Red Glass Art!

Hey guys,

Well, this weekend is the first of spring, and there are a few inches of snow on the ground... just in time for our Lil Dude's 3rd birthday party tomorrow at the Farm. When I planned it a couple months ago, I deluded myself into thinking that surely, spring would have come by March 20... Yet somehow, even from beneath the snow, those bits of tree pollen are managing to find their way into my allergic, red, puffy eyes. Not to complain... but man oh man, do my eyes itch right now. I always forget about this nasty side effect of springtime (even when it still looks more like wintertime out my window.)


So, on a nicer note, here are some very cool art projects done by an English class at one of the schools I visited in south Texas a couple weeks ago. It's so fun to see how readers envision characters, and what quotes from the book stand out to them. Some of these students should be graphic designers, I'm convinced-- I'd trust them to design my covers any day. I think their assignment was to make a movie poster for Red Glass (imagining it's been made into a movie... ahhh, if only...)

Love the colors in this one!

Manga!!!

Oooh-- look at the blossoms-- and what a striking image of Sophie...

Angel looks so cute in this one...

Awww... how sweet!

Check out her Red Glass mobile!!

Close-ups of the dangling thingies on the mobile!

Heeheehee... love the image of Pablo as a chick hatching from an egg!

Thanks so much for reading!

xoxo,
Laura

South Texas School Visits!

Hey everyone!

I spent a lovely morning in my trailer writing about The Jade Notebook and doing some interesting sea-turtle-related research for it. It feels good to get back to this book after time away from it traveling and working on other manuscripts (The Queen of Water and The Ruby Notebook).

So, as promised, here are pics from my super-fun school visits in south Texas last week! I *love* doing author visits when the students are this enthusiastic! Thank you for an amazing visit, guys!


Check out the looooong autographing line... I need to learn to sign books faster... but at least everyone was patient!


Look at the pretty Oaxacan shawl they gave me! Love the color-- makes me think of sunsets and mangos and melons and tropical flowers...


Here I am with Lucy and Ann, two of the librarians who orchestrated my visit-- we had fun in the evenings going out to eat yummy Tex-Mex food... one night a few of us went to South Padre Island for seafood and a walk along the beach... heavenly!

We had great food for lunches, too-- here we are at a Texas Barbeque place-- check out the drinks -- an entire pitcher per person to drink out of... isn't there some saying about how BIG everything is in Texas? ;)


The whole school district community gave me an enthusiastic welcome-- not just teachers and librarians and students, but the entire wonderful staff! Here I am with Cristobal, who's a fan of Oaxaca, like me...


Here I am with the awesome library folks at Biblioteca de las Americas... just after they spoiled me rotten with flowers and a fruit basket complete with Goobers!



Here's Luci Wiley-- English teacher and librarian extraordinaire... love the shirt! ;)

So many cool librarians with their cool T-shirts...


I even got to do a writing workshop with some teachers after school one day... loads of fun, lots of laughing! This is such a close-knit, warm community.


I loved all the small, thoughtful touches, like how one school played romantic Mexican songs as I signed books, and arranged these white flower blossoms (from the book!) by the autograph sign!

Interestingly, my first contact with this wonderful school district was Minnie Vasquez, of Athena's YA Blog (which is fabulous-- you should check it out!)-- she's a teacher there (and a creative writer herself.)

In the next post I'll show you pics of some cool art projects the students did, inspired by Red Glass! Thanks for reading!

xoxo,
Laura

Welcome to the World, STAR!!!

Good morning! And a good, good morning it is... this is the first morning it's felt like spring here, sunshine streaming through the windows and a distinct lack of snow on the ground and birds actually singing outside. A perfect morning for Star in the Forest to come into the wide world!


The book actually opens in springtime, and covers the months of March, April, May, and June in Colorado-- it's definitely a springtime book, with daffodils and tulips and mud-lusciousness. It's a short book, too, only about 150 pgs, complete with illustrations at the beginning of each chapter. It's my first book for younger readers (ages 8 and up)-- I'm excited to widen my audience and meet younger readers.

Here's the beginning of an article about my inspiration for Star that I wrote for BookPage:

Behind the Book: Crossing borders to find the heart of a story
Column by Laura Resau

I came across the bones of my book Star in the Forest on the outskirts of a small town in southern Mexico. One day, a decade ago, I was taking my daily walk down a dirt road lined with shacks made of corrugated metal and plastic tarp and salvaged wood scraps. I strolled past smoldering piles of trash and leaped over trickles of raw sewage, giving wide berth to occasional packs of scrawny dogs. You should know that I loved these walks ...

You can read the rest of the article here.

Other news: A few days ago, I got back from an *amazing* trip to south Texas! I'm so excited to tell you about it and post pics... I'm trying to get organized now, but I'll do that post soon. Check back a little later this week. ;) And be sure to check my events page for upcoming book release events in Michigan and Colorado.

Thanks for reading!

xoxo,
Laura

Cuy! Rrriquisimo!

Hey all,

Another snowy day here (and probably where you are, too!)

Warning: if you are the proud owner of a cute pet guinea pig, read no further (and don't look too closely at the above photo.)

Maria Virginia (my co-author for The Queen of Water) sent me these great pics of her parents roasting cuy (guinea pig) for a family gathering a few weekends ago. If you've read The Indigo Notebook, and were curious what roasted guinea pigs looked like, voila:

And an even closer look...

These pics were taken in Maria Virginia's family's house in a Quichua community near Otavalo, Ecuador. Several scenes in The Queen of Water take place in this house...( and yes, guinea pigs play minor parts in this book, too... in the first scene as a matter of fact. ;) I'm so excited to share this story with you-- it seems like forever to have to wait a whole year for it to come out!

All right, that's all for now. I have to clean up my toy-strewn house and clear some floor space and couch space for my friends Gloria and Marty to come over and practice performing a song for the Star in the Forest release party (April 2)! Gloria will sing one of her favorite traditional Mexican songs and Marty will accompany her on guitar... at least, that's the plan. Fingers crossed it'll work out!

Ack! I'm being driven slightly crazy now by Toddler, who is simply refusing to take a nap today. He's finding every excuse in the book to avoid it. He's in his room making mournful noises at the moment. Oof. I'm going to get going now...

Thanks for reading!

Laura

Finishing THE QUEEN OF WATER... at long last!

my co-author for The Queen of Water, Maria Virginia Farinango

Hello and Happy Valentine's Day to you!

It's been a while since I last wrote... I've been busy trying to finish The Queen of Water revisions for my editor. The deadline's Monday, and it looks like I'm going to make it! This morning I spent an hour on the phone with Maria Virginia (my collaborator) to go over small revision details. Whew! But finally, after six year (SIX YEARS!!!) of working on this book, the end is finally in sight. We're so excited.

Here she's dressed in clothes from another region of Ecuador, which she wore for one of the dances she did.

Here are some pics of Maria Virginia from the release party of THE INDIGO NOTEBOOK. She happened to be visiting Fort Collins at the time, and she offered to do some traditional dance performances at my party, which was perfect since Indigo is set in the Otavalo region, where she's from. (And of course, she's the whole reason I ended up going to Otavalo and getting inspired to write Indigo in the first place.)

Above we're preparing materials for a dance of gratitude-- I'm lighting incense here.

The dance involves offerings of fruit, potatoes, and corn. These are the clothes from her home in the Otavalo area. (She doesn't always wear these clothes-- in the U.S., she wears them for special occasions, and in Otavalo, she wears them whenever she feels like it, to go to parties or to the market or wherever.)

I hold my release parties in a big, wonderful coffee house called Everyday Joe's just a few blocks from my house in downtown Fort Collins. They have a big screen where I project photos of people and places who inspired the book (that's Maria Virginia and her husband, Tino, and me in a cornfield)-- it's a perfect set-up.

Maria Virginia's dancing is breath-taking. Everyone, especially the toddler crowd, was captivated. We can't wait for her story to be out in the wide world... and we can hardly believe that in one year, it finally will be!

Other news: I'm in the midst of planning some events for the Star in the Forest release this spring, so stay tuned for details. I found out that The Indigo Notebook paperback will come out in August of this year, which is sooner than I expected-- and they've designed a new cover for it (and for the whole series, actually). Voila...

What do you think? I think it's pretty-- I love the colors and the feeling the water gives me. Unfortunately, I don't have a higher resolution image yet, so I can't really tell what the girl looks like. My editor also gave me the cover for The Ruby Notebook, but I'll post that image as the release date draws closer...

So, there's your update on my writing life... and the rest of my life now is basically a desperate, seemingly endless attempt to potty-train Lil Dude. Argh! Hopefully this project won't take as long as The Queen of Water did... ;)

Thanks for reading!

xoxo,
Laura

Star Stars!

Hello all,

A bit of good news about my upcoming (March 9!) book release:

STAR IN THE FOREST is getting two starred reviews-- from Booklist and School Library Journal!

School Library Journal (STARRED)

* Gr 4-6 ". . . Once again, Resau has woven details of immigrant life into a compelling story. The focus is on the developing friendships, both between Zitlally and her previously ignored neighbor, and between the fearful youngster and the dog. Conversations between the two girls are believable and the details of their lives convincing. The first-person narrative moves steadily as Zitlally loses and then gradually recovers her voice and gains confidence. Vignette illustrations introduce the chapters. A version of Zitlally’s father’s spirit animal story, a note about immigration, and glossaries of Spanish and Nahuatl words are appended. This is a well-told and deeply satisfying read."

ALA Booklist (STARRED)

* As in Francisco Jiménez’s The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (1997) and Pam Muñoz Ryan’s Esperanza Rising (2000), Resau’s novel tells a child’s migration story with simple immediacy… Always true to Zitlally’s viewpoint, the unaffected writing makes clear the anguish of illegals. The thematic parallels with the dog, also an illegal of sorts, are redundant; it’s the family story, more than the pet plot, that will grab readers. A pronunciation guide, a glossary, and a note about immigration from Mexico to the U.S. close this unforgettable narrative of a girl’s daily struggle to find a home.

Yay! Thank you, Booklist and SLJ! I'm elated!


In my last post I mentioned that THE INDIGO NOTEBOOK was selected as an ALA Amazing Audiobook for Young Adults. The narrator, Justine Eyre, had an international childhood much like Zeeta, the main character. I think that her voice reflects this-- it's an absolute delight to listen to her.

Years ago, I listened to another book Justine narrated-- The Alchemist's Daughter-- and I absolutely loved her voice in that one, too. I remember asking myself, is this book just really, really well-written or is it that this narrator can make *anything* sound well-written?! Either way, I'm grateful she was reading my book! Click here to hear an excerpt.

Audiobooks are on the expensive side, so if you're interested in listening to the whole book, you could check it out of the library. If it's not there, you can ask your librarian to order a copy (and tell her it's an ALA Amazing Audiobook!) ;)

Okay, time to pick up Lil Dude from daycare! Thanks for reading!

xoxo,
Laura