Día de los Niños, Día de los Libros Blog Hop Kickoff

The Día de los Niños, Día de los Libros Blog Hop has kicked off! Follow the calendar of entries below to join in this exciting celebration of Latino children's literature (and please note my post on April 20th)!

Día de los Niños, Día de los Libros Blog Hop:

April 10th - Pat Mora on Latinas 4 Latino Lit
April 11th - Alma Flor Ada on All of Me...Now
April 12th - Margarita Engle on The Wise Latina Club
April 13th - F. Isabel Campoy on Autism Wonderland
April 14th - Joe Cepeda on Mommy Maestra
April 15th - Lulu Delacre on Modern Mami
April 16th - Jorge Argueta on Sweet Life Bake
April 17th - René Colato-Laínez on Latinaish
April 18th - Amy Costales on Mami's Time Out
April 19th - Monica Brown on New Latina
April 20th - Christina Rodriguez on Growing Up Blackxican
April 21st - James Luna on De Su Mama
April 22nd - Brian Amador on Moms LA
April 23rd - Mara Price on Mama Latina Tips
April 24th - Jeff Zorilla on Multicultural Familia
April 25th - John Parra on Mami Talks
April 26th - Duncan Tonatiuh on Spanglish Baby
April 27th - René Saldaña on Living Mi Vida Loca
April 28th - Eric Gonzalez on Unknown Mami
April 29th - Irania Patterson on The Domestic Buzz

Remember to comment on any or all posts to enter the Grand Giveaway! On Día de los Niños, Día de los Libros, a collection of 25(!) books of Latino children's literature will be awarded to a commenter for their local school or library.

Have fun and happy reading!

Providence Kidlit Salon Recap

Thanks to everyone who made it out to last week's first-ever Providence Kidlit Salon! A sizable group of 16 people convened in the lovely upstairs lounge of The Dorrance to chat about books and the children's publishing industry. Attendees included authors, illustrators, and graphic designers from a variety of backgrounds, all coming together for a rare networking opportunity.

Discussion varied over the two-hour roundtable, but several topics were raised, including:

• Kickstarter as a publishing platform
• Self-publishing pitfalls and recommendations
• Celebrity Books, yay or nay?
• Book design woes
• Wacom Inkling and other digital art tools
• Critique groups: what works and why
• The influence of animation in children's books

The casual, free-form style of discussion, combined with the relaxing atmosphere of The Dorrance, made for a great January get-together. New England illustrators are set to convene again in February for the second-annual Live Animal Study sketching event at RISD's Nature Lab. The workshop filled up in just over a day, but if you'd like to be added to the waitlist please do so here.

I hope to continue coordinating events for area authors and illustrators this year! If you would like to notified of future workshops, field trips, and networking events, please send me an e-mail or message me on Facebook and I'll add you to the mailing list.

Help Fund NecronomiCon-Providence!

Calling all fans of the cosmic and the weird! Your help is needed to support New England's premier festival celebrating the work of Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Necronomicon-Providence!

This convention will be unlike any The Creative Capital has hosted before. There is a great line-up of renowned scholars, writers, filmmakers, & artists set to speak, as well as lots of interesting panels, film screenings, walking tours, and other activities. The super-friendly guys at NecronomiCon have secured one of Providence's most beautiful venues for this event, Lovecraft's own favorite, The Biltmore Hotel. There is going to be so much in store I'm sure Lovecraft himself would approve! Help is now needed to pay for the associated costs that are due well in advance of the event, so a Kickstarter campaign has been set up with tons of great rewards:

Please contribute! With any luck, I'll be in their bazaar selling and signing copies of The Antarctic Express, a children's book retelling of At the Mountains of Madness, so I really want this to happen! I've missed the boat on several great Kickstarter projects before and I'm not going to let this one slip away.

Visit the NecronomiCon Kickstarter page to donate and head to http://necronomicon-providence.com/ for future updates. Thanks!