Final report: 4 excellent picture book drafts, 3 stinky ones.
7 different picture books total. 4 ready to revise and sub for crit, 3 that truthfully have bones but no skin.

And I’m so glad this week is over with. I don’t think I’ll be ready to open any of these files for a month. I’m taking a break!

1. A wonderful review from Booklist. Two particularly nice bits: "The rhyming text is delightful" and "readers [will] want to climb right into the pages to participate in each charming episode."

2. ME WITH YOU will be carried in the Chinaberry Holiday catalog which will go out in early September.

3. Penguin Putnam just ordered another printing!

These days are one of those times when I wish I could be in two places at once. For example, I live in Brazil and not in Vermont, so I couldn’t attend Linda Urban’s signing of her new picture book, MOUSE WAS MAD. I have heard Linda read MOUSE in manuscript form. (And as an aside, Linda is the BEST reader. Seriously. Next time we’re all together, I’m going to have her read the Financial Section of the newspaper out loud just to show how talented she is.) Anyway, back to MOUSE. You can’t really talk about a picture book without seeming like you’re talking about its main character. MOUSE is funny and endearing and so real. I want to do a proper celebration of MOUSE when I actually have my very own copy in my hands after July. Right now, I can’t even talk about the art because, well, I haven’t seen it, though I’ve heard, dear reader, I’ve heard of its wonderful adorableness.

For now, I’m going to join Linda’s contest and weigh in on what makes me mad and what makes me feel better. Truth is, I don’t often get mad, really, really foot-stompin’ mad. It’s most often disrespect and injustice that make me mad, and most often in relation to the way someone else treats my children. But truth is, though I will speak up for myself and my children, what most comforts me is similar to MOUSE in that I like to crawl under the covers and stay as still as possible for a while. Just snuggle up until the adrenaline and anxiety fade away.

What about you, readers? You can weigh in on your own blog or here at Linda’s for a chance to win a copy of MOUSE *and* chocolate. (Chocolate is in 2nd place for me as a comfort. And a nap coupled with chocolate = no longer being angry at all!)

WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

ME WITH YOU has been found at Books-a-Million in Birmingham, AL on Lakeshore Drive, by Amy Dowdy.

Don’t forget to continue to send me pictures between now and June 15. I will draw a name from the entrants for a second winner of a copy of ME WITH YOU. And if you post it to your Facebook or blog and send me the link (at kristy (at) kristydempsey (dot) com, you get TWO entries!

And I’m such a dork that when Amy sent me the picture, I gasped, and then began to sob, mostly because I am happy, but also because Amy and her family lived here in Brazil for ten years and are very dear to my heart and she has been one of my cheerleaders from when I began writing.

(Yes, I posting this on the 1st of May. After poetry month is over. But it is before many on the West Coast wake up and start their May. So I’m counting it!)

I can tell you that I’m positive I’ve never had a conversation about poetry with my brother-in-law, but I recently read a poem on his blog that cracked me up. It’s probably not considered literature; it’s a little more on the absurd side of the spectrum. But my brother-in-law liked it enough to post it, and I laughed enough that I had to ask him about it. And guess what, dear readers? His answers to me revealed something about how unexpectedly a poem can get into your head, or your heart, when you hear it out loud.

The poem my brother-in-law David shared was "A Fat Man’s Prayer". He’d heard it performed by Victor Buono, one of his favorite actors. David says, "my relationship with poetry is exactly what I said on my blog. I heard it. I liked it. I shared it." Suffice it to say, David isn’t searching for poetry to connect with. But hey, sometimes poetry finds us. You hear it, you like it, you share it. Which makes me think we should read more poetry out loud. From the street corners. From the rooftops. On top of our chairs in crowded restaurants. More chances for people to fall in love with poetry.

Ahem. Okay, I digress.

So, here in all its glory, is the poem that caught my brother-in-law’s attention, and that made me laugh out loud. And reader, though it might be considered doggerel by some, if you can keep yourself from laughing out loud by the time you reach the Jujubee line, well, then, you just might be hard-hearted. 🙂

A Fat Man’s Prayer

by Victor Buono

Lord, my soul is ripped with riot,

Lord, if you love me, SHUT MY MOUTH!

Just a quick note to say that I edited the contest post to say that if you post the picture of ME WITH YOU-in-a-bookstore to your own blog, and send me the link when you send me the picture, you get two entries in the contest!

I just decided to do (Inter)NaWriPiBoWee. (The Inter part being that I live in Brazil. International.) Seven picture books in seven days. You can find the info here. (Big shout out to Paula Yoo for getting this thing started.) I am a lunatic. In order to do this, I MUST get caught up on my crits today. Seriously, my critique partners are the most forgiving people I know.

Also, I have one more Poetry Conversation to get posted. Going out of National Poetry Month with a bang. Missed a few days, but the days that I was able to have a poetry conversation with people and get it posted here were well worth it, I’d say.

Also, did you see the post about my CONTEST? Wanna help me see my book in stores and possibly win a copy? Check out the details in the link.

Okay, I’m going to do my crits. Write my notes for (Inter)NaWriPiBoWee. Exercise. Take a shower. And at some point, post my last Poetry Conversation.

But first, maybe I need another cup of coffee.

I think ME WITH YOU is just about to hit stores. It’s no longer listed as a pre-order at Barnes and Noble. AND my author copies came today. So here’s a little contest fun for you.

I am in Brazil.

My book is in America.

I long to see my book in bookstores. And I cannot until I arrive in July. But YOU can help me!

First person to send me a picture of ME WITH YOU in an actual bookstore wins a copy! Photo must clearly show you holding my book with bookstore image in background (inside or outside, I’m not picky).

Attach the photo to an email (and let me know the name of the bookstore and city you found it in) and send to kristy (at) kristydempsey (dot) org.

BUT WAIT! Not only that…

If you miss being the first to get me a photo, send anyway! Because between the first photo and June 15, I’ll enter everyone who sends me a photo of my book in a bookstore, or in your hands at your house, into a drawing for a giveaway of another copy. (Edited to add: if you also post it to your own blog –or Facebook– I’ll enter you twice! Just send me the link when you email me the picture.) Okay, so June 15 is a long time, I know. But it gives all the stores time to get the book in, and gives you time to run by and give it a gander and send me a picture!

Tell everyone you know!

Fine print: Booksellers are excluded from winning the contest, because you know, of the obvious fact that their hands are the ones that open the boxes. 🙂

ETA: First copy has been sighted but you can still be in the running for a copy by sending me a pic and/or posting it to your blog or Facebook. See the details above.

Today was a treat. A couple of weeks ago I sent my husband Neruda’s "Ode to my Socks". He had agreed to have a Poetry Conversation with me and I debated several days as to which poem I would send him. I finally chose and told him to take as long as he needed.

Every couple of days he would bring it up (or I would, in a "when are you going to get the poem back to me" kind of way). He’d mention something that he loved as much as Neruda’s socks. His pen. His pajama pants. "I like comfortable things," he’d say. And I’d giggle. Because, you see, that is EXACTLY why I sent him this poem. Since we married, I’ve learned that there are certain things — it might be because of the perfect size of a thing that fits right in the crook of his hand, or the feel of a fabric against his skin, or even the visual appeal of a certain item — that get into his brain and make him feel like everything is right in his world. He’s difficult to buy for, because you just never know what that "thing" will be. For Neruda, it was socks made by the shepherd’s hands.

Ode to my Socks

By Pablo Neruda

Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
knitted with her own
shepherd’s hands,
two socks soft
as rabbits.
I slipped
my feet into them
as if
into
jewel cases
woven
with threads of
dusk
and sheep’s wool

Read the rest here in English or in Spanish.

And for my husband, ONE of his "things" is his beloved office chair. Here is his version of Neruda’s poem, bordering on satire in places, but it most definitely made me laugh and brings me to admit that I am one lucky girl indeed to have such a good sport for a husband, as well as one who values words as much as myself. (You might enjoy comparing it to the original, in which case you will marvel as I did at his manner of thought.) And I promise if you read it all the way through, you will laugh. In more than one place. 🙂

Ode to my Office Chair

by Demps Dempsey

Sam Walton brought me
a leather office chair
crafted by the sandpaper hands
of nickel and dime Banana republic laborers,
one chair
like a big friendly bear.
I slipped
my butt into it
as if
into
a billowy cloud
covered
with the fabric of
fog
and supple Italian leather.
Triumphant chair,
my butt became
one leathery
marshmallow
one huge confectionary delight
of mahogany brown
shot
with a khaki thread,
one ginormous haystack
one monarch’s robe
thus honored
was
my butt
by
this
regal
chair.
It was
so comfortable
that for the first time
my butt seemed
a stranger to me,
a dream
of a promised love,
encountered
but not recognized.
A haunting
by the espresso
echo
of that stately
chair.
However,
I quelled
the overhwelming urge
to shake away
the cobwebs of the dream
at rising,
the way a dog sends
water flying from its fur,
the way
a pencil erases its trace.
I resisted
the call
to set the chair
across the room
and silently stare
as at a beautiful girl
with olive hue
and hazel eyes
pondering what she must
be like.
Like Indiana Jones
spanning the chasm
with his whip
with delight,
I stuck out my butt
and eased it
into
the fluffy
chair.
So this is
the moral of my odes:
Most honored
is hope enountered
and what is comfortable
is truly comfortable
when it is the case of one
supreme office chair
at work time.

Many of my friends are meeting up today for the NESCBWI conference in Nashua. (I feel jealous.) I’ve gotten tidbits here and there of talks that will be given, and workshops that will be presented, and fish and chips that will be eaten, and let me tell you, it all sounds sooooooooo wonderful. To everyone attending, here’s wishing you inspiration and knowledge and community and renewal. And that all of that would translate into good books for kids. (I still feel jealous, but not as much when I remember the ultimate goal.)

In my own upcoming conference news, a few weeks ago I bit the bullet and sent my deposit for this . I’ve wanted to go to one of Rebecca’s poetry workshops for a while, and have been wanting to push myself more in the area of poetry, and given that I’ll be in the States during that time, it only makes sense to go. (Not to mention the fact that I was looking for another chance to go back to Boyds Mills. Oh my. Even the dirt at that place is inspired. And inspiring.) Anyone else going to be there?