Being a writer is lonely, poorly-paid, frustrating, ego-crushing, time-consuming, unappreciated, overwhelming, OCD-inducing, enervating, daily-grinding, and sometimes-you-work-for-a-whole-year-on-a-book-and-it-doesn’t-sell-and-you-think-“oh no I’ve wasted my life”-ing.

But then sometimes this happens. You meet a fellow children’s book artist (in this case, the National Laureate of Adorableness, Salina Yoon) and you chat and you bond and then a few months later, she does this to the cover of your upcoming books (order it, people!).

And suddenly, it all seems worth it.

Hey y’all!

It’s been…uhh…a long time since I last posted, basically because I’m lazy and the thought of dealing with HTML makes me break out in a cold sweat. On the upside, this ensures that when I do post it’s for a darn good reason.

Today’s Darn Good Reason: I am able to proudly announce that my next picture book will be Little Sid: Tales of a Tiny Buddha, and that it will be published by First Second (aka The Greatest Graphic Novel Publisher Of All Time)!

Before he became the enlightened Buddha, Siddhartha was just a kid like any other, except for the fact that he was a royal prince who is given everything his heart desires. However, this decadent lifestyle soon starts to wear thin and Sid leaves his castle on a journey of self-discovery. Mixing real Buddhist fables with an adventure story, Little Sid will be a fun story that will teach kids some of the basic concepts of Buddhism (although don’t tell them that!).

Of course, it would be remiss of me to not mention the fact that that gorgeous piece of art you see above is created by illustrator Xanthe Bouma. This will be her very first children’s book, but as you can see from the awesomeness of her visuals, she’ll be working in kid’s books for a long time to come.

Right now, Little Sid is slated for a Winter 2017 release, but that may change.

Alright, so I’m sure you’re all getting sick of me talking about my UK trip (see previous posts). And my hair is WAAAAY funky in this picture, but I got to talk to my sister-in-law’s old high school, which I thought was very cool. Plus, I got a little write-up from them with tons of pictures showing me prowling the stage like some sort of primeval author/panther hybrid…only less panther-like. My movements were probably more of a scurry like an author/squirrel.

Here’s the link below:

https://kingsburyhigh.wordpress.com/2015/07/03/ian-lendler-presents-the-…

Woo-hoo! The first “official” review is in for The Stratford Zoo’s performance of Romeo & Juliet, and I couldn’t be happier.

“The animal thespians at the Stratford Zoo perform yet another of the Bard’s tragedies, this time with a rooster and a bear in the title roles.

After their successful production of Macbeth (2014), the inhabitants of the Stratford Zoo decide to tackle another one of Shakespeare’s most recognized plays. Their version casts the Capulets as bears that belong to a group called Wilders, or animals that live freely out in the forest, and the Montagues as roosters, belonging to the Petters, farm animals residing at the Verona Petting Zoo. The star-crossed pair meet at a costume party, where Juliet is dressed as Abraham Lincoln, and Romeo has opted for the not-so-clever disguise of a mask over his eyes. Here, Romeo and Juliet are destined to be best friends rather than lovers, and the “tragic” conclusion involves induced hibernation rather than suicide, making this splendidly approachable—and adeptly not watered-down—for younger readers. While the revue’s players are funny in their own rights, subplots that flare up among the audience members prove just as amusing. Bright and bold illustrations splash across each page, utilizing a variety of panel shapes, sizes, and full-page spreads to create a visually enticing backdrop. Fans of the series, leave the hankies at home: the zoo’s next performance promises to be a comedy.

Bravo! Where so many earnest Shakespeare adaptations flop, this series bids fair to light genuine enthusiasm in young readers. (Graphic fantasy/classic. 8-12)”

Here’s a story I like to tell from the trip: I visited one prep school that was the fanciest school I have ever seen in my life. It was a castle. Not figuratively. Literally. It was built for a 15th-century Earl. (The picture above is not a stock photo. I took it before my talk.) So anyway…

I did my normal talk. And after my talk, I always ask if anyone has questions and I usually chat to kids for about 15-20 minutes about stuff. This is actually my favorite part because it lets me see the world from their perspective.

But this time I finished and said “Any questions?” And there was total silence. Nothing. Nada. Not one question. I’d never experience that, so I sort of asked “Ummm…how come?”

And one of the kids told me, “Well, we’ve got golfing after this so we want to get going.”

Now then. I immediately started telling this story to my friends just to illustrate how wildly preppy this prep school was. And people would laugh and marvel at how the other half live.

But one thing I didn’t mention (because you never mess with a good anecdote) is that the kids were really nice. Really nice. They didn’t have questions, but when I was signing books (before they hit the links), they surrounded me, wanting to chat on a personal level. When I told them I was from San Francisco, one boy from Mexico was really eager to tell me about the times he’s visited San Francisco with his family. They all wanted to make a connection.

And that’s the larger picture. No matter what school I’ve been to the kids have been uniformly awesome. Some have been excited to see me. Some haven’t. Some have laughed at my corny jokes. Some haven’t. Some are happy to be out of the class. Some are miserable to just be in school at all.

But when the talk is done, and they’re filing out of the gym/lecture room/theater, a little group of students always stays behind to talk to me. Because they want to ask more questions or tell me their own ideas for books or ask how to they can be a writer too.

No matter what school or circumstance they’re from (and I didn’t just visit fancy prep schools, I went to some schools where the headmaster was painstakingly counting out milk money to make sure every student was covered), kids want to expand their horizons as far as they can imagine. Because at that age, their horizons are limitless. And I’m glad I could help them on their journey.

I just got back from England…and boy are my arms tired! Am I right, folks? Hello? Anyone? Sigh…

So…I just spent two weeks touring around the UK, talking to various schools about Shakespeare. Yes, that’s right. English schools paid an American to talk about Shakespeare. The phrase “bringing coals to Newcastle” comes to mind.

I don’t have the energy or discipline to create a well-crafted essay about the whole experience, so instead I’ll simply offer a few random thoughts on the experience.

–Allow me repeat myself: I was flown to England to visit schools and talk about Shakespeare. I can’t say at any point in my life that I expected any part of that previous sentence to take place. Life offers up strange surprises.

–The Land of Curry. I wouldn’t actually call what I did “visiting schools in the UK.” It was more like “ate curry non-stop for two weeks straight with occasional pit-stops at schools to let my body digest.” There was beer involved too.

–Uniforms. Kids in England wear school uniforms (see photo evidence above). Thus, at every school I went to felt like I was at auditions for a re-make of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” This easily made me the worst-dressed person in the room. Fortunately, I have a long and extensive history of being the worst-dressed person in the room. Just ask my wife. So I was in my comfort zone there.

–Bombing. The bane of stand-up comedians, but a brand new experience for me. It’s a very strange (and very physical) feeling. Flop sweat, a lurching in the stomach, a strange dual-process of plowing through your material, registering that your material is not hitting, and wildly flailing to try and connect with the audience which only makes you feel more desperate and vaguely David Brent-ish.

This was a really interesting experience, and it happened two or three times on my trip. After combing a lot of comedian websites, it seems that bombing is usually a combination of a lot of factors: physical setting, crowd mood, material, the Gods.

Now normally, I talk to elementary age kids (6-10). This crowd is usually pretty easy-going because, quite frankly, I use a projector and screen for my presentation. As the father of two children in that age group, I can tell you that ANY screen time is cause for great joy and wild adulation.

However on this trip, I wound up being sent to a few schools with 12- and 13-year- olds. These kids know screens. They’ve grown up with screen. Simple “screen time” does not impress them.

Plus, to be totally fair to them, my material was aimed towards a younger crowd and I had a hard time adjusting on the fly. I was a pretty bright 12-year-old and I very much remember being really insulted when grown-ups talked to me as if I was still a kid. So to those kids I can honestly say…sorry.

But this was what you call a “learning experience.” I learned that you gotta have back-up material for every age group. I learned that a headmaster threatening kids with terrible fates if they so much as peep during my talk is not really the best way to set the mood for a lecture. And I learned that sometimes you just bomb, so you shake your fists at the skies, curse the gods and move on. Because sometimes…

–You Dance: This was another group of 13-year-olds, but there was something in the water that day. Maybe they were desperate to get out of class. Or maybe they just really needed some entertainment, but one school was amazing.

The kids really enjoyed the talk. There was a general carnival atmosphere and at one point, one kid asked me if I knew how to “whip a nae-nae.” The crowd went crazy at the question. Being a middle-aged human being, I had no idea what any of this meant. I was quickly informed that it was a dance (see video below).

So the kids all nominated one boy to get up in front of the entire school and demonstrate the “whip a nae-nae dance.” So then I proceeded to perform the best nae-nae whipping that I could muster. There was general laughter, applause, and recognition that for someone over the age of 13, I whipped a perfectly adequate nae-nae.

And I can honestly say, that morning as I got out of my car and walked into that school, I did not know that I would wind up dancing in front of a crowd of 300 teenagers.

Life is full of bombs, but it’s also full of wonderful surprises.

See that picture up above? That’s me during the storm yesterday. And sadly, that’s not a cooler full of beer, it’s full of rain-water. Rain-water which I’m bailing and dragging out to the street. At this point in the storm, I’ve had to get creative.

From this angle, the ground looks dry and fine, but if you turned the camera the other way, you’d see my entire backyard full of water about to enter my house.

Below I’ve posted a timeline of my experience, to show what it’s like when one relatively unmanly and definitely unprepared writer goes mano-a-mano with a Pineapple Express.

12/10 The Storm Gathers

10:15am
Storms a’ comin’. I’ve never used a sandbag before, but I’m sure about to start. And no, I’m not joking.

3:52pm
“A ominous grim specter hangs in the sky like a vulture waiting for carrion. A storm is coming. The fine yellow line on the Doppler is all that separates civilization and savagery.”
–If Hunter Thompson described a Pineapple Express.

Note: At this point, the sky was starting to do that weird thing skies do before a storm. It was getting quiet, too quiet, and frankly, quite creepy. Plus, ill-prepared people were panic-buying all sorts of stuff at the local Ace Hardware, the fools. I know, because I was standing in line, waiting my turn to panic-buy as well.

5:29pm
“The rain fell hard. Hard like the tears of a matador who’s slaughtered his toro. Men cry too.”
–If Hemingway described a Pineapple Express.

5:59pm
“The sky slobbered savage rain on sin-city streets. Soaked sun-baked CA. Rain-ravaged junkies juked to its be-bop beat.”
–If James Ellroy described a Pineapple Express

8:01pm
You know what’s low-rent? Well-heeled Marin residents sending their gardeners to pick-up sand-bags that volunteer firemen have filled for the elderly. Stay classy, Marin!

11:01 pm
“We’re getting 8” of rain in 12 hours, I’ve got two sump pumps, a bucket, a case of beer, it’s dark, and I’m wearing sunglasses.”
“Hit it.”

Note: Astute readers will recognize this as a riff on one of the best lines from one of the best movies ever made, The Blues Brothers. Non-astute readers will wonder why I’m wearing sunglasses at 11:01 at night.

12/11 The Pineapple Express pulls into the station

5:55am
You know what wasn’t fun? The part where the power went out.

Note: At this point, the author soiled his trousers.

7:44am
Now I’ve got 4 pumps going (borrowed some from the neighbors), and the storm is winning. Curse you storm. At least we’ll be able to boat around my living room.

Note: At this point, weather stations report that the rain was falling at the rate of 14” an hour. It was here that my wife and I stopped bailing, started rolling up the carpets, and digging in the couch cushions to raise money for repairing the damage that would hit our house when the water came in. Because the flood water was literally at the lip of our doorway.

8:00am
If the Walking Dead has taught me anything, it’s that I should get ahead of the curve on this Stormageddon and start eating people. You know, just to get the taste for it.

Note: See that bit of funniness there? Ha Ha! Is the author so cavalier in the face of danger? Is he Mr. Cool under fire? No, the storm just backed off a bit at the exact moment it was about to pour a couple thousand gallons through our backdoor.

10:30am
I’ve got the 4 sump pumps back online! This Pineapple Express shall not pass. Not coincidentally, I just saw the Hobbit last night.

10:35am
It just occurred to me that all the electric cords running my pumps are underwater. I’m pretty sure this will get me killed. Why isn’t this killing me yet?

10:58am
My yard, sensing danger, has cleverly disguised itself as a swimming pool.

7:00pm
It’s all over. I’m calling it. The Pineapple Express died at 6:52pm tonight.

3(!) sump pumps valiantly gave their lives today to save my house. I honor their sacrifice tonight with a 3-beer salute. Actually, make that 4 beers.

Howdy folks!

So you see that pretty picture up there above these words? Well, if you wait a couple years (until 2017…boo!) then that picture will be part of my newest picture book!

What’s it about? Well…uhhh….it’s the entire history of the universe. In 36 pages. Because I’m a humble man and I like to work small. Actually, I’m really really proud of this thing. It’s one of the few times that a full idea comes to me completely realized and all I have to do is write it down. Kinda like Yesterday came to Paul McCartney. Except less popular and money-making and certainly with less cuteness than Sir McCartney can muster on the least cute day of life.

The name of this book shall be One Day, A Dot and it shall be Eisner winner-y. Why? Because it’s being illustrated by two(!) Eisner winners, Braden Lamb and Shelli Paroline (the awesome illustrators of the awesome Adventure Time series). Anyway, I’m very excited and I definitely think you should hold your breath while waiting for this one to come out, because it’ll take three years and that’ll definitely be some sort of breath-holding record which will get you into the Guinness Book of World Records. And when they ask you what inspired you to hold your breath for three years, perhaps you can mention me and One Day, A Dot. I’d like that.

Howdy Folks!

I’ve been getting one question a lot recently: “Are you a big fat liar?”

To put this in context, they are not asking me whether I murdered a man or not (on that, I please the 5th). No, they are simply asking about the final page of The Stratford Zoo Presents Macbeth.

In case you don’t remember (or haven’t read it…for shame!), the final page features a peacock writing up a Coming Attractions billboard for the Stratford Zoo’s next performance: Romeo & Juliet.

Well, the answer can now be revealed. Behold! The cover for The Stratford Zoo Presents Romeo & Juliet. This lovely bit of eye-candy is due out in Sept. 2015. Personally, I can’t wait.

A lot of people don’t know this, but the author doesn’t actually get to see the finished art of a book until it comes out. And illustrator extraordinaire, Zack Giallongo, has been hitting it out of the park so far on this series. So I’m really excited to see what he has in store for this tale of romance and tragedy…romagedy?

Also, as long as I have you here, Xmas time is coming! So tell you ma, tell your pa, tell your friends back in Arkansas, that the Stratford Zoo series makes for an excellent Xmas gift, doorstop, or drinks coaster.

Stay tuned for more details about Romeo & Juliet. I’ll leak them here as soon as I get them.

Cheers,
Ian