{fiction, instead of lies}

Email from Secret Agent Man (S.A.M.) this morning reminding me of the days he will be in glorious Italia for the La Fiera (Bologna) del Libro per Ragazzi, also known, to the plebes, as The Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Aside from gnashing my teeth that I can’t go extravaganza of all things children’s book-ish and finely Italian, this announcement has given me the final dates for getting my stuff together so he can have time for leisurely reading before jetting off to rounds of sand, sun, endless wine tasting and poolside chitchat with the hoi polloi.
Oh, did that sound catty? Sorry. Before he goes off to sip wine over business dinners whilst making serious agent-y decisions with the leaders of the children’s book World Market. Better?
Sigh. I am SO jealous.
Not that I really want to go to that particular Fair, but I just want to be on vacation. Somewhere…

But no. Long awaited notice from my editor this morning ~ my days of gallivanting and pretending I don’t have a major revision facing me are soon to be gone, long gone. Siiiiiiiigh. But it’s a happy sigh, kids. A happy sigh. One that envisions me chained to my chair, weeping. With joy, of course.

More signs from the universe that I should really buckle down: The Class of 2k8 is preparing for liftoff, and my editor told me that I should consider getting on board. Two of the original Class of 2k7, whose books were delayed, are heading up the fight, and encourage everyone to pass the word to other middle grade and YA authors being published next year. Because I feel like I already have a blog… pod, or group of friends, I’m not sure I need to blog one more place, but I’m happy to advertise for it and check it out, and I encourage others who are having a book published in 2008 (squeal!) to join the fun. It will be an important year in so many ways! Presidents and Olympics and books, oh my!

Far from being the B-List Blogger (with props to MotherReader) that I should strive to be, this week, I’m… er, a Q-list blogger. I am reading blogs, but not so much commenting, as I am supposed to be WORKING, and I’m sure my agent is wondering how I’m even finding the time to gab now, so I must needs avant…

Email from Secret Agent Man (S.A.M.) this morning reminding me of the days he will be in glorious Italia for the La Fiera (Bologna) del Libro per Ragazzi, also known, to the plebes, as The Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Aside from gnashing my teeth that I can’t go extravaganza of all things children’s book-ish and finely Italian, this announcement has given me the final dates for getting my stuff together so he can have time for leisurely reading before jetting off to rounds of sand, sun, endless wine tasting and poolside chitchat with the hoi polloi.
Oh, did that sound catty? Sorry. Before he goes off to sip wine over business dinners whilst making serious agent-y decisions with the leaders of the children’s book World Market. Better?
Sigh. I am SO jealous.
Not that I really want to go to that particular Fair, but I just want to be on vacation. Somewhere…

But no. Long awaited notice from my editor this morning ~ my days of gallivanting and pretending I don’t have a major revision facing me are soon to be gone, long gone. Siiiiiiiigh. But it’s a happy sigh, kids. A happy sigh. One that envisions me chained to my chair, weeping. With joy, of course.

More signs from the universe that I should really buckle down: The Class of 2k8 is preparing for liftoff, and my editor told me that I should consider getting on board. Two of the original Class of 2k7, whose books were delayed, are heading up the fight, and encourage everyone to pass the word to other middle grade and YA authors being published next year. Because I feel like I already have a blog… pod, or group of friends, I’m not sure I need to blog one more place, but I’m happy to advertise for it and check it out, and I encourage others who are having a book published in 2008 (squeal!) to join the fun. It will be an important year in so many ways! Presidents and Olympics and books, oh my!

Far from being the B-List Blogger (with props to MotherReader) that I should strive to be, this week, I’m… er, a Q-list blogger. I am reading blogs, but not so much commenting, as I am supposed to be WORKING, and I’m sure my agent is wondering how I’m even finding the time to gab now, so I must needs avant…

Just a quick fly-by to say:

First — you MUST check out the Canadian Library Awards for this year. You’ll know my favorite title when you see it. (ViaBookshelves of Doom.)
Second — head on over to the Cybils page for a great interview with Laura Amy Schlitz, author of the very funny and sad A Drowned Maiden’s Hair.

…and finally, here’s a new thought: what if writers wrote books, got movie rights, and then took in some of the loot from the FILM as their pay? Via Bookshelves of Doom, a really interesting discussion of rights and privileges of our own creative work. Phillip Pullman’s recent giveaway, and a recent discussion of other sci-fi authors‘ successes and failures in dealing with movie rights make this a timely discussion. Those authors who buck the trend have to be really big in order to make this work (trust me — agents and publishers are NOT interested in hearing about what rights you’d like to keep on your first book. TRUST me). Cheers to them for breaking ground for the rest of us.

…and now, to work.

I’ve had lots of YA Writing thoughts flood my mind this weekend, so please excuse the scattershot nature of this post…

Cheerios and Eric Carle have teamed up to create a fun interactive activity that helps get copies of picture books out to small children from families in need. Of course, these are properly good Carle books… not any of these… (via BookBlog.)

I always like finding out more details about the people in the blogosphere, and this week, it’s Chicken Spaghetti’s turn in the 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast interview chair. There are so many people who a.) blog more than I do, b.) really KNOW more than I do about the kidlit world — I’m always so impressed by them, and by their interviewers, too.

Kelly over at Big A, little a has a good discussion going on regarding gender bias in picture books. Interestingly enough, this weekend I was browsing Sheroes, and came across that same statistic, that “80% of children’s’ books published today feature male heroes.” While they leave no hint of where they get their facts, I got to wondering about the truth of gender bias in middle grade/YA books, and while I did not find a particular study that related to ‘children’s books’ and not picture books, I did find a1994 study of children’s chapter books which depicted female characters as ill 80.8% of the time as opposed to 18% of the time with male characters… underscoring that our culture considers women’s bodies somehow… frail and apt to break down easily, even now, outside of the Victorian Age. AND, from a study of G-rated kid-friendly movies that took place between 1990 and 2005, come more statistics: In G-rated family films, there are:

Three male characters for every female.

Less than one in five (17 percent) of the characters in crowd scenes are female.
More than four out of five (83 percent) of films’ narrators are male.
…And don’t let’s start on the ethnic deficits. One outrage at a time, I think.

I always notice at SCBWI and other writing conferences aimed at those who teach, write and promote children’s books, it’s always skewed so that there are more women than men. So… what’s up with THAT?! Why are girls and women not even depicted as the wallpaper, the crowd scenery… in family movies and in children’s books… how odd that women and minorities rarely exist. It’s very strange… People have said that movie-goers and readers pay for what they want to see. I guess one could say that’s true. But still…

Full Cast Audio, Bruce Coville’s company that produces “unabridged recordings of fine children’s novels using a full cast rather than a single reader,” has announced a new, “straight-to-audio” book by Tamora Pierce (speaking of Sheroes!), which is 3/4 of the way written, and will be released this summer. I haven’t yet heard any of FCA’s productions, but I’m looking forward to it!

In their spare time, poets are… whatever else they need to be. William Carlos Williams was a medical doctor, and now an unpublished poem he wrote for a patient is uncovered. Who knew!?

I suppose I also should have already known this: that a task force of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) is reexamining the eligibility requirements for the nation’s top awards in children’s literature and illustration, as well as other children’s book awards — including the Newbery and the Caldecott. In the beginning, these awards were intended to push American authors into writing and illustration; apparently these goals may have been met, so the time to rethink their scope has come. Hm. Does that mean that JK Rowling, who has won everything else, will now win a Newbery?

Awhile back, PW ran a piece about whether or not authors who blog are wasting their time — as in, does blogging have any kind of payback. Hm. Don’t quote me, ’cause once you get into your editorial houses’ PR policies, you never know what you may end up doing, but I can’t see writing novel blogs AND writing-about-writing-novels blogs. I just don’t want to hear my voice that much, and the whole thing seems to be a vicious cycle in maintaining publicity, etc. I see authors with blogs on Amazon, and I cringe for them… not that there’s anything wrong with author-blogging, but Amazon can certainly bite back (as many authors know), and I really do think that writing is hard enough without inviting the criticism of strangers… on the other hand, what else is blogging?

On the invisible third hand, I do identify when I’m using blogging to completely avoid any real work, so this is it for me for now.

Cheers… have a lovely Monday, if at all possible.

ps – Okay, one last work avoidance — THANK YOU Disco Mermaids for today’s best laugh yet.

Friday’s paper carried the news: Disney will now (now being 2009, but we’re supposed to get all buzzed about it now) unveil its first African American princess. Maddy, living in the “fading glamor” of New Orleans (Hm. So Katrina just “faded” the “glamor?” Not decimated the population and destroyed most of the city? Oh. Okay.) will be swept up into Disney Magic! And, according to reports, the film will feature “love, enchantment and discovery with a soulful singing crocodile, voodoo spells and Cajun charm.” This newest princess will detail the tale of The Frog Prince.

Alrighty.

I’m ignoring the “soulful” singing crocodile and the freakin voodoo spells, okay? Let’s just not … even… start, all right? However, despite myself, I will give the Mighty Mouse credit for supporting New Orleans financially, by holding their annual shareholder’s meeting there, and setting their animation in that city. My curiosity is, which version of this odd Germanic tale will they use?

Fairytales always are a subject of intense interest to me. Gender and sex roles, cultural mores and more are communicated in a way that seem inherently normalized by the idea that this is a story that “everybody” knows. The ‘Once Upon A Time’ wraps up the parameters of a world, and years from now will tell others about our civilization… thus I’m also very interested in the choice of ” slimy, unwanted suitor being forced upon foolish girl by her father”… as a tale intended for girls to identify with and relate to… especially one for their first African American “Disney princess…”

Hmmm. Interesting!

…Friday. Only it isn’t yet. Only, I went to the chiropractor a day early for my appointment, thinking that yesterday was Thursday, and my chiropopper, blissful Zenny fem that she is, just blithely saw me, leaving me to wake up this morning completely bewildered that it wasn’t yet Friday… Siiiiigh… Can’t tell if this makes me Sleepy or just Dopey…

In my thoroughly half-awake state, I forgot to tell you about some great T-shirts MotherReader has going on that all the smart set will be wearing at conferences this year. I’m SO calling dibs on this one. And isn’t it cool how LittleReader is growing up just like Mom? Awww.

Thanks to Chicken Spaghetti for the heads up on the PEN’s Children’s/Young Adult Book Authors Committee discussion on censorship. I read the three essays by the painfully realistic YA author Robert Lipsyte, thoughtful children’s poet and novelist Mary Anne Hoberman and the super creative middle grade author Elizabeth Levy for some prose on writing, censorship, self-censorship, and where to draw the line as gatekeepers of Children’s/YA authors. Elizabeth Levy’s statement, “my greatest fear, far scarier than vampires, is the one that I somehow haven’t been honest,” is reverberating in my head, the pen battling the sword… and will probably provide blog fodder for another day.
Meanwhile, if you’ve never visited kidSpeak, where censorship issues are talked about by kids… you’ve got to. It will make you feel like the world just might be all right, because young people are learning to stand up for their First Amendment rights. Huzzah!

Fun with linguistics… okay, maybe I’m the only one who winces when she hears people say ‘exspresso’… when it’s pronounced and spelled ‘espresso’… (I may also be the only one who thinks linguistics are fun…) Here are more entertaining common errors in English usage.

Have a good weekend… starting… tomorrow.
Sigh

…Friday. Only it isn’t yet. Only, I went to the chiropractor a day early for my appointment, thinking that yesterday was Thursday, and my chiropopper, blissful Zenny fem that she is, just blithely saw me, leaving me to wake up this morning completely bewildered that it wasn’t yet Friday… Siiiiigh… Can’t tell if this makes me Sleepy or just Dopey…

In my thoroughly half-awake state, I forgot to tell you about some great T-shirts MotherReader has going on that all the smart set will be wearing at conferences this year. I’m SO calling dibs on this one. And isn’t it cool how LittleReader is growing up just like Mom? Awww.

Thanks to Chicken Spaghetti for the heads up on the PEN’s Children’s/Young Adult Book Authors Committee discussion on censorship. I read the three essays by the painfully realistic YA author Robert Lipsyte, thoughtful children’s poet and novelist Mary Anne Hoberman and the super creative middle grade author Elizabeth Levy for some prose on writing, censorship, self-censorship, and where to draw the line as gatekeepers of Children’s/YA authors. Elizabeth Levy’s statement, “my greatest fear, far scarier than vampires, is the one that I somehow haven’t been honest,” is reverberating in my head, the pen battling the sword… and will probably provide blog fodder for another day.
Meanwhile, if you’ve never visited kidSpeak, where censorship issues are talked about by kids… you’ve got to. It will make you feel like the world just might be all right, because young people are learning to stand up for their First Amendment rights. Huzzah!

Fun with linguistics… okay, maybe I’m the only one who winces when she hears people say ‘exspresso’… when it’s pronounced and spelled ‘espresso’… (I may also be the only one who thinks linguistics are fun…) Here are more entertaining common errors in English usage.

Have a good weekend… starting… tomorrow.
Sigh

Writers want to be recognized and known, and somehow we seem to relate being recognized with being published when in reality, writers write. Just reading your work aloud to a group of friends in a coffee shop is giving it wings and life. Sharing our work is vital to our creativity in many cases… but we have been born and bread (or bred n’ buttered, as Rae says in Winter’s Bone – a fabulous book with a sixteen year old protagonist that should in no way be confused with YA fiction, I find out after reading) into a life of capitalism… very few of us feel successful just writing and being heard in smaller circles, and it’s really too bad, since the fact is that publishing is… well, really a crapshoot sometimes. There must be a way to take pride and joy in the smaller things, and consider that success, but I just don’t know yet what that is…

(Of course, I say all of this in the wake of my second novel being passed on by three houses thus far. Note I am reminding myself of these things, not preaching to you.)

This is why Phillip Pullman’s sharing his work– free of charge — with an independent Dutch film company that makes educational films is such a great thing. Most writers seem to be so happy to get paid that it’s beyond their ability to think of doing something for free. Free seems to be equated with anonymous and being put-upon… Of course, Mr. Pullman just sold the His Dark Materials works to New Line Cinema, so maybe he’s feeling flush… but rich or poor, I thought this was a neat thing to do.

… one can only hope to be as magnanimous in that someday of fame.

Still unhappily imagining the angst of the people in Jackson County, Oregon. I misspoke the other day when I mentioned Jackson County as being a rural town. Um, no. Folks, this is where the Shakespeare Festival is held, yearly. Now I am just bewildered… Politics, shmolitics — I loved our Bookmobile, but there’s nothing like having a library. This really is too bad.

I’ve just swung back by ReaderGirlz, and man, this site for gutsy young women who read — it’s just getting cooler and cooler. A Trés Cool Truth: my Cybil Sister Little Willow designed the ReaderGirlz website!! (Can I tell you that I just can’t wait to become famous so LW can do one for me!) Take a listen to the soundtrack that goes with the reading for this month: girls who believe in Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies) will relate to the fabulously positive lyrics. (Natasha Bedingfield’s Unwritten is today’s anthem — Today is where your book begins – the rest is still unwritten…) If you have not yet read this book, please, rectify this deficit in your life. Ditto if you haven’t yet seen this site!

I’m proud that this whole thing launched the first of March (on my birthday, because it really is all about ME!) in celebration of Women’s History Month and strong young women in the world of fiction and beyond. Like Cybil Sister Jen’s Cool Girls in KidLit list, I have a feeling that book salon is going to create an positive and unprecedented response! Go ReaderGirlz!!

And speaking of Jen – do check out her recent podcast interview at Kim & Jason’s Escape Adulthood blog. I got advance notice that it would be about Jen from the very cool Jason Himself, and so go enjoy – and be sure to list your favorite children’s book! — just for the fun of it, but you might also win a $20 gift certificate to their very fun Lemonade Stand just for answering the question!