Grace and Alvina talk about their manifestos and what "epic stuff" they hope the archive in the second half of their lives.

How have you been?

Alvina talks about the recent Directors Meeting and Editorial Meetings at work. Twice a year, they talk about the challenges and goals for the year and look at the budget. They make predictions about what books may be in the running for potential Newbery and Caldecott awards. Grace went on a long run but it nursing some knee pain.

Do Epic Stuff (Redo)

Grace and Alvina had an episode on resolutions and doing epic stuff but they ended up scraping it. They re-evaluated what “epic” means especially after reading, Four Thousand Weeks; Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. How do you want to spend your time?

Questions that the book friends asked themselves for the year ahead:

How do you want to feel?
Where are you finding meaning?
What is going to bring you peace?
What are you ready to release?
What can you find your way back to?

The book friends compare notes on how they answered all these questions. Their answers were based on feeling peaceful, loved, and accomplished. They are releasing feelings of becoming a parent (Alvina), and releasing the fear of failure. (Grace). They talked about the desire to make time for reading non-fiction and keeping up their thirst for more knowledge. Grace mentions the Toyota Five Whys as a problem-solving tool. It was originally developed by Sakichi Toyoda. Grace and Alvina talk about their legacy’s, professional manifesto’s, what they are working on, and share their big and epic ideas.

Fortune Cookie Segment

Publishing NEWS: Meg Medina was named National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature!

Gratefuls:

Alvina is grateful for the week-long visit to connect with so many people and Grace is grateful that she got to do a Lunar New Year presentation in Hazel’s class.

Thank you for tuning in! Thank you to Hachette Audio, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, and Alex at Pacyworks Studio for producing and editing this podcast. Be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell a friend about us. (Use the hashtag #bookfriendsforever.)

You can find Alvina @Planetalvina on Twitter and TikTok and @Alvinaling on Instagram

You can find Grace @Pacylin on Instagram and @gracelinauthor on TikTok and Hive

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