Wrapping Up the Winkie Convention, part 1

I’ve rarely updated this blog over the past several weeks, though not because I didn’t find topics I wanted to write about. Rather, I didn’t have the time to gather and express my thoughts because I was helping to organize the daytime programming at this year’s Winkie Convention in San Diego. “Winkie” as in the western part of the land of Oz—this convention was originally organized for Oz fans in the western USA.

The 2014 Winkie Convention was the 50th annual, as well as falling during the 75th anniversary of MGM’s Wizard of Oz. Retiring chairman David Maxine was determined to make it one of the busiest Oz events ever. He also wanted to serve the local children’s-writing community with some publishing workshops and panels. And that’s how I first got drawn in from afar.

As the San Diego Union-Tribune reported, the convention took place this past weekend. And it feels like a rousing success: nearly 400 people attending, a delightfully sung performance of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz presented in the city for the first time in a century, and the first-ever meetings of the authors and illustrators of three Oz books. Most people were pleased, and some pleasantly surprised, by how lively the panel discussions were.

We were adjusting the convention schedule up to the last minutes, so for the historical record I decided to compile what actually happened and who was involved, starting with the convention events for Friday, 8 August.

Friday, 7:30 am
Trot & Cap’n Bill’s La Jolla Kayak Tour at La Jolla Kayak

Friday, 10:00 am
So This Is Your First Winkie Convention with volunteers Eric Shanower, J. L. Bell, and Lee Speth
What to See in Coronado with local arts officials Heidi Wilson and Kelly Purvis

Friday, 11:00 am
Golden Age of Hollywood Costumes with researchers and collectors Christian Esquevin, Michael Siewert, and Aljean Harmetz
Creating Oz Comics with creators and publishers Anna Warren Cebrian, Mark Anthony Masterson, and Eric Shanower
Walking Tour of Coronado with the Coronado Historical Association
Oz Research Table, Art Show, and Swap Table Opens

Friday, 12:00 noon
Oz Show-and-Tell moderated by collector Freddy Fogarty
A Career in Fantasy Illustration with artist William Stout
Display of Judy Garland’s Movie Costumes with Michael Siewert
Dealers’ Room Opens

Friday, 1:00 pm
A. Arnold Gillespie: The Wizard of Special Effects with biographer Robert A. Welch
Fashioning Nonfiction that Fascinates Kids with authors Kathleen Krull, Paul Brewer, Edward Einhorn, and Angelica Carpenter
The Wizard’s Workshop: Arts and Crafts Activities led by Margaret Koontz

Friday, 2:00 pm
Fifty Years of the Winkie Con with longtime attendees Peter Hanff, Edith Hollister, Nathan Hollister, Lee Speth, and Susan Hall
“The Making of ‘The Wizard of Oz’” Documentary with movie historian Aljean Harmetz—shown publicly for the first time since the early 1980s
Conversation with Author Sherwood Smith with interviewer J. L. Bell

Friday, 3:00 pm
Emerald City, Suffragette City with writers Caroline Spector, Angelica Carpenter, Rachael Anderson, Miriam Esther Goldman, and Gita Morena
Meet the Wicked Witch! with performer Kurt Raymond

Friday, 4:00 pm
Speedy’s Adventures in Masculinity with blogger J. L. Bell
Conversation with Author Edward Einhorn with interviewer Michael Cart

Friday, 5:00 pm
Professor Marvel’s Hot Dog & Burger Cook-out with dancing by Moreton Bay Fig Morris

Friday, 7:30 pm
Welcome from convention chairman David Maxine
Video Welcome from MGM Munchkin Jerry Maren
Conversation with the Wicked Witch of the West with performer Kurt Raymond and interviewer Batton Lash
The Making of The Making of “The Wizard of Oz” with movie historian Aljean Harmetz
L. Frank Baum and the San Diego Connections with scholar Atticus Gannaway

And then came the big day.

Looking Forward to SCBWI New England’s Spring Conference

SCBWI New England’s annual spring conference is coming up on 14-16 May 2010, and registration has opened here.

I’ll lead two workshops at that conference, on:

• what it means to write within genres.
• how scripting graphic novels differs from writing picture books.

I proposed the latter workshop because it was on the list of topics that attendees had requested in previous years. I figured I’d been collecting information about the topic, studying comics scripts, and trying out ideas, so I’ll have plenty to share. And if people with more experience proposed a workshop on the same topic, the organizers would choose them instead.

This month I saw the full conference program, and realized that the organizers had recruited an award-winning comics creator to lead another workshop about graphic novels…Matt Phelan.

Of course he has the great advantage of being able to draw and write, which produces a different process. The conference organizers did a swell job of arranging his appearance before Roger Sutton announced that The Storm in the Barn won the Scott O’Dell Award, which both raised the book’s profile and set me to questioning whether the story leaves the realm of historical fiction for fantasy. And now I may have the chance to discuss that question with Matt Phelan himself!

This is the second year in a row that Roger has gotten me in mildly warm water this way. Back in 2008 The Horn Book invited me to review Road to Oz, the picture-book biography of L. Frank Baum written by Kathleen Krull and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes. I generally liked the book, but questioned the overall narrative and what I felt was a stylistic quirk in Krull’s text.

Last July I went to California for the Winkie Convention of Oz fans, and one of the speakers was…Kathleen Krull! In fact, due to the randomness of seating in the Asilomar dining hall, we ended up sitting next to each other at lunch. Half a second of frozen time after glances at name tags, and then we had a fine discussion.

But really, I have to watch out for Roger.

The 2010 National Oz Conference Call for Papers

The Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at California State University, Fresno, will host a national Oz conference, co-sponsored by the International Wizard of Oz Club, on 14-16 May 2010.

Featured speakers will include:

• Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked
• Michael Patrick Hearn, author of The Annotated Wizard of Oz
• Eric Shanower, writer and/or artist on many Oz-related comics titles, including the upcoming Little Adventures in Oz reissues.
• John Fricke, coauthor of the upcoming The Wizard of Oz: An Illustrated Companion to the Timeless Movie Classic
• Kathleen Krull, author of The Road to Oz: Twists, Turns, Bumps, and Triumphs in the Life of L. Frank Baum
• British Oz illustrator Graham Rawle

The conference will include a performance of Time Again in Oz, a musical adapted from Ozma of Oz by Suzan L. Zeder. There’s more about this show at the website of composer Richard Gray.

The conference has issued a call for papers on the theme of “Oz: The Books.” Organizers invite people to submit ideas for fifteen-minute presentations for breakout sessions on 14 May. There are slots for up to 48 papers. Possible topics include:

• Biographies of L. Frank Baum
• Baum, W.W. Denslow, and the World Columbian Exposition
• The influence of Matilda Joslyn Gage on Baum, her son-in-law
• Compare Oz authors, especially Baum and Ruth Plumly Thompson
• Compare Baum to Piers Anthony, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, Norton Juster, or others
• Magic and technology in Oz
• Baum’s non-Oz books
• Oz illustrators
• Oz graphic novels and comic books
• Stage and screen adaptations
• Wicked: the book and the musical
• Dark Oz themes
• Oz fan fiction
• Oz-related books for young people: Harry Sue, The Book of Fred, The Secret Order of the Gumm Street Girls, the Sisters Grimm series, DRAMA: The Four Dorothys, etc.
• Oz-related books for adults: A Barnstormer in Oz, Was, etc.
• Authors who have been influenced by the Oz books: Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Forest J. Ackerman, Gore Vidal, etc.
• Celebrity Oz fans: Shirley Temple, Herbert Grosch, Nora Ephron
• Teaching Oz
• Oz as a cultural phenomenon
• Why is Oz so enduring?

Send proposals to Allison Cowgill, chair of the paper review committee, on or before 15 Jan 2010. The proposal emails should have the subject heading “Oz conference proposal.” The first page should state the workshop title and presenter’s name, address, phone number, and email. The following page should have the workshop title again, whether it will require a PowerPoint setup (no other audiovisual equipment can be provided), and an abstract of 300-500 words—but not the presenter’s name and contact information.

Organizers will confirm receipt of proposals by email, evaluate proposals through a blind review process, and notify authors of accepted proposals by 1 Feb 2010. Presenters must register for the conference. Information about the conference, including events schedule, registration fee, housing, and transportation, will be available at the Arne Nixon Center website or by calling 559-278-8116.

I’m sorry that I’ll miss this event because I’m booked to speak at SCBWI New England’s annual conference that same weekend. (My workshop topics will be on what it means to write within genres and on the differences between writing picture books and writing scripts for comics.)

From The Horn Book

Yesterday I attended the Boston Globe/Horn Book Awards, sitting amidst Dave Elzey, Boston Athenaeum children's librarian Suzanne Terry, and a bunch of folks from the Foundation for Children's Books. These ceremonies are getting more high-tech and visual, with images and videos projected on the Athenaeum's big screen, nearly always at the right times. I think that's a good idea when we're celebrating picture books.

Among the awards this year was a "Special Citation" for The Arrival, by Shaun Tan. Back at the beginning of the year, Dave and I and three other Cybils judges wrestled with whether to name that as one of the year's best graphic novels. The big sticking-point was the age of its readership. It's a wordless book (younger) with a complex visual language (older) telling a simple story (younger) that depends on knowledge of modern immigration patterns (older). Scholastic published the book for "12+," so we finally stuck with that categorization. It looks like the Horn Book judges felt The Arrival deserved an honor, but weren't certain how to classify it either.

Everyone at the ceremony received a copy of the latest issue of The Horn Book, for September/October 2008. This issue contains my first review for that journal, an evaluation of the picture book biography The Road to Oz: Twists, Turns, Bumps, and Triumphs in the Life of L. Frank Baum, written by Kathleen Krull and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes.

I liked a lot of things about that book while disliking a few touches; see the magazine for details. Its narrative arc left me with questions on the challenge of fitting a real life into 48 illustrated pages in a way that produces a satisfying story.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) is without doubt the most successful and influential thing L. Frank Baum ever wrote. It's tempting, therefore, to treat its successful publication as the climax of his life story, the reward for his many failed ventures.

But Baum actually became a best-selling children's author the year before with Father Goose, a forgotten book of comic verse that this biography doesn't mention. And what made him really famous and rich for a while was the stage version of Wizard, now largely forgotten, which followed in 1903. Neither book nor show saved Baum from more business failures, as Krull has to acknowledge in an afterword. But would all those messy details mess up the basic story?

I just noticed that although my shorthand for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is Wizard, to distinguish it from all other Oz books, the Horn Book's abbreviation is Oz, to distinguish it from all other wizard books.