Annie Cardi's Blog, page 72

The Art of Reading Aloud

What’s better than reading poetry? Hearing celebrities read poetry to you.

Check out Speak, Celebrity’s collection of poems read by actors like Meryl Streep, Tom Hiddleston, and Samuel L. Jackson. If anything, it’s a reminder that poems should be read aloud. The depths these readers bring to very familiar poems is fantastic.

(H/T Book Riot)

Friday Fifteen

Hey there, Friday fans! Welcome to this week’s edition of the Friday Fifteen, in which I review five books in fifteen words or less.

1. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Psychics, ghosts, boarding school–the perfect autumn book. Excellent character development too. Sequel now, please!

2. Kirsten’s Surprise (American Girls: Kirsten #3) by Janet Shaw

A crown of candles and breakfast treats–I want to celebrate St. Lucia Day.

3. Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir by Doris Kearns Goodwin

The closest I’ve come to reading a book about sports.

4. Paradise Lost by John Milton

Dense, but awesomely epic. I feel like this would make for a cool graphic novel.

5. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

This gives me unreasonable expectations about writing to and forming relationships with famous writers.

Links Galore

A few more links for today:

I’m too flighty for a tattoo, but I love these librarians’ choices.
Jennifer Thermes’ illustrations for The Iciest, Diciest, Scariest Sled Ride Ever make me wish it a snow day.
I would have freaked out over a library storybook dollhouse as a kid. Or now.
Follow the path of glowing books.
I love that Charles Dickens had a library of fake books.

Old Book, New Clutch

You can make your own book clutch?!?!

I’ve seen these kind of purses by famous designers and local artisans, but I’ve never seen a DIY tutorial. Head on over to see kate sew for the how-to. Soon we can all show off our literary style.

(image: see kate sew)(via Design Mom)

Fight (and Write) Like a Girl

Last night I went to Boston GLOW’s Fight Like a Girl! author panel, and it was awesome!

The MG panel–Lynda Mullaly Hunt, Padma Venkatraman, Erin Dionne, Jennifer Carson, and Ellen Booraem

Techincally, there were two panels–one for middle grade authors and one for YA authors. Even though you could have just attended one or the other, I was glad to see both. Panelists tackled different issues, like how setting was used or how the line between weakness and strength is blurred or how reading allows for greater empathy. It was inspiring to hear so many fantastic MG/YA authors talk about their work, and to hear about an organization dedicated to helping women become active leaders in their communities and the world.

The conversation got me thinking about the different ways in which my characters are strong and weak, and how these qualities are manifested b their actions.

Other fun stuff:

Hearing about people’s inner nerdiness.
My new Fight Like a Girl t-shirt.
Meeting new writer friends, seeing old writer friends get to be friends.
Being prompted to ask my question in the YA Q&A session (since I tend to freak out about raising my hand).
Swag bags.
Hearing about Boston GLOW’s 2013 IGNITE Change Leadership Contest.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this event so inspiring and so much fun! I’m feeling stronger already.

Take a Deep Breath and Take Your Time

Love this post at YA Highway about taking care of yourself in the stressful world of writing. Among other things, Kirsten Hubbard reminds us that we should give ourselves permission:

. . . to take your time.

As writers, we’re so aware of time. How much time we have to write each day. How long it’ll take to finish a book and revise it. To get an agent. To sell to a publisher. And after that, there’s contracts, editing, promotion, and (a million light years away) release.

Everything takes so damned long! As a result, we often fall victim to this relentless urge to hurry hurry hurry – because somebody will write our idea, or we won’t have a 2013 book out, or we’ll turn 18 or 30 or 45, or a million other arbitrary things. On good days, that hurry hurry hurry refrain lights a fire under our butts. But it’s also really freaking stressful. And stress doesn’t result in our best books – or happiness in general.

As long as you keep writing regularly, give yourself permission to take your time. It’ll take how long it takes. And however long that is – it’s okay.

In moves, books get written in the time it takes to show a montage. There’s no editing required. People are super successful published authors by the time they’re 18. That’s totally unrealistic! The writing and publishing process takes a long time. And most people don’t understand that. They’ll ask when you’ll be done with your novel/get an agent/get published. Mostly this is just from excitement, but it can induce a lot of unnecessary pressure. (As if you’re not already beating yourself up about that stuff, right?) I love Kirsten’s suggestion to take your time. Rushing the journey doesn’t help and only needs to stress.

Make sure to check out the rest of the list for more ways you can give yourself permission in your writing career. I’m feeling more relaxed already!

Quote of the Day

“I was taken out to lunch and offered, with great ceremony, the opportunity to be an editor in the adult department? The implication, of course, was that since I had learned to publish books for children with considerable success perhaps I was now ready to move along (or up) to the adult field. I almost pushed the luncheon table into the lap of the pompous gentleman opposite me and then explained kindly that publishing children’s book was what I did, that I couldn’t possibly be interested in books for dead dull finished adults, and thank you very much but I had to get back to my desk to publish some more good books for bad children.”–Ursula Nordstrom

Currently reading Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom by Leonard S. Marcus and loving it. Nordstrom worked closely with authors and illustrators like E.B. White, Maurice Sendak, and Shel Silverstein. Pretty awesome career, right? And I love her commitment to children’s literature as a whole, as indicated in the quote above.

(image via Charlotte Zolotow)

Links Galore

Lots of great links I’ve been hoarding:

Relationships don’t end with boyfriends and girlfriend; a great post on representing all kinds of relationships in fiction.
What sparked some famous novels.
I’m a little obsessed with this list of YA novels by state.
Great opening lines in poetry.
Valerie Tripp taught me about D-Day, apple butter, and air raids.
Fellow critique group member Katie looks at how paleontology prepared her for writing fiction. Basically, Katie does all the awesome stuff.
Another fellow critique group member (and 2013 debut author) Tara Sullivan interviews me on her blog. Check it out for a little background on Queen of the Air, some song recommendations, and a blast-from-the-past photo of yours truly.

Novel Tea

Anyone else want to go to the Novel Tea Cafe as designed by artist Woody Harrington? This would make for a pretty awesome cafe/writer haunt:

Click through to check out the rest of the Novel Tea Cafe portfolio.

Another reason I love this branding–the literary journal I edited in college made major use of “tea” puns as well.

(via Design Work Life)

Everyone Has Green Eyes Sometimes

I feel like I should preface this with the fact that pretty much every YA/children’s writer I’ve met has been so friendly and enthusiastic. It’s easy to get excited for them and feel like the world of children’s lit is a big, squishy cheer-fest. But of course, it’s just like any other career and it’s easy to feel weirdly competitive with your fellow writers.

Robin Black has a fantastic post up about dealing with that inevitable writerly jealousy. One suggestion I like in particular:

“Ask yourself whether feeling jealous, at the moment when the green-eyed monster strikes, is actually helping you avoid some more uncomfortable anxiety you might feel….Envy can be oddly comforting. Figuring out why can be a powerful tool.”

I like the introspective approach to jealousy. It’s often a response to feeling vulnerable and worthless in your own career, when really it’s almost impossible to compare any two artists, even at similar ages/career stages/etc. When someone gets an agent or a five-star review or a Printz, it can be a reminder of how you didn’t get those things, which is really tough. And it’s okay to feel a little bitter, as long as you realize that this feeling comes from your own hurt and shouldn’t affect how you feel about the other person’s success–especially if that’s a person you actually know.

Honestly, I really like being supportive. Cheering people on at the Boston Marathon is one of my very favorite annual traditions. When someone gets good news, I love blogging about it. And I still get jealous all the time.

It’s not easy to wrangle the green-eyed monster. It’ll happen to everyone at some point. (If it never happens to you, please tell me what wizardry makes this so.) But you can help how you deal with your response to jealousy, especially in how you respond to other people.

(H/T Debbie Ohi)