How to use this Page

There is always so much going on in the children's literature world in Utah, which is wonderful and fun. But you might look beyond your borders to see what's going on elsewhere. For example, Idaho. We're just up the road a ways. And we seem to become a fantastic venue for kid lit authors to visit. Just in the last few weeks, we've hosted Markus Zusak, Jennifer Neilsen, and next week will be Sherman Alexie plus Andrew Smith.

I'm most excited, of course, about our Boise SCBWI conference in April, which we co-sponsor with the Boise State University Dept. of Literary, Language, and Culture and the Idaho Chapter of the International Literacy Association (formerly the International Reading Association).

This year we have several amazing speakers, including Matt de la Pena, Suzanne Morgan Williams, Utah's own Kristyn Crow, agent Sean McCarthy, and a fantastic panel of local authors.

Our theme is diversity in children's literature, which is a super hot topic right now, and worthy of our attention and examination. This conference is for all  who are interested in kit lit, whether teachers, librarians, students, parents, and, yes, authors and illustrators.

You can find more information here: http://bit.ly/1ErbbGu

And to register, scroll down that page and click on the link, or here: http://idcclw.com/

Boise in the spring is a magical place, and taking the time to get away from home and focus on your craft is worth every moment.


By Neysa CM Jensen
SCBWI regional advisor for Utah/southern Idaho

Add a Comment

The Diversity Panel, from Right to Left: Moderator Suzanne Morgan Williams, Linda Sue Park,  Meg Medina, Lamar Giles, Sharon Flake and Adriana Dominguez

Add a Comment

I connected with panel moderator Suzanne Morgan Williams to get the scoop:



Whether or not you're able to attend the sold-out SCBWI Summer Conference that starts this Friday, you can be part of the online river of information and inspiration by visiting The Official SCBWI Conference Blog and following our conference hashtag, #la14scbwi, on twitter. Oh, and by watching videos like the one above!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Add a Comment

Speak
Laurie Halse Anderson
Young Adult

and

Wintergirls
Laurie Halse Anderson
Young Adult

I read both of these books back to back and did not give up on life entirely, which speaks highly to Anderson's talent as a writer. These are not easy reads. Speak, celebrating its 10th anniversary in print, is about rape. Think that's edgy? Wintergirls is about bulimia and anorexia. This is tough stuff. Anderson does a fabulous job with protraying real, troubled teens. For any girl who has been through rape or is battling an eating disorder, these pieces must feel empowering because they let the individual know, you are not alone.

The reason I review them together is because, despite Anderson's skill at real, gritty portrayal of these issues through a teen character, after finishing the books, I was left feeling much like I had after a spree of John Irving books in my early twenties, i.e. like the main characters were the same person over and over. Lia of Wintergirls, birthed ten years after Melinda of Speak, nonetheless feels like the same teen. Anderson's writing chops are much improved, although the symbolism in Speak is incredible, the writing in Wintergirls will leave you rereading again and again to pick up craft points, turns of phrase, ideas on how to take mental illness and make it real for readers. Still, Melinda and Lia are interchangeable.

Why?

Their voice feels very similar. Their reactions, similar. Lia feels like a more mature Melinda, going further in her personal psychosis, more unstable, more suicidal, more detached. Yet still, Melinda.

Which leads me to ask the following questions: What results in similar characters across novels by the same author? Can we authors only get so far from our own perception? Are we slaves to our own hermeneutics? Or do similar driving motives across different stories nevertheless lead to similar characters?

I am not sure what the answers are, but I would like to know more because I find myself falling into that pattern in a present novel. Certain secondary characters feel similar to ones in an earlier novel I wrote. How do I avoid that? Should I? Or does such similarity define an author much as a defining brushstroke can define a painter?

Food for thought.

For more great reads, hop over to our fearless leader, Barrie Summy's blog.  And for those of you in the Kansas area, if you get a chance, stop by the Kansas School Librarians Conference Thursday and Friday of this week. Barrie Summy, P.J. Hoover, Zu Vincent, Suzanne Morgan Williams, and I are the guest speakers for lunch on Thursday. It's a whole panel of characters just waiting to share!

Add a Comment

Bull Rider
by Suzanne Morgan Williams

upper middle grade/ya

Drugs, sex, teenage pregnancy, you name it, children's authors write about it. Suzanne Morgan Williams is no different. She has taken on perhaps the mother of all controversial issues for this country, the war on terrorism. Bull Rider's story is current, it's controversial, but far more importantly, it's really really well-written. Any book can take on controversy, but take it on without becoming preachy, now that's good writing.

Cam O'Mara's older brother is a marine. He goes off to fight in the Middle East, is injured, and comes back home a very different person. Cam's family struggles with the effects of war on their own world, the world at large, and the way people see them. Cam, a skateboarder by passion, turns to bull-riding, a time-honored family profession, because it is the only way he can escape the discomfort and uncertainty of his life. In the end, he chooses bull-riding to help his brother realize that if Cam can face his fears and straddle a thousand pounds of bull, then his brother can face his, learning to walk again.

This isn't a light read. It isn't a comfortable one. But it is unforgettable. Williams isn't preachy. There are no easy answers to war, not for those opposing, those waging it, and especially not for those fighting it. Her characters are well-shaped, offering all sides to the debate but no judgments. Family, love, hanging in there for each other, these are the driving force of her story.

Read it. It'll make you think.

And for other great reads this crazy December month, hop over to Barrie Summy's blog.

Add a Comment

The ivory tower is granting me a one day pass to go out and see the real world. The things good behavior will get you!

GLEE!

I'm being let out to speak at Oklahoma's school librarian conference, EncycloMedia. I'm excited. Thrilled. And a little nervous. Okay... a lot nervous. I'll be out with real people. I have to talk. I have to talk intelligently, in complete sentences, with no editing, about my middle grade novel, Dragon Wishes. I have to sound like I do this regularly. But all I've done for weeks now is sit in the ivory tower with my imaginary friends - and a few dead writers - and write. My social skills have sort of fallen by the wayside. Ask my kids. My husband. My dog, even.

Fortunately, should my skills waver, I'll be in amazing company and so hopefully no one will notice. I'm speaking with Eileen Cook, What Would Emma Do, Cynthea Liu, Paris Pan Takes the Dare, Jenny Meyerhoff, Third Grade Baby, and Suzanne Morgan Williams, Bull Rider.

We're followed the next day by P.J. Hoover, The Navel of the World, Jessica Anderson, Border Crossing, Barrie Summy, I So Don't Do Spooky, Donna St. Cyr, The Cheese Syndicate, and Zu Vincent, The Lucky Place.

Beforehand, we're being interviewed for a televised program that the Metropolitan Library of Oklahoma broadcasts throughout the state. Please, please, please let my hair cooperate so that I look like someone who actually styles her hair every once in a while, rather than pulling it back in a haphazard ponytail because dead writers and fictitious characters don't care what your hair looks like. And after that, there is a luncheon with librarians. Gulp. Can I carry on a coherent conversation for a whole hour? Or will I get that far off, I-have-an-idea look and start scribbling on my napkin? Librarians will understand if I do, right?

Maybe after all of that real world experience, I'll be ready to lock myself away in the ivory tower again, but I have a feeling, it'll be the other way around. I used to be a pretty social person, some time in the distant past...I think. Either way, I think that seeing, talking and interacting in a spontaneous way with real live people who don't need me to edit their dialogue could be, what's the word?

Oh wait, I know...FUN!

Add a Comment

The Conference ended and I was exhausted, exhilerated and sad to leave a conference that was stimulating, dynamic, offered so much information and so many friends.  Loved every minute - thankyou so much to Lin Oliver and Steve Mooser for the conference, friendship, the hospitality at their homes and taking Youth Literature to the world.

Ellen Hopkins and a crowd of authors are coming to The Hughenden in Sydney to party next year. Fabulous.

Add a Comment

Kadir Nelson illustrates with ‘Personal truth and a universal truth’ - his beautiful illustrations counter racism. I bought his book ‘Change has Come - an artist celebrates Our American Spirit’ with the words of Barack Obama.

Melinda Long’ multi million best selling picture book writer of ‘How I Became a Pirate’ says ‘I write to appeal to kids and adults.’

Eve Bunting hugely successful picture book writer says ‘that jolt of emotion gets me going.’ She loves her picture book Smoky Night illustrated by David Diaz.

These creators spoke to a packed audiecne of authors and illustrators.

Add a Comment

The blossoms flitter through the air spreading seeds of hope. The gentle water colour painting of a little girl and boy blowing hope across the seas to Australian children by Hong Kong artist/illustrator Mary Ma, was given to Australia by Kathleen Ahrens at the International party at the LA SCBWI Conference. 

My USA publisher Tricycle (Crown imprint of Random House USA) had postcards of I AM JACK waiting for me in the conference hotel in LA - how terrific is that!

Add a Comment