Award winning author Mitali Perkins has just posted the winners of her 2011 Teens Between Cultures Poetry Contest and 2011 Teens Between Cultures Prose. Head on over to Mitali’s website, Fire Escape, to read the winning submissions.

Submissions for the 2012 contest are now being accepted.

Do you love to weave words together?
Were you and/or one or both of your birth parents born in another country?
Do you live in the United States or Canada now?
Are you 13-19 years old?

If you answered yes to ALL of the questions above, YOU qualify to enter the Fire Escape Writing Contests! Submit an original, unpublished poem or piece of prose (fiction or non-fiction) that reflects some of the joys and struggles of growing up between two cultures in America. Mitali’s Fire Escape will only consider one poem and one piece of short fiction per person, so send your best work.

For more information, click here.

Following up on my post from last week, Mitali has graciously allowed us to share her blog post about the event here:

A thousand thanks to Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Ma and to my publisher Charlesbridge for hosting my Bamboo People book launch party. I always get nervous, so I greatly appreciated everybody who came and sent notes of encouragement from near and far. I’ve posted a few videos below, and here are some recaps from others who attended:
Charlesbridge, Walk the Ridgepole, Not Just For Kids, Britt Leigh’s Brain on Books, and The Papa Post

Arrived to find this gorgeous bamboo plant sent from Portland, Maine by Curious City‘s Kirsten Cappy, Jamie Hogan (who illustrated my book Rickshaw Girl), Annie Sibley O’ Brien (After Gandhi), and King middle school librarian Kelley McDaniel. Thank you so much, ladies, for your love and support!

I loved watching people mingle and meet.

My buddy Deb Sloan is one of the best book cheerleaders on the planet.

Authors who write for adults don’t get love like this.

Porter Square bookseller Nathan exuded hospitality. Thank you! I’m holding the bamboo bookmark giveaways I picked up a couple of weeks ago at the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar.

Introducing the book

Reading an excerpt of BAMBOO PEOPLE

Our current issue of PaperTigers focuses on Refugee Children and one of the highlights in the issue is an interview with author Mitali Perkins about her latest novel, Bamboo People. The novel is about children caught up in conflict in modern-day Burma and, once again, as she has done in her previous novels, Mitali illustrates the tension of characters caught between cultures, but in Bamboo People the backdrop is war, and the stakes are higher than ever. This is Mitali’s first novel to feature male characters and has been receiving rave reviews since it was released on July 1st. Here’s an excerpt from our review of the book:

This fascinating story shines a light on the desperate situation of those affected by current Burmese policies and will help educate young readers about that situation in particular and the vagaries and confusion surrounding conflict in general.  The characters, Perkins’s first male protagonists, are very thoughtful, easy to engage with, and surprisingly similar.  In fact, as a reader, it felt as if Tu Reh and Chiko could have been the same person had circumstances not shaped their lives so differently.  This juxtaposition is absolutely brilliant and illustrates the point that war makes enemies out of people who, in a different context, would become the best of friends.

On Aug 19, from 7 – 8:30 pm, Porter Square  Books in Cambridge, MA, USA will be hosting a book launch party for Bamboo People and Mitali will be in attendance. Everyone is welcome to attend and light Burmese refreshments will be served. For more details click here.  Also be sure to check out Mitali’s blog Fire Escape and her Facebook page as she will be writing about the launch and posting some pictures too, I’m sure!

Writer of young adult books, Mitali Perkins, is an expert in life between cultures. Born in India, by the time she was 11, she’d lived in Ghana, Cameroon,  the UK and the USA. When she began to write fiction, her protagonists were often—not surprisingly—strong female characters trying to bridge different cultures. Her newest book, Bamboo People will be released on July 1st and has already received rave reviews, including one from PaperTigers.

Last month Mitali was one of the featured speakers at the Children’s Book and Author  Breakfast at Book Expo America. A podcast of the event can be found in its entirety here. To see just Mitali’s speech as well as the slideshow she presented, check out her blog Fire Escape!

Exploring Mitali Perkins’ Twitter files, I discovered that her book, Rickshaw Girl, which won the prestigious Jane Addams Award, in addition to a string of other accolades, will be translated into Marathi and published by Jyotsna Prakashan, a publisher in Maharashtra (of which Mumbai is the capital). The Marathi language is spoken by the Marathi people, or Maharashtrians, living in the state, and also in some parts of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, as well as in Karnataka and the union territories of Daman and Diu (here’s a map of India, to help you get oriented).

To book a “Chai & Chat” school/library/book group visit with Mitali, virtual or otherwise, visit her at the Fire Escape (and for a lowdown on virtual author visits, see Deborah’s Sloan’s post, at The Picnic Basket, and Kate Messner’s, at Kate’s Book Blog).

About a month ago now, we were thrilled to be chosen by Just One More Book for the Butterfly Award. Thank you! And now it’s definitely high time the butterfly winged on its way through cyberspace…

So, we are passing this award on to these great blogs:

All at Create Readers
All of the Blue Rose Girls
Annie at Here and There Japan
Cynthia Leitich Smith at Cynsations
Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children’s Literature
Jen at Jen Robinson’s Book Page
Margriet at Margriet’s Blog
Mitali Perkins at Mitali’s Fire Escape
Uma Krishnaswami at Writing With a Broken Tusk
Zarah Grace C. Gagatiga at School Librarian in Action

(more…)

Yesterday Cynthia Leitich Smith celebrated the 10th anniversary of her wonderful “Children’s and YA Literature Resources” website (congratulations, Cynthia!). Now I wonder… how come we were the ones to get a gift?

In honor of “Book Blogger Appreciation Week” (Sep 15-19) Cynthia decided to highlight blogs that “focus on underrepresented perspectives in the field of youth literature.” PaperTigers has made her short list, and now we find ourselves in the very good company of Mitali’s Fire Escape, The Brown Bookshelf and other great blogs. Thank you, Cynthia! Please know that your contributions as a writer, blogger and promoter of good literature are much appreciated too—this week and always!