How to use this Page

Oh, May. You beautiful, terrible month. I can’t say I’m sorry to see the back of you. Massive workload, plumbing woes, multiple trips to the children’s hospital (which sounds more alarming than it ought to—here in San Diego they send your kids to Children’s for every little thing; for example: a chest x-ray when your child has pneumonia even though there is an x-ray lab RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the pediatrician’s office, AHEM, and a four-hour wait and a three-second x-ray later the radiologist will say, all right, I’ve just sent these to your doctor, zap)…but it’s June now, let’s put all that behind us.

Ahhhh…

I suppose, though, that May did have its moments. Scott surprised me with a trip to a big art supply story downtown, a wonderland full of pens singing at me. I came home with a metal brush pen, aka my new best friend, it feels amazing when you pull it across the page; and a tube of raw umber paint because I have been unsuccessful in mixing a shade the color of chocolate with my basic color palette. Rilla’s birthday breakfast is still waiting in my sketchbook to be painted. Since April, sheesh.

In May my boys’ writing class wrapped up—this was a group of nine homeschooled boys ages 10-14 whose mothers approached me about putting together an eight-week writing course. We had us some fun, let me tell you. A highlight of my spring was watching our freewrites transform from “TEN WHOLE MINUTES??!!?” to “Oh wait can I please have a bit more time?”

Other highlights:

Huck discovered the delights of the Oz books—specifically the Eric Shanower/Skottie Young graphic novel adaptations that Rilla loves so much. He spends a lot of time like this:

blurry photo but it’s all I got

He’s also enjoying the Magic Tree House books, like so many of his siblings before him. Scott read him the first one to get him started. The corresponding nonfiction volumes are particular favorites, and I am once again being treated to daily factoids about sharks and pirates. Never gets old.

No, I have not dropped off the face of the planet. I've just been a bit busy.

BUT!

You can see me ALL DAY at the Teen Book Festival in Rochester, NY this Saturday.


OR you can read my Book Brahmin interview at Shelf Awareness, in which I answer questions about books.


OR (blushing about this one) you can read this very nice, short piece written about me from the director of the Kalamazoo Public Library.


And if you give me a couple of minutes, I'll show you what Mother's Day looked like in the Forest yesterday.


AND you can enjoy this picture of what Mother's Day looked like in the Forest yesterday.




Truth in advertising: this is a picture from my camp, where we spent the day. It's about 40 minutes away (and 1000 feet higher) than my house. We did get snow at home, too, for about an hour, but the rain washed it all away.

I didn't mean to alarm anyone by not posting for a week. Things have been a bit busy. Mostly with good stuff, but at such a fast pace I haven't had blogging time.

First - A wee movie for your enjoyment. This turtle belongs to my daughter, OfficeMouse. When she got the turtle, it was smaller than a quarter.

The turtle thinks it is a cat. This is very confusing to the real cats.



Second - I have heard nothing from the Kentucky high school where TWISTED and other books still appear to be banned. I have no idea what is going on and hope that everyone down there is figuring out how to have constructive, professional conversations about the place of YA contemporary literature in the classroom.

Third - WINTERGIRLS is preparing to move to the world stage. I think the Australian edition will be the first one to go to press. Authors Melina Marchetta and Alyssa Brugman said very nice things about the book - thank you! As it stands now, WINTERGIRLS will be published in Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, Norway, Korea, Poland, Spain & Latin America, Italy, Germany, and Holland. And Great Britain, I think. This is all VERY exciting!!! As soon as I get cover images of these books, I'll post them. It always fascinates me to see what images the non-US publishers choose to appeal to their markets. 

Fourth - last weekend I got to speak to the lovely booksellers at the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Conference. You can read Part One of Jennifer Brown's conference coverage in today's Shelf Awareness.

Fifth - I have been struggling a bit with some health issues. I added up the stress factors of the past year and everything suddenly made sense. In addition to the two deaths in the family this summer, and caring for a niece for a while, I was on the road for business for more than 100 days of the last year. That is officially Too Much Travel and explains many things. So please, if you have been trying to get me to come at speak at your school or conference, please understand why I am going to have to say no. I am already scheduled for 50 days next year and we're going to try and limit it to that number.

Plus One - I've been sneaking into the cottage and writing amidst the power tools, but BH assures me we are days away from being able to clear out the equipment and handing over the keys to me. Some of the interior projects, like the wall of bookcase have been put on hold until I hit the road again. Next week I might make a video that shows the entire project. For now, here are a couple of recent shots.

  The south wall with the magic window in place. It only requires a little bit of siding work (that is cedar siding) to be done. BH is planning on stoning that bit of wall from the bottom of the siding to the ground. I don't know if he'll have time to do that before the snow flies.

BH standing next to the woodstove where the fire is crackling away. The stove is covered in soapstone so it should radiate plenty of heat. The floorboards are 125+ years old. 

I'm taking one more day off the blog--a day to catch up, to answer e-mails (Anne, Cyn, interview coming soon!), organize all areas of my life. This is a good week for catch up, though: The Summer Blog Blast Tour is taking the kidlitosphere by storm. Catch the details at Chasing Ray and I'll see you all for Poetry Friday.

In the meantime, I have some blogroll administration to take care of. Is your children's literature or book blog missing from my list? Please do let me know in the comments! (Other bloggers use these lists too, so don't be shy. I've been very distracted the past few weeks, so I know I've missed a number of great new blogs.)

This morning we posted an original article by Jeffrey Abugel, co-author with Daphne Simeon, MD, of Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization Disorder and the Loss of the Self. This afternoon we have an excerpt from their book which will hopefully help you better understand Depersonalization Disorder. Below is Trisha’s story, just one of many varied experiences with Depersonalization Disorder.

Trisha was a 21-year-old college junior majoring in fine arts at a large state university. She was bright, attractive, ambitious, and sociable. She describes her upbringing as happy and uneventful. She was the second of four children raised in a small Midwestern town, and her parents were still happily married. She got along well with both of them and was particularly close to her sister Jane, who was 2 years younger. Trisha always did well in school, was athletic, and had many friends. (more…)

Share This

Jeffrey Abugel, co-author of Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization Disorder and the Loss of the Self has worked as an editor and writer for more than 25 years. He has researched depersonalization and its relationship to philosophy and literature since the 1980s and is the founder of the depersonalization-themed website, www.depersonalization.info. He is also a member of the American Medical Writers Association. In the article below he reflects upon what it was like to see his book in the new film Numb, starring Matthew Perry.

Depersonalization Disorder is nothing to laugh about.

So when Harris Goldberg, the writer/director of a new movie called Numb, starring Matthew Perry, invited my co-author and I to the premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival we truly didn’t know what to expect. (more…)

Share This