Talking Dystopias with Eighth Graders
I had a great visit with 38 Eighth Graders at the Annie Fisher STEM Magnet School in Hartford this winter. The students, in a unit on dystopian societies, had a choice of reading Birthmarked, The Hunger Games, or The Giver, and we tackled student questions like, “Do you think our society is becoming more dystopian, or less?” (More, was the consensus, but we have no shortage of hope for the future.)
Each student wrote his or her name on… Continue reading
A Smashing Opening of a Favorite Bookstore: The UConn Co-op
Book lovers flocked to the Grand Opening of the UConn Co-op Bookstore at Storrs Center, CT, this weekend. The ribbon-cutting event jointly celebrated the opening of the Bookstore, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, and Le Petit Marché Café, which share the contiguous space. More people came than were expected Saturday afternoon, March 1st, and the celebration was super fun.
Ballard Puppets and Art Spiegelman, Coming Soon
*Spiegelman’s lecture has been postponed to Monday, March 24, 2014.
Two upcoming events I’m excited about are the opening of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at Storrs Center this Saturday, March 1st and Art Spiegelman’s talk “What the %@&*! Happened to Comics?” at the Jorgensen Monday, March 24th. Both events are free and open to the public, and I can’t wait.
Naturally, I’m a little scared of traditional puppets, but I love how weird… Continue reading
Draft 13 and the Crunch Schedule
Since my first editor originally told me that the manuscript for my new novel was due to go to copyedits last October, and my second editor told me in early November not to worry about deadlines and take my time rewriting the last act of the novel, (about 130 pages), I assumed that my book had been bumped a season to 2015. Season bumps have happened to me before, so I didn’t think much about it.
Then, in mid-January, when I… Continue reading
Playing and Puzzling in 1st Person
A lot of current YA lit is written in 1st person and present tense for good reason. Immediacy is created when we’re living the story minute-by-minute, straight through the thought process of a teen protagonist. Best of all, knowing how she thinks helps us readers to know her well. When we can experience her fears, humor, and loneliness right along with her, it’s easy to sympathize with her.… Continue reading
Progress
If you’ve driven on a road trip, you know the calculation of time into mileage. A minute equals a mile. An hour on the freeway will take you sixty miles, and a day will take you four hundred miles or more. It’s a fair exchange of time for distance. That’s progress.
For writing a novel, I wish I could say that time transformed into pages, and pages added up to chapters, and enough chapters made a book. It doesn’t feel that way to me, though,… Continue reading