Word Choice and a Dis-invitation

I had a lovely little real-world vacation... and while I was gone, I missed being a part of a few interesting conversations. But that doesn't mean I can't link to 'em or talk about 'em later!

Over at MotherReader's blog, she writes about the new Lane Smith book, It's a Book. There's some controversy... and interesting comments, too.

And at a slew of blogs, there's talk of Ellen Hopkins being disinvited to the TeenLitFest in Humble, TX. A few other authors have now bowed out of the event. I liked Pete Hautman's post on the topic - The Nasty Thing in the Corner - in which you'll find links to many other posts and good conversation in the comments.

I'm still catching up, so who knows what else I've missed?! As if that's not enough....

Poetry. Awards. Poetry Awards.

Yes, I'm late to this, I know, but it's still worth a shout-out or two. While I was all SCBWI-ing, Betsy Bird was talking about whether there should be an ALA poetry award or not. Check out the heavy hitters talking in the comments there!

Then last Friday, Elaine Magliaro reposted something of her own on the same topic from 2006 that's well worth a read, too.

Guess what? I'm in the camp that's pro-award. Shocking, isn't it!

A Charity Auction... With Cool Art!

Dan Santat - author, illustrator, trailer-maker-extraordinaire - has put together an auction to benefit 826LA, a fab organization that brings the arts to school kids. And this particular auction will be happening online and gives you a chance to nab some artwork by a slew of amazing artists working in the children's book field.

You know, folks like Sean Qualls and Mo Willems and and and and, well, see the picture below. If you click the link, you'll see a trailer and more information about how you can get involved (as in... buy the art!). Check it out!

Quick Bites on a Summer Friday

Over at the Happy Accident, I wrote up more about Rubin Pfeffer's keynote as well as my own thoughts on this whole future of publishing debate. The comments are rocking, too, so be sure to check them out.

The Poetry Friday roundup is over at Author Amok today. Give yourself a little moment of poetic fun and go check it out.

Learning, Connecting, and Caffeinating at SCBWI LA 2010

I have probably said this after every single SCBWI summer conference I've attended, but I'll say it again: what a blast! This was my first year on faculty - a huge honor and thrill, I must say - but that didn't change my experience very much at all, other than meaning I had to prepare and miss a few sessions when I was talking. I'll have a post up at The Happy Accident recapping what Alice Pope and I talked about in our sessions, by the way. Soon. Soooooon.

Highlights, as usual, are too numerous to list in detail... though here are a few of mine.

I was excited by what Jon Scieszka is doing with his new series Spaceheadz. The story and the multi-faceted online components work together even as either stands on its own. But they combine to enrich the universe of the story AND offer more fun for the reader. Check out http://www.sphdz.com to get a taste.

M. T. Anderson's breakout session on experimental fiction included a great reading and analysis of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, including comparing it to Burrough's Naked Lunch! Earlier, he sang us a Delaware state anthem that had 1,000 people roaring. But I digress.

Ruben Pfeffer delivered a clear-eyed view of the fact that, well, the future is now so to speak - ebooks are here, technology does have an impact, the business is changing and will continue to... and really, it's not a bad thing. This was the clearest, most direct, non-blinders-on view of the industry I've heard, and I applaud Ruben for delivering it and the SCBWI for asking him to do so. Denial is our biggest enemy, seems to me.

Ack! Already long enough and still no mention of Rachel Vail or Julia Durango or Gail Carson Levine or Marian Dane Bauer or or or or. Ack! Well, they and dozens of others were great. But I can't leave ya without one more...

Seeing 87 year-old Ashley Bryan on stage, getting 1,000 of us chanting poetry with him, filling us with inspiration, and reminding us of the importance of words on a page and getting young readers to connect with them was an experience that will inspire me for years to come.

There are a ton of great roundups already appearing on blogs today, and I'm sure more will come during the week. The SCBWI Conference blog has write-ups on all of this and more and is really worth a trip whether you were there or not.

Finally... it was great to see so many familiar faces there... some only familiar from Twitter and blogs, but many from knowing you now for years. It was a great time, and I'm already looking forward to next year!

The SCBWI Summer Conference is here!

Well, "here" as in it's time, not "here" as in on my blog.

If you're at the Conference, I do hope you'll say "hi." I'm mighty thrilled to be on the faculty this year, but I'm even more excited to be able to reconnect with so many friends and connect with new ones....

If you're there, also think of coming by and joining in our Tweetup on Sunday at 5:30 in the hotel lobby. And if you're there or not, follow along the Conference tweetstream via the hashtag #LA10SCBWI (and, of course, the fab SCBWI team blog where they will be live-blogging the conference)

I'm a Sweetheart!

More specifically, I'm the Featured Sweetheart over at the Texas Sweethearts' blog! Y'all should head over and check out their site: Jo Whittemore, P.J. Hoover, and Jessica Lee Anderson have a great, fun group blog going on over there, and I'm flattered to be part of it.

Fibbing on a Poetry Friday

What better day to talk about Fibs than on a Poetry Friday? (Well, I suppose a 11/23/58 woulda been a good day, but I wasn't blogging back then).  And what do I have to say about Fibs? Well...

The Fib Review is still going strong, now with issue #6 online. It's mighty good reading... and for those of you so inclined, they take submissions. More than one GottaBook reader has ended up in the Review, so why not join the group?

Also, head on out and check out William Cullerne Bown's new blog/project - A Year in Fibs. He's posting a Fib a day... and he's just begun. That's an ambitious project - they aren't always easy to write, I must say - and it should be fun to follow.

Finally... it's Poetry Friday! The weekly roundup is at Language, Literacy, Love. Head on over and enjoy!

#kidlitchat turns one!

Can you believe it? We've now had 52 #kidlitchats on Twitter (you can see the transcripts here). It's been a fabulous year, and we'd love to have you join us for a community celebration this week. If you're new to chatting, you might want to check out Debbie Ridpath Ohi's great blog post on Twitter chats. If you're a frequent chatter... thanks! And either way, I hope you'll come join us on Twitter this (and every) Tuesday night at 9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific.

See you there!

Combination = Win!

Today I'm sending you off again to celebrate poetry Friday... and the first stop combines two poets who were both part of this year's 30 Poets/30 Days celebration. Yup... you can find Charles Waters being interviewed over on David L. Harrison's blog!

Here on GottaBook, you can also find Charles' poem, I Love Being Me, and David's poem, Lookit!, from this year's celebration.

For more poetic fun, you can also find the Poetry Friday Roundup over at Carol's Corner today. Enjoy!

I Am a Grammarbender

I'm a big fan of the series Avatar, the Last Airbender... and I love applying the idea of "bending" to other things besides air, water, fire, and earth as in the series. Some other bending seems really useful - timebending, perhaps? But being a Grapebender? Probably not so much.

I also always wonder what bending could help writers (or give us a common vocabulary to refer to certain writers or, I suppose, for editors and agents to classify certain submissions).

Grammarbending seems useful. Spellbending? The computer might fight it, but still.... e.e. cummings was a master Capitalizationbender. And... what else?

As I await answers, I'm gonna practice my timebending. With any luck, you'll have read this a few hours before I posted.

PoFriWeRo!

PoFriWeRo is my new acronym for the Poetry Friday Weekly Roundup. Don't all thank me at once :-)

This week's roundup (aka PoFreWeRo) is over at The Poem Farm. Go on over and check it out!

And while you're at it, if the mood strikes you, you can see my poem from last week - Hello, Summer! - translated into Chinese. I do so love the web!

Meanwhile...

I mentioned this in passing at #kidlitchat tonight (transcripts of the chats are here, by the way), but I think it bears repeating: I really think Jason Shiga's Meanwhile is quite something.

I have yet to meet a kid who wasn't fascinated by it and enjoyed reading it/interacting with it. It works in groups, too. It's not a perfect book (what is?), but boy I am so happy it exists.

A Poetry Re-Issue: Hello, Summer!

Summer began this week and school ended hereabouts, too. Seems like a good time for this re-issue....

Hello, Summer!
by
Gregory K.

Goodbye, classroom!
Goodbye, Teach!
You can find me at the beach...
Or in the park or at the pool
Or any place that isn’t school.

Goodbye, quizzes!
Bye, reports!
Hello days packed full of sports
And days when I’m just lazybones
While eating melty ice cream cones.

Goodbye, homework --
Lunchroom, too.
There’s so, so much I wanna do.
I know the school year flew on past…
But please, please summer -- last and last.


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Here a link, there a link....

Everywhere a link, link!

The 2010 edition of KidLitCon has been announced (October 23 in Minneapolis). You can follow the conference blog for more info. I've been to the first three, and I highly recommend attending if you blog in the broad children's literature space.

Guess who's blogging? No. No. Not her. No... not him. Keep guessing. Give up? Arthur A. Levine, that's who! This is exciting - he's a wonderful writer (with a new book out in 2011 in fact) and now I don't ever have to feel guilty blogging since my editor is doing it, too. (Right????)

And finally... why not check out the first trailer for a documentary about children's literature? It's called Library of the Early Mind, and it will be premiering in October at Harvard, no less! You can follow the movie's blog to stay up to date. I think it looks great.

The Brainstormer!

I apologize because I can't remember where I initially saw this link. I know it was on Twitter (and it might have been Colleen Lindsay (and if it wasn't this time, you should follow her anyway regardless)), but that is all I know for a fact.

Anyway, here's The Brainstormer by Andrew Bosley. Is it art? Is it a tool for writers who need to brainstorm ideas or plot points? Is it both? It doesn't matter, frankly... I just think it's cool and will keep you all busy all weekend!

Of possible interest...

Over at my other site, The Happy Accident, I've been yakking a bit about the idea of "branding" when it comes to authors. Or, perhaps NOT branding, as it's a word that rubs a lot of folks the wrong way AND is mighty hard to define anyway.

But for all you authors and illustrators (and maybe even bloggers), whether you like the word 'brand' or not, there are some real opportunities... and pitfalls, too... that you can take advantage of. It's a choice, but ignoring options because you don't like the terminology doesn't seem like a good approach to me.

I'd be curious to hear what you have to say, particularly when it comes to the various suggestions we all seem to hear that we HAVE to be out there helping out books sell. Or is that just a rumor after all?

Packing books. PACKING?!?!?! Again??!!!!

Another school year is coming to an end... and once again, we're moving chunks of our library. A couple thousand books will need to be boxed and moved... then unpacked... then other boxes packed up and moved elsewhere. Sigh.

Five years ago, at one point, I'd vowed never to move another box of books for the school. Currently, I have three boxes here at home that have to be brought in to the library, so you can see how well I've done on that pledge! Still, it's all worth it.

Except for the packing and moving, that is.

I'll be talking about this more as the summer goes on, I imagine, but the newest task our all volunteer library committee has is to start a middle school library. Yeah, that's right. Start another library. For middle school. From scratch.

Any ideas appreciated. Any books are, too. ( And, as always, a hat tip to all of you have sent books over the years (I can almost always cover media mail postage, by the way!). And if you've got a lot of middle grade lying around, be sure to get in touch!

Meanwhile... I'll be packing. Gah!

Go hither and thither....

I actually went thither (to Orlando for the SCBWI Florida Mid Year Conference, where I had the pleasure of presenting with Ed Masessa, author and Scholastic Book Fair guy, and Cynthia Leitich Smith, author and blogger extraordinaire), but in this case I actually mean I've got a few links for ya.

Over at Publishers Weekly's Shelf Talker blog, Elizabeth Bluemle has a thoughtful, action-oriented piece called The Elephant in the Room, all about diversity (or the lack thereof) in publishing. It's a good read... and important, too.

And then, to keep ya busy, over at her Writers Digest blog, Jane Friedman posts links to the articles from the first half of 2010 that she thinks all writers should read. They are gooooooood. I think you should read them, too :-)

Middle Grade Fabooness!

How cool! 26 middle grade authors have teamed up to launch a blog all about middle grade novels. And what a title - From the Mixed-up Files of Middle Grade Authors.

They say they'll be offering up booklists and interviews and behind-the-scenes glimpses and giveaways and more. Doesn't that sound great? Well, it does to this middle-grade loving author and reader, anyway. Go on over and check it out!