Austen's P&P vs. Bronte's JE

I remember the first time I attempted reading a novel by Jane Austen. I was ten years old, determined to read the classics, and plowed my way through Pride and Prejudice. I was disappointed. Most of the sophisticated wit mostly went over my head, and I really didn't like the end. I kept thinking that Lizzie was a wuss for forgiving Darcy's verbal slurs against her and her family. Who cares that he was worth 10,000 pounds a year? He behaved like a jerk and deserved to be blackballed forever.

Around that same time (age 10), I also attempted to read Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, of which again I was less enamored of the ending. Jane Eyre actually chose to return and marry a blind, crippled, old, duplicitous, already-married-when-he-tried-to-marry-Jane-the-first-time Mr. Rochester? After she inherited her fortune and didn't need his fortune anymore? After he constantly teased, tested, and tricked her? Was plain Jane as insane as Mr. Rochester's first wife? He also was a jerk and also deserved to be blackballed forever.

This was my black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking back when I was ten, before I understood that behavior and motivations did not always neatly align, before I realized the fact that real people and the most interesting fictional characters were a confusing mixture of good and bad and that romance stories often have heroes and heroines in direct conflict with each other.

When I was in college, I took a literature class focused entirely on the works of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. I rediscovered and adored Pride and Prejudice. With my more sophisticated 20 year-old mentality (more sophisticated than a 10 year-old me, at least), I delighted in Lizzie's battle of wits with Mr. Darcy, who clearly was the only young man worthy of Lizzie's intellect. Like many, many women readers, I saw what Elizabeth discovered in Mr. Darcy, his goodness of character beneath his socially awkward (okay, absolutely horrible) behavior.

I studied Jane Eyre in two different college classes, and a total of twenty years of maturity gave me an appreciation of her independent spirit, especially her agency demonstrated by insisting on her independence by advertising for governess jobs, which in Victorian times was indeed quite progressive. I also gained a sympathy for Mr. Rochester suffering the mistakes of his wild youth. Even though Mr. Rochester betrayed her and Jane becomes a financially independent woman after inheriting her uncle's money, Jane still chooses her imperfect (but wildly passionate) true love.

New film versions of these famous books were released within the past couple years, and I have recently watched both in their entirety. While I still believe the 1995 Pride and Prejudice miniseries starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth is the still the best film version of the novel, I think the 2006 Jane Eyre miniseries starring Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens has trumped the previous film versions for me, even with its changes from the text. Of course, now I'm completely a fan of Mr. Darcy in the book and the movies (especially as played by Colin Firth in 1995, though Matthew McFadyen's more recent interpretation was still pretty good), and I'm an okay fan of Mr. Rochester in the book and the movies (though I must admit Toby Stephens' passionately humorous depiction is compelling, if not exactly faithful to the Rochester weirdness in the novel).

I had already started this blog entry when I stumbled upon Libby of the Blue Rose Girls asking why are Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre found in the children's section? So my thoughts are that perhaps these novels aren't appropriate for 10 year olds in general. However children's literature today is getting broader and broader in age market appeal, as the audience for YA grows edgier, sexier, older (college age), and books originally written for kids, like Harry Potter series, are devoured by kids and adults alike. When they make their critical decisions, the female protagonists of Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice are 18-19 and 20. Thus by modern standards, they are within the YA age range. But in the context of the times during which they were published, YA did not really exist, and those girls would have been married and born children to secure their husbands' lineage as well as deal with more sophisticated issues like a rigid class system that does not directly translate to the modern American experience. Still, the characters of Lizzie Bennett, Mr. Darcy, Jane Eyre, and Mr. Rochester are at their core so real and continue to endure after over 150 years since the books' original publications.

Libby also asked who would you rather be and who would you rather create, Lizzie Bennett or Jane Eyre?

I will start with the answer to a question of my own, which is with whom I think I share the most similarities (including reversed initials): Jane Eyre. Though I was never an orphan, I often felt isolated, introverted and invisible during my childhood. That's why I turned to reading books, which became my passion. As an adult, I've had many day jobs to support my writing, which I am now pursuing more seriously. But I knew I always had to keep writing.

Even though I feel more like Jane Eyre, Dear Reader, I honestly would much rather have the sparkling wit and rapid-fire words of Lizzie Bennett. I would much rather laugh than cry. I also prefer her loving, if slightly crazy, large family. Oh, to have had the talent required to create characters as brilliant as Miss Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy!

Non-rejection (sort of) - Bringing Words to Music

So I have finished brainstorming a good title for a poem I wrote to fit with the melody of a composer I met earlier this year. This piece was commissioned in memory of the composer's friend, whom I had never met.

Basically I set myself up for a giant challenge. For those who have never written text to fit with music, here was my process:

1) Listen to the music over and over again to gain an initial understanding of the melody.
2) Study the score over and over again to gain a better understanding of the phrasing of the music.
3) Read text sent about the piece and the person to gain a better understanding of what the text should be about (over and over again, okay from now on every step is over and over again).
4) Listen to the music in pieces to gain an emotional understanding of the melody.
5) Figure out the overall structure of the music, especially the emotional climax and resolution.
6) Brainstorm text ideas while listening to the music in separate phrases.
7) Come up with a rhythm and rhyme scheme for the text.
8) Match the feeling of the music with the meaning of the text.
9) Ensure the text actually makes sense and stands alone without the music.

Lots of repetition required, but worth it. In the end, the text evolved into a poem. I actually wrote 2 poems of completely different styles to fit the music, but we could only use one.

I never thought I would write words that people would sing. A fun project, and I'll be sure to write more about it as the performance time nears. Thanks to author Lynn Hazen for helping with the title: "Call of the Angels."

Rejection #4 for 2007

No letter this time to add to my collection, and I discovered this while in the midst of submitting first chapters for professional critique. Not sure if I should consider professional critiques as opportunities for rejections. Well, if I get nominated again for the Sue Alexander Award, maybe I might consider that a potential rejection. I am really bummed that the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Masterclass was full. I'm on the wait list, and I will try to make an effort to write more poetry this summer.

4 down, 26 more to go!

Library Art Common Themes

I've always loved going to the library. Almost every Saturday during my childhood, I'd go to the library with my family, and I was allowed to check out only 5 books each week. Five was never enough.

At two recent library children's room art celebrations, I noticed that the major artworks were lofted up or painted high, perhaps to preserve the art from inadvertent too many touchings from little hands or perhaps to allow the little hands to be free to access lots of books.

What was most interesting to me was that even though the illustrators each had distinctly different personalities and artistic styles, many common themes appeared. Perhaps they are universal among children's artists, or perhaps the artists tapped into the same inspiration reservoir as they worked these past months.

EJ's comparison of the children's artwork at the Oakland Library painted by Thatcher Hurd (above and below left) and the Redwood City Library painted by Elizabeth Gomez (below right).

Want adventure?
Come with me
to the library,
where you will see

in the same room:


a space ship in June

a moon and stars

a planet not Mars

a submarine

an octopus dream

a ship sailing far

a cool reading car

a story time

that has no rhyme.





Open a book
'cause reading brings
excitement, joy,

flight without wings.

Redwood City Library Children's Room Art by Elizabeth Gomez

As part of our tour of local bay area art at public libraries, specifically the children's rooms, Debbi Michiko Florence, her daughter C, and I attended the unveiling of the Redwood City Library's children's mural, which was painted by local artist Elizabeth Gomez.

The Redwood City Library already had four pillars decorated by local artist Gianna Marino. Here's a photo of Debbi taking a photo of a pillar.





When we arrived, the mural was covered by a red veil. After librarian Chuck Ashton unveiled the mural, artist Elizabeth Gomez spoke about the contents. She asked the children to guess how many books were in the mural. In the end there were over 600 books!



Elizabeth also asked everyone to suggest a name for the mural, and after hearing all the names aloud, everyone voted for their favorite 2 names. Even though there were several suggestions for "The World of Books," the winner was "El Mundo de Libros," suggested by Sharon Levin. Makes sense since in Spanish that translates to "The World of Books." It makes even more sense since Elizabeth Gomez herself is bilingual and speaks fluent Spanish. Dennis from Linden Tree was there to sell books that Elizabeth autographed. Because "Lizzy" was a local parent, many kids and parents showed to participate.




There was juice and carrot cake!

Sharon Levin, EJ, Debbi Michiko Florence

Librarian Chuck and Elizabeth announcing the new name of the mural: "El Mundo de Libros."








Elizabeth also drew for the kids.





After they successfully guessed each image, Elizabeth asked the children to find each sketch on within the mural. Here were some of them:

a panda

a book playing badminton

a moon

I thought it was a dog ghost, but it's really Librarian Chuck's lamb puppet.












The lamb really likes to get into children's faces and show off its bad breath.








The library mural featured lots of kids and animals holding books and reading. Other readers include:

a mermaid and a dolphin

a car

a planet

Elizabeth also painted the library!










EJ's haiku highlights of Elizabeth's Gomez's mural art at the Redwood City Library:




I could spend hours
walking outdoors, gazing at
alphabet flowers.






No matter where we
go, on surf or snow, we bring
books to feed our minds.








Every night let's end
the day with wondrous story.
Read to your bunny.








This was C's favorite part because of the fox.

Fox dances all day,
asks his friends cacti to play,
but they are reading.







Let a book take you
up, up and away to view
the world from new heights.










We are exploring
the deep, deep sea, propelled by
power of pages.







One can never have
too many books in hand
or in tentacles.













Petals of pages
rustle in wind, words will spin
where knowledge begins.












A full wall of books,
a comfy chair, I'm ready
to read, aren't you?






If you haven't visited the Redwood City Library, I highly recommend the children's room!

Oakland Library Children's Room Art by Thacher Hurd

Debbi Michiko Florence, her daughter C, and I visited two Bay Area libraries when they were celebrating their new art featured in their children's rooms. A great adventure!

Oakland Public Main Library celebrated its newly decorated a children's room whimsically illustrated by Berkeley artist Thacher Hurd. Before heading towards the children's room, we walked around the huge library. What amazed me was the fact that the Oakland Library still had a card catalog, a library relic from my childhood, surrounded by modern computer stations.



Then we went down to the basement to find...

...where we saw...

...the very first thing that Thacher Hurd painted in at the library:

Art begins when you
decide to release your work,
let ideas fly.

Though it's technically in the basement, the children's room at the Oakland Public Library doesn't feel like a dungeon. A lot of the light, bright feeling came from the new paintings all over the room. Art covered the walls, and I felt like I was in a 3-D picture book. You can click on each picture to reveal the larger photo, so you can see the wonderful, whimsical details. Unfortunately, I didn't photo every single piece of artwork, as there were too many in the brief amount of time we had there. But I plan to return someday, and the art will still be there.

Both the grant writer and the director of the library explained that Librarian Nina Lindsay had invited artist Thacher Hurd to decorate the walls of the children's room. Author/illustrator of fun picture books like Art Dog, Thacher is the son of picture book artist Clement Hurd, who illustrated Margaret Wise Brown's classic Good Night Moon. Thacher started working on the walls part-time during spring of 2006 and finished recently. Apparently this was Thacher's first experience painting in public, and he shared humorous stories of interacting with kids and distressed janitors worried that they would have to clean up after him.


While most of the artwork was painted directly on the wall, some of the art was painted on cut outs completed in his studio. All of it was whimsical and fun. There was apple juice, sparkling water, and cookies for a pre-lunch/brunch snack on a table with an interesting display. C asked me what it was, and my answer was "It looks cool, and I don't get it, so it must be art." It was a display of Thacher's paint palette. Look at all the colors!






At the end, librarian Nina gave artist Thacher a fun artsy shirt. After his talk, he stayed around to answer questions about his artwork and meet his fans of all ages. One small Asian boy chewing on his stuffed rabbit for support gave Thacher a letter addressed not the the artist but to Art Dog. His mother, who was not so shy, said that Art Dog was her son's favorite character. So cute. The little boy might be a future artist or writer some day.

Debbi Michiko Florence, Thacher Hurd, and EJ posing in front of another library artwork painted by the artist.

One cool fact that Thacher shared was he had painted three little mice in various hiding places, so the kids were sent to look for the mice. I only saw two, pictured with my shoe for scale.











EJ's haiku highlights of Thacher Hurd's artwork at the children's room of the Oakland Public Library:




The moon is a nook
where I can curl up, relax,
get lost in a book.







Perched on Saturn's ring,
cool cat wields trumpet towards Mars,
playing music-stars.



















Frog wonders that so
high up, nothing looks the same.
Mouse watches A's game.











What's tilted--tower
or you? Hear that ticking, too?
Wait, that clock is real!












Umbrella for rain,
or for strong sun, protects
me, reading stories.







The best aliens
visit Earth and leave behind
libraries and books.










Raise your arms, steady glance.
You don't need fancy point shoes
to dance. Or be green.









In our magic car,
we cruise through clouds far,
driving towards a star.







I sail choppy waves,
fighting wind, looking ahead,
seeking lives to save.







During story time
everyone huddles for warmth.
Turn page, more pictures!

Art Dog paints a sign
showing everyone how to
leave. Follow the paws!

If you ever have a chance to visit the Oakland Library, I assure you it will be a wonderful children's room experience!

Cecilpalooza at NYMBC

My first trip to San Francisco's Not Your Mother's Book Club (NYMBC) of Books Inc. was for Cecilpalooza in honor of Cecil Castellucci, the first author to ever give an author talk at NYMBC.

But first, dinner. Author Debbi Michiko Florence, her daughter C, and I beat the rush hour traffic into San Francisco and dined at Pasta Pomodoro, a favorite restaurant within walking distance from Books Inc. Our appetizer was butternut squash ravioli, which was sweet and nutty and yummy. I had the rich buttery risotto special topped with meat soaked in red sauce. Debbi had linguini with clams. C had lassange, but she had to pick out the mushrooms.



C also showed us perhaps the world's tiniest colored pencil collection, about the size of three stacked credit cards. The case included a small eraser and the world's tiniest pencil sharpener. So cute!

Onwards to the book event because....they had cupcakes!

MINI cupcakes! So cute. I ate a chocolate cupcake with strawberry frosting.


Topped with a chewy chocolate flower-star.

Cecil has two new books out: Beige, a traditional novel, and The Plain Janes, a graphic novel. She read from Beige and answered questions about her writing process, especially the hot, growing market of graphic novels, since a lot of local YA authors like Deborah Davis and Lynn Hazen were in the audience. Because Beige is about a girl whose father was a former rock star, Cecil asked everyone had to think of their punk rock name. Mine is "Emo Voodoo." Everyone went home with a prize - either a graphic novel ARC or a stack of comic books!

Mythology Institute Recap

I remember the first day my fifth grade drama teacher read aloud to my class the wonderfully illustrated Book of Greek Myths by Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaires. After I was exposed to the Greek myths, I read every mythology book at my local library. When I finished those, I started reading every fairy tale collection at my local library, especially Andrew Lang's extensive color Fairy Book series. When I finished those, I started reading fantasy, which I still read to this day. So my love for fantastic stories is firmly rooted in mythology and classical Greek mythology, which may surprise complete strangers who take one look at my face and think I should know more about Asian myths, ironically or not ironically at all since I was born and raised in America. When I was going through my childhood myth researching phase, I could not find more than a very few books on Asian/Chinese mythology in the library, and what I did find was nowhere near compelling as the d'Aulaires' book. So when I found out Gene Yuan was speaking at a local mythology-related conference, I had to go.

Gene Yang could have been my brother. His parents immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan like mine, one native Taiwanese and one originally from the mainland China. As is common among many 1st generation-born Chinese Americans, Gene has an expertise in computer programming. When he was a kid, his parents told him Monkey King stories, just like mine did. Gene spoke of his childhood love of the Monkey King and then preceded to share with the mostly non-Asian audience the basics of the Monkey King myth and how popular he is everywhere in Asia. I wish I could have said I learned more about the Monkey myth, but I did not. I assumed everyone else in the audience knew about Monkey, and they did not. What especially amused me was how many were surprised to hear that Dragon Ball Z is extremely loosely based on the Monkey King legend. I suppose they would know that if they had read the Chinese version of the manga and realized that Goku's name was exactly the same as the original Monkey King's. But apparently that common name link in the Chinese translation did not appear in the English translation. Once again I am reminded that many but not all critical moments of my childhood are marginalized and completely off the radar of the mainstream American experience (like the world-wide character that is the Monkey King), and even though there are more and more Asian American creators of literature, there is still an urgent need to bring multicultural characters and multicultural stories into the American mainstream.

A good friend gave me Gene Yang's American Born Chinese in 2006 before all it won awards, so I have it without all the stickers. American Born Chinese not only was a finalist for the National Book Awards, but it is the first graphic novel to win the prestigious Printz Award for young adult literature.

EJ's haiku highlights of Gene Yuan's speech:

Flying without wings,
beating down all in his path,
Monkey's everywhere.

Monkey King, forget
your shoes, swing in trees, embrace
your wild monkey self.

The second session was written by Dr. Susan Fox and Dr. Beverly Vaughn Hock, who spoke as if they were the present day spirits of the classical Greek goddesses Athena and Hera. I loved listening to their presentation as I was completely brought back to childhood memories of collecting stories and information about each Greek god. Athena especially was my absolute favorite goddess. I love how she played an important part in the Odyssey. I love how she represented a huge range of seemingly contradictory values as the goddess of wisdom and war and weaving.

EJ's haiku highlights of the Greek goddesses presentation:

Grey-eyed Athena
planted the first olive tree,
shaped spiders, waged war.

Proud, jealous Hera
retaliated against
infidelity.

Lunch was on our own, and I joined a group walking to the Asian Art Museum, where we waited for the Asian fusion cafe to open.


Judy Sierra was a former children's librarian and now an author of picture books. She spoke about monsters around the world, and though I thought I knew a lot about mythological and fantastic monsters, I only recognized maybe 2 monsters (Bloody Mary and Changeling) in her picture book.

EJ's haiku highlights of Judy Sierra's speech:

Monsters had carried
giant sacks filled with children
instead of presents.

Monsters were outward
embodiments of folks' fears--
now they're internal.

Rick Riodrian came from Texas to speak about how he moved from writing mysteries for adults to writing fantasies for children. Because he was an author, Rick wanted his son to share his love of reading. But his son was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADD, which of course made it doubly difficult to focus on a book. So Rick made up a story: What if the Greek gods are alive today and siring half-god children? What if because you had dyslexia and ADD meant that you were half-god? From those "what ifs" came the premise for Rick's best-selling The Lightning Thief series.

EJ's haiku highlights of Rick Riordian's speech:

Sometimes your greatest
weakness can be your greatest
strength. Use what you have.

If I were half god,
I'd use my powers for good
and write children's books.

There were many children's librarians, including Nina of Oakland Library and Chuck of Redwood City Library, as well as and many children's literature lovers. Among them, I spotted some wonderfully fun accessories.

Like Sharon Levin's Captain Underpants bracelet.










And this awesome Pocky Bag.

Rejection #3 for 2007

From a poetry magazine, which means I must resubmit the poems elsewhere and revise new poems to submit to this magazine. Besides regularly revising poems, I think the trick with getting poems published is to keep them in constant circulation in the publishing slush piles of literary magazines. Poetry is so difficult to predict if people connect because a poem only has a handful of lines to capture a person's imagination and/or evoke a strong emotion while a short story or novel has pages of text.

3 down, 27 more to go!

Catching Up

Finishing up lots and lots of craziness. Feeling behind, but reoriented. Not Oriental. Catching up on blogging, and that is a good thing. So much to blog about.