Book Friends Forever Podcast

Alvina is back from vacation and Grace is finished with the first leg of her tour. They discuss the recent events involving Kelly Clarkson and the Brooklyn store Art of Play (the controversy has thankfully died down by now), and use the incident to discuss the concept of humility. They talk about whether humility is actually something that our culture values and if it's something to strive for, an...

Grace and Alvina discuss some book publishing terms and define them. Do you know what a BLAD is and what it stands for? What is a book blurb, and are they valuable? Do you know what "bleed" means in relation to art? Learn what verso and recto refer to! And find out the two meanings of the word "colophon" and when we started including certain colophon info in our picture books and why. We define ov...

Grace and Alvina discuss a recent Hidden Brain+ podcast episode that discussed some of the potential negatives of goal setting. Linear goal setting may cause people to skip the exploration stage, and it might be more beneficial to use "tiny experiments" to learn what actually works. They talk about how in the scientific world, you ask a question, and the only goal is to learn. Two recent Happiness...

Grace and Alvina discuss a bunch of book publishing news, including the Anthropic Settlement, the National Book Award for Young People's Literature long list, a study about how library eBook lending hurts sales, how Libro. FM is planning to expand into the eBook market, and they talk about some of the new words that have recently been added to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, including words such as...

Grace and Alvina take on two topics. They talk about sabbaticals, and a recent Happiness Lab podcast episode about how life changing sabbaticals are. Grace talks about the challenges of taking a sabbatical as a freelancer, and Alvina shares how life-changing her sabbatical was, even though it was just four weeks. They talk about the different types of sabbaticals you could take: as an achiever, an...

Grace's audio/microphone is finally fixed!! Grace and Alvina have an odd-and-ends Chop Suey episode where they discuss various topics. Since Grace is just back from the Boyd's Mills Asian American Voices retreat, they talk about retreats in general, the community benefits that come from attending retreats, and different kind of retreats. Then they discuss procrastination--Alvina is a somewhat "rec...

Grace and Alvina discuss how publishing and writing is hard, and why it should or shouldn't be. They talk about the stereotype of the tortured artist, and while the act of creating art doesn't have to be hard, but that the publishing part perhaps does need to be in order for it to be a true accomplishment. They talk about how if things are hard now, things may be easier later, while other things m...

Grace Lin and Alvina Ling are joined by Danielle Render Turmaud, host of the podcast You, Me, and the Writing Journey podcast to do a crossover episode! Danielle is a therapist and a kidlit author, and You, Me, and the Writing Journey meets at the intersection of all thing literary + mental health, so they discuss anxiety and stress in the writing industry. The distinguish between the anxiety and...

Grace and Alvina discuss interviews--both conducting good interviews and being a good interviewee--Grace had recently had an interview for a surprise opportunity, and Alvina has been interviewing for her new assistant. They talk about what elements make for being a good interviewer, including how all candidates, including rejected ones, should feel like they were fairly assessed. All of the interv...

Apologies, as it sounds like Grace's microphone is still not working properly!  Grace Lin and Alvina Ling catch up with each other's lives, and Alvina gives an update on her search for a new assistant, and Grace talks about attending Jane Yolen's memorial service at the Eric Carle Museum. Because of that, it sparked them to discuss what kind of legacies they would like to leave. Jane had touched s...

Grace Lin and Alvina Ling check in on how they're doing with their new year's resolutions at the halfway through the year(ish) point. They remind themselves about their words of the year, and then run through four resolutions each, and talk about their aspirations and what they wanted to get rid of/stop doing this year. For the Fortune Cookie segment, they talk about a recent Guardian article outl...

Apologies for the quality of Grace's audio! We're hoping to fix it for next week's episode. Grace Lin and Alvina Ling talk about several topic, including aging--as they're both in perimenopause, they're dealing with issues like frozen shoulder and brain fog, and Alvina talks about being on hormone replacement therapy. And then, Alvina talks about the process of hiring a new assistant and what some...

Grace and Alvina discuss a recent article in the Atlantic that bemoaned the end of reading in our society, the so-called "literacy crisis," and they also talk about Hachette Book Group's Raising Readers initiative to help counter that crisis and encourage parents and other adults to read with their children. They touch on social media use, and how so much of social media is photo or video-based ra...

Grace and Alvina talk about that age-old question of nature vs nurture and how much people's genes versus upbringing and environment affect their personalities and lives. Alvina has been particularly thinking about this topic because of all of the different children in her life that she's been interacting with recently, including the "bio-kids" of her husband, who is an identical twin, compared to...

Grace and Alvina welcome special guest Quade Kelley, who is a teenager, still in high school, and is also a very active book reviewer (and much more!). Quade and Alvina both share about their experience at ALA, and then they discuss Quade's journey as a reader and a book reviewer, as well as his many projects, including the Robie Harris Youth Choice Award, the Reading Athlete, and his participatio...

While Alvina is on vacation, Grace welcomes guest co-host, author and poet Laurel Snyder to discuss the differences between a vocation and a job. They talk about some of the challenges of the idea of earning money from writing, and what retirement might look like as a creative. They discuss the definition of "vocation" and how they feel called to writing, and how that differs from writing to earn...

Writing Tips! In honor of author Jane Yolen who has recently passed away, Grace and Alvina share writing tips on how to get unstuck. The advice comes from many different authors, including Jane's daughter Heidi Stemple, as well as Shannon Hale, Renee Watson, Linda Sue Park, Lisa Yee, Jonathan Auxier, and more. Who suggested lying on the floor staring at the ceiling? And who suggested walking for 6...

Grace and Alvina have an odds and ends episode where they revisit the topic of gossip and how necessary and powerful it can be. Did you know that couples who gossip together tend to have better relationship satisfaction? Also, gossip is a way to examine society's morals. For the second segment they talk about the song lyrics that have resonated with them over the years. One example for Grace was F...

Grace and Alvina discuss two topics that are linked--they talk about a recent Happiness Lab podcast episode about the hidden beliefs that shape us. They discuss their own hidden beliefs, both positive and negative, and the seven hidden beliefs that author Shawn Achor says to cultivate in order to live a better life. Some of the beliefs include gratititude, connection, believing that your work is m...

Grace and Alvina run through some basic terms in publishing, including what a publishing division vs a publishing imprint might mean. They talk about the different departments in a publishing house, including the differences between marketing and publicity, and some other different titles and departments, including the distinction between Production and Production Editorial. They talk about advanc...

Grace and Alvina discuss their superpowers! That is, what qualities they possess that they feel most helped them get to where they are today in their careers. For both of them, cultivating connections and communities played a large role. They talk about what they think their own superpowers are, and what qualities they think are each other's superpowers are. For the Fortune Cookie segment, they ta...

Grace and Alvina have an odds and ends episode where for AAPI or AANHPI Month they discuss their Asian American identities and how that's affected their careers. Then they discuss a recent report on book banning from Pen America, and then special guest Alison Morris joins to discuss celebrating birthdays, and then Alison gives some book recommendations! They end as always with what they're gratefu...

Grace and Alvina talk about taste in general, including the definition of taste, how people develop their tastes, what their own tastes in culture are and how their tastes developed. They talk about who gets to determine what (for example) is "crud" vs "good". They talk about how cultural differences factor into people's tastes, and how people's personal biases play into their taste. They talk abo...

Grace and Alvina are joined by special guest Michele Kirichanskaya to discuss queer representation in children's literature. They talk a little bit about the history of publishing queer publishing, including the first book published with a gay character, and legendary editor Ursula Nordstrom who helped break taboos in publishing. They touch on what publishing is doing well and how they could be be...

Alvina and Grace are recording together in Brooklyn! They discuss the overall state of the children's book industry, including an article by Harold Underdown, and talk about the effects of book banning and the drop in the school and library market, and discuss how it's just a tough market overall, sadly. They discuss middle grade books and page counts and how the days of bulking them up to make th...