Annie Cardi's Blog, page 52

Pens and Paws

Happy belated St. Patrick’s day, everyone! Last night we watched The Secret of Kells, which is such a gorgeous movie, and reminded me of this lovely poem about a writer and his cat. Here’s one famous translation by Robin Flower:

The scholar and his cat, Pangur Bán

(from the Irish by Robin Flower)

I and Pangur Ban my cat,

‘Tis a like task we are at:

Hunting mice is his delight,

Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men

‘Tis to sit with book and pen;

Pangur bears me no ill-will,

He too plies his simple skill.

‘Tis a merry task to see

At our tasks how glad are we,

When at home we sit and find

Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray

In the hero Pangur’s way;

Oftentimes my keen thought set

Takes a meaning in its net.

‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye

Full and fierce and sharp and sly;

‘Gainst the wall of knowledge I

All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,

O how glad is Pangur then!

O what gladness do I prove

When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our task we ply,

Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;

In our arts we find our bliss,

I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made

Pangur perfect in his trade;

I get wisdom day and night

Turning darkness into light.

I love this comparison between a cat at hunt and a writer at work, especially that last stanza. Check out a few other translations as well.

(poem via Beatrice Santorini)(image by Robert Crum)

Friday Fifteen

What a crazy week! A Veronica Mars movie, a new pope, Pi Day, the Ides of March, the announced end of Google Reader, a day above 50 degrees–I can’t handle this kind of intensity. Fortunately, we can always count on the Friday Fifteen. This week in fifteen-word book reviews:

1. The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

I was new when we read this in fifth grade. Needed an Egypt Game group.

2. Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry

Read years after The Giver, initially didn’t know they were connected. Better that way.

3. The Commitments by Roddy Doyle

Best use of music in a book ever. Funny and sharp and thrilling, Barrytown-style.

4. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett

In the town of Chewandswallow, global warming means a tomato tornado. All that vitamin C!

5. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Watched the Little Prince TV show growing up. Shocked to find the book was different.

The Fourteenery: Fourteen 2014 Debut YA Authors in One Awesome Place

One of the cool things about the YA/children’s lit world is the strong sense of community. Overall, people want to help each other and connect over this common bond of writing for young readers. This can be especially helpful for debut authors just starting to navigate the publishing world and all that entails.

I was lucky enough to join one particular 2014 debut author group–the Fourteenery. We’re a group of fourteen 2014 debut YA authors who’ve bonded over our love of YA lit, Lucille Bluth gifs, and hilariously bad fake book blurbs. From the Fourteenery About page:

…14 perfect lines in every Shakespearean sonnet,

…14 lazy days in every fortnight,

…14 racing horses in every Preakness and Belmont Stakes,

…there are 14 amazing, crazy ridiculous, insanely entertaining 2014 debut YA authors in THE FOURTEENERY, your 100% fresh, not-from-concentrate source for witty, wildly bookish fun.

Yes, there will be interactive Q&A and mega-giveaways and flash fiction, but The Fourteenery is so much more than a debut group.

It’s a gang of 14 friends plus YOU.

When I was first invited to join this group, I had no idea how awesome it would be. Although techincally the Fourteenery just launched, we’ve been a group for almost a year and I freakin’ love these ladies. They’re all so smart, so funny, so talented, and so good at de-stressing everyone. Once, an email thread made me laugh so hard I had to walk away from my computer.

We’re officially live on Tumblr, so make sure to follow us for insights into the publishing process, giveaways, gifs, fandom,, fiction, and more. Trust me–these are some of the coolest, most fun authors around. You want to get to know them.

No One Is Safe in Your Book

Joss Whedon will hurt everyone you love.

The other day I was talking to Walt about the new draft I’m working on, and how I’m excited to get to a certain part, in which everything will go wrong for the main character. “No joy for anyone!” I exclaimed.

I don’t think this is an unusual cry for authors. We need to push our characters into tough situations and make them confront their own fears/judgments/faults. Otherwise we’d all be writing stories about happy puppies who take a nap and smell flowers. (Actually, that sounds pretty good…)

One author who understands the necessity of making bad things happen: Joss Whedon (aka, Light of My Life, Yoda, etc.). The First Novels Club has a fantastic post about “The Joss Whedon Effect” and how Whedon (and authors like him) don’t always give characters happy endings:

“…I love unpredictable authors.

In their books, no one is safe. Happy endings aren’t guaranteed, and there’s a good chance a book will break your heart, even if it cobbles the pieces back together…Life can be unfair to good people, and good people can make terrible, terrible choices (and suffer the consequences)… If you’re lucky, his characters get a happy-ish ending that’s entirely different from what you hoped for. But it’s totally right, because what happiness he gives them, they’ve earned.”

I love this sense of “no one is safe.” If you know a character is never going to lose anything, the story can feel flat and boring. But knowing that a character could put his loved ones in danger or jeopardize her morals makes the story way more compelling. You’re worried about the character; you understand just what’s at stake; you know that this could all work out really, really badly. For example, in Serenity a certain character is killed toward the end of the movie. It’s sudden and pretty unexpected, and after that I spent the rest of the movie thinking “Oh my lord, they are ALL GOING TO DIE.” Okay, so not everyone dies, but killing off this character really raised the stakes for the rest of the movie. It’s so freaking sad and I still get emotional thinking about it, but it had to happen. (Damn you, Whedon!)

And this isn’t just about vampires or the apocalypse. Even characters in quiet contemporary need to be pushed to their limits. Maybe they make bad choices or lose loved ones or fail miserably at something. Because that stuff happens in real life, too, and can push your character toward real growth and change.

I know this is something I need to work on, and it’s something I’ve seen in other writers’ drafts–we stop just shy of really pushing our characters and our books to those tough limits. To making our characters make the hard choices, to dragging them down to their worst levels, to putting them in tough situations without an easy (or even clear) way out. So try to push your characters a little further. Make them really suffer before they earn that happy ending (or not!). It may seem cruel or hard, but it’s worth it in your story. Dare to be an unpredictable author!

(image: Joss Whedon at the 2010 Comic Con in San Diego, by Gage Skidmore via Wiki Commons)

Prom Night Is Dark and Full of Terrors

By now, you’re probably already obsessed with the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. (All. The. Feelings!) But we’re winding down in the P&P plotline–Lizzie and Darcy have come to feel more about each other; Jane and Bing have reconciled; and Lydia has overcome the potential scandal of the heinous Wickham. I was really sad to imagine an end in the near future.

Fortunately, it looks like we’ve got another modern literary web series to latch onto–starring a few favorites from LBD! Although A Game of Thrones might be set in a medieval-ish fantasy world, looks like things translate pretty well to a contemporary high school setting in School of Thrones. I especially like the retro-hipster Starks.

And it’s only just started! Check out the first episode here:

Is it weird that this might actually inspire me to read beyond the first book?

Ode to a Cumberbatch

High school students would pay way more attention in English class if Benedict Cumberbatch read all the Romantic poetry:

Anyone else want Benedict Cumberbatch to star in a John Keats biopic now?

If you want to read along, check out the text of “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats here.

(H/T Alexis Hauk)

Friday Fifteen

It’s a gross Friday in these parts, but it’s also a certain playwright Walt McGough’s birthday, which makes the day infinitely better. To celebrate, today’s Friday Fifteen is all about plays. Here we go!

1. Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring

First play I read. We acted it out in sixth grade. I was Agatha.

2. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

I spent the entire play hating Willie Loman and waiting for him to die.

3. The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Inspired a YA short story adaptation. Also “Those are pearls that were his eyes”—awesomeness.

4. How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel

What I imagine Lolita would feel like from Lolita’s point of view.

5. Wit by Margaret Edson

Stunning depiction of a prickly Donne scholar with cancer. Edson’s first play–the mind boggles.

Much Ado About Everything I Love

Joss. Whedon.

William. Shakespeare.

All the feelings!!! Here’s the trailer for Joss Whedon’s adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, starring people you love:

So…can we see it? Now? Please?

(H/T bookshelves of doom)

Links Galore

Apparently I’ve been hoarding lots of great links. Anything to make it through a Wednesday!

An interesting article on how writing can be “taught” and fostered through writing programs.
Author Patricia MacLachlan and illustrator Steven Kellogg are teaming up to write a book for children about Sandy Hook. Hopefully this will be a great resources for parents and educators to help kids deal with this terrifying situation.
Ghost writing the Sweet Valley High books; writers gotta pay the bills.
Wish you could have taken a class with your favorite writer? Scan the syllabi and pretend it’s the first day.
Proofread like a pro.
Brookline Booksmith has some great reading suggestions to get rid of the late-winter blahs.
Somehow a literary Oxford tour seems incomplete without a reference to His Dark Materials, even if Lyra’s Oxford is in an alternate universe.
On pen names and having a . I’m just glad that when you Google my name, I’m the one that comes up. (Me and cardigans, that is.)
Attention current high school seniors! Enter Penguin’s essay contest and win money for college.
Another awesome bookish March madness competition–Paper Lantern Lit’s Swoon Madness!
On Gilmore Girls, pop culture and high art existed side-by-side for the main characters. Which is pretty much how it is in real life.
Shannon Hale on girl characters and why they don’t have to just be love interests.
VIDA compares the last three years of female writer representation in major journals and newspapers. Spoiler alert: it ain’t good.
Cool recap of a readers advisory training for librarians working with children and teens
A behind-the-scenes look at the book acquisitions process



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Stay Gold, Coppola

In middle school, one of my favorite books was The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. I must have read it twenty times. Then I found a copy of the VHS and watched that repeatedly, too. There’s a lot of argument pitting books against their movie versions, and for The Outsiders I loved both. So it was awesome to see today’s Letters of Note, in which a school librarian and her students helped bring The Outsiders to Francis Ford Coppola, who ultimately directed the film. The first letter:

Click through to see the full exchange. It’s really heartwarming to see how one librarian aide’s letter helped create a fantastic movie. And it’s a great lesson in never doubting that your voice can make a difference. Maybe it won’t come to anything–but maybe it will.

(image via Letters of Note)