David Seow's Blog, page 41

Jason Erik Lundberg at the Writers Fest

Catherine Carvell, Emily Lim, Pauline Lo 


I headed on down for Pauline Lo's second book launch appropriately on the second day of the writers' book fest. On my way there, I spied fellow Epigram authors Adan and Felicia Low Jiminez aka AJ Low of the immensely popular Sherlock Sam series, prepping for their treasure hunt. I decided not to frazzle them out and went straight to the Pavilion, where Pauline's launch was to be held.

Adan and Felicia and their many fans.

Hankering for some dessert, I perused the selection of cupcakes and cakes on offer at the cake stand and bought this for tea for S$6:50, only to discover that Pauline had a selection of tea time tasties for her book launch.  Darn, the cake lady refused to offer me a refund, even though my cake had only one bite in it! Unbelievable!!




After tea, I bumped into Kristina Thornton, co-author of the ultra successful The Wee Adventures of Shabu-Shabu book and app and we hightailed it to the Alternate Realities panel, featuring Jason Erik Lunberg  and Dean Francis Alfar. We were late and according to Kristina I made quite an entrance as my rustling paper bags were quite a distraction.  I'm  Sorry, Jason and Dean, but if Kristina hadn't been late, we wouldn't have been quite disruptive! :P I have to say their session was the best, a riot and I had a blast. We all did.

Jason Erik Lundberg,  Rajeev Patke, Dean Francis Alfar




We had post panel drinks at TCC with Kenneth and Emmabefore grabbing dinner at Mexican eatery Baja Fresh and heading back home.  Watch out for my post about my one minute pitch at the Singapore Writers Festival.

SWF: Tibby the Tiger Bunny and The Robot in my Playground Book Launch

Pauline Lo, Emily Lim and Christine from Epigram
On Saturday afternoon I found myself at the SMU campus for the joint book launch of  award-winning authors Emily Lim's and Pauline Lo's books Tibby the Tiger Bunny and The Robot in My Playground; both ladies are my fellow authors at Epigram Books.

Also in attendance representing Epigram were Edmund, Sheri, Christine, and Ilangoh. Kenneth, Catherine, Sarah and I were there to show support for team SCBWI. And course I bought the books!
Tibby the Tiger Bunny The Robot in My Playground Emily, Catherine, and Jade (Photo: C. Carvell)
It's needless to say that the book launch was packed and Emily brought along her  adorably energetic son Caleb, to whom she dedicated her book.

After the launch we caught up with Evelyn and headed for a post-book launch tea at one of the many establishments on the SMU campus. Now that was a lot of fun!!


Sarah, Kenneth and Sheri  Pauline, Edmund and Avina

Emily Lim and Caleb.

At the Printers

Emma, Soefara, Stephanie and I spent the morning at the Saik Wah press to watch the printing of the next Sam, Sebbie and Di-Di-Di book: At the S.E.A Aquarium. Here are a couple of pictures we took while we were there. The book will be ready in about a week so it will probably be out in the bookstores in a fortnight.

I suppose waiting for a book to come back from the printers is akin to a soon-to-be-dad waiting for his child to be born: you hope your kid will be happy, healthy and safe. Well, in my case, you hope that there won't be any missing pages. haha.

Lunch, Dinner and a Walk at the Botanical Gardens

So after dinner at Jumbo Seafood restaurant, I met up with Jacquie and her sister Sarah for lunch with Mum at Paradise Dynasty, a Shanghainese Dim Sum restaurant for lunch. Mum was insistent that there should be no shellfish in the food and gave specific instructions to the servers. However, when she tucked into the fried rice, she suspected something shell-fishy and promptly sent the dish back; the waiter apologized profusely, promising us free dessert. I was more than okay with that, but then the manager returned with the fried rice, saying that the suspect morsel was indeed chicken. I avoided eating the dish after that for obvious reasons. :)


Jacquie, Sarah and MumAfter lunch we headed to PS Cafe (Brand endorsement here: I expect free cakes from now on) for a post lunch coffee before Mum suggested  a mini tour of the prewar houses in our neighborhood and then heading back home for a bit of a chat. It started raining on our way home and by the time we stepped through the front door, the lightning flashed and the thunder roared. Sarah and Jacquie were trapped with us for the next couple of hours!! 

No, seriously we had a very nice chat and when the rain let up we walked down to Newton Hawker Centre, where Sarah and Jacquie were meeting a friend for dinner. I took a slow walk back up Orchard Road and by the time I got home Mum was fast asleep snoring. Proof that she had just as good a time as I did.

The next day, Jacquie and Sarah kindly invited me out for dinner at Clarke Quay- yay, they weren't sick on me yet- on their last night in Singapore. After walking around a bit, we dined at the very hip Indochine Forbidden City. It was delicious. Dinner was great but the company was better!  We made a post meal trip to Little India to see the Diwali lights. It was packed with people, ready to celebrate the holiday. Sarah and Jacquie bought a few trinkets for their neice before deciding to head back to the hotel. I was surprised that we were able to book a cab relatively quickly as usually it's never that easy. Thanks for dinner and a fun night out, Jacquie and Sarah!


The Botanical GardensAs Jacquie had one last full day of school visits before jetting off to London, Sarah and I made plans to walk to the Botanical Gardens and Nassim Road.

So at around 9:30am, give or take a couple of minutes, Sarah and I set off from their hotel to the Botanical Gardens. It was hot! and I was drenched within minutes. We made our way around the gardens, including the Orchid Gardens before grabbing something to drink at the cafe and walking up  Nassim Road, one of the poshest neighborhoods in town. Those houses are unbelievably massive and the architecture of each house is completely different: some are modern; others are throwbacks to prewar days; some are neo classical with ornate columns. Sarah took shots of some of the more eye catching ones. After three hours - I was sweat-soaked and smelled like a sad sack of sardines - we made it back to the hotel. Sarah had some last minute packing to do before heading back to Sydney and I had to run some errands. And so sadly a really fun week had come to an end all too soon. We have to catch up soon, Sarah and Jacquie, be it in London, Sydney or Singapore. Thanks so much for a really fun week!
One of the houses on Nassim Road

Dinner with Jacquie Harvey @ Jumbo Seafood

L to R: Sarah, Simon, Jeff, Catherine, Jacqueline, Emma, Evelyn

Best selling author Jacqueline Harvey's back in town for school visits before heading off on a promotional tour of the UK for her Alice Miranda and Clementine Rose books. So we, of course, had to take the opportunity to catch up with her for dinner. 



So last week, Catherine, Emma and I went for a food tasting at Jumbo Seafood Riverside Point. We're getting rather good at food tasting if I say so myself; we must have been royal food tasters in previous lifetimes. After our extremely well-honed and sophisticated palates were convinced that the cuisine was suitable for a best-selling author, we booked a table for 12, not realising that unforeseen circumstances would prevent some of our members from being able to make it at the very last minute.




Catherine and Emma decided on the menu, the invitations were emailed and everything was set.  Emma and I planned to meet Jacquie at her hotel and we would make our way to the dinner venue from there. As with most plans, they never go according to plan. The one BIG hiccup was that I walked to the hotel and it took longer than I expected. Do most  Friday-evening pedestrians not understand the meaning of "Excuse me, please?" If that's the case, I'll just bark "Move it!" the next time someone is in my way.



By the time I got to the hotel, Emma and Jacquie were already in line for a taxi and that was great because we didn't have to wait too long to get one and then we were off to Jumbo Seafood, where Catherine, Jeff and  Simon were already waiting.

Now, why do restaurants take reservations when they can't give you a table on time? If you haven't realised it already, I'm not the most patient of people. 


MoonbeamAnyway we eventually got our table and, in hindsight, I'm sure it wasn't as long a wait as I thought it was. Evelyn arrived just as we were being seated and the moon was high in the night sky when newly minted Moonbeam winner Sarah Mounsey made it to the restaurant after a trek from the MRT station.
Our fearless SCBWI leader, who's out of town, sent a message inquiring about the evening's proceedings. The ever efficient Kenneth Quek wanted to know if everything was going well. I was about to reply but my phone ran out of batteries. So he was kept in suspense for the remainder of the evening.
Chilli Crab 
When the food arrived, we had a hard time understanding what our waitress was saying as English was not her first language. She looked a tad annoyed with me when I asked her something repeatedly and later in the evening she kept rolled her eyes when I asked to look at the menu! Jumbo Seafood, your food's good but your customer service is much to be desired.
Chilli crab and Mantou buns Deep fried baby squid Asparagus
Now I would fill you in on our dinner conversation but you can't really do that justice on a blog post, can you? But what I will say is that it was great fun catching up with Jacquie and we can't wait to do it again.  Catherine, Emma, start planning! :) Thanks everyone for making it a fun evening. 
Here's a link to Jacqueline's website: http://jacquelineharvey.com.au

Blogger, Google+,Facebook, Twitter, and Pumpkin Soup = A few hours with Two Authors

This morning Catherine Carvell kindly invited me over to her place to discuss how best to optimize social media to gain traffic for our respective blogs. So after a couple of hours we successfully synced our blogs to facebook, twitter, google+ & everything else you can name. 

Catherine's office is ultra tidy and organized, the complete opposite of my workspace. Taking a place of pride on one of her shelves is the 2010 Pitch Award that she won this year when she went to the SCBWI WA retreat in Rottnest. I'm sure it's only the first of many to come. :)
Catherine's Rottnest Pitch Award
Famished  after a couple of hours of social media coordination, we then lunched on yummy freshly baked bread from Cedele and Catherine's famous Pumpkin Soup- YUMILICIOUS! And we topped off the meal with some really yummy biscuits for dessert.

Post lunch we decided to revisit a project we have been working on for some time. I don't know how we got anything done because Catherine's ideas had us in stitches the whole time. It looks like it's going to be hilarious!
Catherine working on our project. Clue: The back scratcher is part of the story.
Then it was time for Catherine to head out on the school run and I headed out for my afternoon walk at the Botanical Gardens. Thanks for a great day, Catherine, and for my back scratcher from Cambodia. It's great, the best!

I'll be catching up with Catherine and most of the SCBWI Singapore group tomorrow when we head out for dinner with Jacqueline Harvey. We're really looking forward to it. Till then people!


My Cambodian back scratcher.

Prince George's Christening

My concept sketch/caricature of HRH  Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge

In  honour of Prince George's christening, I'm posting a concept sketch, a caricature I had in mind for A Day with the Duchess which will now be published as part of the Sam, Sebbie & Di-Di-Di series with Epigram and will hopefully be released by the first quarter of 2014. The concept sketch below is by the mega talented Soefara Jafney and it is amazing. 


Teaser: William & Kate Illustration by Soefara Jafney

My Book Emma's Elephant

As I mentioned about two blog posts ago, one of my first picture books was Babar the Elephant. I suppose you could say it inspired Emma's Elephant. I really despise the hunting of wildlife for sport or commercial purposes and I wrote this book because it's something I feel strongly about. The book was released in Singapore early this year and launched during the London Book Fair in April and at the Asian Festival of Children's Content in May and I've put up this Youtube video of the book for those of you who haven't seen it but might like to. Please click on the 720HD version for the best picture quality. I did not do a voice over because my reading voice isn't the best. Anyway, I hope you like it and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. Thanks.

Saturday Night Out Book Geeks

Felicia, Adan, Myra, Catherine, Amelia, Kenneth
The Saturday Night Out Book Geeks convened for the very first time to discuss John Boyne's book The Terrible Thing that happened to Barnaby Brocket,  a quirky little book about a gravitationally-challenged little boy.

Though Kenneth and Myra set up the club weeks ago, and we had ample time to read the book, I waited till the last possible minute to start reading it, pretty much the same reading pattern I adopted when I was in school!:)  

For the meeting, Kenneth suggested the same cafe near town where we hold our monthly SCBWI meetings  - it's our version of Central Perk.  So I made a reservation a week in advance, but I was told there was no guarantee that we would get the table that I asked for. What? I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Did they actually mean other people might be seated on OUR sofa, eating from OUR table? I was having none of it. So I showed up two hours early and sat my fat butt on our regular sofa.

Yes! I and my butt did it! We managed to get the table that we wanted, but  the satisfying sense of achievement was soon over shadowed by something else: the realisation that I looked awfully odd, pathetic and actually quite sad sitting on a seven -person sofa all by myself, fiddling with my hand phone.




Not wanting to look even more pathetic, I picked up the menu and perused it for quite a while before deciding  on the pumpkin soup, which is nowhere near as good as Catherine Carvell's homemade version, a cheeseburger, a basket of fries and a coke.

After downing my soup, I opted to doggie bag the cheeseburger, but noshed on my side order of fries. I still felt a bit awkward sitting there by myself, but a Whatsapp message from Kenneth confirming that he was in a cab and on the way made me feel somewhat better.



My pumpkin soup

When Catherine and Kenneth finally joined me at the cafe, it was proof to  the other patrons I was not some pathetic sad sack who had nothing better to do than hog a sofa and have dinner by himself on a Saturday evening.  While waiting for the others, we discussed our upcoming dinner with best-selling author Jacqueline Harvey, who will be in town for two weeks.

Meanwhile, Amelia was busy navigating  her way there  after Google Maps  misdirected her to a Martan Road somewhere between Arizona and Mexico. Myra messaged us, saying she would be there by 8pm, and Adan and Felicia apologized for being stuck in a  Saturday night traffic jam. 

By 8:30, everyone was there and ready to go. After we placed our drink orders, we started the discussion in earnest. To sum it up: I can safely say we had a stimulating discussion about the 'stimulating'  and non stimulating aspects of the book and its Dahlesque dreamlike quality. Throughout Barnaby's journey, he  floats in and out of the lives of various characters and seemingly goes with the flow until the last few pages. All in all I would say I thoroughly enjoyed this book, though it does require you to suspend your disbelief for the most part, like all good books do.



Out next book is The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.  So till next month, keep turning those pages, people.

From Underwater World Adventure to At the S.E.A. Aquarium

The story is now set @ the S.E.A Aquarium
I first started writing the Sam, Sebbie and Di-Di-Di series back in 1997 and the books were first published in 1998. Underwater World Adventure was the third book in the series to be published. When I first started writing the stories, which feature my niece and nephews as the main characters, I had no idea if they would be published or not; I just wrote them to entertain my niece and my nephews. 

Of all the stories, Underwater World was my favourite by far and the thing is that I didn't start writing it from the beginning, I started with a line "Have you seen our brother Di-Di-Di?" and the plot evolved from that line. 

It took me some time and a lot of prayers and I managed to come up with a story that I was happy with. Of course, I had to do several redrafts before I was ready to show it to anyone.
Working draft of Underwater World Adventure (1998)
And when I got stuck I would sketch out my ideas. Here's one of the sketches I did when I was trying to craft the story. I had already written Sebbie's First Day of School and A Singapore Christmas and Underwater World Adventure was the third story in the series.





I approached a publisher with all three stories and surprisingly they said yes on the spot and they asked me to come up with an additional three more stories. After that they asked me to write an additional six stories so that there would be a total of 12 stories in the series. And that's just what I did.

As the years passed, the kids grew up--as kids tend to do--and the books gradually went out of print and then I met with my current publisher to discuss the possibility of revisiting the series in some capacity. We started work on the new books earlier this year. I have to say I was really happy with the old books, but I am even happier with the new ones. What still surprises me, 16 years after the originals were first published, is the fact that occasionally  people will tell me they bought their kids those books all those years ago and their kids loved them. Now that's something! Now I only hope a new generation of kids will feel the same way.


My concept sketch for one of the spreads.


The spread as it first appeared in print.
From At the S.E.A. Aquarium. Illustrated by Soefara Jafney 2013