Welcome to the #FicFest
Meet the Teams
Blog Announcement!
I'd super excited to announce (Picture Book)
When my team mates and I had the opportunity to choose a destination for the World Tour, we wanted a place rich with culture, joy, and color. India seemed like a perfect fit! Here are some fun facts about India... consider it your tour itinerary.
- India is about 1/3 the size of the United States, yet it is the second most populous country in the world, with a population of 1,166,079,217. India is the seventh largest country in the world, at 1.27 million square miles.
- The Kumbh Mela (or Grand Pitcher Festival) is a huge Hindu religious festival that takes place in India every 12 years. In 2001, 60 million people attended, breaking the record for the world’s biggest gathering. The mass of people was photographed from space by a satellite. See picture below for 2010's pilgrimage.
- India is the largest democracy in the world.
- The Indian flag has three horizontal bands of color: saffron for courage and sacrifice, white for truth and peace, and green for faith, fertility, and chivalry. An emblem of a wheel spinning used to be in the center of the white band, but when India gained independence, a Buddhist dharma chakra, or wheel of life, replaced the spinning wheel.
- Cows can be found freely wandering the streets of India’s cities. They are considered sacred and will often wear a tilak, a Hindu symbol of good fortune. Cows are considered one of humankind’s seven mothers because they offer milk as does one’s natural mother.
- Dancing is one of India’s most highly developed arts and was an integral part of worship in the inner shrines of every temple. It is notable for its expressive hand movements.
- India is the birthplace of chess. The original word for “chess” is the Sanskritchaturanga, meaning “four members of an army”—which were mostly likely elephants, horses, chariots, and foot soldiers.
- The earliest cotton in the world was spun and woven in India. Roman emperors would wear delicate cotton from India that they would call “woven winds.” Mogul emperors called the fabrics “morning dew” and “cloth of running water.”
- The Himalayas—from the Sanskrit hima, meaning “snow,” and alaya, meaning “abode”—are found in the north of India. They extend 1,500 miles and are slowly growing taller, by almost an inch (2.5 cm) a year. Several ancient Indian monasteries are found nestled in the grandeur of these mountains.
- The Bengal tiger is India’s national animal. It was once ubiquitous throughout the country, but now there are fewer than 4,000 wild tigers left.
- The banyan, or Indian fig tree, is considered a symbol of immortality and is mentioned in many Indian myths and legends. This self-renewing plant is India’s national tree.
- Marigold flowers are used as decoration for Hindu marriages and are a symbol of good fortune and happiness.
Emily Moore
Team India Leader
E. G. Moore is an author, freelance writer, and storyteller
(the first of which her mom still has recorded on a cassette tape.) She is a long distance member of For Pete’s
Sake Writers Group in Washington, active in an email writer’s response group,
and Vice President of the Idaho Writers League Coeur d’Alene Chapter. She’s also
a blog assistant for YAtopia.
She's awaiting news from one of the big six publishers on acceptence of her Middle Grade Tom Sawyer retelling ROWDY DAYS OF DOM SANDERS. Her essay WEARING TERESA’S BOOTS is scheduled to be featured
in Hope Paige’s Anthology on loss in 2016. When she’s not telling “Mommy
Made stories” to her two daughters or nagging her husband to edit her latest children’s
manuscript, Emily can be found off-roading in her suped-up ATV, baking something
scrumptious, or in a long, plot-refreshing bubble bath. She’s represented by
Jessica Schmeidler of Golden Wheat Literary. E.G. Moore tweets, posts on Facebook, and blogs at: www.emilygmoorewriter.blogspot.com.
Shari Schwarz
Team India Member
Shari Schwarz lives in Colorado near the Rocky
Mountains with her husband and their four boys. TREASURE AT LURE LAKE (April
12, 2016) is her debut novel which highlights her love for a good survival adventure
story. When she’s not writing, Shari can be found freelance editing,
weight-lifting, gardening or watching her boys play football, basketball, speed
stacking, or wrestling. She frequently dreams of exploring Oregon Coast beaches
or plotting out her next children’s book.
(Note from Emily: You MUST buy Shari's debut book. I critiqued/edited it for her a couple times and it is AMAZING!)
Jae C. Lowell
Team India Member
Born and raised in Santa Cruz California, Jae was thrown into the world in a broken home. At the age of 12 Jae, his Mom and Brother moved across the country to Michigan to better their lives. There, Jae found himself and his not wife. At the age of 21, Jae and his wife moved back to California and have been moving back and forth ever since. Jae is a passionate writer, traveler, photographer and all around artist. Jae and his wife are currently living in California raising their 2 children and blogging/vlogging about their experiences.
Team India Wishlist
and Favorite Picture Book List
We’re looking for something that both kids love to hear and parents love to read over and over and over again. Layered stories are great too. Anything that makes us laugh or cry will get some attention. Dry humor that has an element to it that a 4-year-old could understand
will be on our list. Surprise us with your endings. Give us something that makes us see a situation from a whole new perspective, especially a little person’s. Rhythm is as important as rhyme, and rhyming needs to be done right. We also love assonance and alliteration mixed with rhythm for a fun read that twists the tongue up and makes a child giggle.
Our Favorites list includes:
- Ben Rides On and others with kindness as an element
- The Talking Eggs or books based on legends from different cultures
- Ladybug Girl Series
- Non-Fiction like A Penguin Named Patience and Finding Winnie
- Never Tickle a Tiger
- Say Please Louise
- The Napping House or anything progressive like this!
- Jim, Jimmy, James
- Don’t Push the Button
- Anything Dr. Seuss
- Anything by Nancy Tillman (the funny and the tear jerkers both)
- The Day the Crayons Came Home
- It's a Tiger
- Mango, Abuela, & Me
- Sam and Dave Dig a Hole
- Anything by Salina Yoon
- Brimsby's Hats
- Lost For Words
- The Most Magnificent Thing
- One Busy Day
- The Midnight Library
- The Gift of Nothing
- Peepsqueak
- Sheep in a Jeep and other sheep books by Nancy E. Shaw
