Midori Snyder's Blog, page 63

Life In The Margins: The Surprising Art And Story In Medieval Manuscripts

I seem to be on a medieval manuscript wave length lately -- they just appear on my computer unexpectedly, and I lose a morning to them, ogling their beauty and enjoying their peculiar sense of peasant humor. There are animal...

The Sketchbook Project: Sign Up!

How amazing is this -- The Sketchbook Project -- which every year offers anyone throughout the world a chance to sign up and create a sketchbook (usually along a theme) and submit it to a library collection ("an ever-growing library...

"The Intersection of Imagination and Inspiration"

This is very cool. With his family in attendance, city officials declared the intersection of 5th and Flower Sts. in downtown Los Angeles, Ray Bradbury Square. This is a really fitting honor for Bradbury who died this last summer. Author...

Katherine Langrish Talks Stew

Fantasy author Katherine Langrish has a terrific post today "Anyone for Stew?" at her blog Seven Miles of Steel Thistles about food in fiction. She tackles the writerly difficulties of getting food right in the novel: "During the effort of...

Junot Diaz Reading The Silences in Fiction

This is a fascinating article by author Junot Diaz describing the power of writing "silences" into fiction, especially in a contemporary culture that seems stuck on an over-confessional mode. Here is Diaz talking about how he intentionally incorporates silences into...

Hilarious Book Trailer: Heads In Beds By Jacob Tomsky

Ok....the point of a good book trailer is to make you want to read the book -- even if it isn't something you would ever buy. I saw this...and yes, I bought the book. Immediately. Jacob Tomsky's Heads In Bed,...

Dave Brubeck: Farewell to A Classic

Dave Brubeck has died at age 91, just one day short of his 92th birthday. I so remember this music as a child -- always in the background of my parents' late night dinner parties. It has the flavor of...

Birch Bark Art: Tiny Bites

As I am still sorting through mail and finding treasures from my childhood, here is another one, this time sent from my mother. It is a small (5" x 5") very thin sheet of birch bark. The delicate design on...

Postcards From Africa

In 1963 my parents simultaneously received Fulbright Awards to study abroad for the year. My mother went to India (and traveled through Nepal, Bhutan, and a forbidden sliver of Tibet on the border.) My father traveled to West Africa where...

Fire Fueled Hawks and Hounds

Historical research always manages to bring up surprises -- and the peculiar innovations of battle seem to be where human beings have exerted an awful (and I do mean awful) lot of imagination. The Venetians had letter bombs in the...