Ron Koertge's Blog, page 3

Book Trailer

Thanks to Yvonne Jones for creating this nifty book trailer for Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses!

Burning the Book

Ron’s poem “Burning the Book” is featured today in Ted Kooser’s American Life In Poetry column. The poem is from The Ogre’s Wife, a new book of Ron’s poetry to be published by Red Hen Press this September. Click here to read the poem.

Ron’s Latest Named to Top 100 Books by Kansas City Star

The Kansas City Star has named Lies, Knives, and Girls In Red Dresses to its list of Top 100 Books of 2012. Says the Star:

Fairy tales lose the shimmer in this dark and twisted poetic retelling of some of the most beloved and abhorred characters.

Lies, Knives, and Girls In Red Dresses Names PW Best Book of the Year

Publishers Weekly has named Lies, Knives, and Girls In Red Dresses as one of their best books of the year for 2012! Click here to see the list.

Not Too Late To Register for Ron’s Classes This Weekend

Ron will be teaching classes as part of the Writing Pad Fall Break in Los Angeles:

FALL BREAK FICTION/MEMOIR TRACK

http://writingpad.com/classesbydate.htm#FICTIONMEMOIR
Instructors: Monica Holloway, Ron Koertge, Marilyn Friedman, Jeff Bernstein
Weekend Pass: $285 (Includes classes, meals, wine tasting, activities, art supplies)
Fri./Sat. Only Pass: $195 (Includes classes, meals, activities, art supplies)
Sunday Only Pass: $90 (Includes classes, meals)
 
Writing Pad Body Shop: Crafting A Classic Creation
http://writingpad.com/FictionandMemoir.htm#BODYSHOP
Instructor: Ron Koertge
Sun. Nov. 4, 2012
10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Cost: $75 a la carte (includes continental breakfast)
Part of Fall Break Fiction/Memoir Track
Location: Writing Pad East

New York Times review of Lies, Knives, and Girls In Red Dresses

From the October 14 New York Times Sunday Book Review:

 “Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses,” by Ron Koertge, is a collection of familiar fairy tales, retold in blank verse with a bent toward the subversive. Beast laments his lost fangs; Red Riding Hood compares being swallowed up inside a wolf to flying coach to Newark; Ella runs away from the ball, leaving the prince “groaning in his purple tights.” The language here is modern, brutal and sharp as a carving knife. The cut-paper silhouette illustrations, rendered by Andrea Dezso in black and red, are haunting and perfect.

Here, it is the emotional lives of ­Koertge’s characters that provide the element of surprise. In “Bluebeard,” Bluebeard’s newest wife finds herself disturbingly excited by danger. She wonders, in those last moments before her brothers rush in, whether she truly wants to be saved. And Rapunzel’s mother, in “Rapunzel: A Story in Five Parts,” laments asking her husband to steal greens from the witch because she can’t stop wanting everything she can’t have. Koertge is a master at getting to subtle and uncomfortable emotional truths and relaying them in just a few precise lines.

Interview and Giveways

Check out a new interview with Ron Koertge on the Cynsations blog. There’s also a contest featuring some great prizes: a first chapter critique of your manuscript by Ron, and copies of his recent books.

Horn Book Gives Starred Review to Ron Koertge’s Latest

The Horn Book has given Lies, Knives, and Girls In Red Dresses a starred review. Read it here.

School Library Journal Review

In the July 2012 issue, School Library Journal says this about Lies, Knives, and Girls In Red Dresses: “It’s not so happy in Ever After–at least not in Koertge’s verses, which skew and skewer traditional fairy tales. . . . This slim volume is at once simple and sophisticated, witty and unnverving.”

Audio Clips from TeachingBooks.net

Ron Koertge introduces and shares some of the backstory for creating Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses and reads “The Little, Small, Wee Bear.” Click here.

Also, hear Ron explain the proper pronunciation of his name. Click here.