Yes, we’re mostly about food-related books here at Alphabet Soup, but that doesn’t mean we don’t ooh and ahh over other titles — especially those written and/or illustrated by folks we know and love. Here are some recent and upcoming releases we just had to tell you about:
THE NUTS AND BOLTS GUIDE TO WRITING PICTURE BOOKS by Linda Ashman. “Have an idea for a picture book? Already working on one? This 150-page handbook offers instruction, advice, exercises, resources, encouragement and more to turn your idea or work-in-progress into a ready-to-submit manuscript. It also includes interviews with leading children’s book editors and industry professionals who provide insights and advice from their side of the desk.”
This one’s a beauty — nine chapters worth of clearly presented, insightful, practical writing advice drawn from Linda’s many years as an author, poet, writing teacher, critiquer, reading advocate, and lover of children’s literature. It’s like having a friendly writing coach by your side as you try to whip your manuscripts into shape. I especially like her chapters about writing humor and experimenting with form. The Guide is currently available for sale as a PDF via Linda’s website, and will be available soon in an ePub version for e-readers.
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MY BLUE IS HAPPY by Jessica Young and Catia Chien (Candlewick, 2013). We always go a little crazy over debut picture books, so a big Huzzah to Jessica! Officially released on August 6th, this book challenges commonly held assumptions about colors and celebrates individual perspective. Is red always angry? Is pink pretty or annoying? Colors are closely associated with emotion, and it’s fascinating to explore the different ways we experience them. Is your orange “fun like a bouncing basketball” — or “serious like a warning sign and a tiger on the prowl”? What a great primer for creative thinking! To learn more about chocolate-lovin’ art teacher/Nashville resident Jessica and her wonderful book, check out this most excellent interview.
“I told myself, I don’t care how ugly and hard caregiving can be. It’s okay because I’m writing these poems. It’s the process of giving life to something versus the process of dying.” ~ Frances H. Kakugawa
Last week I read a poem that stopped me in my tracks.
Auntie Ella sitting behind me at my birthday party.
It was written in the voice of an Alzheimer’s patient and reminded me of my Auntie Ella, who suffered from dementia. Some of you may remember my Thanksgiving post from a few years back, where I mentioned how grateful I was to have seen her in Hawaii just two weeks before she died.
It was of course heartbreaking that someone I had been close to for so long didn’t recognize me at all. Instead of the always-up-to-something, forever baking, reading, and talking-a-mile-a-minute aunt I’d grown up with, I saw a faraway stranger wholly dependent on her son, the victim of a baffling disease that daily threatened her human dignity and robbed us of a beloved member of our family.
by Marjorie Mayes via They Draw and Cook (click to enlarge)
Feeling a little peckish for you don’t know what?
For your nibbling and noshing pleasure:
1. “How to Eat Like Your Favorite Authors” from Flavorwire. Fitzgerald’s suggestions for turkey leftovers are hee-larious. Gotta make Emily Dickinson’s Coconut Cake sometime.
F. Scott Fitzgerald via Flavorwire
2. Three cool new-to-me blogs that have got me drooling and thinking, thinking and drooling:
Paper and Salt: “Part historical discussion, part food and recipe blog, part literary fangirl-ing, Paper and Salt attempts to recreate and reinterpret the dishes that iconic authors discuss in their letters, diaries, essays, and fiction.”
Eat This Poem: “Eat This Poem is a collection of recipes inspired by poetry (and occasionally, a pinch of prose) . . . In just a few lines, poetry can illuminate the seemingly small and insignificant moments in our lives and remind us that all the little things matter.”
Fictional Food: ” Fictional Food is a blog dedicated to both cooking fictional food and posting about fictional food around the internet. While books are the primary focus, television, game, and movie foods are also featured.”
3. Alimentum: The Literature of Food has discontinued its print journal, but in early July launched a completely revamped website. I’ve subscribed to this unique publication in the past and am happy that I’ll be able to read all their great content (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, book reviews, art) online. The Art Gallery currently features the work of Damon Belanger, who created this neato tarot card:
4. I’m always up for an England fix, and really enjoyed the series of posts Susan Branch wrote about her recent trip. She’s a fellow teapot, Beatrix Potter, and English garden lover and her posts are full of beautiful photographs, watercolors, and heartfelt descriptions of all the wonders that inspire her life and work. This time around she toured the Bridgewater Pottery factory as well as Potter’s Hill Top Farm in the Lake District.
5. Good news for children’s poetry lovers: Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong have edited another ebook collection called, The Poetry Friday Anthology. The book includes a poem a week for the whole school year (K-5) with curriculum connections provided for each poem, each week, each grade level — 218 poems by 75 poets. Available September 1, 2012 — just in time for the 2012-13 school year!
6. Heads up! Happy to see two brand new awards championing cultural diversity in children’s and young adult literature:
*Tu Books, the fantasy, science fiction, and mystery imprint of LEE & LOW BOOKS, award-winning publisher of children’s books, is pleased to announce the first annual NEW VISIONSAWARD. The NEW VISIONS AWARD will be given for a middle grade or young adult fantasy, science fiction, or mystery novel by a writer of color. The Award winner receives a cash grant of $1000 and their standard publication contract, including their basic advance and royalties for a first time author. An Honor Award winner will receive a cash grant of $500. Click here for all the details. Submission deadline: October 30, 2012.
**Just announced August 5th is the ON-THE-VERGEEMERGING VOICES AWARD, sponsored by the SCBWI with funding from Martin and Sue Schmitt of the 455 Foundation. The grant was created to foster the emergence of diverse voices in children’s books, and will be given to two writers or illustrators who are from an ethnic and/or cultural background that is traditionally under-represented in children’s literature in America.
The two winners will each receive an all-expenses paid trip to the SCBWI Winter Conference in NYC to meet with editors and agents, a press release to publishers, a year of free membership to the SCBWI, and an SCBWI mentor for a year. Deadline for submissions: November 15, 2012. Complete manuscripts only via email. More details here.
7. Just in case you’re suffering from a little Downton Abbey withdrawal, check out these lovely on-set photos from Season 3 filming in the Oxfordshire countryside via Marie Claire. Those of us in the U.S. have to wait until January 6, 2013 to see the new series. Sigh. That’s a long time to wait.
In the meantime, we can plan a little Downton Abbey Emmy Party. Did you hear DA earned 16 Emmy noms? Pamela at Downton Abbey Cooks offers some great suggestions for DA-inspired entertaining. Which recipe should I try? The Emmys will air on September 23rd.
8. Want:
Publisher’s description:
“In 1784, Thomas Jefferson struck a deal with one of his slaves, 19-year-old James Hemings. The founding Father was traveling to Paris and wanted to bring James along “for a particular purpose” – to master the art of French cooking. In exchange for James’s cooperation, Jefferson would grant his freedom.
Thus began one of the strangest partnerships in U.S. history. As James apprenticed under master French chefs, Jefferson studied the cultivation of French crops (especially grapes for winemaking) so they might be replicated in American agriculture. The two men returned home with such marvels as pasta, French fries, champagne, macaroni and cheese, crème brûlée, and a host of other treats. This narrative nonfiction book tells the fascinating story behind their remarkable adventure – and includes 12 of their original recipes!”
Read this interesting post about the book at Food and Think, Smithsonian.com.
Coming September 18, 2012!
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Okey dokey. That should give you somethin’ to chew on for awhile. Oh, alright. Have some of my peach almond tart. I’ve noticed that you’re always hungry. Yes I have.
Forgiveness. The ability to forgive oneself. Stop here for a few breaths and think about this, because it is the key to making art and very possibly the key to finding any semblance of happiness in life. Every time I have set out to translate the book (or story, or hopelessly long essay) that exists in such brilliant detail on the big screen of my limbic system onto a piece of paper (which, let’s face it, was once a towering tree crowned with leaves and a home to birds), I grieve for my own lack of talent and intelligence. Every. Single. Time. Were I smarter, more gifted, I could pin down a closer facsimile of the wonders I see. I believe that, more than anything else, this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers. Forgiveness, therefore, is key. I can’t write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. Again and again throughout the course of my life I will forgive myself.
♥ This week’s Sunday Bear Hug is brought to you by Mr. Cornelius, who admires you and your writing. “Please eat an extra piece of chocolate pie for me,” he says, “after you finish your work today.”
I must say it again: no other contemporary poet can touch Diane Lockward when it comes to food poems.
Sassy and sensual, this witty, playful temptress handles words like a master chef might gently caress juicy, blushing peaches right before setting them aflame with heartbreak and humor. I know when I read one of Diane’s poems my senses will be fully engaged and I’ll be surprised at where she takes me, inevitably enlightened by the emotional tune-up. She’s accessible, instinctual, and fearless! Whoever coined the phrase, “a feast of words,” must have had Diane in mind. She seems to perform her “high-wire acts of language and imagination” with the greatest of ease, titillating the reader without a safety net.
Recently, Diane released a new e-chapbook called Twelve forthe Record, which contains 12 of her most requested poems, four from each of her print collections (Eve’s Red Dress, What FeedsUs, Temptation by Water). I purchased Twelve for the Record as soon as it was available, even though I already own all her other books. You just never know when you’ll get a sudden craving for an exquisitely crafted poem that gleams and glistens; it’s nice having a few choice nuggets in your back pocket.
Recently, Diane released a new e-chapbook called 
Jama's Alphabet Soup 