The Barnstormers: An Idea Is Born
I can't say "The Barnstormers: Tales of the Travelin' Nine" was my idea. It wasn't. It was an idea presented to me in the hot tub of the Century City Plaza Hotel outside the Spa Mystique in August 2004.
Now before you get the wrong idea, that's about as salacious as the story gets. The person presenting the idea was right next to his wife, and there was a bunch of us in the hot tub at the time.
We were all attending the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) annual conference, and we were decompressing after a long day of discussions and workshops.
That's when Loren Long presented me with his dream project. If he could do one project in the world, this was it. But he knew, he couldn't do it by himself, and he had almost resigned himself to the fact that this project would always remain a dream.
Now for those of you not familiar with the work of Loren Long, you probably are and don't even realize it. Loren did the illustrations for the good Madonna children's book, "Mr. Peabody's Apples." And last week, he appeared on the NBC Today Show. His re-issue of "The Little Engine That Could" was the featured book in the "Read for the Record" national initiative. That's why it was for sale at every Starbucks in the country during the month of August. It's also spent fifteen weeks on The New York Times best seller list this year.
So when Loren Long shares an idea with you, and expresses even the slightest interest in collaborating with you, you listen. Oh, you listen. And I did.
We started talking, volleying ideas back and forth, and dreaming big. Needless to say, Loren and I clicked. We knew we had something. We knew we could do this together.
For the next three months, we brainstormed and created the framework for the next great series in American children's literature, "The Barnstormers: Tales of the Travelin' Nine."
Over the next months, I'm going to be posting bulletins, messages, blogs and plogs that are all about "The Barnstormers." I started posting this past Sunday. You can say you were there from the start. Read the bulletins, subscribe to the blog, tell your friends.
Here we go...
Now before you get the wrong idea, that's about as salacious as the story gets. The person presenting the idea was right next to his wife, and there was a bunch of us in the hot tub at the time.
We were all attending the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) annual conference, and we were decompressing after a long day of discussions and workshops.
That's when Loren Long presented me with his dream project. If he could do one project in the world, this was it. But he knew, he couldn't do it by himself, and he had almost resigned himself to the fact that this project would always remain a dream.
Now for those of you not familiar with the work of Loren Long, you probably are and don't even realize it. Loren did the illustrations for the good Madonna children's book, "Mr. Peabody's Apples." And last week, he appeared on the NBC Today Show. His re-issue of "The Little Engine That Could" was the featured book in the "Read for the Record" national initiative. That's why it was for sale at every Starbucks in the country during the month of August. It's also spent fifteen weeks on The New York Times best seller list this year.
So when Loren Long shares an idea with you, and expresses even the slightest interest in collaborating with you, you listen. Oh, you listen. And I did.
We started talking, volleying ideas back and forth, and dreaming big. Needless to say, Loren and I clicked. We knew we had something. We knew we could do this together.
For the next three months, we brainstormed and created the framework for the next great series in American children's literature, "The Barnstormers: Tales of the Travelin' Nine."
Over the next months, I'm going to be posting bulletins, messages, blogs and plogs that are all about "The Barnstormers." I started posting this past Sunday. You can say you were there from the start. Read the bulletins, subscribe to the blog, tell your friends.
Here we go...