Alisa M. Libby's Blog, page 26

children's book that changed me

What children's book altered my perception of the world, and of myself? This wasn't an easy question to answer as a few books came to mind (and some poetry that I was in love with too…I've already told you about "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes) but here are my top picks:

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Little Sara was a girl of privilege, and as much as I loved the descriptions of her porcelain doll dressed in silk and lace and all of her lovely things, I also loved Sara's unshakable

Crimes & Misdemeanors: Children's Literature Institute at Simmons College

What better inspiration for a writer than spending three full days talking about books with book-minded people? Not only that, the fare was children's literature: picture book, middle grade, young adult, graphic novel, fiction, non-fiction, poetry. Here are a few of my personal highlights from the Institute:

I thanked Jack Gantos for the nice response he sent to my whiny email about writer's block. I read Jack on the Tracks last year and it renewed my faith in books and writing. And it was hilari

myths about Catherine Howard; lots of books, too

I was invited to do a guest post at The Anne Boleyn Files, which is an awesome blog that debunks all kinds of myths and heresies surrounding King Henry's second queen – a must for any Tudor history buff, or fan of The Tudors. My post attempts to debunk some rumors about Catherine Howard. There are so many rumors that it was difficult to choose just a few, but I focused on the big ones: Catherine was stupid, greedy, slutty…you get the picture. Read the full post here:

http://www.theanneboleynfiles

how the writer's mind works…or doesn't

I was typing up notes from my notebook recently (a somewhat ridiculous system, I'll admit, but I can find no other solution) and I realized that I really like a few of the ideas I had scribbled down during my commute. These are completely unformed ideas, sometimes just snippets of a voice, but there were a couple I found really engaging and I found myself all giddy over it: monsoon terror! zombie fish people! cave dwellers!

But I fear I know the inevitable result: I'll sit down and try to write a

MOMA

At the Museum of Modern Art this past weekend I was thinking about the nature of art. I thought about this a lot as a kid. Dad was an artist so we had art in our house but how was that different from art in museums? Why was the canvas with the single polka dot on it hanging on the wall of a museum and the miniature violins I watched Dad make were not? I was (and still am) biased, of course.

But I did find the Jackson Pollack paintings more striking and moving than I had imagined I would. One of t

back from NYC weekend

Tom and I wrapped up some ginger snaps in a kerchief, tied it to the end of a stick and ran away for the weekend. We ran all the way to New York City and spent some time dining and museuming and in general catching up with the adorable Amanda and David. They even took us to the top of Rockefeller Center where we watched the sun set all pink orange blue over the twinkly city.

We came home yesterday just in time to get to my reading at the Kingston Public Library, which I'm happy to say was really

library book talk and ARCs for review…

I will be doing a book talk at the Kingston Public Library next Monday, July 13 at 6 p.m. I plan to read an excerpt from The King's Rose, then talk a bit about my writing process and how I came to be published. I'm looking forward to it – I just hope I have an audience (hint, hint).

The book tour has gradually wound down – though I'm still visiting blogs! I love guest-blogging. My current task is to write a blog entry debunking some common misconceptions about Catherine, for example: that she was

Oh, deer

Today Tom and I took a walk around an old cemetary. I know, that sounds sort of macabre and creepy, but we live near busy streets (not conducive to walking) with no real "parks" within walking distance. A lot of those old graves don't get visitors anymore, so we're happy to oblige. We walk around and take note of the stones, remarking on interesting names: "Guiseppe…Sabina…Tukis…" [Best name I ever saw was in an old cemetary on Martha's Vineyard: Lucretia Storm.]

So we're wandering and then Tom e

how to love the rain

It's been a soggy summer. New Englanders are a people naturally inclined to complain about the weather, but I think we would all like to complain about something different for a change; preferably while wearing a tank top and eating an ice cream cone. But as we looking ahead to more rainy days, here are some suggestions.

1. Pretend you are in Scotland. I've been doing this all day and it's helped a great deal. It rains a lot in Scotland – Inverness was flooded when Tom and I visited – but the rai

Characters, all of you, everywhere

Truth is stranger than fiction. I know this for a fact, because I ride the subway every day. While I delight in the crazy characters imagined by the great brains of Jack Gantos or Daniel Pinkwater I often wonder, how do they come up with this stuff? But then I look up from my book only to be astounded by the interesting details being played out on the human stage. Some of my recent favorites? That guy in the coffee shop with the beautifully worn old brown leather journal, the ivory pages covered