"If you have no better offer, do come," 11.52 helps put flesh on the bones of Martial’s Rome (‘you know Stephanus’ baths are right next door…’) and presents the city poet in a neighbourly light. It’s also a favourite of modern foodies in search of an unpretentious sample menu from ancient daily life.
The post ‘If you have no better offer, do come’: Martial’s guide to Roman dinner parties appeared first on OUPblog.
This month-long series of blog posts will explain author websites and offer tips and writing strategies for an effective author website. It alternates between a day of technical information and a day of writing content. By the end of the month, you should have a basic author website up and functioning. The Table of Contents lists the topics, but individual posts will not go live until the date listed. The Author Website Resource Page offers links to tools, services, software and more.
Transferring Pages to WordPress
This is an exciting day. So far, you’ve written pages for ABOUT, BOOKS, NEWS, CONTACT, and PRIVACY. It’s time to get them on the site. Remember that WordPress is a Content Management System and uses two types of content, pages and posts. Posts are organized in reverse chronological order for the blog; Pages are static pages that don’t change and operate much like a website.
WordPress has extensive documentation on how to use the software in the WordPress Codex. Believe me, the Codex is your friend. Any questions, go there first.
Here are Codex instructions on:
How to Write a Post.
How to Write a page.
Remember, we’ve asked search engines not to index the site yet, so there won’t be any traffic until we change that setting. You can’t break the software. It’s time to add your Pages to your site.
Click on Pages/AddNew. Cut and paste your pages into the editor and tweak until it looks right. This will take some time, so keep at it until you’ve got the basic Pages done. Then, add one more Page: Label this one, BLOG, and leave it empty with no content. Then, you’ll have a couple tasks to do.
Set Home Page on Settings. First, you’ll want to set the HOME Page. Go to Settings/Reading. The default is for your latest post (blog post) to be the front page of your site. You can still leave it that way, if you like, but if you wrote a great HOME page, you’ll want to select it.
Set your HOME Page and your BLOG page. Click to enlarge.
Select a STATIC PAGE and from the drop down menu, select your HOME Page.
For the blog, choose the BLOG Page.
Be sure to SAVE CHANGES at the bottom.
Now, when you look at your website (FamousAuthorWebsite.com), you should see your home page.
MENU:Navigating Around Your Site
Great. But how do you get to the Pages? To do that, you must set up a custom Menu that will let your readers navigate through the site. Go to Appearance/Menus. Because themes operate differently in how they use a menu, you may have to read the documentation for your theme or search for a tutorial for your theme + menu. Here is WordPress’s basic instructions on menus. And here’s a video about WordPress menus.
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If you can’t see this video, click here.
Note that you can create various menus and use Widgets to add a custom menu where you want. On my HOME Page and on the sidebar of Fiction Notes, I use a Custom Menu in a Widget to add navigation entitled, “NEW? START HERE.” It links to other series of posts that are pillars of the site. When and where would you use a Custom Menu? Maybe for your books?
Today is Judy Sierra’s birthday: librarian, puppeteer, author, poet, and speaker. In Sharron McElmeel’s profile of Sierra we learn that Judy took to poetry like a fish to water. Her mother reminisced about “two-year-old Judy going to her doctor and reciting a Robert Louis Stevenson poem for him. Sierra herself said, "As a child, I was a great fan of Dr. Seuss and Wanda Gag and shared my parents' enthusiasm for Ogden Nash, Cole Porter, and Gilbert and Sullivan." Her father paid her a dollar for every poem she learned by heart. She memorized poems by many poets, including Lewis Carroll and T.S. Eliot. Second-grade reports were written in rhyme.”
Many of her works for children are rhyming picture books that bridge the worlds of poetry and folklore, with a strong dash of humor. She enjoys parodying or spoofing classic children’s rhymes from Mother Goose to “The Night Before Christmas” to “The Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.” Sierra has a knack for creating rhymes and rhyming text that are musical and song-like, often injecting a bit of wordplay a well. Look for:
Schoolyard Rhymes: Kids' Own Rhymes for Rope Skipping, Hand Clapping, Ball Bouncing, and Just Plain Fun
Wild About Books
Counting Crocodiles
Antarctic Antics (which was also animated by Weston Woods)
'Twas the Fright Before Christmas
There's a Zoo in Room 22
Thelonius Monster's Sky-High Fly-Pie
Good Night, Dinosaurs
Monster Goose
Sierra worked as a librarian, toured with her own puppet theater, and earned a Ph.D. in Folklore and Mythology Studies from UCLA. Besides her work for children, she has also authored professional books and storytelling and folklore collections for librarians and teachers, including:
The Flannel Board Storytelling Book
Cinderella, part of the Oryx Multicultural Folktale Series
Multicultural Folktales: Stories to Tell Young Children
Nursery Tales Around the World
Fantastic Theater: Puppets and Plays for Young Performers and Young Audiences
Children's Traditional Games
Can You Guess My Name?: Traditional Tales Around the World
Storytellers Research Guide
Mother Goose's Playhouse
Picture credit: http://www.judysierra.net/
