Holly and I were presented with many things from the workshop participants, ranging from copies of their books to original artwork. Here are a few. Book cover of The Bear with a Stone Talisman, self-published book written by our host Batji. Bookcover of a another self-published short story written by Lhagvasuren (sorry, I can’t figure out the title!) Cover of one of the books presented to us by Bolomaa Baansansuren Original painting presented to me by Baasansuren. Gers Oil pa

I’ve just returned from Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, where SCBWI Tokyo RA Holly Thompson and myself co-ran a two and a half day workshop for children’s book writers and illustrators. We set off on this trip not really knowing what to expect due to communication hiccups during planning, so ended up taking a lot of material with us to cover all possible angles. We flew in on Thursday, one day later than scheduled as our flight was postponed over 30 hours due to severe wind conditio

Everything about this trip was a first for me – first trip to the Philippines, first time using Power Point, and first time running a Workshop. Fortunately the smooth professionalism of SCBWI Philasia and the British Council more than compensated for my inexperience. The morning after my arrival I met organizers Beaulah Taguiwalo and Nikki Torres for breakfast at the Malayan Hotel, together with Beaulah’s sons Mark and Homer. Then we drove to the British Council to check thro

I just got back from the Philippines last night after running a one-day presentation and workshop, and already I see the organizers have uploaded some images from the day here. I didn’t have chance to take any snapshots myself (of course not, I was the speaker!), but I’ll give a run-down of the trip in my next post. I’ll just say for now that the organizers did a fantastic job, both SCBWI Manila and the British Council, my sincere gratitude goes out to them. Phew, tsukareta~!

Tomorrow I’m off to the Philippines to host a presentation and workshop in Manila for SCBWI. Surprising to say, although I’ve overseen many such events given by other writers and artists here in Tokyo, I’ve never actually guested at one myself before. Prior to this the longest I’ve ever spoken for was 15 minutes in Paris a few years ago, as I’ve never run school visits either, this will be for all intensive purposes a debut speaking engagement (in English at least). I’ve spok