right, Shannon Hale, me, Leigh Bardugo, Coe Booth. We danced to “Whole Lotta Love,” as performed by Libba Bray and her all-author band, Tiger Beat. 

Faculty Voices with Emily Jenkins

Emily Jenkins

Hello! My other Inkpot posts have all been essays we might file under "business of the writer's life." I wrote about going to the AWP conference, the National Book Awards, and the Texas Library Association conference – three different literary events of the type you might find yourself attending if you end up making children's books your profession. This post is in a similar vein – I want to tell you about the Eric Carle Honors event I went to a couple weeks ago.

Do you know about the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art? It's in Amherst, MA and is devoted to the art of the picture book. For example, right now they have an exhibit on Gustav Doré, the 19^th-century fairy tale illustrator, an exhibit on Harriet the Spy and an exhibit on Simms Taback. They do all kinds of school and family programs and they have shows which travel, too. The site is well worth a look on a regular basis if you want to keep on top of what's important in the world if children's book illustration.

Dore illustration for
 Little Red Riding Hood

They also have an awards ceremony each year. I was my friend Maria's date, so I didn't have to work or speak or anything – but I went because it was interesting and fun, and a good chance to connect with people in the field I might not get to see or meet otherwise. It was in New York (it used to be in Amherst, I think), and it was charming and there was nice food and people milling around in cocktail attire. After all the eating was done, we all sat down for an awards event with our charming hosts, illustrator TonyDiTerlizzi and author Angela DiTerlizzi. They were erudite and funny. Here's an article on the event that was in School Library Journal that includes fun video. If I had known Hilary Knight was in the room I might have had a heart attack, so it's good I only found out later.

The Carle honors celebrate four individuals, and seeing the event and the recipients reminded me why I am glad to be working in children's books – which is why this whole event seems worth recounting to you. There is an illustrator award, which is just for total awesomeness and innovation in a lifetime of work. Jerry Pinkney won it, as well he deserves to. There is a mentor award, which my beloved late editor Frances Foster received a few years back, and which was this year received by the distinguished librarian Henrietta Mays Smith.

The Bridge award was this year given to Françoise Mouly, publisher of TOON books and art editor of The New Yorker. Mouly's imprint is all graphic stories for the very young, and she has done a ton to bring comic-book style work of high quality into classrooms and homes, and to destigmatize this art form that so many children connect to.

As she spoke, I was thinking about Hamline MFAC's own Gene Luen Yang, whose American Born Chinese was the first graphic novel to win the ALA's Printz award, and how graphic novels and memoirs have taken their places on the National Book Award finalist lists first in the Young People's Literature category (American Born Chinese and Boxers and Saints, and Stitches by David Small) and this year in nonfiction (Roz Chast's Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?) This year, too, Alison Bechdel (Fun Home) became a MacArthur fellow for writing graphic memoirs. This art form has found respect by our most fancy-pants institutions, and that means that the landscape of literature is really changing, with children's literature helping lead the way. It also means that the work Mouly has been doing is making a difference in how kids' reading is perceived by adults, and how graphic storytelling is perceived in general.

So all this was going on in my head, and I felt so happy to be a part of a community where a revolution of this kind was quietly happening and now being celebrated. The other honor was for Reach Out and Read, a charity organization which partners with pediatricians to get books into the hands of kids and to help parents feel confident and comfortable reading with their little ones. They teach storytelling at well-child visits! They tell parents who might not have many books at home that it's okay if the kid wants to hear the same story 10 times in a row, that it's okay if a baby chews on a board book, that it's okay if kids run away halfway through the story. They distribute 6.5 million books per year.

I was nearly in tears over this, it made me so happy to learn about how doctors and publishers found a way to partner to reach children.

Then there was dessert, so I pulled myself together. I ate tiramisu, talked with an illustrator friend and met some new people, ate a red velvet cupcake and finally went home with a goody bag of TOON and Pinkney books. It was a good night and it made me feel lucky to have the job that I do.

–Emily

Inkpot Interviews: Emily Jenkins

Emily Jenkins is the newest member of the Hamline MFAC faculty and so it seemed like a good idea to kick off our faculty interviews by tossing the spotlight on her newest release, The Whoopie Pie War, the latest in her Invisible Inkling series. It was released last month by Balzer & Bray/Harper Collins.

Please describe the book in under 50 words.
Brooklyn kid Hank Wolowitz has an invisible friend. No, he's not imaginary. Just invisible. His name is Inkling and he's a bandapat from the Peruvian Woods of Mystery. Anyway, this is book three in the series. The return of the killer unicorn head, 15 ways to make pumpkin ice cream, pygmy hedgehogs, romance, a league of supervillains, and moderate violence. What more could you want? Oh! Pictures by Harry Bliss. It's got those, too. 

As the story progressed from inception to copy-edited version, what were the major changes? How did those changes come about? When did you first begin work on it? When did you finish?
Oh, goodness, I have no idea. I really don't it is all a blur. I wrote it a long time ago, right after writing book 2 in the series. Finish one, start the next. The later books in a series often go much more smoothly than the first book, because I already know my world, my characters and so on. I worked to add action sequences and jokes. I know I rewrote one big whoopie pie action sequence entirely and I also took a secondary character out of a pivotal scene near the end of the book, where he was clogging up the emotional arcs, even though it had at first seemed logical he would be there. 

© Chrispethick | Dreamstime.com   

What research was involved?
I watched loads of videos of pygmy hedgehogs on the internet, and learned about their habits and behaviors. I ate a lot of whoopie pies. I live in the Brooklyn neighborhood where the Invisible Inkling stories are set, so there was not a lot of research to do there. 

Without naming names, tell us who your first readers are (e.g., live-action writing group; online writing group; editor; agent). When do you share a piece of writing?

With this book, I shared it with a writer colleague who reads a lot of my stuff in manuscript form. She helped with plot and pacing. Then it went to my editor. My agent doesn't generally act as a critic. She just gets the MS when the editor does. 

What books do you love to teach or recommend to students?

In terms of young middle-grade, which is what the Invisible Inkling series is, I often recommend Clementine by Sara Pennypacker. I think the voice there is so wonderful, and the humor, and the stories are touching as well. There is a lot to learn from what Pennypacker is doing in that series. Her language is so specific. 

What widely-loved or acclaimed book is one that didn’t work for you?

I had trouble with Moon Over Manifest, which won the Newbery. I can see its many merits. It is very skillfully written. But I didn't feel emotional about it. That is quite an intangible thing to criticize, I know. I have a taste for first-person, possibly to a fault—because one thing I love about fiction is how it takes me inside the head and heart of another person. Moon Over Manifest didn't do that for me—though everyone else in our mother-daughter book club adored it. 

What’s your current favorite jolly word?

Spoon. I like its double-meaning.

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To read more about Emily and her books:
Websites: Emily Jenkins  and for E. Lockhart 
Blog (only for E. Lockhart stuff)
Facebook author page