Alexander M. Zoltai's Blog, page 33
January 1, 2018
A Personal Anniversary and a New Year’s Hopes . . .
I started this blog exactly 7 years ago—I’ve published a little over 2,000 posts… [image error]
I feel the words of the very first post bear repeating:
Read > Write > Publish > Repeat = A Wonderfully Strange Life
I’ll start explaining the formula in this post’s title with the word “strange”. Its history shows it meaning, “from elsewhere, foreign, unknown, unfamiliar”.
A Strange Life…
So does reading then writing then publishing then repeating the process create a life that’s unfamiliar, unknown, foreign...
December 31, 2017
Comforted by Little Women by Millicent Flake
Two thoughts from today’s re-blog that meant the world to me:
“Going back to a childhood favorite as an adult is a wonderful experience…”
“Books have been my friends, counselors, and comforters all my life.”
Last spring I was feeling melancholy, to use an old fashioned word. Our little cat Nellie had died after living with us for 14 years. Cats always choose us, not the other way around, and he had been a big part of the family. I missed his presence on the bed at night, his l...
December 30, 2017
Achieve your publishing goals for 2018 – win a year’s mentoring and development from Triskele Books
This is quite the offer! :-)
Have you got a manuscript that might be ready by July 2018? You might be interested in this competition from the writing/publishing collective Triskele Books. And I’m honoured to announce that I’m the judge in the final!
If you’ve been around this blog a bit, you’ll know that Triskele is a publishing house owned and run by authors. The members provide all the support and editorial finessing that occur in a publishing house (many other posts about t...
December 29, 2017
Friday Story Bazaar ~ Tale Seventy-Five
At What Price?
by
Alexander M Zoltai
~~~~~~~~~
It began in 2018—my investigation into computers and phones as a health risk.
I began tracking the activities of a boy in India, where the informal recycling trade was expanding at the exorbitant rate of 25% per year.
“Informal” just means not done by the companies who made the computers and phones—instead, done by children as young as Labdha, just eight years old.
At that age he was only carrying the electronic junk from the seashore to his fat...
December 28, 2017
Losing and Finding Yourself in the Library by Jessie Sima
As I write this, my debut picture book, Not Quite Narwhal, is on the brink of publication. There’s so much to be excited about and thankful for, and I’ve found myself spending a lot of time reflecting on what brought me here. The truth is, I didn’t grow up dreaming of being an author-illustrator or a storyteller o...Today’s re-blog is a wonderful story, with this Gem:
“…I can’t emphasize enough the effect that just being given the permission to explore in the library had on me.”
December 27, 2017
A Few Bookish Videos
I was, as often happens on the Internet, “guided” to a particular post. [image error]
It happened to be on Book Riot.
I’ll quote a bit from their About Page:
“Book Riot is dedicated to the idea that writing about books and reading should be just as diverse as books and readers are. So sometimes we are serious and sometimes silly. Some of our writers are pros. Many of them aren’t.”
The major topics on their Home Page are Listen, Read, and Watch.
And, something I found interesting for a bookish site—an offe...
December 26, 2017
When a Fairy Tale is Not Enough
Impressively insightful re-blog today………
If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales. -Albert Einstein-
Fairy Tales are the root of storytelling. They are also the most popular children’s books. No surprise at all! I have been reading fairy tales for decades, and telling them, too. Children can’t get enough, and I know why.
Fairy Tales give children the biggest and most i...
December 25, 2017
Many Folk Call Today Christmas
I suppose I can say Merry Christmas today; but, what about all the people who are Muslim or Jewish or Zoroastrian or Hindu or Pagan or Bahá’í or other Faiths…?
[image error]Children Enjoying A Holiday
So, here are the etymologies for “Christmas” and “Holiday”:
Old English, Crīstes mæsse, the mass of Christ.
Old English, hāligdæg, late Old English hālidæg, found beside hālig dæg, holy day.
And, I suppose I should also share the etymology for “Mass” and “Christ”:
late Middle English : from Old French mas...
December 24, 2017
On Not Writing
So you think you might want to be a writer? Or maybe you are a writer?
Today’s re-blog will either warn you or console you—either way, it’s quite the Tale :-)
Happy children! Loud happy children!
This is the blog post I didn’t write because it was a terrible idea. So why even start?
This is the blog post I didn’t write because the ceiling was leaking.
This is the post I didn’t write because I couldn’t figure out the coffeemaker and then I knocked it over.
This is t...
December 23, 2017
A Brief Guide to Essays
Today’s re-blog shows various types of essays you may never have known existed—though, you may have read one of them :-)
We’re ready for our prose poem!
The time will come when our students, or our mother (in an attempt to seem interested for real and not just because it’s her kid) will ask about essays. “Well, dear,” she might say, “I think it’s lovely. But what do you mean by lyric?”
Or perhaps we will want to write a braided essay, or a collage, without really gra...
