Marcia Thornton Jones's Blog, page 68

Reading for Fun!

As a busy college student, it’s hard to find the time to read outside of textbooks, but over the winter break I decided to dive into 28 Summer by Elin Hilderbrand. It had been riding the top of The New York Times bestsellers list for quite some time and I wanted to see what the hype was all about. I read it pretty quickly over the course of a few days and enjoyed being swept away to a beachfront cottage on Nantucket. It was different from the type of books I usually go for - dystopian, action, fantasy - but it was a fun little summer escape romance to read during the winter. It had some great character dynamics and was pretty much a masterclass in setting description, but I felt that the ending was a bit anticlimactic. I’m not sure I would have placed it on the list. Do you think the books on the New York Times Bestseller list are always worthy of the status? If anyone has read 28 Summers, I would love to hear your thoughts!


Happy Easter to everyone as well!

Drop Everything and Read... THIS POEM

 Hello and Happy National Poetry Month! Truly, is there anything better than April? Here's "April" as it appears in THIS POEM IS A NEST.

...and here's my current favorite poem:

ars pasifika by Craig Santos Perez

Just nine lines, and full of wonder and wordplay, it begins...

when the tide

of silence

rises

say "ocean"

--- read the rest here.

And of course you are always invited to join me at ArtSpeak, where this year I am writing poems inspired by art and the FOUR SEASONS. Here's the latest installment. Thank you so much for reading!

Drop Everything and Read: The Story of My Life!

 

Drop Everything and Read. I first heard the term years ago when my son was in first grade. But it’s something I’ve done all my life.

 

Recently I had the pleasure of rereading a story I wrote when I was 9. It had somehow made its way into my aunt and uncle’s basement almost a half-century ago, and was unearthed last month. What was so interesting about the story (called “The Orphans”) is that you can immediately tell what I had been reading as a 9-year-old. The plucky orphans, whose parents had mysteriously disappeared, lived in an old house next to a very rich family with two extremely spoiled children.

 

Me when I was 9

Immediately, my present-day mind flew back to such classics as The Secret Garden and A Little Princess, and the Fairy Books of different colors, and Little Women (one of the orphans is a tomboy named Louisa who is always called Lou). And there was my 9-year-old self, curled up on a sofa or in bed or on the glider on my grandparents’ screen porch, reading, always reading. Reading in the bathtub. Reading in the shower (which caused some problems when the books got soaked through). Reading as I walked along the sidewalk.

 

Today I still can’t wait to drop everything and read. It’s partly why I started a book blog back in 2012. The sight of review copies arriving at my doorstep never ceases to thrill me. In fact, one of my favorite places in the various newsrooms where I worked was the free book table, where review copies of all kinds beckoned me closer. Deadlines? Ah, but there’s a new mystery novel by an author I love. And there’s a fascinating political history book.

 

During the pandemic, reading has become, if possible, even more important to me. I can escape into family dramas, or fraught memoirs, or (a favorite of late) mysteries set in the World War I era. So I am a big fan of dropping everything and reading. For everyone. Whenever possible. Both in and out of the classroom.

 

--Deborah Kalb

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Smack Dab News

 

D-39: A Robodog's Journey by Irene Latham got its first review from Kirkus , and it's a good one!

"Latham uses an invented lexicon of delightfully creative and expressive hybrid words—jinglesnap, boomblasts, itchglitchy—to tell this... girl-meets-dog story of hope, perseverance, and survival."
Available for pre-order now, and available everywhere May 18, 2021.🐾

Thankful for This Wonder Woman

I'm super excited that Wonder Women of Science is now available for purchase! And I'm super thankful to have co-authored it with this amazing lady.

Meet Tiera Fletcher. Without her, this book wouldn't exist. There's a reason I majored in English, y'all--science and math have never really been my bag. But when I edited a magazine article with Tiera a few years ago, we clicked so well that we decided to write a book together. We interviewed a dozen women (besides Tiera) who are making their marks right now in STEM fields, and we wrote about how they got to where they are today. One of my main jobs was to translate some pretty difficult science into terms that a 9-12-year-old kid could understand (basically, my own scientific literacy level!). Tiera and I went through a lot of drafts together because she frequently had to explain things to me, but she always did it with patience and grace. If I'd had science and math teachers like this when I was in school, maybe I would've been a STEM fan years ago.

Tiera is a woman I admire not just because she is a STEM genius (did I mention she's working on the Mars mission with NASA?) but because she is kind and generous and a person of deep faith. I don't know if I could write a book with just anybody, but Tiera made it so pleasant and fun, I hope we can do another one...or twenty!

I hope you'll be seeing Tiera in some interviews soon as she promotes the book. I'm sure you'll be just as big a fan of hers as I am. Thank you, Tiera, for making this book happen! 

 Ginger Rue's next book, Wonder Women of Science, is now available for pre-order. Co-authored with rocket scientist Tiera Fletcher, who is currently working with NASA on the Mars mission, the book profiles a dozen amazing women (besides Tiera!) who are blazing new trails in their respective STEM fields. 

People...Who Need People

by Charlotte Bennardo 

 Photo by Belle Co from Pexels

Gratitude is the theme for the month. Reading the posts by my colleagues, it seems they've listed all the things I'm grateful for like daffodils, family, health, a good book, etc. So I'm going to take a little different route. Instead of things, I'm listing those people I'm grateful for. Of course my family and friends are at the top of the list. But there are so many others who are deserving of our gratitude:

Of course healthcare workers, First Responders, all volunteers and essential workers. 

But I want to say Thank you! to:

    *librarians who help me find books and answers.

    *people who stop to rescue an animal in distress.

    *those dog owners who don't leave plastic bags of their dog's poop in other people's yards, in the woods, on the side of roads and trails, in the road, on my church's property, or anywhere else it shouldn't be.

    *those people who stop to buy a homeless person a meal.

    *all those great kids who use their birthday, allowance, or other money they've earned to buy desperately needed items for those in a tough bind.

    *for the stranger on the street who offers a smile, a kind word, or an open door.

    *customer service people good at their job who calm me down and solve my problem.

    *anyone who says "Go R U!" when I wear my Rutgers sweatshirt.

    *fellow bikers, hikers, and outdoorsmen who are courteous- move over to give other people space to go by safely.

    *anyone who posts a funny meme on social media that brings a smile or laugh, without being at the expense of someone else.

    I try to be these people (well, not a librarian or a customer service rep). How nice if we all could be as kind as them. Let's give it a try! 

Grateful for... Holly Schindler

A healthy family.

Cool bedsheets.

Warm socks.

The smell of freshly-sharpened pencils.

Strong coffee.

Flaky crust on a cherry pie.

A dog who sleeps curled up beside me.

Laughter.

Big puffy white clouds.

Daily walks.

New ideas for books.

Readers who take time to leave a rating.

Readers who take time to get in touch. 

My favorite sweater (which was actually my mom's favorite sweater and was worn to her college classes in the late '50s).

Constant Comment tea (I have a cup almost every night).

Stars to wish on.

Sunrises to wake to.

Rainbows.

Old friends.

Good movies.

A book to read under the covers.

Long drives.

Short waits.

Daffodils.

Smiles from strangers.

Nail polish.

Hot pizza.

Cool artwork.

Spring breezes.

Daydreams.

Kindess.

Kindness.

Kindness.

Coleridge on Imagination: Smack Dab in the Imagination by Dia Calhoun

This chart is a great entry to Coleridge's ideas on primary and secondary imagination, and fancy as he laid out in his book Biographia Literaria. It's useful for a writer to think about which of these  capacities comes most naturally. Which do you need to cultivate to make your writing stronger?

"The Imagination then I consider either as primary, or secondary. The primary Imagination I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I Am. The secondary I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to re-create; or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead."

~Coleridge

Random Gratitude

In thinking about this month's theme, I pondered all the things for which I give thanks.  There's always the usual - family, friends, good health, and so on.  And, I am definitely grateful for these blessings and a whole lot more.  But for this post, I decided to focus on several things that I am not always mindful of that have impacted my life as a writer, and for these things I am very grateful.

I'm grateful for Read Alouds.  Not only did my experience listening to teachers read aloud to me, when I was a student, influence me as an author; but the Read Alouds I shared with my elementary and middle school students, when I was a teacher, laid an invaluable foundation for understanding story and language in a unique and creative way.  Both were an emotional experience which shaped my future writing.

I'm grateful for my writing friends.  Over the many years it took me to reach the exciting day that I finally became a published author (It took 18 years!), the other writers I met at classes, conferences, and SCBWI meetings became my writing family.  They listened, taught, encouraged, laughed, cried, and celebrated with me on my very, long, sometimes overwhelmingly frustrating journey.  I don't think I could have kept going without them.

I'm grateful for my characters whose voices fill my head with their stories.  As I listen, they tell me more and more and more.  Their voices grow into the novels that middle grade readers enjoy, and those characters are the reason readers are drawn into my books.

The last two things I'm grateful for are basic tools of the trade.  First, I'm thankful for wood pencils with super, sharp points and really, good erasers.  I love the way they feel in my hand.  I love the way I have to push hard to make them glide on the page, and I love the way those erasers give me permission to make lots of mistakes.  

Second, I'm grateful for the wide-ruled, spiral notebooks that provide plenty of space for me to messily write down my ideas in an unorganized, sloppy way as I desperately work to get my pencil to catch up with my imagination.  Sometimes I write on the wide-ruled lines; sometimes I don't.  Sometimes I write in sequence, one page after another; sometimes I don't.  But no matter my method or my mood, my spiral notebooks captures it all.

So, today, these random things are what I am pondering.  Things I often don't even think about being thankful for.  Things for which I am very grateful.

Happy Reading & Writing,

Nancy J. Cavanaugh

www.nancyjcavanaugh.com 

On Gratitude

It’s been a year-plus since we’ve been locked down, cautious and exhausted. It is more now than ever that we need find gratitude in everyday life. We’ve been isolated from our families, friends, holidays, normal outings simple as a latte run or a grocery store pick up. 

Life isn’t one whole, continuous block of time. It is, instead, a compilation of many tiny moments. The ones with magic as simple as spotting a bird’s nest, a cuddle with the cat, a stranger’s smile, opening a new book, a walk at dusk as snow falls. It’s video chatting with a best friend, it’s in finding the words you want to write. No matter how big or how small, we should be able to give thanks in any situation - no matter how large or small it is. 

The magic of life is in those moments. Share them with our family and friends who struggling and need a little light. Give the gift of a smile or a cute card with a cat on it. These are the tiny things that make up entire lives and those that which tether us to our own lives, as well as tether us to the ones we love. 
There will always be trials and tribulations and pure exhaustion from living through a traumatic event, pandemic, or major life change. It’s looking over the fear of all these new and potentially scary events yet to come. And finding the key, the cupcake, a fallen leaf on the porch that our bright lives remain. 
We just have to keep looking. And saying thank you. 
 (https://www.countryliving.com/life/g2...)


Happy reading!
AM Bostwick