Saturday, October 4, 2008

Update on the Book Arts Bash

Lydia and I spent Friday afternoon sorting the entries to the Book Arts Bash.





Lydia wrote:
Biggest surprise: There were no pop-ups. Not one. After we humbly petitioned and then raucously celebrated getting Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart as judges, there were no entries. Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart, people! These are paper engineering artists! They have an entire studio dedicated to pop-ups in NYC. They did the official pop-ups for Disney, for the Narnia books! They are the authors of Encyclopedia Mythologica and Encyclopedia Prehistorica, the cutting edge pop-ups that are redefining the genre. Shez collected a marvelous list of resources and how-tos for the pop-up page at the contest site, just in case people needed help finding tutorials. No entries. Not one.

Another surprise: There were fewer than 10 entries in all the K-2 categories, total. That shocked me! I thought the younger kids would be more involved.

The biggest stack on the table *by far* was the 7-9 grade group and the biggest category in that group was the novel excerpt! Amazing! I am so surprised and impressed with these middle school aged authors! The huge outpouring of prose, the staggering pile of pages -- completely glorious and inspiring.

Hey, it is ALL GOOD! Having said all this, we received another huge post office crate full of entries on Friday that we've yet to sort. Maybe that one is full of pop-ups -- who knows?! We've got a ton of entries and more coming in. We're going to be able to afford nice prizes and all the postage. We are very excited. It's awesome opening up these packages and seeing everyone's work. There are some beautiful, beautiful ABC books, some really awesome comics, lots of short stories and poetry, and even some novel cover art (my favorite category!). The panel is going to have a hard time narrowing it down in some of these categories! Very very gifted writers doing excellent work.

I'll keep you updated as we go along. This is fun!

6 comments:

Me said...

Are there plans already in the works for next year's Bash? I will use my "I've been swamped" excuse for missing this year's Bash (Jolie isn't very happy with me. She has several notebook pages waiting to be typed and bound so she can draw her illustrations). We REALLY want to participate next year. Will there be a next year?

Shez said...

Our plans are to have one next school year.

Anonymous said...

You ladies have your work cut out for you. :-) Have fun!

Leah said...

Oh, drat!

I completely forgot about the Book Arts Bash.

There's just been too much going on in my life lately, and I hardly even find the time to havea good night's sleep, ot so it seems.

But I hope I'll be able to enter next year.

Silvia said...

I tagged you for a meme, participate if you want! http://pomoyemu.blogspot.com/2008/10/twenty-questions-meme.html

Snarky Mom Reads said...

Shez, this sounds like an AWESOME event -- and lots of work! I think that is just amazing that you got such a prestigious board of judges - wow! Way to go!!