What does a writer do? (great sources on Twitter)

Photo:This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License LINK

I have been a storyteller since the beginning of my life, rearranging facts in order to make them more significant.

JOHN CHEEVER

Found this excellent quote via @AdviceToWriters on Twitter.  For the teacher librarian, as having a place full of written stuff (in print and digital form) and English teachers (who teach creative writing), there are some useful people to follow on Twitter for information/ideas/inspiration about writing.  Microblogging (such as Twitter) = short snapshots of information, quick to read and investigate and use or skip over, depending on what interests you.

Some other folk who tweet about writing:

@elizabethscraig: check her stream of tweets for all sorts of useful links about writing eg.:
Elizabeth S Craig @elizabethscraig
5 ways to avoid an info dump: http://bit.ly/kvLUMo #amwriting


SydneyWritersCentre @SydneyWriters
26/05/11 4:43 PM
10 ways to completely screw up your novel: http://bit.ly/lm5fi7  #amwriting

This is not the only writers' centre (in Australia or overseas) with a Twitter presence.  Some post more about their centre's events, but others include writing advice tweets to, that you can use in teaching English.  Hunt for them on Twitter, or by googling their sites and checking to see if they are on Twitter.

OZ SF+F Writers Assc @awritingjourney
26/05/11 4:19 PM
The ASFFWA Daily is out! http://bit.ly/fzVIKj  ▸ Top stories today via @bloomsburysyd @harpernz @bothersomewords @shearersbooks

The Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Assoc regularly tweets useful stuff.  This tweet is one about their "Daily".  Some folk on Twitter use a site such as paper.li to collate tweets from their twitter stream (ie. tweets from people they follow and are interested in) into a digital newspaper.  So if you follow the ASFFWA Daily link in this tweet, you are getting pre-sifted/curated content focused on topics that tweeter is interested in; so if you're interested in what they are, you're getting the benefit of their twitter stream.

And of course many authors are on Twitter: their Twitter streams can be extremely various: as varied indeed as the writers themselves.  Best idea is to follow ones that might interest you, and if you're not finding their tweets useful/engaging, then unfollow them.  Some writers will tweet everything from what they had for breakfast (that Twitter stereotype) to stuff about their writing process.  Some will be more focused on writing.  Stephen Fry's tweets (he's one of the most followed people on Twitter and tweets often) cover an extensive range of topics, daily life, thoughts, ideas.  You can't make a writer write what they want, in books or anywhere else; on Twitter, if you follow them, you have to accept that they write what they do.  Neil Gaiman @neilhimself has a lot of followers and tweets on a range of topics: he was one writer tweeting about the interrogation of teacher librarians in LA.

There are writers whose books I adore and whose blogs I find unreadable; and writers whose output, in whatever form, I generally find interesting.  Nowt as varied as folk.

But am I finding good information about writing via my education/professional/teaching Twitter stream that I can use with students and share with English teaching colleagues?  Yup.  You can, too.

(OK, I'll admit it: this blog entry about useful info on writing is in fact a sneak evangelical moment for the educational possibilities of Twitter).

Cheers

Ruth

@ruth_skerricks on Twitter
I'm also on Yammer, but will only be found there if you work for the same employer as I do, because that is how Yammer works.

Isaac Asimov on libraries: a space ship & a gateway

In 1971, an enterprising children's librarian in Troy, Michigan, wrote to dozens of important people to ask for a letter to the town's children, celebrating the opening of the new library.

Isaac Asimov was one of the 97 respondents.  Isn't this great?

You can read more about the Letters to the Children of Troy here, a few on Flickr here and there are pdfs of all the letters here.  Some names I know, like Edward Ardizzone and First Lady Pat Nixon, and others I don't, but it will be fun to take time to read them and see what they say about books and libraries and reading.  And then see how I can use these ideas forty years later for the library here.

Cheers

Ruth

PS.  This is the letter from Dr Seuss.  Both letters are from the Flickr set linked above.

Found this via Twitter.

12 life lessons you can learn from Jane Austen

How much fun is this???!!!

Find the whole slideshow here.  It's from Bill Deresiewicz at the Huffington Post.  Share it with your English teachers!

Cheers

Ruth

Margaret Atwood on the future of publishing

At the recent Tools of Change conference, author Margaret Atwood spoke on The Publishing Pie: an Author's View.  Agree?  Disagree?  Make up your own mind; you can watch her presentation on YouTube.






Here is the original link on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6iMBf6Ddjk

More of the conference proceedings, some with slideshows/video: click here.

Cheers

Ruth

Found via this blog, which consistently covers a whole lot of interesting links about ereaders, digital books and the future of publishing and books.

John Marsden writes about the film of Tomorrow When the War Began

I cut out the copy of this article from the Saturday SMH Spectrum section and pinned it up in the library for the students to peruse.  It's online here, with video too (and the picture above).  John Marsden on the film of Tomorrow When the War Began.  Much anticipated film.

It opens 2 September, next week.  I've blogged in other entries about the trailers etc.

Last week, one of the kids was THRILLED to find that there were books for this film.   Can't remember if I could find the first one for him; we have multiple copies, but there has been increasingly brisk John Marsden business in the last couple of months as the film gets closer.

The Blue Mountains west of Sydney NSW were used for some of the location filming - it will be fun to see if the kids pinpoint any particular places they know.

Cheers

Ruth

Scott Westerfeld

If I wanted to prepare the pretty-much-ultimate-and-authoritative blog entry on Scott Westerfeld.  You know, Uglies,

Peeps

Leviathan.

You know, don't you?  Yup.

Well, I wouldn't bother writing it, because the fabulous folk at CMIS have done it.  Their Tuesday Spotlight on Scott Westerfeld is all you need. 

I'm off to scull a Diet Coke and read the newspaper.  My work here is done.

Cheers

Ruth

image source: www.bookdepository.com    

Children's Book Council of Australia 2010 Shortlist

Find it here.

Initial reactions:

1. the older readers list titles (most relevant for a high school library) aren't ones yet that have garnered much of a following among my kids - they've been in the collection for varying amounts of time, but none have yet set the world on fire.  Hmmm.  I'll cherrypick from the picture books and information books lists with my high schoolers in mind.
2. I could sit here and reformat the list for publication on this blog as I've done in other years (A), or I could leave school at a respectable hour (B).
3. (B).  It's been a wet day, madly busy, a lunchtime that was crammed in the library, computer breakdowns all day.   You're all well able to click a link, aren't you?  Ciao!

Cheers

Ruth

Is this the next Twilight?

.

Some of my students seem to think so - they're desperate to read about Grace and Sam (he's a werewolf in winter, a human being in summer, and coming close is the year when he won't change back when winter ends...).  My lovely local bookshop's teen/fantasy specialist told me Shiver is her new favourite book.

.

First of a trilogy (Linger, the second book, cover below, is out next year), film rights already sold (unsurprisingly) and author Maggie Stiefvater has a website here.  She has a book trailer for Shiver here, along with some other resources and reviews..

.

Cheers

.

Ruth

.

PS. Above is the hardcover of Shiver; a paperback is also available.  Covers sourced from the author's website..

Five reasons why I like guardian.co.uk

Andrew Motion on Jane Campion's film, Bright Star, about Keats and Fanny Brawne (film not yet out in Australia: it's to be released on Boxing Day 2009 according to IMDB).  Hmmm, a candidate for Trailer Time?

.

Give them away or pass them on – but don't let go of printed books: They may be bulky, but bound volumes still contain much more than ebooks could ever hold.  Suzanne Munshower on the dilemmas and joys of printed books, reading, culling and keeping.

.

David Eggers on how his novelisation of the film script of the picture book, Where the Wild Things Are (including an extract), and...

Patrick Ness' thoughtful review of Eggers' novelisation, and...

.

Maurice Sendak's recent comments on Where the Wild Things Are (does he think it is too scary for kids?)

.

And that was just a quick scoot around the Culture section recently.  Oh, I do love reading (and being able to read) good overseas newspapers online.  And one where the articles remain online indefinitely, not just a fortnight.

.

Cheers

.

Ruth

.

Discussing DRM (and e-books)

Even the slightest acquaintance with discussion swirling around e-books will likely trip you over the idea of DRM, or Digital Rights Management.  Publishers like it because it means recompense for work.  Readers range from acceptance to active hostility, when DRM encoding means an e-book usefulness/ability to be read may be severely limited (eg. to few file types, or a single e-reader device etc).  Naomi Novik, author of the Temeraire series, participated in an interesting discussion on DRM: Will E-book Anti-Piracy Technology Hurt Readers on NPR.  Read a summary of the discussion, or listen to it in full, here.
.
Cheers,
Ruth
.

An interview with Shaun Tan

Michelle Pauli in The Guardian has a long, thoughtful exploratory interview with Shaun Tan, covering his life and work in engaging/illuminating detail.  Read it here.  I found this via a mention on Alien Onion, an excellent blog.

School Library Journal has a long, thorough and definitely worth reading review of Shaun Tan's work by Elizabeth Bird.

You know what? Don’t go asking me who this book is for. Don’t ask me what the age range is, or how you’re going to catalog it, or what kind of person you could give it to for a birthday present. You want an easy book that slots into your preconceived notions of what constitutes children’s literature? Well forget it, sister. This isn’t it. Tales from Outer Suburbia is a book for every human being you know, from the age of nine and up. It’s heartbreaking, and funny, and weird, and smart, and unlike any other book you’ve read up until this point in time. It’s what happens when someone tells you a dream they just had and you end up crying and laughing at the description all at once. It’s brilliant, and I’m inadequate to describe it to you, though I’ll do my best to try.

 Find it here.

I've mentioned his work admiringly before on this blog, and am still charmed that you can get a free .pdf from the publisher of the wonderful, strange, quirky, clever story Eric, from Tales from Suburban Road.  Go on.  Read it.

Cheers

Ruth

Tomorrow When the War Began: film/movie

As reported in Read Alert here, there is a film / movie version of Tomorrow When the War Began in the works.  I've lost count of how many sets of this John Marsden series I've bought - in the last ten years in this library, I'd have bought at least three complete sets, and only retired the copies that were, as they tend to get, utterly exhausted and falling apart from being loved to death.  When we have holiday borrowing, and double borrowing comes into play, it's a popular pick to borrow the LOT.

Read Alert draws on an entry from Dark Horizons you can find here, and in turn that draws on a longer report from Hollywood Reporter you'll find here.  The director is Stuart Beattie, co-writer of the film Australia, and the plan is apparently to make a trilogy of films from the first three books then move to a television series for the rest.  Filming to start in September.  John Marsden's site links to a shorter version of the HR report from Reuters that you'll find here.

And it already has a page on the Internet Movie Database: click here.  Bookmark that one if you want to check back on developments. 

Cheers, Ruth.

PS I've detailed very carefully the trail of info, what I've found where, as I always try to do, and added value by finding more links/info myself.  If this is the first place where you read about this, and you want to merrily blog it yourself, gosh it would be nice if you could note/acknowledge where you first read it, as I have done.  I've had a few people recently who've lifted things from my blog (sometimes even word for word) and used it on their blogs without attribution.  Please be courteous in your use of information...plagiarism ain't purty.  Play nice.  Thank you.

Anthony Browne: UK Children's Laureate

Illustrator Anthony Browne is the new Children's Laureate in the UK.  Read all about it in the Guardian newspaper here.  There is a gallery of his work to see if you click here.
.
I love the AHA! moment when kids are looking at one of his picture books, and realise that you darn well better pay attention, because there is STUFF going on in the pictures and if you don't pay attention, you'll miss it.
.
Cheers, Ruth
.

reader2reader

.

Read more here.

.

Writers who used to be school teachers

The Times has an article listing a number of well-known writers who spent time as school teachers.  Read it here. (Pop quiz: how many can you think of, before you click on over there?). 
.
The accompanying photo of Michael Morpurgo (was he on your list?), apparently in lounging on a pillow in bed, with a pad and pencil, suggests the attraction over an argy-bargy bunch of hormonal Year 9 students on a wet and windy afternoon.  Hmmmm.  I suspect it's not as easy as all that.
.
The follow-up article is here, from Kaye Umansky, explaining Why.
.
Cheers, Ruth
.

The power of a novel, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

I would say that in an age of iPods, games consoles and YouTube, I still believe that nothing can tell a story with the depth and beauty of a book. I believe that language is the software of our minds, the blueprint of our identity. Our brains function along narrative structures and crave stimulation. Among many other things, good literature should tickle the brain. I try to do that. I try very hard.

Read the whole article, from the author of The Shadow of the Wind, found in The Times, here.

Cheers

Ruth
.

Stephenie Meyer interview

November may seem a long, long time away (although it's just over a week since Australian Twilight fans got their hands on the Twilight DVD) but the Twilightery is revving up for New Moon and whatever else Twilight can be published.  Vogue US have a longer, more-than-soundbite interview, Dreamcatcher with Stephenie Meyer here.
.

.
Not sure if that dress in the picture is trying to channel Morticia.....
.
Cheers, Ruth

CBCA Shortlist 2009

The Children's Book Council of Australia 2009 shortlist has just been published.

Book of the Year: Older Readers (These books are for mature readers):

D.M. Cornish: Monster Blood Tattoo Book Two: Lamplighter
Anthony Eaton: Into White Silence
Jackie French: A Rose for the Anzac Boys
Melina Marchetta: Finnikin of the Rock
James Mononey: Kill the Possum
Shaun Tan: Tales from Outer Suburbia
.
Which have I loved best, by far? (not that I have any influence).
.

 
Read the list in full here.   And the (longer) Notables list for older readers is here.
.
I read it first on the Read Alert blog here (see, it pays to refresh your own blogroll!)
.

NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2009

The NSW Premier's Literary Awards include two categories of particular interest to teacher librarians.
.
Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature:
2009 shortlisted writers are...

• Dianne Bates: Crossing the Line
• Michelle Cooper: A Brief History of Montmaray
• D.M Cornish: Monster Blood Tattoo Book Two: Lamplighter
• Alison Goodman: The Two Pearls of Wisdom
• Nette Hilton: Sprite Downberry
• Joanne Horniman: My Candlelight Novel

Read more about this shortlist here.
.
Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature:
2009 shortlisted writers are...

• Urusla Dubosarsky & Tohby Riddle (Illustrator): The Word Spy
• Bob Graham: How to Heal a Broken Wing
• Sonya Hartnett and Ann James (Illustrator): Sadie and Ratz
• Glenda Millard and Stephen Michael King (Illustrator): Perry Angel's Suitcase
• Tohby Riddle: Nobody Owns the Moon
• Shaun Tan: Tales from Outer Suburbia

Read more about this shortlist here.
.

Google/Carle

The very hungry caterpillar made a guest appearance on google.com.au today, to mark the first day of autumn.

.

.