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Would you watch a film about a senior citizen skateboarding veterinarian voiced by Sean Connery? What happens if I told you this veterinarian has a sidekick: a gay goat in Kill Bill-style spandex with bladder control issues? Still not convinced. What if skateboarding Sean Connery and his gay goat were on a mission to save Scotland’s last beaver, Bessie Boo? This is the compelling plotline of Scotland’s first CG animated feature, Sir Billi, written and directed by the husband-and-wife team of Sascha and Tessa Hartmann.

We’ve been following Sir Billi since 2010 and we’re going to keep following it until it wins the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. The film has a newly released trailer:

The new Sir Billi trailer has a more adult vibe than the earlier preview which focused on the high-octane beaver-saving elements of the film:

The only review of Sir Billi I could find online was clearly written by someone that hates skateboarding senior citizens who befriend incontinent goats and save beavers. Plus, any family movie with a double entendre tagline like this can’t be all bad:

(Thanks, David OReilly)

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Fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts

For the last forty years, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown has run the largest and longest residency Fellowship in the United States for emerging visual artists and writers. Artists who have not had significant recognition for their work and writers who have not yet published a full-length book of creative work are welcome to apply. Fellows receive a seven-month stay (October 1 -April 30) at the Work Center and a $750 monthly stipend. Fellows do not pay or work in exchange for their Fellowships in any way. Fellows are chosen based on the excellence of their work.

Former visual arts Fellows include Ellen Gallagher, Jack Pierson, Lisa Yuskavage, Angela Dufresne, Geoffrey Chadsey, and Lamar Peterson. Former writing Fellows--nearly all of whom came here before the publication of their first books--have won every major national award in writing including the National Book Award and seven Pulitzer Prizes. Former writing Fellows include Denis Johnson, Louise Glück, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Yusef Komunyakaa.

The postmark deadline for the 2013-14 Writing Fellowships is December 1, 2012.


For details, please visit our website.

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I was in San Francisco last weekend and went by Chronicle Books to visit with an editor. Here’s a peek at the tour of their offices.

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Surrounded by water on all sides, the giant ship glides along the waves, the water lapping steadily as the ship moves forward. Mesmerizing. Relaxing. Blissful. All cares are swept away.

The coffee itch is always satisfied. I'm addicted to the brew, and fortunately it's served piping hot early every morning. It's not the best coffee by far, but considering how many people are on board and that it's continuously flowing, the ambiance makes it more than palatable. By the way, good coffee is available later in the day for an extra charge.

The delightful part of being at sea, is that you can do as much or as little as you want. There are plenty of planned activities, from belly dancing, belly flops and I'm sure other belly things, there is ballroom dancing, and...well, you get the drift. You can be as busy or as relaxed as you like. It's all up to you.  

The elevators have a plaque on the floor, changed daily to make sure you know the days of the week; a gentle reminder that you're on vacation.

Margot Justes
www.mjustes.com
A Hotel in Paris
Hearts & Daggers
Hot Crimes, Cool Chicks
and coming soon A Hotel in Bath

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The ants have completely taken over our house. They’ve been massing for weeks and we’ve been knocking them back. But we’ve completely lost the war despite so many battles won. So, I’ve decided to admit defeat and just co-exist with my six-legged friends.

You really have to admire the little buggers’s tenacity?

This little guy is a study from an e-book I worked on last month

…………….

I’m hoping to put a list of fellow SkADaMoers together on Tuesday so we can root each other on!

Sketch on!

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The ants have completely taken over our house. They’ve been massing for weeks and we’ve been knocking them back. But we’ve completely lost the war despite so many battles won. So, I’ve decided to admit defeat and just co-exist with my six-legged friends.

You really have to admire the little buggers’s tenacity?

This little guy is a study from an e-book I worked on last month

…………….

I’m hoping to put a list of fellow SkADaMoers together on Tuesday so we can root each other on!

Sketch on!

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I'm drinking Earl Grey tea and looking at the new pretty flickering electric candles on the windwosill. Last night, they represented the souls of lost children in a Halloween game I helped to set up and run at a warehouse near Tower Bridge. The warehouse is the same that they film "Dragon's Den" in, it's a wonderful venue, scuffed wooden floors and beams and old brick walls. I spent Thursday building a playhouse that filled a whole floor, using a huge roll of cardboard, assorted sheets and ropes and things from my own collection of toys and illustrations. I really got into it, picked a soundtrack and made a ghost costume from a sheet and a white mask which succeeded in frightening people a lot from what I could hear.
Friday night I dressed up in a crocheted bearskin, and spent all night telling a never-ending crowd of visitors the tragic story of these lost children, and how they could rescue them from the haunted maze. I had a magic frying pan that I banged to give signals, and my main discovery that evening was that if you dress up in a bearskin and bang a pan with a wooden spoon it really helps with getting people's attention.
"These children built their playhouse in a very very very unfortunate place... on an Indian burial ground or something - I'm actually not sure what's downstairs but you're probably safer up here. Well I say safe, that's not true, I mean it's teeming with ghosts. Teeming. - Excuse me" (bangs pan) "You will learn to love this sound. It's the only thing keeping us safe. I try not to use the magic pan too much because to be honest it's pretty weird that it works in the first place, I don't want to break it. Anyway, you are the only ones who can save these children. Or what's left of them. If you find one, pick them up gently... carry them one at the time back to me. ONE AT A TIME! Do NOT put children in your pockets! IT IS WRONG!" (bangs pan again) (screams from the haunted playhouse) "So. Did I tell you what happens when a ghost touches you?"
... and so on. It was quite a strange thing to do, I am not sure where I got that impromptu persona from, and I don't think I would have taken that part of the show on if I hadn't still been in performance mode from doing a two hour workshop for Nintendo.
Here are some of the results from that workshop by the way:

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...at Apartment Therapy.

The Harry Potter one is pretty awesome.

(via Jen Robinson's FB)

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Go to Kid-Lit Cares!

There's a most cool list of items you can bid on, organized by the awesome Kate Messner, and all proceeds go to the Red Cross. I mean, who doesn't want a writer's retreat in Austin, or a manuscript critique by a great agent or editor?

Exactly.

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Aline Pereira is an independent writer, editor and editorial consultant specializing in multicultural children’s books and was Managing Editor of PaperTigers from 2004 until January 2011. In honor of PaperTigers’ 10th anniversary Aline wrote an article entitled Celebrating  PaperTigers 10th Anniversary: What a Smilestone! which you can read here, and now offers up her Top 10 Tiger Themed Books.

One tiger, two tigers… ten tigers!  More tigers! by Aline Pereira

Children love to ask each other about their favorite animals, and their answers usually reveal much about themselves: what they fear, what they love, and what they need and want from the world.

In celebration of PaperTigers’ 10^th anniversary, I put together a list of ten (plus one to grow on) multicultural books featuring tigers, a graceful, alluring and majestic animal– often mentioned as a “favorite” of children–which is a symbol of all that is splendid and powerful in nature. I thought PaperTigers’ 10^th’ anniversary would be a good occasion to celebrate tigers and remind children and adults that, without the proper protective measures, tigers in the wild may disappear by 2022–within a decade!–the next Year of the Tiger.

Tigers are an important part of the reality and mythology of many countries, including Bangladesh, China, India, Korea and Thailand. Throughout history, tigers have been regarded as auspicious animals, as guardians and protectors. Indian mythology, for instance, has several stories where the tiger is believed to have powers to do everything from fighting dragons to creating rain to keeping children safe from nightmares. According to a 2010 statement by the Global Tiger Initiative, “The loss of tigers and degradation of their ecosystems would inevitably result in a historic, cultural, spiritual, and environmental catastrophe for the tiger-range countries [Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Russia].”

It’s my hope that this book list will help children learn more about tigers and the ways in which they feature, literally and metaphorically, in stories from far and near.

The tigers are ROARING!… Can you hear them?

Ying Chang Compestine, illustrated by Yan Nascimbene
Crouching Tiger
Candlewick, 2011
Age: 6+

In Crouching Tiger, an American boy learns to appreciate his Chinese heritage with the help of his grandfather, who is visiting from China.

Little Vinson is intrigued by grandpa’s Tai Chi routine: “He crouched like a tiger; he drew an invisible bow; he lifted a foot like a rooster and stood still,” but when grandpa tries to teach him how to do it, he thinks tai chi isn’t as interesting as kung fu, which he already knows. When grandpa calls him by his Chinese name, which happens all the time, Vinson finds it annoying, but little by little, he begins to understand and feel pride in his heritage.

Nascimbene’s gorgeous illustrations capture the excitement of the parade and convey the boy’s emotional shift from annoyance to curiosity to pride very well. An author’s note at the end adds depth to the story by explaining Chinese martial arts and Chinese New Year traditions.

James Rumford,
Tiger and Turtle
Roaring Brook Press/ A Neal Porter Book, 2010
Age: 4 – 8

A 2011 Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year, Tiger and Turtle is the retelling of an Afghani folktale.

Tiger and Turtle are not friends but have learned to live peacefully (“A tiger’s claws could not harm a turtle’s shell any more than a turtle’s feet could outrun a tiger’s.”). However, when a beautiful flower floats down from the sky and lands by their feet, the two animals start arguing about who should have it, who saw it first, and so on, and end up getting into a terrible fight… And it’s not until they accidently fall into a flower-covered field that they realize their foolishness and learn to be friends.

An author’s note explains how he discovered the folktale and talks about the cultural inspirations for the beautiful background patterns used throughout the book. Tiger and Turtle conveys an important message and makes for a perfect read-aloud for the younger crowd.

Eve Bunting, illustrated by David Frampton
Riding the Tiger
Clarion Books, 2001
Age: 9+

Set in the streets of a big city and illustrated with gorgeous woodcuts by David Frampton, Riding the Tiger is Eve Bunting’s powerful story about a ten year-old boy new to town who can’t resist the invitation of an alluring tiger to go for a ride. Cruising the city on the tiger’s back gives Danny a sense power, of being respected by children and adults alike—he no longer feels powerless and out of place. Soon, however, he realizes that what he thought was respect is actually fear, and that getting off the tiger’s back isn’t easy.

A wonderful metaphor for the power of gangs, drugs (or whatever harmful attraction children may find hard to resist at one point or another in their lives), this beautifully told story offers much food for thought. It should be a must-read in schools everywhere, where children may be feeling tempted to give up their freedom and inner strength in the name of acceptance and (pseudo) respect.

Lynne Reid Banks,
Tiger, Tiger
Laurel Leaf, 2007
Age: 12+

Two tiger brothers are taken from the jungle to Rome. One, Brute, is raised to kill slaves, criminals and Christians at the Colosseum; Boots, the other, becomes a pet to Emperor Julius Ceasar’s 12 year-old daughter, Aurelia.

While Boots is treated like royalty, Brute spends most of his time locked in a dark cage. When after a game gone wrong Julius, the slave who cares for Boots and harbor feelings for Aurelia, is sent to the arena to face the killer Brute, accused of letting Boots escape, things get very intense, and Aurelia must make difficult decisions whose consequences are beyond her years to fully grasp. The great mixture of adventure, romance and historical fiction in Tiger, Tiger will appeal to older kids and have them on the edge of their seats, rooting for a happy ending for Julius, Aurelia and Boots.

Helen Bannerman, illustrated by Valeria Petroni
The Boy and the Tigers
Golden Books, 2004
Age: 4+

In this retelling of Helen Bannerman’s controversial Little Black Sambo, little Rajani ventures into the jungle and runs into several tigers who, one by one, convince him to give them his belongings: a new red coat, a pair of blue trousers, purple shoes, and even his green umbrella! But resourceful Rajani devises a way to outsmart the tigers and get his things back. The lovely new illustrations by Valeria Petroni combined with non-offensive names and non-stereotypical character depictions make this story a treasure again.

Elizabeth Stanley
Tyger! Tyger!
Enchanted Lion Books, 2007
Age: 8+

Elizabeth Stanley’s Tyger! Tyger! is based on the true story of a sanctuary for endangered Indo-Chinese tigers in northwest Thailand.

For centuries Buddhist monks in their jungle monastery lived in harmony with neighboring animals, so when poachers begin killing the tigers, the monks protect these beautiful animals, beginning with two tiny cubs found hiding near the temple gate. Over time, more tigers are brought to or show up at the monastery. But poaching continues… One young monk’s vision offers a solution: a moat can be dug around the temple, creating a large island hermitage for the tigers. It is a formidable mission. “The moat must be deep, impassable. The monks’ tools were primitive and many of the men were old and weak. Only a miracle could create such a sanctuary.”

The monks in the story accomplish their goal, and see the moat filled during the next monsoon…[This is an excerpt from Charlotte’s review.]

Laura Manivong,
Escaping the Tiger
HarperCollins, 2010
Age: 12+

Twelve year-old Vonlai must try to escape communist Laos with his sister and desperate parents by crossing the Mekong River, “where soldiers shoot at anything that moves.” Their only hope is Na Pho, a refugee camp in Thailand, on the other side of the river.

When they finally get there, after a dangerous journey, life in Na Pho feels far from safe–their living quarters is cramped, dirty, and the guards who keep watch on them are all unfriendly. Vonlai tries to carry on as best as he can, eating his meager portion of rationed food, attending a makeshift school, and playing with other kids to pass the time. But things take a turn for the worse when someone inside the camp threatens his family and Vonlai must call on a forbidden skill to protect them until they can be resettled, hopefully in a safer place.

This powerful novel about escaping communist Laos in 1982 is based on the author’s husband’s experience as a child. Focusing on a chapter of history not often seen in children’s literature, Escaping the Tiger offers a realistic portrayal of the plight of Laotians who fled the country to escape the communist regime. It shows the plight of refugees living in limbo, as well as the resilience of the human spirit in the face of difficult situations.

Anushka Ravishankar,
Tiger on a Tree
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004  (originally published in India by Tara Books, in 1997)
Age: 4-8

The tiger in Anushka Ravishankar’s whimsical picture book means no harm. But his wanderings lead to a run-in with an angry goat, so he takes refuge in a tree. There, he is cornered by a group of excitable men who are quickly confounded by what to do. (“Send him to the zoo? Stick him up with glue? Paint him electric blue?”) Their solution brings this comical story rich with word and sound-play full circle, and will leave many young listeners requesting repeated readings.

The superb design of this singular book features dynamic text layout integrated into the striking two-color prints in black and orange created by Pulak Biswas. Even with stylized printmaking techniques, the illustrator has managed to create a cast of visually distinctive characters whose expressions (the tiger’s included) are a wonderful complement to the text. [This is an excerpt from the CCBC review.]

Sy Montgomery, photographs by Eleanor Briggs
The Man-eating Tigers of Sundarbans
Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2001
Age: 8+

The Sundarbans Tiger Reserve, situated in the Indian state of West Bengal, is home to more tigers than anywhere else on earth. There are said to be some five hundred tigers there—more than anywhere else in the world. Nowhere else do tigers live in a mangrove swamp. And nowhere else do healthy tigers routinely hunt people. No one knows why. The Man-Eating Tigers of Sundarbans is a mystery story, but it is also a story about science and myth, about people and tigers, and about different ways of seeing the natural world.

Sy Montgomery traveled to Sundarbans searching for answers to the mysteries surrounding these tigers. She listened to what scientists had to say about the unusual tiger behavior and to the stories of the villagers who revere the very animals who hunt them because they believe the tigers protect the forest they all depend on. Tradition has it that Daskin Ray, the tiger god, and Bonobibi, the forest goddess, rule Sundarbans. Every February there is a festival to celebrate their protection of the forest, and the reserve holds many rustic tiger shrines.  As Montgomery argues, “Sometimes what is true is hidden, as in a riddle. Even dangerous man-eating tigers may do us more good than harm.”

This fascinating book includes beautiful photographs by Eleanor Briggs, fast facts, a glossary of Bengali phrases, and a list of organizations doing work to protect tigers.

Alison Lloyd,
The Year of the Tiger
Holiday House, 2010
Age: 10+

In ancient China, the Great Wall is crumbling on the edge of the Han Empire. In the wall’s shadow, twelve-year-old Hu is starving. On the other side of the wall, China’s enemies are gathering strength. When an imperial battalion comes to town, Hu meets Ren, the son of the commander, and the two boys combine forces to train secretly for an archery tournament. For Hu, the contest offers escape from poverty and for Ren, the respect of his father. But the capture of a barbarian spy changes everything. With their trust at its lowest point, Ren and Hu must work together to evade the barbarians and save the empire. This exciting adventure story came out in 2010, the Year of the Tiger.

Antonia Michaelis,
Tiger Moon
Amulet Books, 2008 (originally published in Germany, in 2006)
Age: 14+

A princess in trouble, a thief with a heart of gold, and a sacred talking tiger with an unnatural fear of water are at the heart of this “story within a story” set in India in the early 1900s. 

In order to better endure her condition, Raka, the young bride of a violent merchant, tells a servant boy the story of Farhad, a thief and unlikely hero who is sent by Krishna on a mission to retrieve a famous jewel in order to save a kidnapped princess from a demon king. Farhad is accompanied on his journey by his friend Nitish, a white tiger who helps and advises him along the way.

The story gives an excellent overview of Hindu religious beliefs and of the conflicts India faced at the time of British occupation. Due to some implied sexual content, this novel is more suitable for young adults.

Anton Poitier,
Once I Was a Comic… But Now I’m A Book about Tigers!
Hammond, 2010
Age: 4+

With this fantastic earth-friendly book, kids get two unforgettable stories at the same time—one about tigers and one about recycling! Fun facts, quirky illustrations, and cute photographs give kids a close-up look at the tiger, one of the world’s most beloved endangered species. Kids will learn everything from how tigers hunt and how long their tails are to where they live and what they eat in this exciting, informative, and earth-friendly book.

A side panel on each page tells the story of how this book was made from the recycled paper of a comic book, teaching kids the process of recycling and showing them what they can do to help save the planet—and the tigers!

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Behold!

The Weird Fiction Review website has existed for a year now. During that time, it has published work from around the world, including such wondrous things as a new translation of Bruno Schulz's "The Sanatorium at the Sign of the Hour Glass", Olympe Bhêly-Quénum's "The Night Watchman", and Finnish writer Leena Likitalo's first story in English, "Watcher". And tons of other things, including my own "Stories in the Key of Strange: A Collage of Encounters". The website has become a hugely valuable resource, and it just keeps getting better, more varied, more surprising, more impressive. If you haven't spent time with it, you're missing a treasure trove.

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New Loot:

• Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan
• Bunny Party by Rosemary Wells
• Max Cleans Up by Rosemary Wells
• Max's ABC by Rosemary Wells
• Max's Christmas by Rosemary Wells
• Bunny Cakes by Rosemary Wells

Leftover Loot:

• Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan
• A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan
• The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan   
• The Shadow Dragons by James Owen
• The Dragons of Winter by James A. Owen
• The Dragon's Apprentice by James A. Owen

  Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.  

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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I'm okay with either:

@bkshelvesofdoom Also, FYI, this bring my "books purchased bc of you this month" status up to FIVE. Finished OTHER NORMALS last night :)

— Beth Revis (@bethrevis) November 3, 2012

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If you're the third person on the planet (the first two are my parents) to keep track of Mitali's Events, you'll remember the recent Literary Lights afternoon tea at the Boston Public Library with 400 or so Boston students, courtesy of the Associates of the Boston Public Library. Well, the encouragement from the Associates keeps coming. First, there was a beautiful engraved glass bowl.

Talk about an unforgettable reminder of my vocational call.

John Singer Sargent's Triumph of Religion at the Boston Public Library: Creation and Restoration, edited by Narayan Khandekar, Gianfranco Pocobene, and Kate Smith.

Next came a package and a letter from Vivian Spiro, the Chairman of the Board of the Directors. Here's an excerpt of the letter, a keepsake in itself, which illuminates why this was such a special memory for me:

Your description of what it was like to grow up in a multicultural household; to have spent your childhood living in many different countries, never being able to put down roots; to have felt you had little in common with your classmates in school; to have felt alienated, even after realizing that you were smart ... All of what you said clearly resonated with those members of our audience who grapple daily with the felling that they are outsiders, that the hopes and ambitions of others are beyond their grasp, that regardless of their gifts, their striving will come to naught.

The package contained a gorgeous book, obviously chosen for me by someone who took the time to learn what I value. Thank you so much, Associates, for the outpouring of encouragement.

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One of the dullest models I've ever had the misfortune to be lumbered with.
Gel pens. A3 size. Click to enlarge.

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The Workshop is Full!

Our November 1st Five Pages Workshop will open for entries today! We will accept the first five middle grade or young adult manuscripts received by email starting at noon. Lisa Gail Green and/or I will work alongside our guest mentor to tell you what we see in those first five pages with respect to your voice, plot, characters, setting, pacing and writing in general. Depending on the mentor's schedule, she may comment only on your initial entry, on the initial entry and one revision, or on both revisions. You'll also get feedback and comments from your peers throughout the month, and have the opportunity to post revisions each week so you'll end up the strongest possible start.

About A.C. Gaughen

A.C. has been madly in love with writing since she was in kindergarten. She shared her first original story in first grade, which dealt with a gorilla finding someone naked in the shower, and was, sadly, the culmination of her humor writing skills because it got her kicked out of class.

She wrote all through middle school and starting submitting novels to publishers when she was thirteen.  All through high school she wrote in a notebook instead of taking class notes, finishing several more novels. Fast forward through college, a graduate writing program, and three novels written during her graduate program. SCARLET, her fabulous retelling of the Robin Hood legend, came out this year.  You can catch her on her website or on twitter as @acgaughen.

So there you have it, overnight success in a lifetime, and she's here to pass on what she has learned to help five workshop participants develop their manuscripts and start off right.

Workshop Rules

The rules are simple. We ask that you follow all of them, every week for the duration of the workshop. Properly formatting your entry may sound like a pain, but it's good practice because agents and editors will expect you to follow submission guidelines too. It's part of showing your professionalism, and writing is a business as well as a creative endeavor. Entries that do not meet all of the criteria below WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. Read all the rules and be prepared to follow them each week, otherwise it isn't fair to take up space in the workshop. We always have more entries than we can accept in any given month.

1. Manuscripts must be middle grade or young adult.

2. Manuscripts do not need to be completed, but must be your own, original work.

3. Send us the first five pages, with each page approximately 250 words, max 1250 words.

4. Do NOT send any synopsis or summary information.

5. Make sure your entry is properly formatted, in RTF format, and sent IN THE BODY OF THE EMAIL, single spaced, with a blank line between all paragraphs expect the header information. No attachments.

Before sending it to us, we suggest that you email your entry to yourself so you can see how it will come out.

Your entry MUST look like this:

Name: Your name
Genre: Young Adult XXX or Middle Grade XXX
Title: Your title

The body of the text, max 1250 words, must be SINGLE SPACED. There MUST be an EMPTY LINE BETWEEEN paragraphs. (Hit the 'Enter' button twice.)

If your manuscript is formatted in standard manuscript format, double-spaced with indents at the beginning of each paragraph and no extra space before or after paragraphs, then this will not come through correctly for reading on the web. The easiest way to get the formatting the way that we need it is to copy your snippet, put it into a clean MS Word document, select all the text, change the paragraph spacing to single space, then do a search and replace for ^p and replace it with ^p^p. This will take each paragraph break and turn it into two paragraph breaks. Or, of course, you can go through and hit the enter button again a second time after each individual paragraph.

Create a new email through an email provider other than GMAIL and click on the format text tab at the top of the message. Gmail seems to insert AN EXTRA line for every blank line. It may even insert a blank line between the header information, which should have NO blank lines between paragraphs. To get around the gmail problem, the easiest thing to do is use another email provider if you already have one, or to create a free hotmail account.

In your blank email message, set the message format to “Rich Text,” then paste in the text of your entry.

7. Be prepared to receive honest, constructive feedback EVERY week and to participate through the entire workshop. Not all feedback will be positive. The purpose of the workshop is to help you improve your manuscript, not to tell you that it is wonderful.

8. Provide honest, constructive, and thoughtful feedback to EACH of your fellow workshop participants in a kind and courteous manner by Thursday night EVERY week.

9. Send the revised version of the manuscript back to us--following all the above rules--by 6:00 PM on Sunday nights, properly formatted, every week until the end of the workshop.

That's it. Again, remember that you will need to understand email formatting to submit to agents anyway, so this isn't all a wasted effort.

Send your entries starting at noon (Eastern Time) today to kidlit at writeedge dot com. 

Accepted entries will be posted at noon on Monday, at which time the workshop will officially begin.

Happy reading and writing,

Martina and Lisa

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I am fainting.

Love those books so, so much.

(Want proof? Here's my write-up of the first one.)

Also, Catherine Ryan Hyde's Funerals for Horses is free at the moment.

I haven't read it, but, you know: free.

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Okay, time to to admit it. I've been cheating on Blogger. I have a Tumblr.

It's here!

You should follow it! I still find the whole thing slightly baffling (and the lack of attribution makes me crazy) but it's quick and easy to update and, well, that's where I am. So change your bookmarks and quit thinking mean thoughts about what a neglectful blogger I am (even though, yeah, I am).

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By Cynthia Leitich Smith
for Cynsations

Enter to win one of four copies of The Christmas Tugboat: How the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Came to New York City by George Matteson and Adele Ursone, illustrated by James Ransome (Clarion, 2012). From the promotional copy:

The splendid iconic Christmas tree at New York City's Rockefeller Center doesn't just spring up overnight. It is delivered by tugboat on the Hudson River. 

This is the story of how one such tree made the journey.

Publisher sponsored. Eligibility: North America (U.S./Canada).

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Compiled by Cynthia Leitich Smith
for Cynsations

A little inspiration video for NaNoWriMo participants from Alan Silberberg.

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From the Sacramento Bee's Report Card blog:

Rocklin Unified Superintendent Kevin Brown overturned the high school committee's decision in October, saying the call should have been made by a committee of districtwide representatives.

Brown said Friday that the districtwide committee's findings to allow the book are final, although "if the complaining party wishes to appeal the findings, they can take it to the next level and it goes to the (school) board."

Previously.

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