A Meeting with Kyle Chandler, a Book Festival and an Award Nomination

Kyle Chandler and Me Hey, everyone, I met Kyle Chandler today, but first let me tell you about the Asian Festival of Children's Content where my books There's Soup on My Fly! and Blow A Kiss were vying for the Hedwig Anuar Award, which carried a $10,000 cash prize that was to be shared between the author and illustrator.


The Hong Kong & Singapore  members of SCBWI
  Top L to R: Janet, Kathleen, Sue. Bottom L to R:  Resham, Pooja, Me, Kenneth
Not pictured: CatherineWell,  they didn't announce the shortlist until the awards night and I was pleasantly surprised that There's Soup on My Fly was one of the eight books shortlisted for the award. Well, you know I didn't win because if I had won, this post would have started very differently.  I did, however, meet the night's guest of honor, President Jose Ramos Horta of Timor Leste, but as you can tell from the photo, he looks like he'd rather be doing something else than posing with me. 
This is what the Prez must be thinking: Why am I posing with this goober?



As you know I was also a finalist for the Crystal Kite Award so this is shaping up to be a pretty great year. Would have been better if I won the award though, hahaha. No, seriously, it would have.




Cheif Judge of the Hedwig Anuar  Award Ken Spillman announces the short list
Kimi 's seated in black jacket in the front row and Kate's right behind her.
Trevor's the only dude in the photo.
Nominee Sue, SCBWI Singapore leader Ken and lovely Lynda
who was so supportive

I also met some wonderful people at the festival, who also happen to be great writers, some of whom were shortlisted for the Scholastic Asian Book Award. 


Kimi Takazawa who hails from Hawaii was nominated for her book about some very unusual chickens - watch out for it! Another nominee Kate Whitehead flew in from Hong Kong is another name to look out for in the future. I've got a gut feeling, and my gut is rather sizeable, that both ladies will make it big in the children's lit soon.  I have to say it was a pleasure meeting Janet and Lynda, two lovely ladies,  who were so wonderfully supportive and encouraging! And BTW, Trevor Kew, you're a teacher and author and that's kewl! Auntie Susanna Goho Quek, you're such an amazing artist.


Clockwise from the middle: Sarah, Catherine and KateBefore I forget, I have to add that I'm proud of my friend and long-suffering editor Sue Flotow who was among the elite list of finalists for her story Kam's School Fish Rolls. After reading it I knew she would be shortlisted, and guess what, she was!!


Special thanks goes out to everyone who were great during the week, especially my fellow SCBWI Singapore members Resham, Pooja, Catherine, Sue, Tian, and of course, our fearless leader and all-round good guy Ken, who puts up with a lot of @#$%^ mostly, ok all of it, from me.


So you might be wondering how I met Kyle Chandler. Well, yesterday I found out that J.J. Abrams and the cast of the movie Super 8 are in town this week to promote their movie and I was lucky enough to meet Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights, Early Edition, Homefront) who stars in the movie along with the likes of Elle Fanning (Dakota's kid sis) and Joel Courtney, who plays his son.


Kyle was really great and I signed two of my books for his daughters. He then asked me to pose for a pic with him using his camera. What a thrill for me. He's a very friendly guy.  Well, that's about it for now. And before I forget head on down to the bookstore to get Adeline Foo's latest book Whoopie Lee, Almost Famous and Shermay Loh's Archibald and the Blue-Blood Conspiracy. They're fantastic authors. Oh and you might like to get my books too if you haven't already. Ta for now.