Big drop
Sydney always begins by reading the manuscript—an agonizing wait, for me, like Christmas Eve for a six year-old—and then he starts to sketch. I never know which scene he'll choose, or which faces I will meet of the voices in my head. He sends them through and I cry. I always cry.
Missy has been talking to me for almost ten years. She's an ambitious one. Despite her muffled hearing she is only abled, not disabled. She is keen-eyed and unhesitating and entirely nonplussed. She doesn't stand for any fuss. This girl is my hero.
Penelope, my editor, kicks me like a rock down a street. She won't let me mope. Whenever I'm down she posts pictures of a gulper eel to my Facebook and says HA HA THIS IS YOU. And I go GOD. PENELOPE. She's so brutal and so brilliant. She is telling me, right now, to quit thinking I'm special by being afraid to open the box that's on its way from the printer in Quebec. She tells me everybody feels that way right before a book is released. I tell her I wasn't afraid like this last time. She says Maybe that's because when the Dread Crew came out you were a pompous ass.
Blessings and blisses and heart-shaped hands.
Sydney, too. I mean, look at this. He sees her eyes. I hardly say anything at all except There are more trees in that scene and There's a porthole in the belly and they're watching her but beyond that, it's just first sketches to slobbery thanks to finished pages. Can I even call it collaboration? I am too happy with what he does to use that word, as though I have anything to do with this art other than suggesting it.
I wish I could be as wily as she is. She jumps. Today from Nimbus:
"The launch party for Kate Inglis' latest novel, Flight of the Griffons, will be a seaside event featuring good ships, a good story, and the hooligan-worthy accompaniment of award-winning roots singer-songwriter Old Man Luedecke.
Flight of the Griffons is a YA adventure novel about airborne pirates-turned radical environmentalists who sabotage corporate interests in the name of nature. It's loud, inventive, and full of heart—with strong maritime ties and plentiful music. Just like the party to usher it into the world.
In a live performance drawing from the book, we'll celebrate what happens when everyone stomps and sings along together—the book, after all, draws from his banjo and the lineage of protest in folk music. In their storytelling, Kate and Chris share themes of invention and ingenuity, activism, recovery from grief and loss, and the seeking of clean air and joy."
We're going to try to either record it with video or live-stream it, because it's going to be a terrific show. Join on Nimbus' event page for all the details as they unfold, and come by the museum on May 24 to stomp along and get a signed book. The more friendly faces among springtime green, the better. It's always that way.