Lots of people claim they don’t like beets. (more…)
Archives
a part of the garden
Vermont College of Fine Arts Faculty (Writing for Children and Young Adults):
These are the extraordinary people with whom I teach. Ellen Howard Martine Leavitt Shelley Tanaka (no websites for these three) and: (click) |
An Occasional PostCelebrating THE PRINCESS OF BORSCHT!November 22, 2011
Lots of people claim they don’t like beets. (more…) Finding Stuff OutOctober 13, 2011 
Finding Stuff Out Just about every story I’ve written, whether published or unpublished, has involved research. Lots and lots of research. Some examples: the life of Marcel Marceau, McCarthyism, George Balanchine, Igor Stravinsky, John Ringling North, Modoc the elephant, Vera Zorina, the Atlantic telegraph cable, and recipes for borscht. I love finding stuff out, and the internet, with all its databases and countless other resources, has meant I don’t even have to leave Vermont most of the time. (I hate leaving home. I’ve only flown--on an airplane--once in the last eleven years and have no plans to do so again.) (more…) Picture books about grownupsAugust 25, 2011
I am reposting here a post I made at the new VCFA Faculty blog, which I am linking to elsewhere. Just in case you missed it there.
Advice for writing picture books often includes this: your protagonist should be a child. Yet many of my favorites quite blatantly ignore this received wisdom. In fact, several of my own picture books star grownups. I am a questioning sort of person, so for my first VCFA blog post, let us investigate the topic.[1] Some of my ponderings: *I am not, in fact, a child. On the other hand, I do know quite a bit about what it is to be a child. On the other hand (I have three hands), I am interested in the lives of all ages. (more…) Vermont College of Fine Arts residency reportJuly 21, 2011
After a more than two-month hiatus (rotator cuff surgery and other stuff), I have returned to the Kingdom of Blog. As I have said several times, I feel more like an occasional visitor to this kingdom than a participating citizen. I’m such a homebody. Today, however, there are a few things to report.
Generally, I tend more towards Eeyore than Pollyanna. Gloom and doom, laced with humor and cheer. I am, however, feeling very lucky at this very moment. Here are some reasons for cheer (even during the heatwave and my usual pessimistic thoughts about global warming): (more…) blog breakJune 16, 2011
My incredibly active blog (post about every six weeks? Good grief) is on temporary hiatus while I recover from rotator cuff surgery. Try to avoid this surgery if you can.
The Encyclopedia Britannica and Reverend Gary DavisMay 15, 2011
I grew up before personal computers. Obviously. When I entered high school, my parents bought an Encyclopedia Britannica. It was the best encyclopedia of its time—more trustworthy than World Book, more complete than Compton’s, more thorough than any other. And it was a financial sacrifice for my parents in those years. Though it stayed in their house when I went to college, I picked up the occasional volume during vacations just to read something intriguing. (more…)
SCRIBBLING WOMEN BLOG TOURMarch 23, 2011
It's day three of Marthe Jocelyn's blog tour, and hooray, it's my turn. In her intriguing new book, SCRIBBLING WOMEN (Tundra), Marthe asks a lot of questions and ends with even more. Since I myself am an excessively curious person (intrusive, some say), it seemed appropriate to ask Marthe a few questions of my own. (Inspired by the book, I yearned to ask dozens, but I am a reasonable person.)
Marthe looks at the lives and writings of eleven unusual women from all a huge variety of times and places. The first, Sei Shonagon (965-1010), is known for “The Pillow Book,” and the last, Doris Pilkington Garimara (1937-), wrote Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence. In between we meet a horse thief (Margaret Catchpole), an explorer (Mary Kingsley), a journalist (Nellie Bly), and a slave turned abolitionist (Harriet Ann Jacobs). These are fascinating stories, each carefully researched and engaging. I wanted more. Now, here’s Marthe. (more…) Fictoir, Memoir, MemoryMarch 21, 2011
Situation: writing workshop. Leader asks participants to describe the bedroom—or the living room—or any room—of the place they lived when they were five. Heads bow and pens scribble or keyboards click.
I cry, or I suddenly need to go to the bathroom, or I begin to whisper and make idiotic remarks to the person next to me as if I were still in Mr. Harrison’s high school biology class, when I and two friends were banished to the back of the room for giggling. (Not for the first time—I was also kicked out of girl scouts for the same reason.) Why do I react in such a juvenile fashion? (more…) It's been a while: writing and rejectionFebruary 5, 2011
Some quick thoughts:
Every children’s book writer gets rejections—or at least that’s what I believe. Maybe there are some among you who haven’t. If so, I am filled with envy, annoyance, and revenge fantasies. I cannot tell a lie. We all have heard the stories: that A Wrinkle In Time was rejected at least 26 times; that Kate DiCamillo accumulated hundreds, etc. (Roughly a decade, before the public knew her name, DiCamillo worked odd jobs, submitted manuscripts, and collected nearly 400 rejection letters. "I decided a long time ago," DiCamillo says, "that I didn't have to be talented. I just had to be persistent." http://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/dicamillo) (more…) Q&A with Anita SilveyNovember 30, 2010
Over Thanksgiving, Anita Silvey and I had a chance to talk about her new project, the Children’s Book-A-Day Almanac (www.childrensbookalmanac.com) while our four (combined) dogs gradually destroyed the house. Anita has a new puppy, Lancelot, who is quite possibly the cutest thing on the planet at the moment.
LS: Anita, why did you decide to do the Almanac? AS: I had decided to create a much more ambitious book which would have included reviews of 1000 titles. (more…) |
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