Omnivoracious

Omni Exclusive: China Miéville on Dial H and the Superhero B-List

A winner of the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Arthur C. Clarke awards (to name a few), China Miéville specializes in the fantastical and the weird. His literary approach to genre themes earned him a legion of fans (most recently with his novel Railsea in 2012), but Miéville remains a fan as well--of comics. The personal and professional interests collided in the best of ways during DC’s New 52 initiative, when the publisher announced a new Dial H series with Miéville at the helm with artist Mateus Santolouco. In the following exclusive essay, Miéville reveals his long history with the series and how that history led to a fresh, successful start for the book while remaining true to its core weirdness.

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I wasn't very good at canon. Oh, I got better as I got older, but as a kid, I pieced together my comics knowledge like a mudlark, scobbing together whatever titles I could find in local shops and libraries – new copies, second-hand ones, beaten-up and ripped-to-shreds remnants - without any understanding of publisher or continuity. I’d cross-fertilize them with the various exciting bits and pieces I'd picked up, all the rumours and half-truths regarding superheroes.

This led to an idiosyncratic version of the DCU. Once, many years ago, as a very young child, I was delighted to discover a pile of comics in an attic. They featured a blond, orange-shirted superhero who could speak to fish. “Ah,” I thought, settling down to read. “This must be this ‘Superman’ of whom I've heard so much.” I was intrigued that so many of his adventures were maritime.

As the years passed, I got a bit more systematic, but I never lost the excitement at the sheer chaotic variety of costumes, monikers and powers I might find fighting for justice, every time I opened a comic. It was always a surprise. This addiction to the proliferation of the superheroic is something many of us never grow out of.

In fact, inventing superheroes is one of the basic games of childhood. Tie a towel around your neck and come up with a powerset, all the abilities you think you’ll need. Justify that hot mess as coherent by some ingenious, tendentious argument. Finally, give your wonder a name. (Electrical blast and tiger stripes? Electrotiger!) This is what we do. Like countless kids around the world, I was a martyr to superherogenesis.

Helene Wecker: Four Surprising Things I Learned While Researching The Golem and the Jinni

My novel The Golem and the Jinni took me seven years to write, and I'd estimate that at least two of those years were spent just on research. As it turns out, if you're writing a historical fantasy set in late 19th-century New York City and centered around two different cultures, you might end up sitting in the library for a while.

Along the way I came across quite a few items that surprised me -- whether they should've or not -- and that proved that no matter how much I researched, I always had more to learn.

Here are a few of the more interesting tidbits I found:

 

1. Most of the Syrians who first immigrated to the United States were Christian, not Muslim.

Back in the late 19th century, what's now Lebanon was still part of Greater Syria, and ruled by the Ottoman Empire. Times were tough for Christian families in the Lebanon Valley. Because of the inheritance laws, many had only a small patch of land to farm on, not nearly enough to support themselves. Plus, a lot of young men were looking for ways to avoid conscription into the Imperial army. (You could buy your way out, but the price tag was usually prohibitive.) An Arab delegation came to the U.S. for the 1876 Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia, saw for themselves the business opportunities to be had, went home and spread the word. Soon the emigration was underway. Many got an extra push from American missionaries in Syria, who gave them letters of introduction written in English to their parishes back in the States.

2. Some Jewish bakers sell their bakeries during Passover, and then buy them back again.

This one kind of delighted me. I realized I had a problem: one of my main characters worked in a Jewish bakery. What would happen when Passover rolled around, the eight days a year when it's forbidden to eat leavened bread? I did a little research, and discovered this excellent solution. It seems that some Jewish bakery owners, rather than shut the business down and get rid of all their flour -- a very expensive prospect -- choose to "sell" the bakery to a non-Jew for the duration of the holiday. A contract is drawn up (overseen by a rabbi), a nominal sum is exchanged, and voila! The bakery is now exempt from the strictures of Jewish law. Then, at the end of Passover, the money is returned, and ownership reverts to the original owner. It's the sort of work-around that some folks like to look down on, but I think it's a great example of practicing one's faith as part of the wider world. Unfortunately, I couldn't use it in the book. I tried to work it in, but the explanation was far too bulky and complicated. Plus, a few of my test readers thought I'd made it up, and told me it sounded unrealistic!

3. It used to be you couldn't walk on the grass in Central Park.

Back when Central Park first opened in the late 1850s, the rules of conduct were much more stringent than today. Central Park had been built so that New Yorkers could get more fresh air and exercise, but to the park commissioners that meant genteel and well-behaved exercise, the kind that kept to clearly marked walkways and carriage paths. The park's expanses of meadow were meant to be looked at, not run upon. Boys could only play baseball if they brought a note from their principal. Large picnics were not allowed, which left out groups of more than a few people -- and in those days, that meant the Irish and Italians and other immigrant families who might've appreciated a nice picnic in the grass. For a while, the result was that the park's visitors were mostly upper-crust New Yorkers, with their nannies and expensive carriages. But then the middle class began to petition the Park commissioners for more access, and by the end of the 19th century, the rules had relaxed quite a bit.

4. Blatant racism, sexism, and classism used to be the norm in respected newspapers.

I kind of knew about this one, but it still caught me off guard, every single time. As a society we still have a very long ways to go, but if you want an object lesson in how far we've come -- at least in what's acceptable to say in print -- just check out any New York Times article from the late 1800s that has anything to do with women, immigrants, or the poor. For a good example, there's "New York's Syrian Quarter," an 1899 article profiling the then-new neighborhood of Little Syria. The writer spends an entire paragraph comparing the relative attractiveness of the Syrian women: first to those of other nationalities ("[T]here are, indeed, a number of amazingly pretty girls, prettier, one is tempted to assert, than those of any other foreign colony of New York"), and then to each other (the poorer women "have no beauty of either face or form," but the more prosperous merchants' wives "are attractive, and markedly.") Of the neighborhood newspapers he says, "Three newspapers thrive in the quarter, more remarkable even to the eye with their Arabic fonts of type that look like schoolboy pothooks than are the strange Yiddish news sheets of the Ghetto." You mean there are alphabets that don't look like English? How quaint! But how does anyone read them? A few paragraphs later, he's back to the ladies again, lamenting that the "better class" of women are forced to stay in at night, so that they can't "be viewed by every Syrian Tom and Dick." Maybe they're just trying to avoid the creepy Times reporter!

-- Helene Wecker

Graphic Novel Friday: All Now! and All-New X-Men

As part of Marvel Comics’ new Marvel Now! initiative, long-running superhero teams sport new rosters, costumes, and motives. After the events of Avengers vs. X-Men, both teams were left reeling, but it was the X-Men who suffered the biggest loss: Professor X at the hands of team leader Cyclops. No one felt this loss more than Henry McCoy (a.k.a. “Beast”), who was also a founding member with Scott Summers.

Additionally, Beast keeps a secret close to his furry blue chest: he is dying. And as a super-scientist, if he cannot find a cure no one can. Except. What if there was a way for Henry McCoy to consult with the only person who could match his brains? What if Henry McCoy were to enlist the help of Henry McCoy, and what if the only person who could talk Scott Summers out of his murderous funk is Scott Summers? This mind-bending hypothetical kicks of All-New X-Men Vol. 1 (subtitled Yesterday’s X-Men—everything old is all-new again),written by superstar hit-maker Brian Michael Bendis, who left a mountain of Avengers stories and influence to freshen up Marvel’s mighty mutants. With this first volume, Bendis has already crafted what feels like a classic run, where the pages cannot turn quickly enough and the revelations compound.

In order to consult with himself, Beast does what X-Men do: he time travels. In the past, Beast finds the original X-Men and pleads with them to travel to their future to help the X-Men of present day. Plus, two Henry McCoys have a better chance at saving his/their life/lives than one. It’s heady stuff and Bendis wisely skips over the finer details of paradoxes in favor of character moments, where he excels. Beast sees a young Jean Grey, as yet untouched by the Dark Phoenix and her ultimate fate, and marvels at her youth, attitude, and beauty. Of course, yesterday’s X-Men hop aboard with Beast to the present day, where they encounter the all-new X-Men, a team weary from decades of inner mutant battles and a public who hates and fears them now more than ever.

Lauren Groff on "The Flamethrowers" by Rachel Kushner

Every so often, you'll come across a book that burns so hot and bright it'll sear a shadow on your vision. For a while afterwards, everything you look at will have the book's imprint on it; your world will be colored in the book's tones, and you will glimpse the book's characters on the street and feel your heart knocking in your chest for a few blocks, as if you'd escaped a close call.

This is how I felt after I read Rachel Kushner's brilliant The Flamethrowers. The night I finished it, I dreamt of racing motorcycles across sunshot salt-flats and of floating in glimmering Italian swimming pools. In the morning, I tried to describe the book to a friend but I eventually faltered into silence.

"This is a beautiful book," I finally said, "a book full of truth, a book about art and motorcycle racing and radicalism, about innocence and speed and stepping up to a dangerous brink, a book very deeply about the late seventies in New York City and its powerful blend of grittiness and philosophical purity."

"Oh," said my friend. "So. What is it about?"

I tried again. I said, "It's a love story, about a young artist under the sway of an older, established artist, scion of a motorcycle family, who betrays her, and she joins up with an underground group in Italy."

"It feels like a contemporary European novel, philosophical and intelligent, with an American heart and narrative drive," I said.

"Oh," said my friend.

"Just read the book," I said, and my friend did, and loved it to speechlessness, as well. "Wow," is all he could say when he returned the book to me.

I don't blame him. The truth is, this is a strange and mysterious novel, a subtle novel. Much of its power comes from the precision of Kushner's language and how carefully she allows the flashes of perception to drive the narrative forward. See Reno, the offbeat narrator, describing ski racing to her lover, Sandro, saying, "Ski racing was drawing in time." Suddenly you can see what she means, a body's crisp slaloming down the white slope, the way the skier draws a perfect serpent down the clock.

Or see Reno, racing her motorcycle: "Far ahead of me, the salt flats and mountains conspired into one puddled vortex. I began to feel the size of this place. Or perhaps I did not feel it, but the cycle, whose tires marked its size with each turn, did. I felt a tenderness for them, speeding along under me."

There is something deeply eerie happening under the words, something on the verge of tipping over and spilling out; and, at the same time, a gentleness and innocence at the core of all that noise and speed.

Rachel Kushner is an unbelievably exciting writer, a writer of urgent and beautiful sentences and novels that are vast in their ambition and achievement. I finished it months ago, but The Flamethrowers -- startling, radiant -- still haunts me.

-- Lauren Groff

YA Wednesday: "Rapture Practice"

What if you didn't see a movie until you were fifteen?  Or were forbidden to listen to popular music when you were a teenager?  Sounds a little like Footloose, but, in fact, that was Aaron Hartzler's life.  And we get to read about it in his fantastic book, Rapture Practice.  

Hartlzer grew up truly excited for the Rapture, playing the piano in church, and following the plan his parents, particularly his father, laid out for his life. The snake in Aaron's Garden of Eden came in the form of bible camp--as unlikely as that seems--and the apple was The Hunt for Red October. 

Hartzler's coming-of-age memoir is funny, laugh-out-loud funny at times, and his slide into "sin" is fraught with a combination of thrill and guilt because his love for his parents and desire to please them is 100% genuine.  We picked Rapture Practice as our YA Best Books of the Month spotlight for April and after reading it I wanted to hear more about that first movie experience, so we asked Aaron Hartzler to write a little something for us.  The picture of the ticket stub you see below?  That is THE ticket.  Read on...

Unless Jesus comes back in the next two minutes, I am going to break one of Mom and Dad’s biggest rules. My cheeks are hot. I feel out of breath. A drop of sweat trickles down my back, but the girl behind the glass doesn’t even look up at me. She has no idea what is happening in my head, what a big deal this is for me. She couldn’t be less interested.

I slide a five‑dollar bill under the window. She hands back a small yellow ticket between neon nails so long they curve.

“Enjoy the show.”

I take a deep breath.

I take a look over my shoulder.

I take the ticket.

[From Rapture Practice by Aaron Hartzler]

I didn’t see a movie in a movie theater until I was 15 years old. My mom and dad felt that most movies were not pleasing to God, so I wasn’t allowed to go. And yet, when I stood on that curb at the theater with all of my friends from camp that summer, all of those warnings were no match for the thrill of taking my seat in a darkened room, and watching the opening credits. My heart was racing, and my hand was sweaty as I clung to that little yellow ticket stub.

I saved the tickets for every movie I saw that summer. They looked like little carnival ride tickets back then—the kind you win playing ski ball and trade for prizes. This was before they printed the name and date of the film on the ticket, so I wrote it on each one. Eventually, I lost the rest, but I still carry that first little yellow ticket around in my wallet. It’s a symbol of the day I started to make my own decisions—for better or for worse; the day I knew my life was going to be different than the one that had been imagined for me by others. That little yellow scrap felt like more than just a ticket to a movie; it felt like a ticket to freedom.

Looking back, I’m certain that it was.

--Aaron Hartzler

Amazon Asks: Mary Beth Keane on Typhoid Mary, Irish writers, and her wish for an unusual superpower

Novels based on historical figures are hardly uncommon these days; you could even say they were more than a bit of a trend. (Loving Frank.The Paris Wife. The Master's Muse. The upcoming Freud's Mistress).

Right now, we're crazy about Fever by Mary Beth Keane; it tells the story of Mary Mallon, better known to most of us as Typhoid Mary. Keane's novel is a thoughtful, sympathetic look at the working class cook who may or may not have infected much of haute New York on the eve of the 20th century; equally compelling is the portrait Keane draws of immigrant life, of politics (sexual and otherwise) and of the city that, somehow, we can never hear enough about.

I asked Keane, currently on tour in the UK, to answer a few questions about her book.

What's the elevator pitch for your book?

It's a novel about Mary Mallon, who was the woman known as "Typhoid Mary."

What's on your nightstand/bedside table/Kindle?

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner is on my bedside table. I'm about halfway through and loving every word. I just pre-ordered Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on my Kindle and look forward to when it magically appears.

Top 3-5 favorite books of all time?

Oh Wow. Can I do this? This is a list that's always in flux. Dubliners. The Collected Poems of Seamus Heaney. Pale Horse Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter. My Antonia by Willa Cather. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. Ask me next week and the list will be different.

Important book you never read?

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Book that changed your life?

The Barrytown Trilogy by Roddy Doyle

What's your most memorable author moment?

While on tour for Fever, I boarded a plane in Boston and sat next to a person who was reading a review of my book in The Boston Globe. When she finished reading it she removed the page from the rest of the paper, folded it, and put it in the side pocket of her bag. I spent the next six hours thinking of ways I might tell her that I wrote that book, but the longer I waited the weirder it would have been to let her know that I'd been reading over her shoulder.

What talent or superpower would you like to have (not including flight or invisibility)?

I've often fantasized about not needing sleep and feeling no physical side effects whatsoever. I'd be willing to plug myself in somewhere for, say, an hour a day (as long as the recharge system was hands-free and I could read or use a laptop during this period), but other than that I could just do what I liked with the WHOLE day and not have to waste all those precious hours snoozing. This superpower is only useful if I'm the only person who has it. If other people also get this ability -– and start ringing the phone at 3 a.m. –- then I'd like to select a new superpower.

What are you obsessed with now?

Time. Finding it, using it, stretching it, somehow.

What are you stressed about now?

Time. See above.

What are you psyched about now?

I'm excited and anxious to be starting a new book. I'm at the horrible part right now where every day is a blank page moment, but hopefully it won't be too long until I'm sure about where it's headed and I can feel good about it.

What's your most prized/treasured possession?

When I see this question asked and answered in other places people often say their kids. I don't consider my children to be my possessions, which is the only reason I'm not naming them here. As for material possessions, I have a box of letters my high school boyfriend -– who is now my husband –- wrote to me back in '93 and '94. In the same box is my high school diary. Though I don't think I've actually looked at any of the contents since 1995, I carted that little shoe box with me to college, and to every apartment and city I've lived in since, so I guess that means I treasure it, but I'm still afraid to reread what's in there. I'm SURE twenty years is not long enough. One day.

Author crush -- who's your current author crush?

Louise Erdrich

What's the last dream you remember?

It was too disturbing to share. People will think I'm insane.

Favorite line?

From Ulysses, Episode 17: "The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit."

Best piece of fan mail you ever got?

I got a letter a few weeks ago from a retired gynecologist who'd worked for Planned Parenthood in the 1960s and 1970s. He told me the highlights of his biography and it was just riveting! The letter was handwritten, four pages front and back, and at the very bottom of the second page when he'd run out of room he wrote in teeny tiny print, "by the way I'm writing because I liked your novel."

How I Wrote It: Urban Waite, on "The Carrion Birds"

Urban Waite's third novel, The Carrion Birds, was an Amazon Best of the Month mystery/thriller pick for April.

Tell us about the origins of the new book.

I scared myself with my first book, The Terror of Living. I wrote a character named Grady Fisher. He was… well… he was a psychopath kind of guy. And the next thing I thought about was that he was a part of me. He had come out of me in some strange way. Every thought or action he took was a thought or action I’d put together first in my head and that scared the shit out of me.

So I thought maybe I’d do it again for my second novel. But in a nicer way. I’m laughing a bit to myself here because of how crazy this sounds. But what I want to get at is I thought I was successful with Grady Fisher. Everything he did and said was rational to a point. I almost rooted for him. I didn’t agree with the violence he inflicted on others but I could see why he had to. It was a strange thought and one that kept me up at night and kept me rolling as I was starting in on The Carrion Birds.

What ended up happening in The Carrion Birds was that I couldn’t hold a book together with a main character like that. I needed the main character to be more human. I needed him to have at his base the simple human drives we all have. Home. Family. Love. The character I wrote turned into a man named Ray Lamar. A killer in all sense of the word, but also a man who had lost a wife he loved and in turn left the only son he had. Unlike Grady Fisher, Ray is a character who understands wrong, he feels regret, he is in his own way a true human being just trying to make right with his family.

Who did you write this book for?

“For my mother, who showed me at a young age how to pick morels from the ashes.”

My first novel was for my wife, The Carrion Birds is for my mother, and the next novel will be for my father. I open with the line about the morels because it’s true in all ways I can read it. She did bring me out to the forest after the big fires came through in the Cascades the previous summer and showed me how to gather morels from the ash. The spring mushrooms having a sort of smoky flavor to them that tasted of both earth and wood. Sautéed with wild onion and olive oil they were probably the best food I’ve had in my life. But also there is meaning in the destruction of something in order to create something else and this is what I was going for. It was a good lesson for a parent to show a child and years and years later it is a lesson I think about often.

Soundtrack

I don’t listen to anything. After my first book I picked up some sound cancelling headphones so I could work on the road. I started using them in cafés and on planes and then I started using them at home when the rain started to come down and I could hear the cars on the street. Now I’m like one of Pavlov’s dogs. I put on the headphones and my head goes to work.  

Fuel

Last night I braised down two pig heads and two hocks in a rub of brown sugar, paprika, fish sauce, and cider vinegar. One hock was still attached to the hind thigh and I felt pretty happy about that. And I was happy about it, too, when I was pulling the meat five hours later and reducing the braising liquid. I tend to cook whatever leftovers are at hand and last night it happened to be the left over parts of a couple pigs from a wedding I’d been to over the weekend. I also don’t like breakfast much. I’ll put an egg on anything but potatoes and some bacon have never seemed that interesting to me. So this morning around eight I toasted off a hotdog bun in a little butter and then set some pulled pork up in the pan and ate it all with some homemade slaw. I’d much rather have lunch for breakfast than ever have breakfast.

After “breakfast” if the writing is good I generally don’t eat till dinner. I’ll go into the kitchen and stare at the pantry or open the fridge but usually it’s just for something to do. It’s like staring out the window (which I also do quite a bit of.) The general idea being to not leave the room for too long. Don’t let the seat cool. Keep writing.

Words

I’m reading Pete Dexter’s Train at the moment. Damn he’s good. It’s the first time on this one but I’ve read Deadwood and Paris Trout a number of times and love what he’s doing. I’m also switching it up at times from Dexter and reading through Tara Conklin’s debut novel The House Girl. Conklin can flat out write in a way that I’ll never be able to. Good sentence structure, quick and solid style. I tend to be a little more messy. Maybe it’s all that wandering around looking at the pantry, but regardless of my wayward ways with grammar I can sure appreciate a good book when I come to it.

Inspiration

To be honest there’s not much of a strategy to it. I take a shower and sometimes something comes to me. I go for runs in the afternoon, or ride my bike for a beer with some old writing buddies. I walk around a lot with my wife or with friends and usually while I’m talking or listening to the conversation another thing is going on in my head. My wife has gotten to the point of asking me if I can repeat back to her what she just said. Which is either a really good thing because it means my mind is on the work, or it’s a really bad thing because my mind is on the work and not on my wife.

Temptation

If I could just afford a house on a lake out in the woods somewhere (I want to believe) my life would be perfect. There would be a generator for power and no Internet and hopefully no cell service. Probably though I’d need to set my office up in a big closet with no windows, otherwise I might start looking out on the lake, then texting some friends to come by for a drink and a swim, then flipping the lights on and off just to test the generator and freak out the neighbors.

>See all of Urban Waite's books.

"The Orphan Master's Son" and More Pulitzer Prize Winners

After 2012's odd omission of a Fiction winner, this year's Pulitzer Prizes delivered on all fronts: Nonfiction to Gilbert King for Devil in the Grove, History to Fredrik Logevall for Embers of War, Biography to Tom Reiss for The Black Count, Poetry to Sharon Olds for Stag's Leap, Drama to Ayad Akhtar for Disgraced--and Fiction honors to Adam Johnson for The Orphan Master's Son, described by the judges as "an exquisitely crafted novel that carries the reader on an adventuresome journey into the depths of totalitarian North Korea and into the most intimate spaces of the human heart."

In a piece here on why we'd picked Johnson's novel as our spotlight for the Best Book of the Month (over, I might add, John Green's phenomenal Fault in Our Stars) when it was released in January of last year, I shared how our team's obsession with this book in December 2011 took a strange turn when we heard that Kim Jon-il had died. The outpouring of news about and propaganda from North Korea felt like an alarming intrusion into reality of the fictional world we'd been compulsively descending into each night, a searing reminder "that the surreal, brutal universe Johnson evokes continues to unfold just across the Pacific."

As North Korea's new leader incites increasingly nervous debates about his true threat level, Johnson's novel feels all the more relevant and haunting. I keep finding myself drawn to Internet accounts from escapees and satellite images of the camps where a (roughly) estimated 3.5 million have so far been killed. No other modern nation is a more brutally constructed Orwellian fiction than the DPRK, and it's easy to see how Johnson became obsessed with questions about how it must be to live within this gulag of the mind. He wrote about this experience for Amazon Books:

I wondered what happened to personal desires when they came into conflict with a national story. Was it possible to retain a personal identity in such conditions, and under what circumstances would a person reveal his or her true nature? These mysteries--of subsumed selves, of hidden lives, of rewritten longings--are the fuel of novels, and I felt a powerful desire to help reveal what a dynastic dictatorship had forced these people to conceal.

Of course, I could only speculate on those lives, filling the voids with research and imagination. Back home, I continued to read books and seek out personal accounts. Testimonies of gulag survivors like Kang Chol Hwan proved invaluable. But I found that most scholarship on the DPRK was dedicated to military, political and economic theory. Fewer were the books that focused directly on the people who daily endured such circumstances. Rarer were the narratives that tallied the personal cost of hidden emotions, abandoned relationships, forgotten identities. These stories I felt a personal duty to tell. Traveling to North Korea filled me with a sense that every person there, from the lowliest laborer to military leaders, had to surrender a rich private life in order to enact one pre-written by the Party. To capture this on the page, I created characters across all levels of society, from the orphan soldier to the Party leaders. And since Kim Jong Il had written the script for all of North Korea, my novel didn't make sense without writing his role as well.

If you want to understand North Koreans--and how they have been conditioned to think about Americans--start with The Orphan Master's Son.

See new and past Pultizer Prize winners at Amazon Books.

The Making of a Bestselling Children's Book

In children's books there are those rare gems that come out of the gate like the literary equivalent of a coveted holiday toy, but unlike those talking Elmo's and Cabbage Patch dolls (for those of you old enough to remember) these books are also destined to stand the test of time.  Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site is one such book.  It came out in 2011 and was one of our Best Picture Books of the Year--it hasn't slowed down since.  Today, the newest book from the same author and illustrator team comes out, Steam Train, Dream Train, and it is wonderfully different.  In fact, Steam Train, Dream Train, our Best Picture Book of April, has, in my opinion, the potential become even bigger than it's predecessor. It's rhythmic, engaging, and beautiful.

Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site was the first book by an author who was by profession a graphic designer, but also the mother of two young boys.  We wondered what life has been like for her, winning such high acclaim and success with her first book.  Sherri Duskey Rinker had this to say:

In 2009, I was a typical, exhausted working mom. I had a three year old and a seven year old; I was sleep-deprived and stretched too thin.

As a graphic designer for more than twenty years, I was SO over it: budgets, corporate politics, marketing speak, revisions, hot deadlines, late hours, disrupted weekends and vacations—all of it. What was once a lovely career was now drudgery (kids change everything, right?), and I was often grumpy and resentful about the whole thing. I sometimes prayed for a better option, but I often felt like my pleas just scattered to the breeze, unheard.

My boys were the bright spot in every day. I was awful about honoring bedtimes—evenings were the only time I really had to spend with them, uninterrupted. My husband scolded halfheartedly, but we laughed, played, talked, cuddled, and, finally—way later than we should— settled in to read before bed.

Still, I was exhausted. I felt like those dolls that close their eyes when you lay them down, as though only the distance to the nearest horizontal surface stood between me and unconsciousness. But my little one, especially, wanted to talk. About trucks. (Inspired by our reading, of course.) He thanked God for them (ALL of them, by name, each and every one), asked which was my favorite, and wondered how much each one could lift or carry. Remember that cool one we saw today? He’ll drive that when he gets big. How much longer ’til he’s big? Don’t forget about that new one he wants for his birthday. He needs to remind Grandpa he wants the yellow one not the red one. One is broken; Daddy will need to fix it. He needs another loader for a job he has tomorrow; he’s working overtime on a big project. Can we buy a new loader? Aren’t crane trucks super awesome? . . . And on, and on . . .

One night, after I’d fallen asleep in his bed and, hours later, stumbled across the hall into my own, I received a gift: It occurred to me that what we needed was a truck book melded with a goodnight book. The idea for Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site hit me like a fastball (title and all), and I got a total adrenaline rush pondering it.

SO: I wrote it, I sent it, I signed a contract—and it sold. And sold BIG. (Really big.) Like, #1 New York Times bestseller big.

Now it’s 2013. It’s hard to express how much has changed. I visit schools to talk about my books and my life.

Teachers give me introductions that I’m sure must be meant for someone else. Little girls hug me on their way out, and little boys ask for my autograph and high fives. Kids make me thank-you cards out of construction paper and color pictures for me to take home and hang on my fridge.

AND, I get paid. Seriously: How can you beat that?

I see my name on bestseller lists with amazing, talented, legendary writers. No one has yet realized that I’ve infiltrated their group without credentials, so I’ll be acting like I belong (and excitedly e-mailing the lists to my dad) until I’m caught and exposed as a fraud.

I’m signing books NEXT TO LOIS EHLERT, author of the famous and fabulous Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (which, btw, was the first baby thing I bought when I found out I was pregnant). Okay, I’m sure she still has no idea who the heck I am, but that’s not the point.

I email one of my idols, Judy Schachner (writer/illustrator of the FAB SkippyJon Jones), AND SHE EMAILS ME BACK. Really — I kid you not.

Taye Diggs tweets that he and his son love my book (insert teenage-girl shriek here)!

A friend of my mother-in-law calls to tell her that she has just seen my book mentioned by an actress in an article in Good Housekeeping which creates quite the commotion, and elevates me to a B-level big shot among the suburban grandmother crowd.

Envision giant pain-in-the-ass client, the one that makes your stomach sink just seeing their name appear in your inbox: “Hi, Celia, thank you so much for your interest in utilizing my design service for your project, but I’ve been rapidly phasing out my graphic design business in order to focus more on my books/writing/appearances.”—And, in case you were wondering, it feels JUST AS FABULOUS to hit that “send” button as I always dreamed it would! Goodbye, Sunday Night Dreads!

 My best friend calls to tell me that my book is a question on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.” I’m pop culture?

A few splurges: an Hermes scarf . . . or two . . . or three (But, hey, still eBay . . . I’m still me.) an adorable (and arguably functional) little Louis Vuitton bag (again, eBay); afternoon tea with (surprise!) an overnight stay at the Ritz with my husband, both boys and both grandmas, including an amazing view, room service EVERYTHING, and my little guy’s first sighting of a bidet. (Which he now thinks is a household essential, and he cannot believe we will not get one.)

I’m heading out on a national promotional tour for my second book, Steam Train, Dream Train. (I just like to say that because I think it sounds cool.) This time, the creative process was far more collaborative between Tom and me, and I offered feedback on the sketches, as he did on the verse. And, beneath my calm façade, there are moments when I hear myself internally gush: “Tom Lichtenheld’s actually asking my opinion!”

I still clean the house and pick up socks. I still spend half my life in a car driving the boys everywhere. I still help with homework, fret over what we’re having for dinner and make the calls that go, “Doctor, I need to bring him in. This rash does NOT look good.” We still laugh and cuddle past our bedtime, but it’s no longer because I haven’t seen them all day.

I haven’t lost sight of the fact that I’ve been amazingly blessed. I’m grateful every day for my wonderful family and an incredible new career. I’m just stunned and thrilled beyond belief to be standing here, and the only thing I know for sure is this: I can’t wait for the next chapter.

---Sherri Duskey Rinker

2013 IACP Award's Cookbook Winners

The International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) announced their 2013 awards last night. The winners included many of our favorite cookbooks of the past year, and many that are poised to double-medal with James Beard Awards, announced May 3. Browse highlights here or check out all 2013 IACP Award winners at Amazon. Congrats to all the winners and nominees!

Cookbook of the Year and International Winner
Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi: Powerhouse London restaurateurs born on opposite sides of Jerusalem came together for this cross-cultural culinary exploration--and celebration--of their home city.

American Winner
Hiroko’s American Kitchen: Cooking with Japanese Flavors by Hiroko Shimbo: A brilliantly easy method draws from one of six sauces in 125 recipes that put traditional Japanese dishes on the everyday American table.

Baking Winner
Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza by Ken Forkish: Portland's most beloved baker delivers a master class in exceptional artisan breadmaking at home.

Chefs and Restaurants Winner
Vietnamese Home Cooking by Charles Phan: In the words of Alice Waters, Phan's book "captures the very heart of Vietnamese food: fresh, pure, full of life, and vibrant with flavor." I heartily concur.

Culinary Travel Winner
Burma: Rivers of Flavor by Naomi Duguid: Once again, Duguid transcends our expectations of a traditional cookbook with a gorgeous, coffee table-worthy tome that invites readers to the feast of a new culture.

First Book: The Julia Child Award Winner
The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deborah Perelman: The lauded food blogger's debut effort wowed old and new fans with (as Deb says) "approachable recipes made with accessible ingredients that exceed your expectations."

Food and Beverage Reference Winner
Modernist Cuisine at Home by Nathan Myhrvold and Maxime Bilet: The inventive Cooking Lab champions of the Modernist culinary revolution infiltrate kitchens with home-scale bleeding-edge technology. Jaw-popping photos.

Food Photography and Styling Winner
Bouchon Bakery by Thomas Keller, Sebastien Rouxel, and Deborah Jones: An astonishingly accessible guide to making swoony Bouchon magic. Another beauty you may want to permanently display when it's not propped next to your mixer.

Literary Food Writing Winner
Yes, Chef: A Memoir by Marcus Samuelsson: The renowned chef's life story takes us from a harsh childhood in Ethiopia to his grandmother's Swedish kitchen to his coming of age in the most celebrated (e.g., cutthroat) restaurants of Europe and New York, where he opened Red Rooster in Harlem. Told with disarming candor and humility, his journey feels miraculous and inevitable.

See all 2013 IACP Award winners at Amazon Books. --Mari Malcolm

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