Jacqueline West's Blog, page 13

The Death of Journals

The journal for which I'd been working as an associate poetry editor has slowly and quietly slipped over the edge of the internet.  Duotrope has declared Sotto Voce dead - and what Duotrope sez, I believes.  I stopped receiving submissions for review several months ago, sent messages to the editor-in-chief with no reply, and now S.V.'s website has disappeared, giving all of this an unsatisfying sort of finality.  Obviously, there are dozens (hundreds? thousands? Editors, feel free to count) o...

Now I Am One of the Sneetches

If you don't know what that refers to, there are gaps in your Dr. Seuss education. 

Today, The Books of Elsewhere, Volume One: The Shadows got a starred review in Publishers Weekly.  www.publishersweekly.com/pw/reviews/index.html

The review concludes, 'The house is as much a character as are Olive, Morton, and her family, and a wicked sense of humor tempers the book's creepiness. A suspenseful plot and insight into childhood loneliness--handily amplified by Bernatene's moody and dramaticall...

Quick Notes

An interview with yours truly is now up at the wonderful ya/middle grade blog, MBWCreates: www.mbwcreates.com/interview-with-jacqueline-west/, and a really fun review of The Shadows can be found at: www.foreveryoungadult.com/2010/05/17/the-shadow-knows/.  Woo-hoo!

Tomorrow I'll be speaking/reading to three groups of one hundred 4th and 5th graders.  Much luck and courage is needed. 

Halfway There

This thing seems to be going around (again), and I'm in a dawdling, just-met-my-deadline kind of mood this morning -- perfect for blog fluff. There are some obvious gaps in my U.S. travel: the Deep South, the Rockies/Southwest, and New England.  Hoping to remedy one of those this fall when Ryan and I drive down to Louisiana...I should admit that some of these states were only visited (Kansas, Ohio, West Virginia) because we were driving through on our way to something else.  (All kinds of mea...

Kids Lit Review

Just saw this review of The Books of Elsewhere, Volume One: The Shadows, which made me want to hop as happily as Mole:  kidslit.menashalibrary.org/2010/05/11/the-books-of-elsewhere-the-shadows/

Blatant Self-Promotion

(Can't call it shameless self-promotion if you feel a bit ashamed.)

Good news on the Elsewhere front:
- The Books of Elsewhere, Volume One: The Shadows has made the Summer 2010 Kids' Indie Next List. 
- A nice review of the book is up at Shelf Awareness: news.shelf-awareness.com/ar/theshelf/2010-05-05/childrens_review_the_shadows.html
- The Books of Elsewhere is the recommended series for 'dreamy artists' in an article on Scholastic's site: www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp (The dreamy arti...

Books of Elsewhere TRAILER!

Check it out:


The trailer for The Books of Elsewhere, Volume One: The Shadows.   I am giddy. 

Chapbook News

My chapbook, Cherma, is here at last: parallelpress.library.wisc.edu/chapbooks/poetry/.  I was originally told it would be coming out this fall, so the early release comes as a delightful surprise.  I began work on what became the Cherma series about five years ago, while attending UW-Madison's Advanced Poetry Workshop with a group of truly amazing writers, and over the next year or so, it grew into something chapbook-sized.  When the manuscript felt complete, I sent it off to just one place:...

Jiggity Jig

Home again, home again.  And it’s good to be here.

 

New York was gray and dribbly, and I didn’t have the time (or the umbrella) for much outdoor exploration.  Perhaps this was karmic repayment for the glorious weather in LA (see pictures below).  Dinner, however, was amazing, and I met several people whose brilliance and influence would have muted me completely if not for the perfect combination of sleeplessness + adrenaline that kept me babbling obliviously along.  I also got to meet...

Big Shoulders (Tour Update, Part I)

Well, the Chicago leg of the tour is over, and I woke this morning to the shadows of palm fronds fluttering across the curtains and to the shock of extraordinarily loud Mexican pop music blaring from the alarm clock, which I had not set (or un-set, as the case may be), at 5:30 a.m.  I guess that means I’m in LA.

 

A brief summary of what’s happened so far: The very first event of the tour, a pre-release gathering for kids and educators at the Wickel Warehouse of Chicago’s Anderson’s...