R is for Rot (or Happy Anniversary)

I’m not certain how this can be true, but this month marks
the 5th Anniversary of the I.N.K. blog. It’s unclear what we’ve
accomplished, if anything. Maybe we should just keep going until we figure that
out.




I do know that it’s not that easy to commit to writing a
post every month when it steals time from other pressures and deadlines and
actual paying gigs.  Thanks to those
hearty few who were brave enough to respond to my awkward email all those years
ago and have continued blogging with us: Anna, Vicki, Sue, David and Steve
(with a hiatus). Special thanks to Loreen for sharing her time and expertise on
the technical side of blogging and helping me with the dirty work of making the
blog look pretty (or at least prettier) and to Steve for designing our spiffy
logo. Thanks to every I.N.K. blogger, past and present, who posted their
thoughts about non fiction, without editorial advice, and contributed to our
community these last five years.




And the Rot? My daughter and I were having a tangential
conversation about rotting apples and I said, “Well, rot can be interesting you
know. David Schwartz wrote a blog post about a favorite manuscript he’s been
trying to sell about a rotting pumpkin.” “Oh, I know,” she replied. He’s
written about rot before. Remember? R is for Rot in his Q is for Quark book.”
Somehow this conversation sums up the value of this blog to me. The import of
quality non fiction kids books can be seen through the college student who
still remembers much that she read and learned in those books and, as far as I'm concerned,  I’m just glad to
at least be in the conversation benefiting greatly from having read many good
I.N.K. books myself and every single one of the blog posts.




Happy Anniversary to I.N.K.!