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Kidlitcon 2010: The Fun! The Conversation! The Hijinks!

Okay, so there were not really any hijinks that I am personally aware of. (Sorry if that disappoints you.) However, it was truly an amazing weekend. I gleaned useful blog- and writing-related tidbits, got to do a little sightseeing around Minneapolis—but, best of all, I got to meet so many great people that I've only known in virtual form. Henceforth, I present you with:

KIDLITCON: THE PEOPLE

I love the feeling of community that the Kidlitcon fosters—it's not like any other conference I've ever been to. It's as much about that sense of community, I think, as it is about learning more about blogging, or creating networking opportunities, or getting to listen to knowledgeable speakers. And meeting people who've already met Tanita is always a kick--I can't help wondering if they think we're a strange duo...

Some of the people I saw at this year's conference I've known for a number of years but hadn't met yet, like Liz B. (Tea Cozy), Mary Lee (A Year of Reading), Charlotte (Charlotte's Library), Melissa Wiley (Bonny Glen), Mary Ann Scheuer (Great Kid Books), Laura Salas, and Camille (BookMoot). Others I only just met at the conference but still sort of felt like I'd known them for ages: Alice Pope, Blythe Woolston, Laura Lutz (Pinot & Prose), Elissa Cruz (From the Mixed-Up Files), Kirstin Cronn-Mills, and Toby Speed, just to name a few. (I know I missed some. Please don't hate me.)

I got to see some good friends again whom I'd met in person before: Jen Robinson, Pam @ MotherReader, Maureen Kearney (Bibliovore), and, awesomely, there was a cameo appearance by the legendary Kelly H.! So great to see you, Kelly.

I met the indomitable and amazing Carol Rasco (RIF) and was almost incoherent with awe. I met Susan Taylor Brown, who lives not far from me but yet I hadn't met in person until this weekend. (Same with Mary Ann!)

I'd be remiss if I did not mention the wonderful organizing trifecta of Brian Farrey (Flux), Andrew Karre (Carolrhoda), and Ben Barnhart (Milkweed). Thanks, guys, for such a memorable weekend!

And, lastly, a notable part of going to Minneapolis for me was getting the chance to meet with my acquisitions editor, Brian, and one of the publicists I've been working with at Flux, Steven. We had great conversations, and it's always valuable to be able to put names to faces in a work-related situation.

For pictures of people, check the Kidlitcon Flickr group. For more recaps of the weekend, check here.

KIDLITCON: THE PLACE

The conference was held at Open Book, a literary center located in a building called The Loft in downtown Minneapolis, a short walk from the hotel. I really wish we had a facility like this in my town: the bottom floor has a café, a gallery space and a supremely cool gift shop; the second floor has the Open Book center, complete with a classroom, a large meeting room and a spacious foyer for mingling (and, in our case, that's where we had lunch); and the third floor was home to Milkweed Editions. So awesome.

I didn't spend my entire time indoors, though—on Friday, I met up with a friend who lives in St. Paul and she showed me around the downtown Minneapolis area. We took a fabulously long walk and I got to see some of the many bridges over the river. And the weather gods were smiling upon us—Friday was gorgeous, and it didn't rain on us until Sunday, and it didn't snow at all (which is good, since I have no snow-suitable duds).

KIDLITCON: THE EXPERIENCE

I think I'm going to follow the bullet-point format I'm seeing used so effectively on other recap posts, so this doesn't go on for eons. Here goes:
Thursday night, I met Laura Salas, Susan Taylor Brown, Camille Powell, Camille's husband, and a handful of people from the local SCBWI chapter for a kidlit drink night in the hotel lobby. Very friendly company--what a great way to open the weekend!Friday, I did some daytime sightseeing and then returned in time to meet with my publicist, Steven, before the unofficial event kick-off event. Chatted and mingled most enjoyably during the wine and cheese reception.Critique Groups: The panel discussion about critique groups featured the Merry Sisters of Fate. I learned that they do real-time reader responses using instant messaging, which kind of blew my mind. I think I'm glad we don't do that in our writing group. My brain might implode.Keynote Speaker: Maggie Stiefvater was the keynote speaker, and she reminded us all that blog readers are real people and they might even be real WEIRD people who find out your pets' and children's names if you aren't careful. Best of Backlist: Blogging backlist titles enables us to share our passion for our favorite books, give new life to those books, help give your blog a personality, bring in new readers with similar tastes—and it can provide a resource for the greater good. Author Blog Touring: Each panelist talked about a different aspect of blog touring, but my favorite tidbits were these: Bloggers can help authors by asking in-depth questions that involve the reader and prove you've done some research on the author. And, for authors: think about different types of blog posts you can do while "touring" to mix it up a little; remember to be nice; and remember that self-promotion is a necessary evil. Oh, and author Jacqueline Houtman showed off this amazing Periodic Table of Cupcakes (see photo) that was at her book launch.Pro Blogging: Some print review outlets are facing financial challenges, which means increased opportunities in the online market. The voice you establish in your blog reviews may lead to pro blogging opportunities.Book Reviews and Publishers: Publishers want a clear way to contact you and a clear review policy, right up there on the front page of your site. If you're the one initiating contact, they want that same information. Some are also interested in blog stats/traffic.Poetry Friday: A whirlwind tour of Poetry Friday! How to get involved and so forth. You don't have to post an original poem—you can share a favorite poem or even review a book of poetry.School/Library Visits: Technology can help engage young readers, and they can use downloadable media in their school projects. Don't forget to ask whether kids are allowed to have their picture taken, if you want to include a photo of a school visit on your website. Similarly, make it clear if you don't want your picture taken.Cybils/Kidlitosphere: Pam, Liz, Jen and I gave a panel about the Kidlitosphere and Cybils, and it went rather well, if I say so myself. We had a Powerpoint and everything. I was nervous and thought I could have been more coherent. But aside from that, I think it was a good thing.
Thanks again to the organizers! As for me, I've caught up on my sleep, and I'm already looking forward to next year's conference in Seattle. I'll be trying to help out a little from afar, which should be exciting. Will I see you there?

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Book Blurbs of September, Part III: Geeks and Ghosts

Two more three-sentence reviews today, again courtesy of books from the Stanislaus County Library. I just can't seem to stop myself from grabbing all the library books I can carry and gobbling them down when I should be writing or doing something else productive with my time. Anyone else have that problem?

Firstly, the latest book by one of my personal favorite YA authors, Jaclyn Moriarty, is The Ghosts of Ashbury High, and it's sure to please fans of her ongoing set of characters at Ashbury and Brookfield High Schools. A surprisingly deep and intricate web of stories-within-stories, told in her usual epistolary style from varying points of view (but mainly Em, Lydia, and Toby with the bulk of it), this latest rather hefty volume takes an appropriately Victorian angle to the whole thing. The reader is led merrily along throughout by questions like Is there really a ghost?, Who's the ghost?, Do ghosts truly exist?, and What's a ghost, anyway?, but as always, it's the eminently believable main characters, the amusing and slightly less believable cast of side characters, and the laugh-out-loud sense of humor that make this one another winner for me.

Buy The Ghosts of Ashbury High from an independent bookstore near you!

Now for some geek love! And I did love so many things about Julie Halpern's Into the Wild Nerd Yonder, which was a Cybils finalist last year in YA Fiction—it's got a quirky and endearing main character in Jessie, an adorable older brother who's a surprisingly good friend to his little sis, plus punks, goths, nerds, D&D, and LARPing. Normal people go punk, punks go preppy, the prom queen turns out to be surprisingly deep—there's plenty of self-discovery to go around in this book, but maybe most importantly, Jessie learns that it's quite all right to simply be herself, whether that means sewing her own clothes, playing the drums, or hanging out with nerds because it turns out to be surprisingly fun. It's a hilarious romp, despite being a tiny bit light on backstory, and brought back some good memories of late high school, when I (like Jessie) took up with a group of new gamer friends (except in my case, it was the punk/goths who were doing the gaming).

Buy Into the Wild Nerd Yonder from an independent bookstore near you!

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Book Blurbs of September, Part II: Lisa McMann

It's gonna be book review central around here for a while. Tanita's on the job for the Cybils YA Sci-Fi and Fantasy category (having been a round I judge for that, I know what she's going through!). And I'm still trying to get caught up on reviews of books I read last month. Yep.

This time I'll be looking at the first two books in Lisa McMann's Wake/Dream Catcher trilogy—I got both of these at the Stanislaus County Library. I couldn't find Gone--it was checked out—but it's definitely on my to-read list. With no further ado, here are my three-sentence reviews of this suspenseful pair of books.

Wake kicks off the trilogy with a bang—we meet Janie, who has the ability (or curse) of being able to slip into the dreams of nearby sleepers. It's not something she can control, and it's always made her feel very alone, but she finds some unexpected help and friendship in the form of a surprisingly knowledgeable elderly woman in the nursing home where she works, as well as an intriguing classmate, Cabel. While it's a tiny bit light on characterization and backstory in favor of plotting and suspense, this is a quick, fascinating read that pairs a tightly-conceived supernatural ability with a quickly-moving plot and a hint of romance.

Buy Wake from an independent bookstore near you!

This review of Fade contains very minor spoilers, so be warned! In this second installment of the trilogy, Janie and Cabel are now a team—not just a romantic item, but also solving crimes at their school a la 21 Jump Street, with some critical assistance from Janie's dream-catching abilities. But while Janie's dream-catching can truly help individual dreamers as well as enable her to provide valuable insight into crime-solving, it's got a couple of major downsides, not least of which is the difficulties it's causing in her relationship with Cabel. I liked the fact that this volume further explored the complexity—the downside as well as the upside—of Janie's ability, and it added a lot of depth to her relationships with Cabe and the Captain...but in other ways it was a very light read, glossing over her mother almost entirely and leaving the crime-solving aspects a little formulaic.

Buy Fade from an independent bookstore near you!

I'll be very interested to see what the focus is in the third book, Gone.

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Writing as an Act of Translation

I just wanted to share this apt quote from an Op-Ed article by Michael Cunningham in the New York Times, which my mother recently passed along to me. This bit of writerly wisdom really struck me:

Here's a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they'd intended to write. It's one of the heartbreaks of writing fiction. You have, for months or years, been walking around with the idea of a novel in your mind, and in your mind it's transcendent, it's brilliantly comic and howlingly tragic, it contains everything you know, and everything you can imagine, about human life on the planet earth. It is vast and mysterious and awe-inspiring. It is a cathedral made of fire.

But even if the book in question turns out fairly well, it's never the book that you'd hoped to write. It's smaller than the book you'd hoped to write. It is an object, a collection of sentences, and it does not remotely resemble a cathedral made of fire.

It feels, in short, like a rather inept translation of a mythical great work.

Click here to read the rest of the article, which is about translation of literature in both the specific and the broad sense. What about you? Do you feel like the written product is an inadequate approximation of what's in your head, or do you generally feel pretty good about what you write? Does the realization get closer to the vision as a writer matures and gains more experience, or is it a perennial struggle?

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Book Blurbs of September, Part I: Megan Whelan Turner

I swear these are going to be shorter writeups this time. Just this batch and maybe a couple more, until I'm caught up on reviewing library books. I'm short on time lately, so I've decided to set myself a challenge of three sentences per book: two that include my take on what it's about, and one sentence of evaluation. Verdict. Opinion. Whatever. So here goes. All of these books were checked out at the Stanislaus County Library.

The Thief by Megan Whelan Turner is the story of a practiced, boastful thief named Gen, recently released from prison into the custody of the King's Magus and forced to help him steal a treasure from the neighboring kingdom, perhaps right under the very noses of the gods themselves. The imaginary setting calls to mind the ancient Mediterranean, and the backdrop to Gen's story of adventure is one of complex and shifting political intrigue. Though Gen was an unreliable narrator and that was a little off-putting at times, because it created distance between the reader and the story even though it was told in first person, the tradeoff is found in each successive intriguing revelation about the mysterious Gen and his traveling companions.

Buy The Thief from an independent bookstore near you!

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whelan Turner is the second book in the trilogy following the story of Gen; named for Eugenides, the god of thieves, Gen really comes into his own in this novel with respect to his cunning deceitfulness and political machinations, and his character is developed a bit more deeply. Gen, who is the Queen of Eddis's Thief, embarks on a strategy to prevent war with neighboring Attolia by bringing the two queens together, pitting his loyalty and familial bond with his Queen against his complex feelings of both fear and love for the Attolian Queen. This novel is even more about strategy and political intrigue than the first book, and is sure to appeal to readers who prefer their fantasy to be more realistic than magical.

Buy The Queen of Attolia from an independent bookstore near you!

The King of Attolia by Megan Whelan Turner, the third and final volume of the trilogy, is still the story of Eugenides, but it's told through the eyes of a humble guard in the ranks of the Queen of Attolia's army. Like most of his fellow soldiers and guardsmen in the castle, Costis resents his new King for being an outsider who has stolen the Queen's heart and her kingdom, but he ends up learning a lot more about the King AND the Queen than he bargained for when he ends up in the direct service of the King himself. This was my favorite book of the three—the author did an excellent job of showing Gen through the eyes of another character without compromising the importance or the enjoyment of either character's story.

Buy The King of Attolia from an independent bookstore near you!

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Banned Books Week: A Roundup

While you're thinking about what books you'd like to nominate for this year's Cybils, check out this roundup of Banned Books Week posts and info from around the Kidlitosphere--it's not an exhaustive list by any means, but it's got some interesting tidbits that I either ran across on my own or that were passed along to me throughout the week. Enjoy, and here's to expanding our own reading horizons and teaching our children to actively read and think for themselves!
 First, I have to thank the good folks at First Second for the fabulous animated GIF over there, featuring characters from one of their upcoming graphic novels, Americus--"about Neil Barton, a teenager growing up in Oklahoma, and his fight to keep his favorite fantasy series, The Chronicles of Apathea Ravenchilde, in his public library." I'm already looking forward to it--check out the webcomic version here.
Via NPR comes an interactive Google map of every location in the country where books have been banned. Via Leila at Bookshelves of Doom comes the news that--during Banned Books Week, no less--The Hunger Games was challenged.Children's author Lucy Coats, at her blog Scribble City Central, discusses the challenge to Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak and relates her own feelings with heartfelt and wrenching honesty. In a follow-up post, she discusses the amazing reaction to her initial post, and shares a striking poem about book banning by Ellen Hopkins.Cybils YA panelist Ami Jones, of Three Turtles and Their Pet Librarian, discusses their library's Banned Books Gala (something I dearly wish our library could have had!), the challenge to Hunger Games, and more.Guys Lit Wire contributors post recommendations of some of their favorite banned books.Author Cheryl Rainfield discusses banned books in the wake of various recent challenges to YA books and authors, and relates a wealth of links on the topic.Angela Peña Dahle of A Pen in Neverland--a brand-new-to-me blog--fun!--discusses her feelings about book banning and invites your comments on her Workshop Wednesday feature (how neat is that??). The redoubtable Ms. Camille of BookMoot is quoted in a TIME magazine article about the Ellen Hopkins-disinvited-from-Humble-Teen-Lit-Fest incident. Alex at The Children's War (another blog that's new to me) discusses the classic Summer of My German Soldier in admirable depth, and I learned that this is one of three WWII-themed books for children that have been banned (both recently and repeatedly).Ellen Hopkins' excellent anti-censorship manifesto for the Huffington Post includes her poem referenced above, her story about the Humble Teen List Fest, and more.Sheryl McFarlane, on her Book Blog, talks about some of the more laughter-inducing reasons for book banning, as well as linking to an excellent Banned Books quiz and banner.All I can say is, our kidlitosphere is amazing when it comes to these things. Thank you to all the folks on the listserve who shared their posts and introduced me to some new blogs and bloggers in the process!

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Surrealism Sunday?

Welcome to Book Blurbs of September, Part One, or, more accurately, Book Blurbs of August Revisited, because I am SO BEHIND on my book reviews that I have been reading additional books as an escape route from having to tackle the enormous list of books I need to review. Yes, I realize there is something counterproductive about that. Anyway, today I present my impressions of one surreal children's/MG title and one extremely surreal YA title.

I obtained both of these books from the Stanislaus C...

Sit Down and Write Already! But Read This First.

It's still warm in California, but all signs point to fall. Aside from my being allergic to things, it's one of my favorite seasons. I'm hoping to channel some of the general sense of well-being that autumn brings me into my writing--whether the motivation goes into my current work-in-progress, or whether it's new projects like that short story percolating in the back of my head, this fun Halloween Short Story Contest at Literary Asylum, or even a new novel for NaNoWriMo. (Yes, I've got somet...

Wicked Cool Overlooked Books: Charlotte Sometimes

 NB: This was supposed to post yesterday, but Blogger evidently hates me now and won't let me schedule posts. So, boo.

So, it could just be that this wicked cool book was only overlooked by me. And I don't know how I missed it, but I know I would have loved this one when I was growing up...if only I'd known it existed.

In fact, I didn't even know until recently (in the past couple of years, maybe) that the classic Cure song "Charlotte Sometimes" was inspired by a children's fantasy/time travel...

Who, Why, Whither YA?

Another thought-provoking post from Hannah Moskowitz (via Nathan Bransford's Twitter feed), this one on whether/how the internet blogging/writing community is changing the nature of YA: "Are we getting too self-referential to be relevant?" she asks, among other things.

To put it plainly, I'm starting to wonder if YA is turning into something written by/for the internet community under the guise of writing for everyday teenagers, and that who likes you on the internet is more important to your ...