The Keene Literature Festival II

The Keene Children's Literature Festival was awesome! Featured speakers this year were: Jane Yolen, Katherine Patterson, Lois Lowry, Lita Judge, and Beth Kromme--novelists and illustrators.

I was particularly excited about this event because like most conferences, one gets to sit among hundreds of children's literature fans, often teachers and librarians but a speckling of soon-to-be writers and illustrators as well. This event is nice because we all pile into one auditorium and everyone gets to hear the speakers present back to back so there is no juggling of which author/illustrator you want to attend & conflicts of when they overlap. I will post some pictures once I get my camera out of the car.

Trina Schart Hyman and Jane Yolen were the two most frequent speakers at this event and I was happy to hear her name mentioned a couple of times in recognition of her role in the history of Keene's festival as well as with Lois Lowry sharing a humorous story of the two of them and simultaneous black eyes.

Every single speaker this year was engaging, humorous and left me thinking about some aspect of my own world as a writer/illustrator. Jane Yolen took the approach of talking about poetry--an area I do not fully understand but like most in the children's world. Her speech and Q & A after gave me the opportunity to learn not only how one is to read poetry but just made me think about the discrimination given to poets who publish in the children's book arena vs. the "adult" arena. Lois Lowry had us cracking up at the humorous letters she has received over the years. Lita Judge had a facinating history as a child and learning through self-teaching how to be an illustrator and really painter as a whole. There was a lot that I enjoyed observing in her watercolors. Beth Krommes was too cute about winning the Caldecott Medal this year and I loved how she shared her experiences as an artist and answered all my curiosities about the C. medal as is. Katherine Patterson gave a very moving speech pertaining to hope and was just charming on her 77th birthday (what an interesting birthday to have on the 31st of October). She also spoke of being classified as a weird kid, and having another classmate also classified as such because that boy was adamant about becoming a ballerina (what boy is not going to be brutally made fun of for this dream) but low and behold as life separated them, they reconnected many years later and that young boy had become a ballerina after all. I love those stories, the idea that if you are passionate about something, and believe in yourself amidst diversity, you can persevere. Now, I obviously am giving the cliff note version because it was far more entertaining and powerful when she shared the story, but the moral is good to remind my slew of readers about.

I left the Irish Cottage of David White's (the festival director) feeling gloriously energized. I loved the comfort of each of the very established women (Jane, Lois and Katherine) and how presenting to crowds like the 500 present at Keene, was a breeze; they were natural and comfortable with themselves as human beings and as writers--or at least came off as so. And as I sat across the aisle from them, I smiled as Jane Yolen spoke words of calm and encouragement to one of the younger speakers. What a kindness to see that camaraderie rather than competition. What a kindness to see the generations of powerful women writers sharing with a different generation. Not to mention, how nice to hear a two time prestigious well-recognized woman not be stuck up and snotty, but rather very human and like the type of human I wish all could be. (Then again, she was friends with Trina, and since I hold Trina up to a certain standard, I'm glad she liked these women too ;))