Author animators Cam Baity and Benny Zelkowicz, whose The First Book of Ore: The Foundry’s Edge, the first in a three-book series from Disney Hyperion to be published April 15th, will appear on the “Layers Upon Layers” panel at the annual WonderCon convention in Anaheim, CA on April 19th.
Cam and Benny join Peter Straub (“Mrs. God”), Django Wexler (“The Forbidden Library”), Christopher Long (“Hero Worship”), Marlene Perez (“Dark Descent”) and moderator LeAnna Herrera (of Mysterious Galaxy) in a discussion of the art and science of creating. The authors will discuss building a story and a world readers connect to, and the use of unreliable narrators, metafiction, and other tools of the trade. The panel will be in Room 213, 11:30-12:30, April 19 at the Anaheim Convention Center.
From SpongeBob and The Simpsons to Robot Chicken and Moral Orel to The Foundry’s Edge, the first in a three-book series from Disney Hyperion Publishing, animators Cam Baity and Benny Zelkowicz are on a (writing) roll, with numerous positive initial industry reviews .
“An edgy, fast-moving, Seuss-ian political allegory for a new generation,” – Kirkus
“A richly imagined fantasy” – Publisher’s Weekly
“The imaginative world, whirlwind adventure, tense emotional stakes, and some well-placed laughs put this first in a planned series in the same stack as Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.” — Booklist
“As professional animators, we were terrified when we sat down to write our first book,” say Baity and Zelkowicz. “We thought that our years of obsessing over poses and counting frames would have ill prepared us for the blank page. But as we slowly evolved into first-time authors, we found that the contrary was true: our animation careers had given us exactly the right foundation … (in fact) animation taught us a sort of patience that is foreign to most sensible people. “
