Reading on your Smartphone

I'm just curious how many, if any, of y'all do any sort of reading on your smartphone (iPhone, Blackberry, Droid, Palm, whatever).

There was an interesting article in the New York Times the other day about this very thing... yet I don't know people who are reading like this. Then again, I'm a writer, so I don't get out much.

Anyone reading on their phone? Liking it? Hating it? I'm curious!

Blog Blast, Winter Version

The Winter Blog Blast Tour started today. What's that mean? Well, head over to see the full schedule at Chasing Ray, but in brief, today it meant that you'd find interviews with Courtney Sheinmel, Derke Landy, Mary E. Pearson, Megan Whalen Turner, Frances Hardinge, and Jim Ottaviani.

Go bop around and see these. C'mon now... here's the "tease" for Frances Haringe at Fuse Number 8: "Expect kidnaps, betrayal, chocolate, moonlit chases, traps within traps, consequences, fire from above, death-defying chimney incidents and an extremely important radish."

Sweet!

There are six more great interviews/features each day this week. Check 'em out, join in the convo, and have a Blast.

The Lament of Thursday the 12th (a poem) and the Poetry Friday Roundup!

The Poetry Friday roundup is here today! Amazingly enough (to me), this is my first time hosting despite participating for... well... a long time. If you leave a link to your Poetry Friday post in the comments, I'll add you to the roundup below.

First, however, I want to start with my own contribution to the festivities, an original poem from the point of view of... a day!


The Lament of Thursday the 12th
by
Gregory K.

It just isn’t fair.
I want fans. I want fame!
Yet no one reacts when I call out my name.
Folks always look past me.
That’s so wrong. I exist!
I feel like a baby who’s never been kissed.
Now each time I’m here
My whole day’s full of sorrow,
Because of one fact: I’m today, not tomorrow.


And now, with no further ado, let's see what else is going on on this wonderful Poetry Friday:

Over at A Year of Reading, Mary Lee is up with a rictameter and two book reviews. Yes, I said a rictameter.

Melissa at windspirit_girl shares a visual poem called Grace I: Through. This is the first in a series, so be sure to check back there for more.

At The Write Sisters, Diane has posted two cinquains (or is the plural cinquain?) AND shares the rules of the form, including some variations.

Head over to Kurious Kitty's Kurio Kabinet to find Lewis Carroll's advice to an aspiring poet in Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur

The tireless and talented Elaine gives us multiple fun this week: original double dactyls (about characters from children's books and fairytales) at Wild Rose Reader; light verse by Arthur Guiterman at Blue Rose Girls; three new posts at Political Verses - Driving Drunk: A Short Poem about Mary Strey, A Dead Rabbit Toss Competition Poem, and Making the Grade.

At Across the Page, Janet has a review of Elizabeth Spires The Mouse of Amherst. It's a children's introduction to Emily Dickinson... or for adults who've missed her, I say!

Julie Larios posts an original rictameter over at the Drift Record. She also expresses desire for a pictured hat... and who can blame her?

Swine Flu with Asthma is the name of the original rictameter posted by Andromeda Jazmon on a wrung sponge. And it's about her son who, yay, has now beaten the flu.

Is this a new form - the definito? Check out Heidi Mordhorst's poems at My Juicy Little Universe.

Laura Salas treats us thrice: Bear Attack (an original) and Shoal of Sharks (by Richard O'Connell) and the prompt/roundup for 15 Words or Less Poetry, held weekly at her blog.

Liz Garton Scanlon features Susan Taylor Brown's Hugging the Rock over at Liz in Ink. (Oooh, if Susan were to feature Liz on her blog, that'd be soooo cool and circular!)

Diane Mayr features Amy Lowell's On Carpaccio's Picture (and the picture that inspired the verse) at the fabulously-named Random Noodling.

At The Miss Rumphius Effect, Tricia posts a raft of rictameters (she was the inspiration for them all!) as well as Malachi Black's Sifting in the Afternoon.

Kelly Fineman treats us to an excerpt of T.S. Eliot's Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock at her Writing and Ruminating blog.

At Read Write Believe, Sara Lewis Homes offers up an antidote to "no" with Kaylin Haught's God Says Yes to Me.

Linda has a review of Wendy Mass' Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall up atWrite Time.

The Shelf Elf gives us Carl Sandburg's Choose (a poem I had actually just re-run into this week, too).

At Teaching Authors, April Halprin Wayland has an original poem and lesson ideas about Food and Fiction. Yum!

Jama Rattigan's alphabet soup lets us savor Ching Yeung Russell's Tofu Quilt. Again... yum!

Author Amok celebrates the re-issue of Paint Me a Poem by Justine Ransom. It's a fabulous book, y'all.

Mother Reader thinks she's pushing the limits of Poetry Friday with her post today. I disagree. You be the judge!

Jone's got a book review and an original rictameter for us this week for a fun double play.

Martha Calderaro explores the new Poetry Speaks site - a combination social network and poetry market place from Sourcebooks and friends.

Charles Ghigna (aka Father Goose) notes "Style isn't how you write. It's how you do not write like anyone else." in his post On Writing: A Mini-Lecture. Poets... heck, all writers... head on over for a good read.

At There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town, Ruth shares Walter de la Mare's November. How fitting!

Lisa in Little Rock share's poet Dave Johnson's Cheating. Not a poem for kids, perhaps, but fine poetry indeed.

Sylvia Vardell features Lee Bennett Hopkins at Poetry For Children. Actually, it's not just Lee, but her discovery of the process and materials that led to one of his anthologies being published. It's a great read.

At bookstogether, Anamaria also, yet differently, posts about Paint Me a Poem: Poems Inspired by Masterpieces of Art. See... I'm not the only one who loves this book.

An original poem, I'm not this girl, is the Poetry Friday treat from Miss Erin

How about some barbeque poetry? Julie Reinhardt, author and BBQ-er, offers up a tasty 'Q poem called Eck. I Don't Inject. at She-Smoke.

I'll keep updating as more comments come in. Feel free to leave your link below!

And if, by chance, you want to get all my new poems (and only the poems) emailed to you for freeee as they hit the blog, enter your email address in the box below then click subscribe.

Pssst. Poetry Friday's here tomorrow....

I'm going to be hosting Poetry Friday tomorrow (Friday, November 13th). I'm putting this post up now for all you East Coasters who won't be awake at midnight my time when I put up the actual roundup post.

Feel free to leave me your link and info in the comments below. I'll add you to whatever roundup post I do. I may, or may not, delete this post afterwards, so don't be TOO brilliant in the comments!

All about Lula's Brew, Elizabeth O. Dulemba's picture book iPhone app

When author/illustrator Elizabeth O. Dulemba announced she had a picture book iPhone app called Lula's Brew for sale (you can find it on iTunes or by searching the App Store for "Lula"), I was excited. I love seeing authors and illustrators (and publishers, too, by the way) experimenting with technology and distribution methods.

In fact, I was so excited that I asked Elizabeth a bunch of questions, which she kindly answered. You can see the full interview over at The Happy Accident. You can also see my comment on that post in which I talk about kids' reaction to the app (it's good!) and some of the iPhone economics.

I really hope you'll go read the interview and chime in (here or there) about both the changes and the possibilities in the business of children's literature.

Come See Me in January in Santa Barbara!

Maybe you can't come to Asilomar in February... but what about Santa Barbara in January?

January 8-10th, I'll be part of the faculty for the SCBWI Ventura/Santa Barbara region's 2010 retreat - Thriving in a Changing Inudstry: Cyber-Promotion Tools for Published Authors & Illustrators.

I'll be presenting along with Lisa Yee, Anastasia Suen, and Harold Underdown in a weekend put together by Alexis O'Neill. I've attended this retreat before, and it was stellar (and fun, to boot).

There are only 28 spots available at the retreat, and registration's now open. Hope to see some of you there!

Maintenance!

For no particular reason, I started playing with my blog template and the like today. I removed 22 "draft" posts, including one from early 2006. I remember starting a couple of these posts, but a few were total mysteries. Upon reading them, I see why they all remained drafts!

I once again confronted the lonnnnnng list of poems over on the right of the blog. For now, as before, they're chronological, but I keep thinking there must be a better way to organize them. I do use labels (for most - some are still unlabeled, I fear), but don't really see a better way to categorize them since the bulk are not linked to other poems by topic or form.

As always, I'm open to hearing ideas on ways I could make that list more helpful, useful, or... well... better! I don't see patterns in the stats and such that give me much help, but maybe one of y'all will know....

Cookie!

Seeing the Sesame Street characters on Google this week made me flash back to one of my earliest memories. Through the haze of time, I no longer know if it was kindergarten or first grade, but I do remember clearly that the school bus driver did NOT arrive after-school... and the small handful of kids on my route sat around waiting, worrying that if the bus was much later, we'd arrive home too late to watch Sesame Street.

Such were the worries we had back then - and they were worries, I still recall.

The principal drove the bus, eventually. I missed half of Sesame Street.

And I lived to tell the tale!

The SCBWI San Francisco/South 27th Annual Golden Gate Conference... and Me!

I'm excited to say that I'm going to be part of the faculty for the 27th Annual Golden Gate Conference at Asilomar, held February 19th-21st, 2010. I'll be talking social media for writers and illustrators for children... as well as enjoying what looks to be a fabulous conference.

For years, I've heard rave reviews of the Golden Gate Conference (put on by the SCBWI-San Francisco/South chapter) and looking over the list of my fellow faculty members gives me a nice warm fuzzy feeling. Gary Schmidt!!! Yuyi Morales!!! Ellen Klages (who I met at the very first Kidlitcon)!!! And that's truly just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

Registration hasn't opened yet, though I hear it sells out quickly. And if any of y'all are gonna be there, let me know. I'd love to see (or meet!) some familiar faces :-)

More Math - and Clothing!

When I was at Kidlitcon09, I was lucky enough to meet Sondy (or Sondra Eklund, if you prefer)of Sonderbooks.

Besides enjoying talking books, we also talked math (and poetry). You see, I talked about Fibonacci poetry and Fibs on the same day that she was wearing her Prime Factorization Sweater.

"What?" you ask, "is a Prime Factorization Sweater?"

It's plain old cool is what it is.

Go to her post about the sweater and find out in more detail. Cool, I tell ya!

Poetry Friday: a Halloween zeno!

Earlier this week, I mentioned the zeno - a form of poetry created by J. Patrick Lewis and based on the hailstone sequence. In short, the zeno's syllable pattern is 8, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1, and lines 4, 7, and 10 rhyme with each other.

Here's the first zeno I wrote (and also left in the comments at the Miss Rumphius Effect where the zeno debuted).


Halloween
by
Gregory K.

I counted down October days.
Tonight, at last,
Waiting’s
Through.
I prowl the dark,
Seeking
You.
My costume on,
I’ll shout,
“Boo!”


If you are among those who trick or treat, as always, feel free to send leftover peanut butter cups my way. And feel free to head on over to the Poetry Friday roundup, hosted over at Jen Rothschild's Biblio File.


If you want to get all my new poems (and only the poems) emailed to you for freeee as they hit the blog, enter your email address in the box below then click subscribe.

Did you know...

... that when you say "pooped" in a read-aloud with second graders, you get really wonderful reactions?

Yes, I suspect you did. But it's true!

Interestingly, you get great reactions from adults, too....

Good times. Good times!

(By the way, the word in question came up while reading from Adam Rex's Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich in the poem Godzilla Pooped on My Honda)

A new form of math-based poetry!

Over at the Miss Rumphius Effect, Tricia's got her Monday Poetry Stretch up, this time featuring a brand new poetic form by J. Patrick Lewis called the zeno.

The zeno is based on the hailstone sequence, a bit of math that ends with a repeating cycle that Pat has used for his verse form. Cool stuff!

So head on over to today's poetry stretch to read more about the form... including many examples by Mr. Lewis plus my very first zeno in the comments there.

The Friday Whistle Blows

I have decided that I'm no longer going to settle for a metaphorical whistle. I want a real whistle to blow signifying the start of the weekend. Perhaps I should write my Congressperson?

Or maybe I should just settle for the appearance of Poetry Friday to mark the end of the week? Probably a safer bet....

The Poetry Friday Roundup is over at Big A little a today. Go on and check out the poetic goods! That'll launch you into Saturday nicely, I do believe....

Middle Grade. We Always Need Middle Grade....

Today, I actually had a tiny bit of free time in my librarian "job," and started entering in a few recent donations into our computer. These were some meaty books, mostly from our own parent body, and a few got checked out as soon as I put them on the shelves.

As usually happens when I put out new books, I realized that the thing we miss the most at our library-sans-budget is new middle grade material. And since we're an elementary school, well, middle grade is a major sweet spot for many of our kids.

It's not a crisis, I know, and I often wonder if this would be such a frustration to me if I weren't so heavily involved in the children's literature world (though what elementary school librarian wouldn't be???).

Still, it's definitely been a pattern for us that we're behind, and I keep thinking of great books to recommend that we just don't have. Luckily, there are lots of good books to be had (many thanks to readers of GottaBook who've sent them my way - so THANK YOU again!)... and there's always the public library just a few blocks away!

A very few notes from Kidlitcon

The third annual conference of bloggers of the Kidlitosphere (loosely - those of us who blog about children's literature from pretty much any perspective and covering everything from board books up to YA books) was a blast!

It's great to meet bloggers who you sorta feel like you "know" already anyway. This year, there were many whose blogs were newer to me, but everyone proved to be wonderful whether I'd read them or not.

There was tons of great information throughout the day. Perhaps the most "important" part was that Pam Coughlan (aka Mother Reader) arranged for a representative of the FTC to come address our group to explain what their new guidelines mean for those who review books on blogs.

The short answer is that independent reviewers - as opposed to those endorsing a product through a marketing program - don't have to worry about disclosure of where they got their review copy. (Though I'd note... why not say?)

The longer answer and more nuanced points (like about affiliate links) are summed up in many great posts from fellow attendees. I'm going to send you to two posts, both of which link you to even more!

Michelle at Galleysmith has a great round-up of the talk.

Similarly, Liz Burns has a great write-up at A Chair, A Fireplace & a Tea Cozy.

Finally, you can check out the Twitter stream for the day from Kidlitcon to see what else you might've missed, content-wise. I'm afraid I can't make up for any missed fun - and there was plenty - but you can start planning for next year right now to make up for it!

Oddaptation (redux!): Where the Wild Things Are

Today sees the release of the feature film version of Where the Wild Things are, so it seemed a good day to re-issue my Oddaptation of that classic picture book. You can click here for the Oddaptation definition and backstory... or just think Cliff Notes with attitude.


WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
by Maurice Sendak
Oddaptation by Gregory K.

Another family meal is missed:
Max is angry. Max is pissed.
And rumpus beasts? They don’t exist...
My word, Max needs a therapist!


If you want to get all my new poems (and only the poems) emailed to you for freeee as they hit the blog, enter your email address in the box below then click subscribe.

And hey... the fabulously poetic Laura Purdie Salas has this week's Poetry Friday roundup. Head on over and check out the fun!

The sad decline of the desk chair

My desk chair suddenly got old. It doesn't just creak when I lean back against it. No. It POPS loudly and part of the back gives way, shifting my body. There's a tube hanging out of the side that used to... uh... be something or another. I vote lumbar support.

The arm pieces, too, are now cracking and worn. The chair isn't really broken, but it's mighty disconcerting and a tad sad.

I should get rid of it, I'm sure, but I've written some mighty fine poetry in this chair. What if it's the key to my creativity? Or what if it's been holding me back all these years???? Hmmm.

I am pleased to say I didn't think about any of this while I was up in Seattle. The SCBWI chapter up there if fantabulous, with an amazing core of volunteers running a tight ship and providing so much for their members... who were every bit as impressive. A great time for me, indeed.

The chair will wait, too. For tomorrow... off to Kidlitcon!

On the road again....

I'm in Seattle, getting ready to present a four hour workshop called Unleashing the Power of Social Media for Writers and Illustrators thanks to the fine folk at SCBWI's Western Washington chapter.

I must tell you... I love this social media stuff! I could talk about it for far longer than four hours (more than five, really: I get a bonus hour tomorrow night at the chapter's bigger monthly professional series meeting. That's NOT sold out, so check the above link and come on by).

I continue to believe that we folks in the world of children's publishing better be using the tools available to us... and we need to understand how it all works. Yup. I could talk about this a lot :-)

I hope to see some of you up there... and I'll see the rest of you right here soon enough. But for now, I gotta book!

Yrteop!

Yrteop is poetry backwards - not a form of poetry, but the word. It seemed an accurate title, too, as I ask all my poetry loving fans a question....

Know any poems for kids that are about things/people being backwards?

In rapid succession this week, I ran into Mary Ann Hoberman, Shel Silverstein, and Douglas Florian poems predicated on the idea of a person doing things backwards - walking on ceilings or underwear on the outside or riding a horse backwards or or or.

The poems were all different and funny, and I started thinking there must be more that I could group together for a readaloud. Perhaps couple them with David LaRochelle's fab fairy-tale-in-reverse picture book The End for a backwards festival!

All suggestions welcome. And while you're thinking poetry, head on out to see the Poetry Friday roundup, hosted today at Picture Book of the Day - one of amazing author, teacher, blogger Anastasia Suen's blogs.

I'm Pretty Well Connected (v. 2.0) - a Social Web poem/a social network poem

I’m Pretty Well Connected (v. 2.0)
by
Greg Pincus

I’m pretty well connected.
I’ve got my Facebook page.
I tweet, blog, plurk
From home and work.
I link, connect, engage!

I Stumble, and I Ustream.
My YouTube channel’s big.
I’m there on Sphinn,
MySpace, LinkedIn.
I HARO, and I Digg.

Goodreads, Hulu, Google -
Flixster and Squidoo -
You’ll find me there
While in my chair!
I Yelp and podcast, too.

FourSquare, FriendFeed, Flickr?
Of course I have accounts.
And also Ning
and Ping and Bing
Plus eight I can’t pronounce.

I’m pretty well connected.
I love the web, it’s true.
But it’s just fine
If you’re offline...
I’ve got some friends there, too :-)


Just as with last year and version 1.0 of I'm Pretty Well Connected, I look forward to clicking those hyperlinks in years ahead to see if they all still work. This time, by the way, a few link to my own profiles rather than just the sites themselves - another 2.0 revision.

With FriendFeed already acquired by Facebook, will it be the first to go... or will someone else above be acquired or just go under? Any predictions, comments, or thoughts about what v. 3.0 will look like are more than welcome!

Nomination Time at The Cybils and 28 Days Later

It's nomination season all you fans of children's literature! And you've got two great ways to be part of the fun....

28 Days Later, a Black History Month celebration of children's litetature, is the flagship initiative of The Brown Bookshelf. The event is a month-long showcase of the best in Picture Books, Middle Grade and Young Adult novels written and illustrated by African Americans. (Yes, I took that from their site because when I tried to write it differently, it ended up the same!)

You can nominate books until November 1st, and all the details are at this link.

The Cybils are also open for nominations, though only until October 15th. You've got nine categories to choose from this year... though you don't have to choose! Nominate your favorite qualifying book in any or all categories (though only one per category). I am a Cybils judge on the final panel for poetry books, just so you know.

Click here for the Cybils' rules and categories, and I highly urge you to head on out and join the nominating fun.