The Carnival! And the Lost Thing!

No, it's not just any lost thing. It's the Shaun Tan Oscar-nominated short film, The Lost Thing (based on his book)... and it's available to watch online. It's pretty fab. You should check it out.

You also might want to check out the February Carnival of Children's Literature (hosted over at Kristi's Book Nook) for a big old smattering of what's going on throughout our area of the blogosphere. Mighty fine reading to help you pass the time....

Poetry Re-Issue: Reasons Why I Don't Write

In celebration of the five year anniversary of my first posted poem... here it is again!

REASONS WHY I DON’T WRITE
by
Gregory K.

Errands
Cooking
Cleaning up

Nothing
In my
Coffee cup

Snail mail
E-mail
Blogging, too

Crosswords
Comics
Sudoku

Phone calls
Lunches
Fear of debt

Daydreams
Nap times
Internet

Laundry
Sunsets
Batting cage

“Research”
iTunes
Empty page


The poetry Friday roundup is over at Sara Lewis Holmes' Read Write Believe. Why not head on over and see what's poetically happening this week?

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!

My Five Year-o-versary!

Monday was my five year anniversary here at GottaBook. That's a long time ago... 1,000+ posts, thousands of comments, hundreds of thousands of visitors, and a lot of other metrics.

Today is another five year anniversary - five years since I posted my first poem hereabouts. That's probably even more meaningful to me than starting the blog itself. (If you were gonna go hunting for the poem, by the way, no worries - I'm gonna post it this week to celebrate.)

As always, you - yes, YOU - are a huge part of the story. I love your reactions... your support... your friendship (and your emails alerting me to horrendous typos!). Without y'all, I wouldn't even be thinking about what comes in the years ahead here on GottaBook. But you're here... so I do!

So, thanks for sticking around, and I'm looking forward to sharing a lot more with you in the time ahead.

Book Trailers and Ebooks and Apps, Oh, My!

Over at the Happy Accident yesterday, Darcy Pattison wrote a guest post about book trailers - not only ideas about how to use 'em, but also stats about how teachers and librarians like 'em and use 'em. I really found it informative... so if you haven't seen it, I encourage you to head on over if you're at all interested in book trailers.

Also, yesterday's #kidlitchat was about ebooks and apps, and the transcript is now up for perusal. A lotta good links and ideas were shared, so if you're interested in that area of the biz, it's also prolly worth a check.

Trailers and ebooks and apps also seem pretty linked to me. We're still at the infancy of how books and video and interactivity are gonna work together. Fascinating times, indeed.

Congrats, Cybils Winners!

Yesterday saw the announcement of the 2010 Cybils. The range of books that get recognition is really fabulous... as are all the winners I'd encountered. I use the Cybils lists as book recommendation/buying lists all the time, actually.

I was part of the poetry crew that tapped Marilyn Singer's Mirror Mirror for the Poetry Cybil. We had a great group of books to choose from which made the conversations spirited, to say the least!

Good times... and fantastic books. I hope you'll go check out the results if you haven't already seen 'em.

Melancholy Valentines - a Valentine's Day poem

Melancholy Valentines
by
Gregory K.

I got two dozen Valentines.
I look at them with sorrow.
Sure, today, they mean "be mine" -
But what about tomorrow?


May your day be full of candy hearts and lots of chocolate (no matter what day you end up here, in fact!).

And if you want to get all my poems emailed to you for freeee as they hit the blog, enter your email address in the box below then click subscribe!

E-books and Apps and #kidlitchat, Oh My!

Next week, on Tuesday the 15th at 9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific, #kidlitchat will be all about e-books and apps and how we in the broad collection of lovers of books for young readers from board book to YA, from poetry to prose are dealing (or not!) with this brave new world (which, I must note, has a lot in common with the brave old world).

Let's pool our knowledge and ideas and resources and, if we've got 'em, discuss our fears. And let's have fun and speak in 140 character bits as we do so.

Personally, I think apps and e-books are our friends. I also think that we can't afford to watch the changes happen without understanding the whos whats and wheres of it all.

I hope you'll join us on Twitter next week. If you're new to chats or want a refresher in how to get the most out of them, I highly recommend Debbie Ridpath Ohi's article on Twitter chats. And if you've got questions, feel free to ask here or find me or #kidlitchat co-host Bonnie Adamson on Twitter!

I'm gonna be in Austin (and you can still join me)!

Over President's Day weekend, I'll be speaking at the SCBWI-Austin 2011 Regional Conference: Books, Boots, and Buckskin. I'll be talking social media for us author and illustrator types, but the conference is packed with fabulous faculty, so I hope to be listening a bunch, too. And... I hope I'll be seeing some of you there!

Registration is still open, but only until Thursday, so if you were thinking about it... well, now, come on and sign up. And if you're gonna be there, please say "hi!" here in advance or there when you see me!