AFCC Hangover – Compilation of Links and Photos from my Session (Yay!)

It has been roughly two weeks since the Asian Festival of Children’s Content here in Singapore and people who attended the conference still appear to have a mighty hangover from the fabulous festival. Friendships have been established, networks built, and it has truly been an amazing meeting of like-minded individuals with a similar passion/interest. I know for a fact that the indefatigable Festival Director, Rama is currently thinking of new ways to make the next AFCC even bigger, bolder, and more fabulous for the coming year. I thought of coming up with this post-AFCC compilation of links since so many book bloggers, authors, writers have blogged about the event. The Facebook page of the AFCC has likewise been an amazing resource. In fact much of the pictures I am including here come from the National Book Development Council of Singapore’s Facebook page.

Corinne from Paper Tigers has made several blog entries related to the AFCC:

1. Corinne’s arrival in Singapore and her amazing photo journey.
2. Pre-AFCC events as the festival kicks off to an amazing start and Corinne’s photos of her trek around town may be seen here.
3. A brief post (with loads of photos) about our Panel Discussion on “Building a Nation of Readers via Web 2.0.
4. Photo Blog of the events that Corinne attended during Day One.
5. The Hedwig Anuar Children’s Book and Scholastic Asian Book Award.

This is our four-part blogpost here in GatheringBooks about the AFCC:

1. A Panel Discussion on Building a Nation of Readers via Web 2.0 - An Introduction to Kidlitosphere and YA Blogosphere – features GatheringBooks, Asia in the Heart World on the Mind and Paper Tigers. 
2. Day One of the AFCC featuring Keynote speaker Stephen Mooser from USA, authors/illustrators such as Christopher Cheng from Australia, Choi YangSook from US/Korea, Liz Rosenberg from the US and author/illustrator Pooja Makhijani.
3. Day Two of the AFCC: Snapshots and Summaries with author Dianne Wolfer from Australia, children’s lit academic John McKenzie from New Zealand, pointers from topnotch literary agent Kelly Sonnack about what’s working and what’s not in children’s lit and YA, and a video clip from author/film maker Nina Sabnani’s presentation.
4. Final AFCC Post: Singapore’s Children Literature Lecture by His Excellency Dr. Jose Ramos-Horta, President of Timor-Leste and Awarding of the Inaugural Scholastic Asian Book Award 2011 and the Hedwig Anuar Children’s Book Award.

Tarie from Asia in the Heart, World on the Mind has likewise been diligent in posting her own photo journey and reflections from the AFCC as could be found here: 

1. Delectable food post with pictures that would make your mouth water.
2. The Kidlitosphere, Pop-Up Books, the Knowledge Channel, and Short Films
3. All the books that Tarie bought during the Book Fair in the Festival.

The ever energetic Christopher Cheng, Australian author have also written several blogposts related to AFCC:

1. Day 1 of AFCC 2011
2. Singapore Children’s Literature Lecture and Chris’ photo-op with His Excellency Dr. Jose Ramos-Horta.
3. Day 2 of AFCC
4. Day 3 of AFCC and open-mic party.

The beautiful YA Author Holly Thompson has taken amazing photographs and has shared with us her reflections about the AFCC in this blogpost.

Joyce, another conference participant and a writer has written a blogpost about AFCC and Sporecon (A Singapore Gaming Convention) along with a few photos.

Daphne, a children’s book editor and newspaper columnist in Malaysia has written a lovely article about our Panel Discussion which she entitled “Blogging for Lit” which can be found in The Star Online.

This post by Nury Vittachi, however, remains my favorite entitled “I Meet a Real President.” Please do not read if you do not wish to laugh out loud (in a semi-hysterical fashion).

Karadi Tales have just fairly recently written a post about their reflections during the AFCC aptly entitled “Potato Chips and Arsenic” and the need for meaningful content in children’s literature.

If there are any more blogposts, articles, features that I missed, please leave a comment on this post so that readers can be directed to it. Thank you!

Here are some of the photos from my own session which Book Council has posted in their FB page. Finally! As I’ve mentioned in my Day One blogpost, I was not able to ask anyone from the audience to take photos – I am fortunate that the official photographer has taken quite a number of nice ones which I’d like to share with you here (courtesy of NBDCS). Enjoy!