Oddments, Vol. I
About five years into this now almost 15 years (??) of doing book things, I decided to move away from the ramblings of my teenage years and not share very much online. And considering the vast, unnamed horror that is the internet, that has been a good choice and not one that I want to change. But I also have been meaning to make these newsletters a bit more interesting and less news-dumpy, since that’s boring, no doubt to read, but also to write.
So I’m going to do a series on here called “Oddments”, which will be sort of a personal gazette filled with all the odd, disparate, curious things I find interesting right now: research rabbit holes I’ve fallen down, fun words, a line from a current project, illustrations from the past months, and little stories about the art, music, travel, and so forth. . .
(Is writing your own gazette about all the things you’re interested in kind of self-absorbed? Yes. But also, I would love it if all my friends would have a personal newspaper where I could read what they’re up to and what they’re particularly obsessed with at the moment. I don’t want to know the news of the whole world most of the time, but I do like knowing the news of specific places and people.
Without further ado, here is Oddments, volume I. Illustrations throughout are by me.
Oddment, n. according to the Oxford Dictionary is a “small pieces of cloth, wood, etc. left after a larger piece has been used to make something”, which is exactly what all of these entries and art will be: odds and ends, left on the cutting floor on the way to more substantial work, but not wasted.
NEWS
I got to do the inside illustrations for the new special edition of the fantasy classic, Howl’s Moving Castle. Thank you so, so much to Greenwillow Books, Virginia, Martha, and Paul for this opportunity!
I’m extra thrilled about this because I love this book and it’s the basis for one of my very favorite films. The new edition is out September 9th, 2025, from Greenwillow/HarperCollins.
Note, I didn’t do the color illustrated cover art, which is by the fantastic Devin Elle Kurtz.
If you’d like to pre-order this edition, you can do so here:
AUTILLUS — the Swiss association of children’s book authors and illustrators — is doing some fun functions in collaboration with the European Woman’s Soccer Championship 2025, which is taking place in Zürich this year. If you’re in Switzerland, and have kids or students, and are looking for a fun avenues toward literacy, check it out! (These are German-language events.)
A literacy project I’ve been working on for a different organization will be launching soon, and I’m excited and will talk about it when the time comes, but in the meantime, here’s an utterly contextless sneak-peek:
Spotted
The Key Thing: How strange to see the world through keyholes, though the means to see more is quite literally at this creature’s fingertips. The Key Thing, wanders in dark alleys and quiet lanes, particularly attracted by the promise of glimpsing secrets and overhearing bits of gossip. The creature is very clumsy and loud, and thus ill-adept at discovering anything interesting.
Curious Things
The 1561 celestial phenomenons over Nuremberg:
“In the morning of April 14, 1561, at daybreak, between 4 and 5 a.m., a dreadful apparition occurred on the sun, and then this was seen in Nuremberg in the city, before the gates and in the country – by many men and women.” So begins a document describing a phenomena seen in the skies over Nuremberg, and often described as a battle, various crosses, blood red moons and more, all collapsing toward earth. What was it? Nobody knows! (A comet strike would be my theory.) The document above is kept in the Zürich Library, which is annoying because I only heard about now that I no longer live in Zürich. But I want to go see it, at the earliest convenience.
The word for a collection of cats: I’ve recently learned that it’s not “herd” or “flock”, but rather a “clowder”, a “colony” or a “glaring”. I’m sure I’ve never once read the phrase “a clowder of cats” in all my years, but I also feel like this is very valuable information.
Joe Hisaishi’s suite with the Vienna Philharmonic: Joe Hisaishi does a lot of the music for Studio Ghibli movies, and since the latest middle grade I’ve been working on has been greatly inspired by those, I’ve been listening to his soundtracks endlessly, and also stumbled across this symphony, which is a gem.
The Milarca Museum: In Monterrey, Mexico, there’s a mansion that is an exact replica of another mansion high in the mountains, owned by a (not very) reclusive billionaire. This copycat mansion is a museum that houses his curiosity cabinet, shells, maps, tusks, a vast collection of numismatics (also known as coins), as well as lots of gothic windows, surgically removed from their natural environments in Spanish and Italian monasteries and placed about idiosyncratically, like at the end of a reflective pool overlooking the skyline of San Pedro. It can be visited by the public, and so I visited a few weeks ago and loved it.
Bonus fact about the owner of the museum: His name is Mauricio, and he had a dinosaur named after him called the Mauriciosaurus. I don’t know how I feel about that.
Wandering hither and yon: It’s been a very busy travel year so far, mostly for work. In order, it’s been Monterrey -> Bangkok -> Phnom Penh -> Singapore -> Mexico City -> Zürich -> Mexico City -> Munich -> Zürich -> Toronto -> Monterrey. Lots of beautiful things were seen, and lovely people met.
Writing colorful murder mysteries: As of last weekend, I finished a new middle grade book, a murder mystery set in a flying castle. I don’t want to say anything else about it yet, except that the concept has been languishing in drafts for almost a decade and I’m excited to finally have written it down. It was very fun to write, and hopefully it will be fun to read.
Ancient cities swallowed by trees: One of my favorite things when visiting Cambodia was the ancient cities swallowed by trees. The walls are filled with incredibly ornate stories, carved into the stone, and the trees don’t care at all. They grow without regard for plot development.
This gorgeous edition of Piranesi, which I ordered at once: I loved this book, but only read it once, so now I’m going to read it again, and I fear I will have to buy more of these. My sister has collected an entire library of Folio books, and now I want to, tooooo.
One Line:
“And yet there was certainly some indication that they were tumbling out of the sky toward their doom.”
And that’s it! I’ll leave you with this illustration of this sinister figure and the dancing dead, and will try to do an Oddments, Volume II, in a month or two. Thanks for following along!
