This week is out of sync. On Tuesday, I thought it was Monday -missed an appointment on Monday - sigh.
So today, I want to remind you about figment - a writing and reading website for teens. Which is the kind of thing I usually share on Tuesday. Out of sync, like I said.
Here it is - figment.com - a website for young writers and a great place to learn about hot books for young adults - 15 and up! Some are fine for younger readers. I just want you to know this is a site you can grow with.
Sign up for their weekly newsletter. Today, I took a quiz to see if I have ESP. (I'm Possibly Psychic - which is better than clueless, I guess.) But, you can write fanfic to win prizes; enter contests of all kinds; learn about awesome new books, films, music and TV shows - all of which require good writers.
Check it out and have fun.
Among the many movies discussed at Disney’s D23 conference (we’re most excited about ‘Monsters University,” the prequel to the beloved “Monsters, Inc.” As the title suggests, the film will focus on Mike and Sulley at school way... Read the rest of this post
I'm about to go out and Rock the Drop for Readergirlz in support of Teen Lit Day. What's that, you say? You don't know about Teen Lit Day? You don't know about
Readergirlz and its mission to promote teen literarcy and corresponding social service? You don't know about
Figment? Stop all traffic. Take a moment
here. Get yourself involved.
I spent much of the weekend preparing for my long morning at The Baldwin School, where I will today be talking about, reading from, and building exercises on the shoulders of Wordsworth and Mary Oliver, Sei Shonagon, Rilke, Neruda, Sandra Cisneros, Marilyn Nelson, and Gerald Stern, among others. I never conduct the same workshop twice, don't give the same talk over again, and while my husband will be the first to remind me of how terribly inefficient all that is, I know no other way. No two students or group of students are the same. It matters, I think, that we actively lean in their direction.
The students pictured above were girls I met during my spring trip to Wisconsin for the unforgettable Fox Cities Book Festival. I was thinking about them earlier this morning, as I explored
Figment.com, a new site designed to enable the young to "share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors." How cool, might I ask you, is this? I know dozens of young big-dreaming, risk-taking blogger/writers whose work should grace this site and whose insights could power it forward. You know who you all are.... and you know that I love you. Take a spin through Figment and let me know what you think.
And while you're at it, spend some time at Chasing Ray today, because Colleen Mondor has assembled a
bang-up interview with one of my very favorite writers/people, Elizabeth Hand. I wouldn't know Liz if it weren't for Colleen. I wouldn't know a lot of things, were it not for Colleen. But listen to Liz talk, for example, about the beautiful big rawness of teens, the "thrilling and often perilous" process of self-discovery for young artists. I was cooing just this weekend about how happy the Johnny Depp-Patti Smith interview in
Vanity Fair made me. Substance! I declared, I danced. Substance! I shout again today.
Liz blew my mind with that interview - she is so so sooooo cool.
As to figment; man IF ONLY IT HAD BEEN THERE TWENTY YEARS AGO!!
Sigh. I would have loved it - and will certainly share it now with teen writers I know.