Keir Graff's Blog

At this year's Chicago Tribune Printers Row Lit Fest (that name needs an edit, doesn't it?), the always delightful Esther Hershenhorn presents: "Oh, the Places You Can Go! Writing for Children TODAY!"

I'll be telling my riches-to-rags story alongside M. Molly Backes, Gina Bellisario, Cherie Colyer, Barbara Gregorich, and Natalie Ziarnik.

Registration is free but required, so click here to sign up. (Beats standing in line to see whether there's an empty seat.)

Saturday, June 9, 2012

1:00 p.m.

Jones College Prep/Student Learning Center

606 S State St. (Use entrance on Harrison)

Chicago, IL

See you there!

Just a reminder that your review of The Other Felix can still be entered in a drawing for valuable prizes until February 29. It's as easy as 1-2-3.

1. Read the book. Reading it with children is encouraged. (If you've already read it, skip this step.)

2. Write a review. Including children's opinions is also encouraged. You can write a review for any public source: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Powell's, Goodreads, LibraryThing, Shelfari—you get the idea. (I sure wish IndieBound allowed customer reviews!) If you work in a bookstore and you write a shelf talker, that's even better.

3. Tell me about the review. Email a link or a screen capture (or a photograph of the shelf talker) to keir@keirgraff.com. Make sure the words "review drawing" are in the subject line.

All reviews must be received by 11:59 p.m. on February 29 to be eligible. Reviews will be chosen by blind drawing and each selected review author will be eligible for one of the following prizes:

A copy of The Other Felix, inscribed and mailed to the recipient of your choice (multiple winners)
A copy of Angel in My Pocket inscribed by author Ilene Cooper
A set of all four of my novels for adults: The Price of Liberty, One Nation Under God, My Fellow Americans, and Cold Lessons
A gift certificate for $50 at an independent bookstore of your choice
A gift certificate for $25 at an independent bookstore of your choice
Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain
A copy of Where the Wild Things Are and a copy of Coraline

The fine print: this contest is not sponsored or endorsed by my publisher. Previously written reviews are eligible. Reviews need not be positive but all reviews should be well-reasoned. Reviews will be numbered and numbers will be drawn blind from a hat by a seven-year-old and a five-year-old in alternating turns.

 

The Other Felix has been named to the Chicago Public Library's "Best of the Best" list, recommended as being "one of the very best published for kids in 2011." Jump to Fiction for Younger Readers to see the other books in its category.  

Many thanks to CPL and its wonderful librarians for their support. Here's to better funding and longer hours in 2012!

 In yesterday's "Children's Booksellers Report on Black Friday Weekend," Judith Rosen included item:

“I’ve sold a little bit of everything. I’ve been looking for that one book, and it hasn’t declared itself in my store yet,” says Suzy Takacs, owner of The Book Cellar in Chicago. In addition to bestselling series titles for older readers, she was surprised to see Nick Bruel’s A Bad Kitty Christmas (Roaring Brook) really take off over the weekend. She’s also done well with local author Kier Graff’s The Other Felix (Roaring Brook). At Gibson’s, Herrmann notes that two books from local authors, Tomie dePaola’s Strega Nona’s Gift (Penguin/Nancy Paulsen) and Adam Gamble’s Good Night New Hampshire (Our World of Books), have done especially well. Even in New York City, Bank Street Books buyer/manager Beth Puffer finds that anything local, like Melissa Sweet’s Balloons Over Broadway (Houghton Mifflin), sells briskly.

Welcome news, even if they did spell my name wrong!

Once I was finally done writing, revising, and editing The Other Felix and the book was on its way to production, I started putting my list of acknowledgments together. Now, I had not written an acknowledgments page for any of my four novels for adults. For those, I don't do research, I don't share my drafts with other readers, and the books generally go straight to the publisher.

But The Other Felix seemed different. A number of people had definitely helped it on its way. And, frankly, I was feeling so great about everything that I just wanted to spread the love.

My first list was long. I believe I may have included Mayor Daley and I wasn't even that much of a fan. So I did another draft in which I whittled it down to essentials. It was still pretty long, butI decided that was OK and sent it on to my editor, Kate Jacobs.

Kate told me it was a nice list but encouraged me to think about it in context, as it would appear in a book for kids. I looked at it again with new eyes and decided that, as usual, she was right: my list was really written for grownups, not kids. And while I hope a lot of adults read my book, too, a lengthy acknowledgments page makes a weird coda for a kid who has just read the last scene in a novel. If the kid is immersed in the story, the experience could be like stepping off a ride at Disneyland and then having having a guy in a suit make you read the names of the people who built it. 

So I didn't put my acknowledgments in the book. But I still want to thank people for their roles, direct and indirect, in the creation and publication of this book. So I'm going to share it in some grownup contexts—such as, for instance, here.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my beautiful wife, Marya, for her unsung labors as the silent partner in my writing career, and for giving me two sons who have made my life complete. Felix and Cosmo, you make me happy every single day and I love you both more than you can possible imagine. Thank you for being patient when I’m busy writing. Felix, your dream started it all—and, Cosmo, the next book is for you!

I owe a special debt to my friend and colleague, Ilene Cooper, for giving me astute, helpful notes on several drafts. Her advice, encouragement, and generosity were invaluable on the road to publication. Nancy McCulloch, my mother, and Ian Chipman, another friend and colleague, also read early versions and shared helpful feedback.

Lauren Wohl, thank you for falling in love with the book and championing it. Kate Jacobs, thank you for editing it with such care and clear thinking. And Ken Wright, thank you for being honest about my ideas, good AND bad.

While busy parents work, other people help them raise their children. I would like to publicly acknowledge the warmth and dedication of the caregivers and teachers at Corporate Childcare Consultants, Park View Montessori, and Walt Disney Magnet School in Chicago. Though you may have been a part of our lives for only a brief while, your influence will last a lifetime.

Finally, a shout-out and a slice of pizza to super babysitters Sadie, Mandii, Kathia, Camilla, Andrea—and others we're just getting to know.

The official release date of my first book for kids, The Other Felix, is October 11. But the early reviews are already trickling in . . . and they're pretty good! 

Kirkus calls it "An allegorical tale about friendship, fear, happiness and hope." The anonymous reviewer sums up by saying, "This thoughtful, whimsical story promises rewards for those patient readers who stick with Felix till the end." 

And Publishers Weekly's anonymous reviewer writes, "[Graff's] skill at capturing the small, everyday details and dramas that loom large in children’s minds, as well as his avoidance of a too-neat ending, ought to linger with readers . . . "

Fingers crossed for more good reviews. The reviews I care about most, of course, will be the ones I get from the kids!

The Price of Liberty is finally available as an e-book. As my way of saying thanks for your patience, I'm going to give it away FREE until August 31. (Smashwords only; Kindle will only let me price it at 99 cents.) Please download, read, and enjoy.

If you do download the free e-book and you like what you read, spread the word! Write a review on your favorite book-sharing site and be sure to tell your friends they can read it for free, too.

DOWNLOAD FROM SMASHWORDS

DOWNLOAD FROM AMAZON

 

Finalist for the Society of Midland Authors Fiction Prize

 

So I'll be at Centuries & Sleuths (7419 W. Madison St., Forest Park, IL) tomorrow night with two good guys, Bill Rapp and Allan Ansorge. Not sure exactly where the conversation will take us, but there will be wine, and cheese, and Allan has promised to wear "an unusually striking derby"—show up for that if nothing else!

If you can't make it but don't want to spend a weekend without hearing writers talk, and drink, and talk about writing and drinking, WBEZ has a quality recording of my May conversation with Bryan Gruley at the Newberry Library ("Serious Thrills: Keir Graff and Bryan Gruley Talk about Writing"). Frankly, I can't stand to listen to recordings of myself but hopefully you won't share my aversion. And Gruley is always entertaining.

Just (officially) announced: The Price of Liberty is a runner-up for the Society of Midland Authors fiction prize. I'm honored! And amazed! They don't usually select so-called genre fiction. I'm in damn good company, too, as you'll see. I'd like to thank my agent...my stunt double...and all the animators who ruined their eyesight so the children of America could see their cartoons in true 3-D....

Whoops. Wrong speech.

Society of Midland Authors

2011 Awards for Books Published in 2010

ADULT FICTION 

Winner:

Benjamin Percy - The Wilding: A Novel - Graywolf Press

Finalists:

Keir Graff - The Price of Liberty - Severn House Publishers

Billy Lombardo - The Man with Two Arms: A Novel - The Overlook Press

ADULT NONFICTION

Winner:

Deborah Blum - The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York - Penguin Press

Finalists:

Harry Castleman and Walter J. Podrazik - Watching TV: Six Decades of American Television, 2nd expanded ed. - Syracuse University Press

Kevin Stein - Poetry's Afterlife: Verse in the Digital Age - The University of Michigan Press and The University of Michigan Library

BIOGRAPHY

Winner:

Bill Barnhart and Gene Schlickman - John Paul Stevens: An Independent Life - Northern Illinois University Press

Finalist:

Bruce L. Mouser - For Labor, Race, and Liberty: George Edwin Taylor, His Historic Run for the White House, and the Making of Independent Black Politics - The University of Wisconsin Press

CHILDREN'S FICTION

Winner:

Rebecca Barnhouse - The Coming of the Dragon - Random House Books for Young Readers

Finalists:

Stephanie Hemphill - Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials - Balzer and Bray

Clare Vanderpool - Moon Over Manifest - Delacorte Books for Young Readers

CHILDREN'S NONFICTION

Winner:

Mitchell, Don - Driven: A Photobiography of Henry Ford - National Geographic Children's Books

POETRY

Winner:

Jehanne Dubrow - Stateside - TriQuarterly

Finalist:

Marc J. Sheehan - Vengeful Hymns - Ashland Poetry Press

JAMES FRIEND MEMORIAL AWARD FOR LITERARY AND DRAMATIC CRITICISM

Winner:

John Barron, publisher, Chicago Sun-Times, for his love of books and his many fine book reviews

I'll be at the Frankfort Public Library tomorrow night (Illinois, not Kentucky or Germany), doing my program, "How I Kept My Day Job and Became a Published Author—and You Can, Too!" Joe Vince of FrankfortPatch asked me to share "Five Mistakes Writers Make Getting Published" and I said, "Only five?!"

Just kidding. Five is more than enough to worry about when you're just starting out. And none of us make the same mistakes in quite the same way, either.