Three Cheers for Maggie! She’s vaulting into The Bookshelf bookstore in sports-crazy McPherson, Kansas! And to celebrate, author Grant Overstake will sign copies of his nationally acclaimed sports novel, Maggie Vaults Over the Moon Friday July 12, from 6 p.m. … Continue reading 
WICHITA, Kan. – Every year for the past 101 years, dreams have come true at the Kansas State High School Track and Field Championships. The meet’s 102nd running will be no exception, this Friday and Saturday, as more than 3,000 … Continue reading 
GRAIN VALLEY, Kan. – There was quite a big commotion on Main Street in Grain Valley this afternoon, when, like a windblown prairie fire, rumors began to spread that Maggie Steele had been invited to appear on a national TV … Continue reading 
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By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 2/11/2013
In the years I've been blogging, no topic has drawn more visitors here than sod houses. I hope this post, showing the exterior of a Kansas soddy, and the next, its interior, will satisfy the curious!
My mother took these pictures while on an Elderhostel tour in 2009, just as I was putting some finishing touches on MAY B.
Bird cages were kept to show some gentility or civility attesting to their previous lifestyle.I included a stanza in MAY B.'s poem 80 that was inspired by this bird cage picture:
By: shelf-employed,
on 6/27/2012
Rose, Caroline Starr. 2012. May B. New York: Random House. I play a game inside my head,
counting plum trees that dot a creek bed,
rabbits that scatter at the sound of wagon wheels,
clouds that skirt the sky.
For hours, that is all,
and grass,
always grass,
in different shades and textures
like the braids in a rag rug.
Miss Sanders told us that lines never end,
and numbers go on foresver.
Here,
in short-grass country,
I understand infinity.
"Don't worry about supper," he says. "I could be gone some time.""Some time" will be longer than May could ever have dreamed. It will take all of her courage, strength and perseverance to survive.
I am afraid
in the dark
all alone
I am afraid
By: Shelagh Watkins,
on 6/5/2012
Florence Osmund spent most of her thirty-year career working in corporate America. Her favorite task was always writing, which eventually led to writing fiction. Her first novel, The Coach House, was released this year.
Please tell everyone a little about yourself, Florence.
Florence: I grew up in Libertyville, Illinois, in an old Victorian home complete with a coach house, the same house I used as inspiration for my first two books. I earned my master’s degree from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management and obtained more than three decades of administrative management experience during my career before becoming an author. I currently reside in Chicago where I am working on the sequel to The Coach House.
When did the writing bug bite, and in what genre(s)?
Florence: During my career working in corporate America, my favorite task was always writing–correspondence, reports, newsletters, RFPs, proposals, appraisals, announcements, recommendations, handbooks–you name it. But there were always rules, guidelines and restrictions to appease, not to mention exercising utmost diplomacy and political correctness. Not much room for creativity. Not much fun. Writing fiction is delightfully different.
When you started writing, what goals did you want to accomplish? Is there a message you want readers to grasp?
Florence: My main goal was to just tell a good story, but there is an ethnic thread that runs through The Coach House, and consequently there’s also a message. Without giving away too much of the plot, I will say I want readers to walk away with the sentiment that outward appearances don’t matter, and I hope the protagonist is a shining example of that.
Briefly tell us about your latest book. Is it part of a series or stand-alone?
Florence: My latest book, Daughters, is a sequel to The Coach House and is currently in production. It picks up where the first one left off—where the twenty-four-year-old protagonist, Marie, is getting ready to meet her newfound family for the first time.
What’s the hook for the book?
Florence: What I hope draws readers in and compels them to read further is in the first chapter when the protagonist is uneasy about the slick-looking man who comes to her door looking for her husband, Richard. And then when she catches Richard talking to the creepy Russian guy next door and his late night secretive phone calls increase, she becomes more than just a little uneasy. But she justifies not confronting him head-on at this point because in all other aspects, Richard is a loving and generous husband, and she desperately wants to start a family with him.
How do you develop characters?
Florence: I find one of the most challenging aspects of writing good fiction is effective character development. You really need to get inside the characters’ heads (especially the protagonist’s) in order for the reader to connect with them. I use physical descriptions along with dialogue, actions and internal thoughts to portray characters. Depicting their emotional state in certain scenes, showing their strengths and weaknesses and how they relate to others are also good ways to develop characters. A tool I use is the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicators which categorize a person’s behaviors into sixteen different types. Once I determine a character’s M-B personality type, I further develop him/her using other traits typically found for that type of personality.
Who’s the most likeable character?
Florence: I’ve received substantial feedback on the protagonist, Marie. Read
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 5/9/2012
Remember the May B. Book Club Kit Giveaway? Here's a story from one of the runners-up. Sarah Baldwin teaches at the Batam Island International School in Batam, Indonesia. Her students (first through seventh grade) have just finished reading May B. I couldn't resist posting her lovely email and the pictures that accompanied it:
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| Marking out the dimensions of a soddy |
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 2/10/2012
By: Lauren,
on 10/28/2010
The world’s biggest cities often spawn disaster scenarios—those end-of-the-world, escape-from-New-York exaggerations of urban dystopia. Once limited to printed texts and paintings, visions of urban apocalypse have become ever more accessible in newspaper photographs, movies and video games. They form a collective urban imaginary, shaping the dark side of local identity and civic pride.
New York is especially attractive as a site of imagined disaster. Maybe it’s payback for the city’s hubris and chutzpah, or perhaps there’s something in the American character that yearns for and fears creative destruction. If there is a general hunger for destruction stories, it is fed by the knowledge that the cities we build are vulnerable. The terrorists’ attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 brought this point home to Americans, renewing dormant anxiety about nuclear war and environmental disaster.
But what if the city’s built environment suffers from slow erosion rather than a single cataclysm like Hurricane Katrina? Can we visualize the slow creep of problems as well as we imagine the sudden onset of disaster and summon the will to change course?
“Rising Currents,” a recent exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, pitted five teams of architects, engineers and urban designers against a gradual but dramatic rise in sea level resulting from global climate change. The challenge: to retrofit the city’s waterfront to survive and prosper after a new Flood.
Cities have a troubled history with water. From building walls around wells in ancient deserts to colonizing rivers for the expansion of trade, human settlements have worn down maritime nature with a steady ooze of cement. Building dams in the West of the United States, India and China, crowding cities near the Danube River in Eastern Europe, throwing landfill into Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor as well as into New York Bay: all of these have reduced water resources to serve human needs.
Global cities, those capitals of capital, are the biggest offenders. As one of the architectural teams engaged in the MoMA exhibition points out, two piers built for oil depots on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River are each two miles long—as long as the Twin Towers of the old World Trade Center were high.
What’s most impressive about a rising water level is the sense that nature is taking back from the human world. And what’s most impressive about the architectural projects in “Rising Currents” is the sensibility that human survival depends on adaptation rather than pacification.
There are good ideas here. The keywords are conservation, production and conversion: creating a transportation network of ferry boats rather than cars and buses, developing oyster beds off the Brooklyn shore, reshaping fuel depots to use less land. But how can a city government—one whose modest plans for renovating parkland are constantly plagued by cost overruns and delays—undertake these projects?
Privatization is not the answer. Only a state can coordinate long-term efforts to rebuild for urban survival. The recent rescue of the Chilean miners from their underground prison suggests to some people that a non-governmental mobilization of global resources can be successful against great odds. In that case, though, individuals, industries and governments united around one clear goal. To rebuild the waterfront, many conflicts of interest would h
By: Jessamyn West,
on 6/30/2009
I put this on Twitter last week while I was trying to figure out how to get permission to post one of these photos. The link got buzzed around really speedily and the photos were everywhere. I figured I’d drop it here for posterity too. Aren’t these trucks great looking? Another neat thing from Johnson County Library System (KS).
Have you ever just been stopped cold by imagery? Matt Phelan has written and illustrated a graphic novel that even in arc form has risen to my list of all time favourites.
Jack is a child of the dust bowl. The rain stopped coming when he was just 7 years old, and since then he hasn't been much of a help. There is no farm work to do and his clumsy nature means that when he does try to help his dad, he usually just ends up knocking things over.
Many families are leaving town. There's nothing left but dust and sickness. Some are even being diagnosed with something called "dust dementia" which occurs when folks seem to see things in the dust that aren't there. Things like bright bursts of light from empty barns, and storm kings.
What is Jack seeing, and will he ever be able to help out and not be a burden?
I don't want to say too much about this extraordinary book since it is not due out until September, however, I could not help but share a bit since I have not seen a graphic novel that has pulled me in so quickly and so fully since Blankets, by Craig Thompson. This is a completely different book, but Phelan has raw emotion on every page from the atmospheric storms, to the drawn and wan faces of the people living through this incredible time in American History. The Dust Bowl has always been a fascinating subject matter, and The Storm in the Barn will most likely have readers looking for other information about the time period and the people who survived it. The book itself is chock full of historical detail from the popular Oz books, to rabbit drives, and snake superstitions. This is a title that I will happily buy in its finished form and pass on.
Thanks so much to Jesse for sharing this with me.
By: Jessamyn West,
on 11/8/2008
I gave a talk and did a little chitchat breakout session at the South Central Kansas Library System on Thursday. I’m in Colorado today so this is just a quickie update to say that slides and notes from my talk are available here: Technology and Libraries: What are we DOING? As always it was a pleasure to get to come to Kansas again.
By: Jessamyn West,
on 10/25/2008
Kansas is too far from my family, and from the ocean. That said, I love my travels to Kansas and while I try not to pick favorites I think they are doing some great things with libraries and technology statewide. I just got back from a flyby visit to Lawrence where I gave the keynote presentation at a NEKLS’ Reaching for Excellence Training Program. Much love to the NEKLS people, they let me give a keynote in the afternoon. I also got to eat a ton of BBQ with Josh Neff and family which was another trip high point.
The notes for my talk are here. They are available in Keynote slides, PowerPoint slides, and printable pdf format. I made a custom theme for Keynote so the slides might look weird, the pdf might be easier to read. As with the last talk, I have also included hyperlinks to most of the websites that I discussed, and credit links to all the photos that I used. My talk was beamed to two other sites using an HDTV setup and while it was a little tough getting all the bugs worked out, we persevered and I think it went really well. Big thanks to Shannon from the state library for inviting/hosting me and Heather for doing all the awesome tech work.
You may have noticed that I’ve been travelling at a breakneck pace this year. Since my drop-in time and teaching were curtailed thanks to budget cuts, I’ve been spending more of my free time on the road. I enjoy travelling a great deal and think that getting the word out about sensible new technologies is really a good use of my time and efforts. It’s always a balance between staying put and working within your community and travelling to tell other communities about what works in your own community. I’ll be back in Kansas in a few weeks.
By: Jessamyn West,
on 10/5/2008
“The My Kansas Library on the Web project is an attempt to allow small public libraries across the state have access to high end web-based tools to facilitate easy web development.
Translation: It’s a way to make your library’s website all that it can be and more by giving you easy to use tools that are accessible from ANYWHERE there is an Internet connection.” Smart project and attractive and easy-to-use site from the Kansas Regional Library Systems and the State Library of Kansas.
Lisa Harkrader is the last of our guest bloggers for the week. Yesterday, we heard from Jane Kurtz. On Wednesday, Dian Curtis Regan stopped by.
Center for the Book
by Lisa Harkrader
When Kim asked me to guest blog on KidLit Central, the topic that immediately sprang to mind (and that I hoped neither of the other guest bloggers would talk about before I had a chance) was the Kansas Center for the Book.
I first heard about KCFB in 2005, when I met its director, Roy Byrd, at the Great Manhattan Mystery Conclave in Manhattan, Kansas. I know it’s a cliché, but Roy Byrd is one of those people whose personality and passion simply fill a room. He sat next to me at the Conclave’s opening night high tea, and he spoke with such enthusiasm about KCFB and all it was doing to connect Kansas readers, libraries, bookstores, books, and authors that I found myself eager to join. I wasn’t completely sure what I was getting into, but I thought, What the heck. It’s worth the twenty-five dollar membership fee to help encourage the love of books and reading in Kansas.
A year later, at the next Great Manhattan Mystery Conclave, Roy and I were assigned to the same panel, to speak together about KCFB, and I was as enthusiastic as he was.
KCFB is program of the State Library of Kansas and an affiliate of the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book, which was established in 1977 to promote books, reading, libraries, and literacy. Its mission is not necessarily to promote authors, but joining KCFB has turned out to be one of the single best things I’ve done to promote my middle-grade novel, Airball: My Life in Briefs.
I sent Roy a copy of the book when I joined. He read it and (I soon found out) began talking it up to teachers, librarians, and bookstore people as he traveled about the state. I started getting invitations to speak to libraries and schools, book fairs, regional library conferences, and the Kansas Book Festival. For two years, I was a guest at the KCFB author dinner at the Kansas Tri-Conference (the annual conference of the Kansas Library Association, Kansas Association of School Librarians, and the Kansas Association for Educational Communications and Technology), where I met librarians from across the state. In 2006, Airball was named to KCFB’s Kansas Notable Books List (a list that also included books by Brad Sneed, Jane Kurtz, and Gordon Parks—gee, how did I ever manage to get on?). Today, at this very minute, I’m getting ready to drive down to Emporia State University for the 2008 William Allen White Children’s Book Award celebration. Airball won the William Allen White Award in the 6th–8th grade category—Ann Martin’s A Dog’s Life won for 3rd–5th graders—and I know it would never have been nominated if librarians and teachers in the state had not been aware of it, and they became aware of it, in large part, because of KCFB.
Each state affliliate of the Center for the Book is different, and I can’t guarantee that every affiliate is as active and writer-friendly as ours here in Kansas, but if you’re trying to promote your books and your career, you owe it to yourself to check out your state’s center. Most affiliates maintain an online database of their state’s authors, house collections of books by those authors, and promote statewide reading programs. Many also sponsor state notable book lists or other book awards and events for their state’s writers. You can find links to affiliates on the Library of Congress website.
William Allen White Award winner for AIRBALL: MY LIFE IN BRIEFS
www.ldharkrader.com
www.ldharkrader.blogspot.com
By: Jessamyn West,
on 5/17/2008
I’ve been travelling and working more than I’ve been surfing and sharing lately. That will change this Summer, but for now it’s the reality of what seems to be The Conference Season. Here are some nifty links that people have sent me, and ones that I have noticed over the past few weeks. Sort of a random grab bag.
By: Jessamyn West,
on 3/19/2008
… because he just got back from Library Camp Kansas and had a great time. Or, as Michael Sauers’ shirt says “im in ur STATE UNing ur CONFERENCE” More photos from the libcampks08 tag and a few more blog posts under the libcampks08 tag at Technorati. There’s another Library Camp happening in Ann Arbor Michigan tomorrow which I was sad to just miss by a few days.
By: Jessamyn West,
on 10/13/2007
So, I gave my talk at Access and it went pretty well. I was a little out of my element since I’m usually the techie person talking to less techie people. Here I was representing the non-techies with a message of “hey don’t forget usability!” among other things. I had a lot of downtime in various lobbies and airports on the way back and so I poked around looking to see what, if anything, people had said about it. There was a short blurb on the K-State Conference blog about it.
Anyone who has been following my travels knows I have a particular soft spot for Kansas both because I’ve had a great time meeting and talking to people there, but also because they are doing some neat stuff with technology that helps make up for their geographical disatance from other KS librarians as well as other libraries generally. Just look at this list of blogs and feeds to see just some of the stuff Kansas State University is doing. Anyhow, I saw the post on my WordPress dashboard and left a comment. One of the things that I think separates people who I consider “bloggers” from people with blogs is this sort of inter-blog commenting. If someone says something nice (or not nice actually) about me, I try to leave a note. It just seems like decent etiquette and a way to say “hey welcome to the blogoworld” for newer bloggers, particularly library students.
I think an easy mistake for first-time bloggers to make is to assume that their blog is going to become some conversational destination wthout realizing that they need to go out and converse as well as bring people in to do it. The conversation that we all talk about cluing in to doesn’t happen in any one place, it happens in a lot of places all at once. Dale Askey, who was at Access 2007 and wrote the little blurb about my talk follows up with a little more explanation about some of these blog effects. He tells us about how after Amanda did her nuts and bolts talk about the Endeca rollout they did at McMaster, someone from Endeca’s Canada office emailed her a few hours later interested in talking with her about some of her ideas. Neat. This is the sort of back and forth we’d like to be having, it’s nice to see it really happening in ways that help libraries.
There’s a point to this story: people read and process our blogs in ways we cannot control and do not intend. Far from being a cautionary tale, I want to do a little dance because of this. We’re seeing what we said was the point behind blogging. Put information out there, and let people do with it what they will. Thanks to this little bizarre set of events I’ve related, I met new people [and] caught the interest of Endeca with my comments…
And, on the heels of that, NELA has a conference blog, complete with a Flickr photo pool and a team of local bloggers so anyone who can’t go can follow along at home. It’s worth noting that the entire cost to set this all up — except human time which is important but separate — was probably close to zero. Free WordPress.com account [note to NELA blog admin: consider disabling Snap previews, they’re an obnoxious side effect of WP.com blogs], free Flickr account [note to Flickr admin(s): choose a Flickr web address by clicking here when you’re logged in so the URL for your pictures is even more customized] and all the rest of it the feeds, the comments, the basic designs, just come along with it. I’m sure one or more of my talks will show up there and I’m excited to get to read about the large number of presentations that I can’t go to which I now know I can still read about.
By: Rebecca,
on 7/4/2007
Rebecca OUP-US
Homer Simpson had a point, “you don’t make friends with salad,” especially on the 4th of July. A good party requires a good barbeque and Andrew Smith, editor of the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, is here to test your knowledge. Think you are the king of all grill masters? See how many of the following questions you can get right. The answers are at the end.
1. The word barbecue likely originated in: (more…)
By: Elaine Anderson,
on 6/4/2007
The Topeka Shawnee County Public Library, Topeka, Kansas has been holding a Banned Books Walking Tour to raise awareness about books that have been banned or challenged and to teach people about the role libraries play in the freedom to read. This 10 minute self-guided tour runs until June 17. Watch the video which highlights the Banned Books Walking Tour.
By the way, the Topeka Shawnee County Public Library is also doing Fahrenheit 451 for their Big Read.
By: Liz B,
on 5/11/2007
This message is from Michelle Swain, Kansas Library Association President (2006 - 07):
For those of you who would like to help the Greensburg, KS, Kiowa County Library after the devastating tornado they suffered, the Kansas Library Association Educational Foundation has set up a fund for donations. KLA EF is a 501c3 organization and all donations are tax deductible.
The most recent report is that the library building was essentially sheared off three feet above the ground. Everything below three feet is sitting in water, making it a complete loss. PLEASE DO NOT SEND BOOKS, there is no place to put them.
Navigate to the link below. Contributions can be made with a credit or debit card through PayPal, or you can print the PDF form and send a check or money order. All donations should be unspecified, so their FEMA and other relief aid will not be affected.
http://skyways.lib.ks.us/KLA/greensburg.html
Thank you to everyone who has expressed a desire to help one small town in Kansas recover and rebuild their library.
By: Jessamyn West,
on 4/26/2007
I have a talk today at the Library Association of Rockland County meeting today in Suffern New York. I gave a variant of the 2.0 talk I have been giving lately. This one is called Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Librarian 2.0. Good news about what you are already doing. The funny thing is, while it looks similar to my other talks, every talk on this same topic winds up being totally different. Same loose outline, almost all new words.
When I gave a version of this talk in Kansas, it was much lower tech, a lot more focused on rural and local issues. When I talked to the people in New York I talked more about cell phones and the ideas that libraries have already been doing a lot of 2.0-ish stuff and not even knowing it. Also since I knew Steven Cohen was speaking in the afternoon about specific technologies, I did a lot less show and tell and a lot more big picture talking. I showed off more stuff, and especially more local stuff, when I was speaking in Kansas.
dodge, kansas, l2, larc, me, suffern, talks
By: Jessamyn West,
on 2/20/2007
I gave a two hour talk and a two hour workshop of sorts at that Manahttan Public Library in Manhattan, Kansas on Monday. It was rally fun and, I think, well received. I got to talk about all sorts of 2.0 stuff including all my favorite nerdy sites and even got to talk about the scrotum dustup from a few days ago. My talk is online here: Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Librarian 2.0, and why it’s no big deal, seriously. It’s a big expansion of my previous 2.0-ish talk that that I did at NELA last year. Big thanks to Carol Barta for giving me a cozy place to stay at her house and to Fred and Sue for picking me up at the airport and Linda for organizing it all. Also thanks to Donna for organizing the early morning coffee klatsch in “the room” and to everyone else for coming. I’m not much of a morning person, but I was glad to make an exception. I hope to be back in Kansas at least once or twice more this year.
kansas, l2, me, mpl, talks, web2.0
Wow! It’s great to see “Maggie Vaults Over the Moon” in the hands of young pole vaulters. It’s such an engaging and honest sports novel, I think athletes in every sport will love it.