Monthly Archives: September 2011
Spain (Birthmarked in!)
Here’s the cover of Birthmarked in Spain, where it came out yesterday. It’s sweet to see the same U.S. artwork used with another language.
From the Everest site:
En un mundo futuro agostado por el sol inclemente, donde el agua es más valiosa que el oro, hay quienes viven dentro de las murallas del Enclave y quienes, como Gaia Stone, comadrona de dieciséis años, viven extramuros. Gaia siempre ha creído que su deber, como el de su madre, es entregar una pequeña cuota de bebés saludables a los residentes… Continue reading
Beauty Librarian Contest
One of our big tourist attractions in this neck of the woods is the Mohegan Sun Casino, which naturally makes me think of librarians. They all go together: gambling, second-hand smoke, glamour, live bands, and librarians. Small-talking in line for the bar, I discovered I’m not the only one to find this combination delightfully absurd.
Last Thursday, the CT Authors Trail had its culminating event in the casino’s Cabaret Theater, just past the no-smoking slots, and while the highlight of the evening was listening to author Jane… Continue reading
Friends and Writers at the BBF
What most surprised me about the Brooklyn Book Festival was how big it was, and how many people were meandering around looking at books, reading on the steps, and filling up the chairs for the panels. At first, it was too much to take in, but once I had a map and saw where the Youth Stoop stage was, I had my landmark for the day.
Caragh M. O'Brien, Bill Willingham, Jewell Parker Rhodes, and moderator Susan Chang. Another World Panel, Youth Stoop, BBF.
I enjoyed being on the… Continue reading
True Confessions of a BBF Moderator
Since a couple of months ago, when my editor Nancy Mercado asked me to moderate a writers’ panel at the Brooklyn Book Festival, I’ve been reading works by Gayle Forman (If I Stay, Where She Went), Jacqueline Woodson (After Tupac and D Foster, Under a Meth Moon), and Cory Doctorow (Makers, For the Win, Contents) so I’d be ready to ask them a few questions. Gayle’s books made me think about if, without family, there’s a point to living, Jacqueline’s made me… Continue reading
#1 You May Not Read A Book You Dislike
He'll read if he can pick his own book and have time for it in class.
I instituted Independent Reading in all of my high school English classes for a half hour every Friday. The first semester, many of my students didn’t get it. They thought it was time to sleep, pass notes, text, doodle on the desks, do homework, do their hair, or meet in the library to socialize. My fellow teachers informed me they didn’t have such time to spare in their classrooms, so I… Continue reading
Revising, Again
I’ve written about revising before, so I’m not certain this adds much. I just want to say I love this stage. I’m in draft 6 of Promised (Book 3 of the Birthmarked trilogy), and now that I’m more and more convinced I have all the scenes I need and that they’re in the right places, I can finally work at the level where I’m questioning each word. It’s a little like working on a very long poem.
Promised, Draft 6
So much of character emerges here in… Continue reading