ABOUT US
We are Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr a writer/illustrator, husband/wife duo who live in a barn on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with our three small kids and a goofy blue dog. We make books together, all day, every day. When our friend Drew Bunting is around, he writes songs and sings them. Learn more about us HERE.
BOOK US TO SPEAK, PUT ON A WORKSHOP OR DO A SHORT TERM RESIDENCY AT YOUR CONFERENCE, COLLEGE, COMPANY OR KINDERGARTEN
DEADLINE EXTENSION!
Hello, Bobbledy World.
Over the past few days, we have been inundated with requests from eager young authors and illustrators (and their eager old parents) requesting JUST A BIT of extra time to finish their versions of Once Upon a Time. Because we at Bobbledy are more interested in doing everything we can to help kids write and illustrate their own stories than we are in being sticklers about deadlines, we have decided to extend the deadline by TWO FULL WEEKS so that kids can have the entire Columbus Day weekend to work on their books.
The new postmark deadline is October 15!
Are we playing fast and loose with the rules of the game? Perhaps.
Are we far too generous for our own good? If you say so.
Are we looking forward to reading your books? Absolutely.
Which is to say, get to it!
Incredible Expanding Weather Balloons
On the ground, the weather balloon starts out around 6 feet wide (a tallish man size). That’s a big balloon! But wait! It gets EVEN BIGGER. By the time it gets all the way up into the sky, the air around it has gotten so thin that the balloon grows – and grows – AND GROWS! It can stretch to be around 25 feet wide (a tallish elephant).
And then it pretty much has gotten too big and pops. And the radiosonde, attached to a small parachute, falls back down to the ground where people like me find it.
And mail it back, to see if it can be reused again.
Given how rusty and generally beat up our radiosonde was, I don’t have high hopes. But imagining it in its glory days, floating high above the planet attached to its 25-foot-wide balloon, makes me happy anyway.
Robbi and Matthew at KCPL: SAVE THE DATE
Hey, folks! We are busily preparing a new talk, which we plan to debut at the Kent County Public Library (in beautiful Chestertown, Maryland) on Wednesday, October 7 at 6:00pm.
I am telling you this because:
1) we want you to mark the date on your calendar using your most colorful sharpie
2) October 7 is two weeks from today, and we have a lot of practicing to do
If you are the sort of person who likes to know what a talk is about before deciding whether or not to come, I can tell you that
1) It is called The Accidental Entrepreneurs and
2) It tells the story of our long, winding, improbable journey from sad people to people who make books – using the development of our picture book Babies Ruin Everything as a narrative through-line
3) It contains more than 100 hand-drawn illustrations in the style of the one below
4) After we conclude the talking, we will answer questions and sign books, should you be inspired to buy them from us.
That is quite enough for the moment. We will do our best to remind you again. But please do come. It would be a shame to share our timeless wisdom with an empty room.
Weather Balloon Auction
Hello, folks. For various reasons involving travel, fishing, writing things, drawing things, traveling some more, sleeping not enough, and then traveling, we put the art auction on hiatus for a few months. But now it has returned, along with a volley of blog posts dealing with the wondrous global phenomenon of weather balloons.
Inspired by a weather balloon she found on the tundra in Alaska this summer, Robbi has been telling their story. And it is such an interesting one.
Robbi has been so fascinated by weather balloons of late that she decided to paint one. And then another and another and another.
At this very moment, all over the earth, more than 1,000 balloons are floating up and up and up, doing their thing, letting us know how to plan for the weekend ahead.
Here is a scan of the whole shebang, a gods-eye sideways glance at the collective ascent above a grateful planet.
If you are so inspired, you may place your bid HERE. The auction ends at 9PM EST on Sunday, Sept. 20th. Which means you don’t have much time. So get to it. These suckers only stay in the air for so long.
Robbi and Matthew at SPX 2015
Friends and supporters (and lovers of independent publishing who neither like nor support us), we write to let you know that we (and hundreds of other eager creators) will be on hand this coming weekend for the Small Press Expo, in North Bethesda, MD, just north of Washington, D.C.
SPX is a gathering of people who make comics, illustrations, objects, and other wonderful stuff. There are panels and such, and then there is a double ballroom full of tables and tables of creators just dying to share and sell their stuff and to talk to you about what you do. It’s a rare and inspiring gathering that we are honored to be a part of and look forward to all year long.
If you are in the DC or Baltimore environs and have some free time on your hands, we would love to see you either Saturday from 11-7 or Sunday from 12:00pm-6:00pm.
SPX is to be found at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center at 5701 Marinelli Road in Bethseda. You can get there via the Metro (White Flint station) or via a short drive from Baltimore or DC.
If your name is Lindsay and you are trying to figure out whether or not to bring us delicious cookies, please know that we will love you regardless, but that we will love you .05-.07 percent more if you arrive with cookies in tow. This goes for people not named Lindsay, too.
Hope to see ALL of you there.