The Lolita Pippi: A Bridge Too Far

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November 14, 2007

4:22 pm

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On Writing, Random Notes and Errata


We kvetched earlier this year about Paddington being commercialized and other characters being cheapened by overexposure, but this one takes the cake.

According to Der Spiegel, the Pippi Longstocking character, once the possession of Astrid Lindgren, her creator who published her first adventure in 1945, has been commercialized to the extent that her heirs are in a constant court wrangle. From costumes to CD’s to skin creams, the worst of the offenders is an Italian company which is reproducing the doll for this holiday season — with a womanly figure and see-through panties.

Ugh.

Astrid Lindgren, who died in 2002, would have been 100 today.

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Tidbits

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November 14, 2007

2:26 pm

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On Writing, Random Notes and Errata

Wanna see something cool? The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) have come up with the world’s first high-definition image taking of an Earth-rise* by the lunar explorer “KAGUYA” (SELENE). You can’t see Earth-rise from the moon, because if you’re standing on it (or hovering nearby), the Earth always seems to be in the same place. If you’re a satellite orbiting the moon, though, you get a different view. Anyway — click to see the Earth rise and set (It’s not a quick lunar vehicle, though, so be prepared for that), and get ready to see the Earth as a beautifully shining marble hanging in black space. The Earth-set is even better.

Has anyone ever heard of the Alex Rider Snakehead series, by Anthony Horowitz? The author is bitterly disappointed the film version hasn’t jumped the pond to the U.S. — but I’m still in the dark, having never heard of it at all…

Meanwhile, the UK is seriously into Harry Potter. A school in Nottingham has actually divided its students into four houses… and the children put on hats and use wands during math. Whatever else you may want to say about themed education, this seems to be working – they’re in the top 25% of all the schools in their district, when only a little while ago, they were in the bottom 25%…

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Romance and Rebecca

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November 13, 2007

8:23 pm

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On Writing, Random Notes and Errata

Galleycat reports that Harlequin Books is giving away short stories online. This made me wonder if the field isn’t a little broader now for writers who want to dabble in romance — by way of short stories — and yes, it is. The company reports that from September to December, they are publishing more than thirty new-to-the-company authors, many of them first-time-ever authors as well. Check out the opportunities — there are a few for romances intended for teens as well.

Speaking of younger readers, Mitali’s got the goods on a contest for young writers. The deadline is the 23rd of this month — check it out!

e. lockhart, one of our favorite writers, reveals that she’s working on two more Ruby novels (!!!!), but to tide you over until they’re published, here’s an excerpt from THE DISREPUTABLE HISTORY OF FRANKIE LANDAU-BANKS, which will be in stores in March of next year. I love the cover! I’ve always wanted a signet ring to seal my letters with red wax, and for a novel set in modern times, this is pretty original. And the excerpt is delicious…

Those who aren’t neck deep in National Novel Writing Month — and I’m not, I’m neck deep in editing, which is where I spend most of my life — might be interested in the Great Rebecca Read going on at Bookshelves of Doom. Instead of writing a novel this month, they’re reading one, and though I’m not participating there either, because I’ve already read the book, I’m having fun with the reactions of first-time readers to this strange and strangely compelling gothic tale. Good fun for crisp windy nights!

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Rise Up Reading

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November 13, 2007

12:54 pm

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Comix, Happenings, On Writing, Random Notes and Errata



Rise Up to your Challenges
Rise Up to your Imagination
Rise Up to your Dreams
Rise Up Reading!

Isn’t this a great call to action? Props to Little Willow for sending out the word.

There’s a lot going on in children’s books — including a heads up on the the sequel to Gideon, the Cutpurse, and NPR’s lovely, lovely, LOVELY sci-fi/fantasy recommendations — one of which is the intriguingly titled, Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians, and the Megan Whalen Turner book, The Thief, which is the sequel to The King of Attolia. (EDIT: Yes, it was wistful thinking on my part that switched those two around!) They even include first chapters to whet your appetite! Maybe someone will nominate these novels for the Cybils Awards. (If you haven’t nominated your book selection yet… WHY NOT!?)

I’d like to see a list of what people WISH they had a vote leftover to nominate. Admittedly, I’m still wavering in the poetry section…

Marvel Comics is putting up some of their older strips online. You can’t download them, but you can read the older X-men and Spiderman comics. This is in the hopes that those who are only familiar with the characters from the movies will know that the stories go on.

I recall being horrified last week to post about library books being filled with direct marketing ads. Via Bookshelves O’ Doom, we now know that you can also get ads from the TV while you’re SHOPPING for BOOKS. Because God knows you can’t last a second without some external input on what you should want or need. Good grief.

And more about ads: I’ve been following an interesting conversation at at Ypulse about the commercialization of YA novels. Brand placement is pretty common, and to some people, harmless. I am – in theory, at least – totally against that — not only does it date books, it makes the writer a shill for all manner of products and I can’t stress enough that I think most young adults have enough in their faces with their own peers sort of hinting at what they need to be cool, much less do they need it from adults who are bringing them stories. Anastasia asks, “Is literature more sacred than TV, music, movie or internet content?” What do you YA and children’s lit people think? Drop in, and let the conversation continue.

The fabulously informative blog, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast can now celebrate THIRTY DAYS OF SNOW! I am finding it very hard to believe that the time has flown, and there are just six days until the first auction begins on November 19th. ONE WEEK!!! Have you sent out that email yet? The one that’s to your mother, your writing group, the people who forward you jokes? Have you let them know? It didn’t click with me until recently that yes — THOSE are the people we’re meant to be telling about this. Not just the people who make the rounds on the web: duh, unless we’ve been seriously living under concrete, we all know what’s going on. But people who don’t visit our websites in the actual world need a heads up!!

And those of you who have blogged this and shared this and highlighted this and watched it unfold: we made a difference. We did. Just wait and see. The Jimmy Fund at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute will collect more money this year for cancer research than EVER before. From our mouths to God’s ear… Anyway, you havetohavetohaveto go over to the 7-Imps today and look at the little piece on Yuyi Morales’ snowflake – people, it has a music box. I don’t know why, music boxes make me a little weepy… not only is this snowflake an amazing character from the depths of Yuyi’s amazing imagination, it lights up and plays a song called See Me Shine. *sniff* You know you have to love that, right?

Don’t miss the gorgeous cut-paper art of Cecily Lang at K. Messner’s blog, though my admitted favorite for today is Cynthia Decker’s hosted at The Silver Lining. Peace on Earth, indeed! A beautiful new snowflake and the rest of today’s schedule is at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

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In Flanders Fields

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November 12, 2007

12:31 pm

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Musings on Extemporanea

“In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.” – Jose Narosky

Today is the day we observe Veterans Day, and I’m finding that in the UK, it’s a much more serious business. It was bizarre to see a piece on it on CBeebies — it was actually pretty ghastly, because they apparently interviewed two little boys whose father had died. Recently. I don’t know for sure, I had the sound off, but the red-rimmed eyes of eight and ten year olds aren’t something you expect on kid’s TV. These people are hardcore with the reality thing. I’m not sure if I should say “well done,” or “Stop, you idiots.” Probably, “Well done…”

At the Presby church this past week, and all around town since the beginning of this month, I’ve seen people wearing it. The poppy. It’s not something seen back home. Ironic, since it seems that the U.S. is the one that starts all the wars, and Scotland’s only been in ONE in the last forty years… and it was a just war, as far as that goes, where everyone needs to dogpile on a crazy man to stop him killing off people he doesn’t like. It wasn’t to do with oil, in other words.

Poppies.

Since they’re fake — and red, and to me poppies are the California type that are orange — I didn’t get the whole flower thing for a little while, but it quickly came back to me.. We started to memorize that dreadful McCrae poem in school, (In Flanders fields the poppies blow, between the gravestones crosses, row on row) – right before we memorized Carl Sanburg’s Grass. All of this put me in mind of when we went to Louisiana. Driving down the I-10, seeing all those bizarrely placed graves, just… coffins sitting on the ground covered by moss, essentially. And I realized. We stop. The Civil War stopped. Slaves rest bloodless in their graves. Grass, mold, weeds, poppies… go on.

It’s weird, being so disconnected here in the UK, but I can hardly stand to see a newspaper. The world seems to be drowning in the “blood dimm’d tide,” and as the center slips, I find that I cannot watch. But I find that I can no more look away…

Sometimes. What we are striving so bravely to bring forth into this world seems quite pointless. And then I wonder if pacifism is merely a guise for apathy…

The Narosky quote really resonated with me. I don’t think any of us are unwounded anymore.

Poetry Friday: Blunted Pleasures

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November 10, 2007

2:03 pm

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Part and Poetry

“The Necessary Brevity of Pleasures” by Samuel Hazo, from A Flight to Elsewhere. © Autumn House Press, 2005.

The Necessary Brevity of Pleasures

Prolonged, they slacken into pain

or sadness in accordance with the law

of apples.

One apple satisfies.

Two apples cloy.

Three apples

glut.

Call it a tug-of-war between enough and more

than enough, between sufficiency

and greed, between the stay-at-homers

and globe-trotting see-the-worlders.

Like lovers seeking heaven in excess,

the hopelessly insatiable forget

how passion sharpens appetites

that gross indulgence numbs.

Result?

The haves have not

what all the have-nots have

since much of having is the need

to have.

Even my dog

knows that – and more than that.

He slumbers in a moon of sunlight,

scratches his twitches and itches

in measure, savors every bite

of grub with equal gratitude

and stays determinedly in place

unless what’s suddenly exciting

happens.

Viewing mere change

as threatening, he relishes a few

undoubtable and proven pleasures

to enjoy each day in sequence

and with canine moderation.

They’re there for him in waiting,

and he never wears them out.

Only one kind of scale is beautiful, and it’s the kind you don’t step on. I wonder if anyone can really live with moderation that closely, never having to worry about the ‘slackening’ into excess. If one only ate or drank what one really wanted, would one, in fact, be immune to the desire to overdo? Somehow, that doesn’t fit into human nature that I’ve observed. BUT. It is true that absence sharpens appetite, for sure. Robin puts up with her occasional cravings for the ‘C’ food group — Cheese, Chips and Chocolate — but she’s almost five inches taller than the average woman. Short women must find their appetites elsewhere… hm. Definitely a point to ponder.

I especially like how the snake seems to shimmer in the stanza next to the apples. I imagine Lucifer was even more beautiful… which seems unfair. I love apples and snakes. I was doomed from the start.

Snow Flurries & Winter Blasts…

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November 9, 2007

3:08 pm

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Happenings, On Writing


Oh! A Lady Jane sighting! at Shaken & Stirred! She, together with her son, Adam Stemple, talk about their collaborations. I’m always intrigued by how relatives work together — a mother and son project, and no one goes away mad? Amazing! Also, don’t miss the really cool Alan Gratz @ Interactive Reader — I’m not sure who’s cooler, there – interviewed or interviewer! Lisa Yee’s sparkling personality is the subject at Hip Writer Mama’s blog — oh, and her books as well. Find the whole schedule at Chasing Ray, and if you’ve missed a day, don’t worry, she’s collecting the posts for the entire week.

Meanwhile, at Robert’s Snow Central, the flakes are still falling thick and fast. Don’t miss the gorgeous work of Susan Kathleen Hartung at Wild Rose Reader, or the beautifully clean lines of Annette Simon’s flake @ Check It Out. Past snowdays can be recaptured here.

Brr! Happy Weekend! Stay Warm!

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Poetry Friday: The Story We Know

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November 9, 2007

2:41 pm

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On Writing, Poetry Friday

The Story We Know

The way to begin is always the same. Hello,
Hello. Your hand, your name. So glad, just fine,
and Good bye at the end. That’s every story we know,

and why pretend? But lunch tomorrow? No?
Yes? An omelette, salad, chilled white wine?
The way to begin is simple, sane, Hello,

and then it’s Sunday, coffee, the Times, a slow
day by the fire, dinner at eight or nine
and Good bye. In the end, this is a story we know

so well we don’t turn the page, or look below
the picture, or follow the words to the next line:
The way to begin is always the same Hello.

But one night, through the latticed window, snow
begins to whiten the air, and the tall white pine.
Good bye is the end of every story we know

that night, and when we close the curtains, oh,
we hold each other against that cold white sign
of the way we all begin and end. Hello,
Good bye is the only story. We know, we know.

– Martha Collins, from The Catastrophe of Rainbows (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1985; reissued 1998)


This is another poem I copied down in high school journal, next to the last stanza of Robert Frost’s Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening. More melancholy verses — today to be shared with the cyberworld and beyond — at a wrung sponge.

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Complaints and Exclamations

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November 8, 2007

1:26 pm

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Happenings, On Writing

Since SOMEBODY just left for EIGHT DAYS IN ITALY, those of us left behind — okay, left at HOME, since the UK is not really behind in this case — have to comfort ourselves listening to the Helsinki Complaints Choir — quite possibly the funniest — and saddest — melodic whining I have ever heard. “It’s not fair!” indeed.

Cancer: also not fair. The talent of the artists doing the flakes for Robert’s Snow: WAY more than fair. Their generosity is the only thing that outshines that. Don’t miss the peep show of the beauties on the auction block — especially the one illustrated by Linda Graves, who is also illustrating a new fairytale from Our Jane. Check with the grrrlz at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast for today’s schedule, and a recap of the last splendid twenty-five days of art.


Don’t miss more of the amazingly deep and genuine responses of Sherman Alexie over at Interactive Reader. We are still so honored and humbled that he allowed us an interview. He’s so cool. (Okay, enough with the Fangirl thing.) Further awesomeness to be found at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy with the amazing Ellen Emmerson White. I shrieked, “HARPER LEE!?!?” a little while ago reading the interview at Hip Writer Mama – Kerry Madden, you lucky, lucky woman. Full schedule’s at Chasing Ray

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