Ok now, Ok now...Nevada was great, but I suck as a mentor

After six months of working at the SCBWI Nevada Mentorship Program, I have decided I make a terrible mentor. Here are the reasons:

One. What do I know about how other people should write their stories, or make their illustrations? All I know is how I do it. But nobody wants to be me; everybody wants to be themselves, right?

Two. My English is terrible, my words are endless, which means that anybody who is working with me will hear more words from me than he or she can actually understand.

Three. I work even in my sleep. There is not time for anything else. People who work with me in their projects have to put up with me not having time for nothing.

Four. I have a very capricious personal taste for stories and art. My opinions are tinted.

Five. I am the emotional type, I can't do anything without feeling heart pains.

Six. I can't make you published, really.

Seven. I am afraid of sleeping in that hotel in Virginia City infested with ghost--where the mentorship program and conference took place.

Eight. People know better what is best for them. If you are smart, you don't want me as a mentor.

Nine. I am vegetarian.

Ten. People invite me to be a mentor to aspiring authors and illustrators, and then I make videos about it (sight).

If you don't believe me, here is the evidence.
but I recommend you see first David After Dentist, which was our video muse.





And so, here is Art Director After Conference, filmed and produced by Jim Averbeck, Laurent Linn (art director at Simon & Schuster), and Truly Yours.
You are warned now.

So you want to be a children’s book writer or illustrator?...

How does one become a children’s book writer and illustrator? A marvelous question! And so, have I ever told you that the answers to your questions and desired exist in one place called the SCBWI?
It is true!
When I first began learning how to find my way towards the children’s book world, I stumbled upon the SCBWI and have never let go. In 2000, when I was just an aspiring illustrator, I won the Don Freeman SCBWI Grant, which gave me not only some cash to further fund my learning, but also gave me the confidence I needed to see my work as valuable and valid, and keep doing it more and more. In the years I have attended conferences, gone to retreats, joined groups, made strong friendships, given workshops, been a speaker, and won awards given by the organization.
This morning, when my friend Laurent Linn sent me the link for this tribute video to SCBWI, I …how do you put it mildly? OK, I almost fainted from laughing:

SCBWI Tribute from Kimberly C. Baker on Vimeo.

Golden Kite Acceptance Speech

2008 SCBWI SUMMER CONFERENCE.
LOS ANGELES, CA.
August 3, 2008
Yuyi Morales

At last the time had arrived; it was time to create my Golden Kite speech. The problem was I just kept thinking of two people—thinking about them over and over again. How was I ever going to be able to come up with a decent speech if all I did was think of Brian Selznick and Laura Amy Schlitz at the their Caldecott and Newberry speeches?

Fortunately for me thinking about them began to work—I started hearing advice. I remembered how Laura Amy Schlitz had said that in order to make her speech she had gone to the sea. Well, I would go to the hills! The hills are in my neighborhood, and my friend Chacho the Dog likes to run there, so, up we went. The hills are golden now, a color I have learned to appreciate while running up at the incredible speed of about 30 feet an hour.

Turns out the hills are a very good place to come up with inspiration. For example, there I came up with the insight I ought to run looking at the ground, should snakes slitter by if I am not paying attention. And I have also come up with the bright idea of peeking over my shoulder once in a while, should mountain lions be preparing for a chase. And there I have also come up with the revelation that if I look hard, really hard, I might someday, at last, see the magical creatures that inhabit the mountains.
Needles to say, some things keep proving ethereal.

Yet, it was there, while running under the shadows of trees that touch each other branches for miles and miles, that inspiration for my speech came, and I knew what I wanted to tell you about Little Night, the book that brings me here today.

And so I am going to tell you about Armadillo’s Night, a Peruvian legend that says that a long, log time ago, people were unhappy because they didn’t have a night. The hammocks hung unused, and the mothers had to cook all day for without night’s rest the children and men where constantly hungry. Until one day, when the men, women, and children took turns to look for a night. Not a tiny night, like the one they found inside the mouse’s hole. Neither a big night, like the one they borrowed from the Tapir’s den. But a night that was just the right size. And they found it; yes, they found it! It was enfolded inside the confines of armadillo’s armature—the most perfect night.

I also want to tell you that the Aztec goddess Citlalicue, mother of the Goods and the human race, wears a starry skirt, and that if we look up at night, we can see her in the sky.

Furthermore I want to tell you that my mother always wanted to be a hair stylist. She practiced on my sister’s and I, untangling our hair, putting it up in curls, braids, and buns, and adorning it with felt ornaments or bread-dough flowers that she made, and fragrant flowers from the trees, and that she would have put the planets and the stars in our hair if she could have only reach them.

And, yes, I tell you about all of these things because I took from all of them to create Little Night, a book that was born inside the creative and firm embrace of my writer’s group, the Revisionaries, the good love of Kelly my son and my husband Tim, and the care of Neal Porter and the Roaring Brook Press family.

I know that by telling you all of this, you are already realizing that my biggest talent is to love stories—especially other people’s stories. And that my second talent comes from something I practiced endlessly when I was a child. Again and again, when I found things that amazed me, that caused me wonder, that captivated me, I took my pencil, and with fervent devotion I copied the shapes and lines.

This brings me to Brian Selznick and his advice. His instructions came to me in my way down the hills as I had already quit looking at the ground for snakes, and having stopped looking over my shoulder for mountain lions, and as I had decided that only because I don't see the magical creatures it doesn't mean they are not seeing ME. Mr Selznick’s words were, “Create the speech you want to create.” Really, that is what he said. And I understand that any advice that Selznick offers actually comes all the way from Maurice Zendak, or so I am told.

And now, in honor of Mr. Selznick here I am, tracing with fervent devotion over his lines, to show my joy…

This morning I am in my way to the SCBWI summer conference in LA, to receive the Golden Kite medal for the illustrations of Little Night, Nochecita in Spanish.

But I have started my celebration already admiring this video from Teacher Tube of Madres sitting with their children and reading Nochecita to them.

Little Night is the 2008 Golden Kite Award for Illustration

Those SCBWI folks always make my day! This is the third time in my life time that I receive a call from Lynn and Steve with good news.

The first time was eight years ago, when they announce that I had won the Don Freeman grant after I presented the very first illustrations of what eventually will become my book Just a Minute. A few years latter they honored me with a Golden Kite Honor.

This year? They left a message in my answering machine, to which I listen to after I came back from running with my dogs. This time my reaction was 1) to call back Lynn and Steve immediately, and 2) to try to do so by using my TV control remote.

That is what happens to my head when I am thinking with my heart.