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The difference between a couch potato and a novelist is a laptop.

— Tim Federle (@TimFederle) July 25, 2014

This week's incredibly prestigious Golden Marmot award goes to illustrator Tim Federle for his brilliant Twitter status update above. You can find out more about Tim at Timfederle.com and on Twitter at @TimFederle.

If I were able to visit London right now, I would SO be checking out as many BookBenches as I could find. Books About Town on display in London from July 2 - September 15, 2014. What a wonderful celebration of London's literary heritage and reading for enjoyment!

I was especially delighted to see a bench devoted to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (see above). I clearly remember receiving this book as a Christmas gift from my Aunt Agnes when I was nine years old. I LOVED this book and immediately read all the other books in the series. 

The illustrations were a big part of the story experience for me, as I’m sure it was for many other young readers.

Anyway, the Narnia BookBench had lovely art by Mandii Pope, but I do wish the BookBench description had also given credit to the illustrator of the original book edition, Pauline Baynes, since the BookBench art was clearly an homage to the original.

Above: Photo from the 2008 obituary for Ms. Baynes in The Independent.

Did you know that Pauline Baynes illustrated some of Tolkien’s early work, and that he had hoped she would illustrate The Lord Of The Rings? The project ended up being too huge to include illustrations, but she did create beautifully drawn and coloured versions of Tolkien’s maps for a later edition of LOTR.

C.S. Lewis was a friend of Tolkien’s, and Baynes became the illustrator of the Narnia books. I love her diary entry for one of only two meetings that she had with C.S. Lewis:

“Met C.S. Lewis. Came home. Made rock cakes."

You can read more about Pauline Baynes on Wikipedia and in The Independent obituary.

And you can find out more about Books About Town on their website, on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Tarik and The Roots performed a Harry Potter-themed rap on the Jimmy Fallon show. Love. :-)

(Thanks to Mediabistro)

For more info about Kevin Sylvester:

http://kevinsylvesterbooks.com

Above and below: samples of the book-friendly cartoons by Tom Gault, whose YOU'RE ALL JUST JEALOUS OF MY JETPACK is being published later this year by Drawn & Quarterly. I have to buy this book!

See more samples of his comics in BookPatrol as well as Tom's Tumblr blog.

Here's a gift idea that every writer can appreciate: TIME TO WRITE.

What to write under "Details":

Depending on your relationship with the recipient, you could offer to do dishes for a week, pick up the kids from school, # hours of running errands, grocery shopping and so on.

Just download the high-res version (1.3 MB), print it, cut out the certificate using the guidelines, fill in the information. 

Ideas for presenting the gift:

- Slip the certificate into a white envelope & then decorate the envelope with Christmas stickers, sparkles, etc.

- Roll up the certificate and tie a colorful ribbon around it. Present it as is, or wrapped in gold tissue paper.

 Enjoy!

In a Baltimore Post Examiner article, librarian Meredith Myers says she created literary parody song "The Raven Is Hard To Handle" to honor Edgar Allan Poe as well as promote libraries. Fun video with a great message at the end!

You can find out more about Meredith in her website, StandUpLibrarian.com.

Wow, check out the amazing kidlit-focused pumpkin carved by children's book author/illustrator David LaRochelle:

From David:

"Chronicle Books held a promotion in conjuncture with my new book "It's a Tiger!" The winning bookstore won a custom designed pumpkin carved by me. Here is the pumpkin I carved today for Riverwalk Books in Chelan, Washington."

See a video of David carving pumpkins:

Pro-Pumpkiner from Ben Garvin on Vimeo.

This week's incredibly prestigious Golden Marmot award goes to sf author and marine biologist Liana Brooks for her tweet above. You can find out more about Liana at her website: http://www.lianabrooks.com/ and follow her tweets at @LianaBrooks.

Saw this outside a Starbucks on Yonge Street in Toronto (just south of Eglinton). Note the small text in the lower left corner: "We'll miss you, Maurice."

Just a few weeks ago, they had this sign:

One of these days I have to go in and meet the person responsible for these very cool signs. :-)

Came across this sign outside a Starbucks on Yonge St., just west of Eglinton W. in Toronto.

No, I didn't have time to order an Espresso Patronum. But I love the illustration and the idea! :-D

Anyone else feeling like this? 

I did buy the e-book versions from Pottermore, which gives me some comfort. But it's just not the same as knowing there's no new Harry Potter books to anticipate. Sigh.

I've started posting comics from my Inkygirl archives on Tumblr, by the way, as well as Pinterest.

See Cory Doctorow's post about this Narnia-themed kid's playroom on BoingBoing. Love this.

IF YOU WANT TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT INTERNATIONAL ALL CAPS DAY, SEE CAPSLOCKDAY.COM (warning: strong language and dancing Santa images that may make your eyes bleed).

An online challenge for fellow typography nerds out there.

I ended up scoring 94/100. How did you do?

Try the test now!

(Thanks to Lisa Yee for sharing the link!)

Above: Neil Gaiman and his kitty, Oz.

Ok, so this blog has zero practical info, but how can you resist photos of writers and their feline friends? Check out Writers and Kitties.

Thanks to school librarian Lynda Shoup for the Stylish Blogger Award:

Heh. The award immediately inspired the cartoon above.

Apparently I'm supposed to tell you all 7-10 things about myself and then pass the award along to someone else. So here are some things about me that you may or may not know:

1. I work in a basement office which both Jeff and I nickname The Cave. There are small windows near the ceiling but I cover them up with scarves for privacy. I painted a tree on the wall. There are floating piles of books in its branches.

2. My music group recently put out a Mockumentary DVD which has some of our concert song performances on it! In one, Jean-Luc Picard dances with me. Here's the trailer I made on YouTube about it. You can buy a copy for $20 (plus shipping/handling) in our Urban Tapestry shop. And yes, I'm shameless!

3. I sold a website.

4. I was a clown in the Toronto Santa Claus Parade. Here's proof.

5. I have a weakness for miniature food.

6. A lot of people think I'm an extrovert, but I'm actually an introvert at heart. While I love hanging out with and meeting creative people, I need solitude to recharge.

7. I'm a board gamer. Jeff and I recently came home from a 10-day board gaming event (Alan Moon's Gathering of Friends) and those 10 days went by SO fast. I post board gaming comics and news on BoardGameBook.com as I work on a book which I am hoping will get more people into the hobby. Also see my profile on BoardGameGeek.com. Alan Moon just released a fabulous new game called Airlines Europe, by the way: a fun family strategy game!

8. I'm illustrating my first picture book! It's called I'M BORED and is written by actor/comedian/writer Michael Ian Black. Simon & Schuster is publishing it in 2012.

9. I have a meeting at Simon & Schuster in NYC next week, woohoo! We're going to be doing the first pass at the final layout of I'M BORED. Very excited.

10. I'm attending the SCBWI Summer Conference in LA this August (booking my flights today!).

And now I'm bestowing the Stylish Blogger Award onto my writer chef pal:

AMANDA SNYDER

for her blog, MY LIPS ARE RED

As you can see from the photo to the right, Amanda is a MUCH more Stylish Blogger than I am. :-)

Writer's Block by DebsAndErrol

Above: A fun song from Debs & Errol (a.k.a. Deborah Linden & Errol Elumir). Errol & Deborah are looking for new song ideas, by the way. If you'd like them to come up with some more writing-related songs, do go over to their CD Song Contest page and post your song ideas! You may win a free CD.

My "writer uniform" today:

-- Red track pants

-- T-shirt

-- Fleece jacket

I try to avoid working in pajamas. I know some writers do, but I don't because I inevitably lose track of time when I'm working, and I don't want to have to answer the front door.

What do YOU tend to wear when you write?

Short and fascinating.

Thanks to David Diaz for the link.

Photo taken at a Walmart on the weekend.

Too funny. :-) Thanks to Jeff for pointing this out.

Title: "I Am The Very Model Of A Wrimo Individual," from Errol Elumir. Keep an eye on the NaNoWriMo blog during November from a comic collaboration from Errol and me. :-)

The Huffington Post has a gallery of the "Nine Of The Most Surprising Auctioned Author Memorabilia."