I’ve been invited to speak at the Salem Willamette Writers chapter on May 14th. I’ll be talking about writing for children across media. What does that mean? Good question! I created the title of the talk, now I better develop the content.
Actually I have strong opinions about the quality and variety of content available for children. And I take the subject pretty seriously. Anything that can help introduce kids to reading and thinking before the video game companies get their claws into them is a worthwhile cause. I’m starting to think TV is better than video games. There’s a topic to get emails about.
Of course I always read about how video games help with eye-hand-coordination. I think it was Mark Evanier that once wrote about this subject – that he was unaware of children being so bad with eye-hand coordination they needed all the ‘help’ that video games were offering. The immersive nature of video games is addictive. It’s got width but little depth. That’s true of 99% of all action films made as well. So it’s not like it’s a new issue in mass entertainment. Of course having access to video games every minute of every day, no matter where you are, adds a new dimension. My Dad reminds me when he was young people were out in force fighting against the evil of Pinball machines. They were, apparently, laying waste to the youth of his generation. The more things change…
That was a tangent. But a pretty interesting topic in itself. At the meeting on May 14th I plan on discussing how I developed my graphic novel and how it ended up at Chronicle Books. What went into the initial materials for the editor and what didn’t. I’ll discuss the picture book I just illustrated for Tricycle Press and a new picture book I am developing. I’ll also get into how production of TV animation for kids works. How concepts are developed and what the process looks like for writers in that part of the industry. I also look forward to answering questions from the audience. I’ll bring along a collection of show-and-tells.
You can read about the event here and if you find yourself looking for something to do on May 14th, and aren’t too far from Salem, Oregon – stop by.
