Conrad Susa's Carols and Lullabies of the Southwest

My choir, Peninsula Women's Chorus, is preparing for its winter concerts, and we're revisiting Conrad Susa's Carols and Lullabies of the Southwest, a beautiful set of 10 different Southwest Christmas carols for women's voices, harp, guitar, and marimba. We originally sang this set years ago, when Patty Hennings was our conductor. I remember Patty saying something how this set was originally for mixed voices (SATB) and how she told Conrad Susa that perhaps he should rearrange it for women's voices, and he did. We recorded all 10 movements to be the centerpiece for my choir's third CD, Carols and Lullabies. This set of songs is perhaps one of my favorites of all time, and they are definitely very enjoyable and accessible to even the non-classically trained ear.

I love all the songs, but perhaps my favorite movement is "El Noi De La Mare," which is Catalonian, and we sing it in English, asking "What shall we bring to the child of the mother? What shall we bring to the beautiful boy?" This year for the concerts, I was assigned to sing Alto I in the quartet, which I had understudied last time. It's a wonderful quartet with some of my favorite singers in the choir, and during group auditions, I was blown away by the sheer volume coming out of the other three singers. Normally I have to hold back a little so not to overpower my group soloists, but this time, I must sing out to match them, and it's lots of fun.

Also, my friend Cathleen and I will be dueting a brightly fun Alegria, where her gorgeous rich voice will ring out, and I will try my best to match her. She also sings next to me in the El Noi quartet.

I had lent the Carols and Lullabies CD to another singing friend, and she mentioned her granddaughter knew one of the movements - the soothing lullaby "A La Nanita." Very cool.

Here are the ten movements of Carols and Lullabies in the Southwest and their origins:

1. Oh, Mi Belen! (Biscayan)
2. El Desembre Congelat (Catalonian, and we sing it in English)
3. Alegria (Puerto Rican)
4. A La Naninta Nana (Spanish)
5. Los Posadas (Spanish)
6. Campana Sobre Campana (Andaluscian)
7. En Belen Tocan A Fuego (Castilian)
8. El Noi De La Mare (Catalonia, and we sing it in English)
9. Chiquirriquitin (Andalusian)
10. El Rorro (Mexican)

One can buy the CD at my choir's website: http://www.pwchorus.org/recording.html.

What to Play for a Piano's 100th B-day?

My friend's piano is turning 100 years old, and she's inviting people to play a piece to celebrate. How cool is that? Apparently the old upright has been in her family for years, and it still sounds great. So now I have to figure out what pieces I want to play, which means I need to start practicing now. When I was a teen, I was competent enough to compete in local and state piano competitions (one concerto trophy pictured to the right among the books from last Sat's talk). But as an adult, I transfered most of my musical energies from playing the piano to singing. I've always considered myself a pianist first and a singer second.

Now I'm trying to figure out what music still resides my fingers' muscle memory. I love the piano solo works of Debussy, Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Mozart, Schumann and Rachmanioff. Chopin and Liszt composed beautiful music, but not for my short-fingered hands that have to leap to make the tenth intervals. I used to play chamber music, too, mostly piano trios. I can also knock out sonatinas from my childhood. Or maybe I'll revisit my days in college, when I used to lead impromptu musical sing-alongs featuring songs from musicals written by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the team that wrote Les Mis and Miss Saigon, in addition to the occasional Disney tune. Choices, choices, choices.

The Life Span of a Diamond

A piece of black coal, deep in the middle of the earth. Years of pressure crystalizes. Then a chunk gets picked up. In the rough. Dirt separates from the rough. Clean, but uncut. Designs drawn. Contemplation. Cut facets. Polish polish polish. See how pretty. The carat, color, clarity, cut. More polish. Hard and cut. What setting? Pick one. See how pretty. More polish.

What one doesn't always know: What worked 5-10 years ago doesn't always work now. Polishing has an end. Time to let the jewel sparkle.

Women Can Lead, Too!

As a swinger dancer, I primarily follow, which is traditionally the women's role in social dancing. But in swing dancing, when one reaches a certain level of expertise in one's traditional role, typically one learns the other role also, as it helps improves one's dancing. So ocassionally some of my guyfriends would switch gears in the middle of a dance and force me to take over the guy's role and lead. It was either that or we'd be the only couple standing stupidly still surrounded by everyone else dancing. And, of course, I would freak out because leading is a lot harder than following. When you're leading, you're in control of the dance, and you need to anticipate the next moves and non-verbally communicate them clearly enough so that the follow will...well, follow. All this in a space of seconds. Some people can just pick up following on the spot, but I think most people need lessons to be really competent in leading. At least, I need leading lessons.

This brings me to the performance of my friends in the swing dance troupe Double or Nothing. I'm their unofficial groupie. I know almost everyone in the troupe and occassionally I help out by giving feedback or videoing performances. Their latest performance required the girls to lead and the guys to follow during a brassy version of "It's Too Darn Hot." The female leads wore black v-neck tanks, pants and cab hats while the follows wore different colors ranging from red to gray to white to green. My favorite parts were the individualistic stylings during the jam session, when couples spotlight their own unique moves and crazy aerials. I also really enjoyed the different choreographies to "when the thermometer goes way up." Their performance was very entertaining, at least in the three-inch wide perspective I had through the camcorder.

I'd love to dance in a troupe someday...when my schedule permits. But don't ask me to do an aerial.

Once Upon a Time...Like This Weekend

I spoke at the Second Saturday Series sponsored by the Northern California region of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). The title of my talk was "Confessions of a Contest Queen, or How Winning AND Losing Writing Contests Can Help Pave the Path to Publication." This was my first professional speaking gig as a writer, and I was extremely nervous. I had a lot to say, but I didn't want to read a speech to an intimate crowd like a Second Saturday session, as the session before me had 10 attendees. 10 people had told me they would try to make it, so I was hoping for maybe 15 or 20. In the end, almost 40 people heard my talk, and the organizers had to keep bringing in more chairs to keep up with demand. A great problem to have. I knew perhaps half the attendees, including some personal friends, though most were children's writers like Kimberly Zarins, Joanne Wetzel, Suzanne Morrone, Gail Ishimatsu, Sue Penchina, Cherie Love, and the list goes on. Many thanks to everyone who showed up, and I hope everyone enjoyed my presentation. What about my costume? Here's the detailing on my skirt, shown above.

Why am I wearing a costume while holding my Kimberly Colen Memorial Grant award? Well, the topic was contesting, and I wanted to look different, so why not wear a costume (designed with help from my fabulous friend Bonnie) that won a prize at this year's SCBWI LA annual conference? I entered with Lindsay whose costume greatly complimented mine. We were the jade twins who danced to impromptu "choreography" in front of the judges.

I began my talk with presenting a big white envelope I had received last week from Writer's Digest magazine. I used to subscribe to Writer's Digest, and when I cancelled my subscription, they kept sending me junk mail. I was annoyed to receive two huge junk mail envelopes because it's a waste of paper that I'm not really going to read anyway. I was tempted to immediate recycle the envelopes without opening them. But because I had some writer friends over, I decided to open the mail and discovered that two of my poems had both placed honorable mention in this year's contest. Not only that, there were almost 19,000 entries! This was a great beginning to my talk.

"Confessions of a Contest Queen" covered a little about my competitive life (in piano and writing) and my writing career (highlights--winning the Colen grant and the Sue Alexander Award) and my writing goals (30 rejections in one year!). I also discussed some of the benefits to winning and losing writing contests (including, of course, publication) and my strategies to approach writing contests to improve one's odds of winning. My goals for this talk were to share uplifting stories, give practical advice and entertain people at the same time while saying "You can do it!" In the Q&A, I was pleased to receive not only the expected newbie inquries but also some thought-provoking questions, and I tried to celebrate the rejections of others. Rejections are necessary and can be very good. Plus at the end, I chatted with several people who wanted to discuss more specific comments.

During my talk, I gave special thanks to SCBWI members Jan, Joli, and Evelyn, who have volunteered their time to organizing the Second Saturday Series. Thanks also to those established authors whose direct encouragement during my first year of 30 rejections has helped me to gain the confidence to pursue publication in this order: Marvin Terban, Caron Lee Colen, Cheryl Zach, Sue Alexander, and Sid Fleicshman. Also, I'd like to acknowledge those award-winning writers on the verge of a first book contract who have shared with me their interesting stories and great quotes specifically for this talk: Angela Cerrito, Karen E. Roehr, Robin Veronesi, Deborah Bryson, and Genny Heikka.

For my published success stories, I wanted to feature only those books whose authors I had a strong personal connection. Those authors with whom I've had excellent conversations and/or correspondence, or whom I saw speak, or all of the above. Plus, I wanted to share recently contracted books (within the past 7 years, most of them published this year) to make it more relevant, as the publishing climate keeps changing. The best audience reaction I had to my success stories was when I mentioned that Karen Ehrhardt wanted to be at my talk, but unfortunately at the moment she was busy signing copies of her newly published book. When I brought out The Jazz Man, I heard a collective wowed gasp. I hope Karen also had a good turnout.

In addition to my personal story with my unpublished manuscript Paper Daughter and stories and quote of other award-winners, here are some of the books I talked about:

The Legend of Zoey by Candie Moonshower
Samurai Shortstop by Alan Gratz
The Blue Roses by Linda Boyden
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
The Jazz Man by Karen Ehrhardt, ill. R. G. Roth
Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko
The Prince's Diary by Renee Ting, ill. Elizabeth O. Dulemba
13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

These authors all inspire me, and I hope to follow in their footsteps.

In a Land Far, Far Away...

It's extremely rare that I have a day completely unplanned, and so when I received an invite from Jay Asher to attend his first book contract party occuring on my first free day in literally months, I knew I had to be there. Even though it meant over 4 hours of travelling one-way from the Bay Area to San Luis Obispo and another 4 hours back. As a previous Sue Alexander winner, Jay had given me great advice, and I had the time, so why not? Because I took Amtrack, I got stuff done on the bus and I chatted with strangers who became friends. I love public transportation.

I had never been to San Luis Obispo before, and I enjoyed walking down streets with cute little houses. But the setting that impressed me the most was Linnaea’s Café, where Jay had his party and wrote most of his book. When you enter, it feels really cozy and small, with the counter seeming to take over the entire 10 foot wide space. There was room for a medium-sized table and maybe 4 chairs near the window. My first thought was, how is everyone going to fit in this very intimate space?

After I got my freshly made orange cream, the lady at the counter said the cafe was closing at 2 pm. I said I was here for Jay's party, so then apparently I could stay, but I probably had to help set up. That was fine with me. But first, I wanted a place to write.

I walked down the hall, and the cafe opened up into a larger back room with plenty of tables and chairs. From the top of the ceiling hung individual banners of names with numbers like 21, 26 18. The back room opened up into a spacious patio garden with whimsical bronze flower statues, a soothing fountain, and greenery everywhere. I walked into the enclosed area with green leafy walls and felt an instant peace. One of three medal tables seemed the perfect place for me to settle. Then I looked around and almost backed out. Attached to the wire mesh supporting the leafy green walls were hundreds of square metal charms slightly bigger than my thumb. On each charm was the face of a soldier, and I knew I was in a memorial shrine.

I shivered, but I was never really the superstitious type, and I knew this memorial was made with love. So I settled in the middle table and began typing. As people started leaving the patio, I noticed two blonde women in matching shirts starting to move chairs and tables around. As soon as I could read their shirts, I knew they were two of the Disco Mermaids. Jay is the third. Every year they attended the LA conference, they came wearing the most amazing costumes. I'm naturally very shy, but I went to introduce myself to the Disco Mermaids Robin and Eve and give them a hand in setting up. They were very warm and friendly, and my introverted writer self felt perhaps I would be okay knowing no one at the party.

Then more people started trickling in: Jay's wife, his parents, his brother and his wife, and many, many of his friends. I was very overwhelmed, as for a while I was surrounded by a sea of unfamiliar faces, and then I spotted the blonde head of Sidonie Wiedenkeller, another children's writer. I was so glad to see her again and to meet other cool people.

After an hour of smoozing, Jay gave a brief heart-felt speech then started a three-person reading from his newly contracted YA novel 13 Reasons Why with his mom, his wife, and himself. Robin and Eve also gave a lovingly humorous presentation about 13 Reasons Why Jay's novel will be a bestseller. The San Luis Obispo Children's Writers group gave Jay two mermaid bookends. And to add to the festivities, the cake was decorated to look exactly like a huge brown cassette. Many people were wearing Disco Mermaid buttons. Here's mine:



Jay's book contract party was a wonderful experience, and I felt very honored to have celebrated a huge milestone in the life of an up-and-coming author and to have met another warm community of wonderful children's writers. This was the major serendipitous event that inspired me to start blogging again. Best of luck, Jay!

Once Upon a Blog

I used to have a blog, but I lost it. Life got in the way of my beginning a new blog. But sometimes serendipity happens, and now I am compelled to blog once more.

TLeaf Readings was a suggestion from my friends Wolffe and Sara, and I loved it because it sounded warm and cozy. The rest was almost random, since a little while ago I had to send a picture for a writing honor, and the most recent one with just me was a spontaneous shot taken by my friend Elena on a chorus trip. This one:







Okay, it's not exactly just me. There was an iceberg, too, and though it has probably long melted away into the ocean, perhaps bits of it have recrystalized into other icebergs' tips or mysterious foundation bottoms. Those hidden deep foundations that in writing circles we call backstory, never stated, while we polish the tips of our stories until they shine.

So I'm writing with iceberg in tow and reinstating my new blog, which will be basically about my musings on my top passions of writing, music, and dance, among many other interests. This will be the beginning of many firsts, seconds, and thirds. Thanks for reading.