Month: April 2009

If you’ve been following the Body Image Week at My Favorite Author and other sites, you know that people are trying to be real about themselves and to honor and love what they see and who they are. Well, introverts do “real” really well inside of their heads, but I just want to say that I’ve been inspired by the posts I’ve been reading — doubly inspired, since Miss Rumphius interviewed Marilyn Nelson for her Poetry Makers series, and shared a portion of the poem, Not My Bones from The Manumission Requiem. I will send you over to the interview to read the rest of Ms. Nelson’s poem excerpts — (oh, just go. I’ll be here when you get back), but the transcendent beauty of this particular poem about an African slave’s bones really resonated with me about my living body. Miss R. and I briefly considered having part of this long poem tattooed somewhere, but I think we’re settling on having bracelets made, or something (YES! We are WIMPS!) — Anyway, let me share a favorite snippet:

.
.
You can own a man’s body,
but you can’t own his mind.
That’s like making a bridle
to ride on the wind.
I will tell you one thing, and I’ll tell you true:
Life’s the best thing that can happen to you.
But your not your body,
you are not your body.

You can own someone’s body,
but the soul runs free.
It roams the night sky’s
mute geometry.
You can murder hope, you can pound faith flat,
but like weeds and wildflowers, they grow right back.
For you are not your body,
you are not your body.
.
.
…from Fortune’s Bones: The Manumission Requiem, by Marilyn Nelson, ©2004, All rights reserved.

You are not your body, thank God. But you can love, honor, respect and rock the bod you’ve got. Love, as Sara Zarr reminded us, isn’t a feeling: it’s an action, a series of actions, a decision. Decide to love you – inside and out.

That is all.

If you, like me, only discovered Marilyn Nelson through the reverberations that ran through the young adult literary world after A Wreath for Emmett Till, pick up a few of her books – you’ll be inspired, knocked down, and blown away. Thanks to Miss R. for her awesome Poetry Makers interviews, and to the Body Image Week bloggeristas.

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O, Life is a Glorious Cycle of Song

A Medley of Extemporanea;

And Love is a Thing which can Never Go Wrong,

And I am Marie of Rumania.

-Dorothy Parker, from Not So Deep as a Well (1937)

Hey, hope you had a great weekend!

I enjoy the Library of Congress’ Flickr page very much; every once in awhile they add a few new photographs from their extensive archives, and I wade back into history. If you’re in need of a few photographic prompts to get your writing, do click the picture and wander through their collection, which is organized by decades and other helpful tags.

What a great weekend for YA speculative fiction! First, the Nebula Award was won by a YA novel, and then, The Andre Norton Award, which specifically is for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, went to Flora’s Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room), by Ysabeau Wilce. Go, Ursula LeGuin! Ysabeau! Whoo!

I’ve been invited on a scavenger hunt as a guest of Kay Cassidy, whose 2010 debut YA series, The Cinderella Society sounds like a wonderful — and mysterious — combination of some fabulous help from the people on What Not to Wear and an unusual secret society. Can’t wait to read that! To keep herself busy until her book comes out, Kay has organized a way for authors to keep librarians and libraries — the root of support for authors — in the loop with a really nifty Scavenger Hunt. And though it’s really cool and fun, what brightens me up is Kay’s idea to Spread Some Cheer. If you’re down in the dumps, read what authors say about their favorite librarians, teachers and booksellers. We’re grateful to the awesome people who put our books into the hands of readers, and I’m so glad to be a part of paying it forward.

NOW TAKING ORDERS: If you love unique short fiction, you’ll want to read TBR Tallboy Magazine, edited by Leila Roy. Order your copy now! (Full disclosure: a story of mine is in there! But there’s tons of other good stuff. I swear.)

The Body Image Tour Continues. Please especially read Sara Zarr’s post from this past weekend. And don’t forget that today is Laurie Halse Anderson’s day to rock the house.

Don’t forget to wander past Small Fictions some time this week.

“I opened a Twitter account and tried to think of something interesting to do with it, some experiment. The 140 characters-or-less limit for each tweet was challenging and interesting and one morning I decided to begin channeling a character there. I knew his name, that he was in trouble— and nothing else. I am not plotting the story. I have no idea what happens next or how it will end. Or when. I am letting Russet tell me what is happening, every morning, and it feels very immediate, like he is calling me on the phone and telling me what’s happened. He has just turned 18 and is trying to figure out his life—it isn’t easy, his life has been very complicated.”

Sick of hearing what people had for breakfast on Twitter? Try reading a novel. Kathleen Duey …OH, how I admire you. August is just around the corner which is when the sequel to Skin Hunger will be released; meanwhile, check out the intensely cryptic and dangerous world of Russet One-Wing. And a deep curtsy to The Enchanted Inkpot for an excellent interview and the exciting heads up.

Jen Robinson has clued me in on something else that’s really cool: Body Image Week. How hard is it for most of us to love the skin we’re in? Very. Double that if you’re a teen or an ethnic minority whose particular body type is out of style with the glossies. So, what are we doing here? Talking about it. Celebrating ourselves. There are quite a few YA books coming out that address this topic, so head on over TODAY, 23rd of April, to My Favorite Author to begin the discussion and the celebration. Here’s the schedule courtesy of My Favorite Author:

~ Schedule ~

Thursday, April 23rd
@ MyFavoriteAuthor: Aubrey from MFA blogs about JANE IN BLOOM by Deborah Lytton
@ In Bed With Books: Deborah Lytton guest posts

Friday, April 24th
@ MyFavoriteAuthor: SpeedReader from MFA blogs about PURGE by Sarah Darer Littman
@ MyFavoriteAuthor: Sarah Darer Littman Interview

Saturday, April 25th
@ MyFavoriteAuthor: Sara Zarr (author of SWEETHEARTS) guest posts
@ The Story Siren: Liviania from In Bed With Books guest posts
@ Presenting Lenore: Kristi from The Story Siren guest posts
@ In Bed With Books: Lenore from Presenting Lenore guest posts

Sunday, April 26th
@ MyFavoriteAuthor: SpeedReader from MFA blogs about SECRETS OF TRUTH AND BEAUTY by Megan Frazer
@ Presenting Lenore: Megan Frazer guest posts

Monday, April 27th
@ MyFavoriteAuthor: Body Image videos from Laurie Halse Anderson signing for WINTERGIRLS
@ The Story Siren: SpeedReader from MFA guest posts about WINTERGIRLS

Tuesday, April 28th
@ MyFavoriteAuthor: Sydney Salter guest posts
@ Presenting Lenore: PageTurner from MFA guest posts about MY BIG NOSE AND OTHER NATURAL DISASTERS by Sydney Salter

Wednesday, April 29th
@ MyFavoriteAuthor: Challenge Report
@ Presenting Lenore: Erin Dionne guest posts
@ In Bed With Books: SpeedReader of MFA blogs about MODELS DON’T EAT CHOCOLATE COOKIES by Erin Dionne

Thursday, April 30th
@ MyFavoriteAuthor: Body Image Week Wrap-Up & book giveaway winner(s) announced

(Need those links? They’re right here:

MyFavoriteAuthor (MFA)
The Story Siren (TSS)
Presenting Lenore (PL)
In Bed With Books (IBWB))

You know how sometimes when you’re in the middle of a good novel, and you have to do something else, you think about that novel? You’re racing through the grocery store and you’re muttering to yourself, “Where did I leave off? They were in the bus… and that dude was coming up to them, and Justin was getting all agitated. I wonder what’s going to happen next…?

It’s really cool when you’re the one writing the book.

Really, really, really, really cool, when it’s engaged you that much, and you’re hooked.

Incidentally, I don’t know what happens next. But Justin’s right to be slightly agitated, I think…

Monday, Monday. Means it’s a Small Fictions day, which I’m trying to do better at posting. Mondays are the toughest day to get back into writing, so polishing up a short story is the quickest way back into my weekly mind-set.

Hope you had a great weekend. It was an entertaining one here — the veterinary school at the University threw a “rodeo,” –which had more ferrets and dogs than horses, but what the heck — and we all got a chance to get out in the brief Spring sunshine. The sunshine was brief because it actually started getting sunny at around three in the afternoon, but boy, once it got going, we were shedding windbreakers and donning sunglasses like there was no tomorrow — and in Glasgow, the minute the sun shines, you do that, because there might not be any sun tomorrow!

Sadly, we missed the duck herding and we have no pictures of the ferret racing, but there were plenty of pony rides, sleek-muscled Clydesdales pulling a “taxi” filled with hay, birds of prey with their mad, beady little eyes, and a polo demonstration, all of which still seems odd fare for a rodeo, but this is Glasgow, so a rodeo is much more like a cross between a state fair and a 4-H event.

The little fellow above was in the reptile tent, along with a host of albino corn snakes, which made me homesick for my little fellow in California. These were just babies, and my snake Willful is almost five feet long, but it was nice to be around the loving little creatures again. (Don’t mock me. Snakes are very loving.)

Happy Monday! (Beware the mad cows!)

YOU GUYS! YOUGUYSYOUGUYSYOUGUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I JUST GOT MY FIRST STARRED REVIEW ON KIRKUS!!!!!!!!!!

*lies down, twitches, breathes*

AND: I got a chapter and a half written today!

Life is good. Thank God.

EDITED TO ADD: This will be published in the May 1 Kirkus Reviews, so it’s not online yet, and I don’t know the etiquette for talking about the review before its published, so I will leave you the final three words:

“Absolutely essential reading.”

It’s only taken me almost eight days, but I finally made it through the next wave of revisions… Sometimes one has to NAIL the B to the IC portion of the BIC scenario, but eventually, it DOES get done!

And now I’d like to lie down very quietly in warm cotton and let no one disturb me for weeks.

Hah. Like THAT’s going to happen.

Meanwhile, when I’ve not been writing, I’ve knit a couple of rows, and tried my hand at polishing up shells enough to make something out of them — this is an attempt at a pair of earrings, which went to a friend who helped collect them at the beach the other week. It’s harder than you’d think, making earrings out of shells. For one thing, there’s the whole “every one is different” thing that I hadn’t thought of… for another thing, they all spiral the same direction!

Hope you’re finding the pursuit of happiness satisfying this week. Cheers.

Busy, busy weekend! First, the president read some Sendak — which was really cute — and then Leila linked to the hilarious chicks who want The Hunger Games to win the School Library Journal Battle of the Books — they’re taking this VERY seriously!

However, I’ve got to admit — I don’t quite get the whole B.O.B. thing. I’m not a follower of book awards, to be frank. I never made a practice of reading Newbery Award winners, for instance, just because of the shiny silver (or is that the Printz? Is it a gold sticker?) sticker on the cover. I know lots of people who did do that, however; for them, the sticker meant quality and a good, easy way to find books. Probably the B.O.B. thing is sort of the same, only with music videos and lots of arguments (more fun, in other words!). It’s all pretty subjective, and it’s mostly all in good fun.

Last week, when I was emailed by librarian C. Carlson from Salem, VA (Hi, Ms. Carlson!) about the Mock Coretta Scott King Awards, I was reminded of one more aspect of the book award/group arguments thing. What’s this mock award stuff about? I recognize that it’s everyone’s guesses about who will win the awards, but …is that it? I mean, something with which to entertain yourselves until the actual awards arrive? Librarians? Want to clue me in?

I’m not much of an Easter lily kind of girl — actually, I loathe them, give me those lovely freckled Peruvian lilies any day of the week — but I don’t have any lilies on hand. Instead, today you get daffodils, which we have in spades. And clumps. And hedgerows, practically. Happy Easter.

Happy D.E.A.R. Day, which is to me still the very best holiday EVER. Did you hear –? Delacorte Press is going to release some posthumously published Vonnegut tales in November. Quel exciting, and a perfectly great excuse to Drop Everything and Read some Vonnegut! Or, if you’re in for a fabulous tale of a furry alien raised among humans and trying to understand the ways of his own people, try K.D. Wentworth’s Black on Black, it’s a riveting afternoon’s worth of reading.

So many books, so little time! Happy reading!