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Today’s kids are playing less than any other generation.

Play is losing out to TV, recess times have declined and many children in low-income communities lack safe spaces to run, jump and be active.

But play is essential to kids’ learning. Play helps encourage kids to explore and use their imaginations, increases their ability to store more information and can improve literacy skills by building connections by oral and written expression.

As the school year ends and kids have more free time, you can incorporate play into all of your school or program’s activities – even reading and learning!

Try using the books and recommended games below to incorporate play time into reading time.

Wild Things Tag

Players: 10 or more
Space: medium to large
Materials: none

First, read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Then, mark off a large area to serve as the Island of the Wild Things. One player, the “King of the Wild Things,” stands in the middle of the island, while the rest of the players (the “Maxes”) line up on either end of the island.

When the King shouts “Let the wild rumpus start,” each Max tries to make it to the other side of the island without getting tagged by the King.If a Max is tagged by the King, he or she becomes a Wild Thing. All Wild Things (except the King) must keep one foot planted on the ground at all times while still trying to tag the Maxes.

The Maxes continue to run back and forth across the island until only one Max is left untagged. The last Max becomes King of the Wild Things and the game begins again.

All Tangled Up

Players: 6 or more
Space: medium
Materials: none

First, read Hairs – Pelitos by Sandra Cisneros, illustrated by Terry Ybáñez

Next, have the players stand close together in a circle. Then have each player hold one hand with anyone in the group except the person standing next to him or her.

Repeat with players’ free hands – avoiding anyone standing next to them or with whom they are already holding hands.

Now have the group try to untangle itself without letting go of anyone’s hand. It takes patience and lots of cooperation!

If you have twelve or more people, split into two groups of six and see which group can get untangled first.

Need more playtime ideas? Visit the Read and Play section on the First Book Marketplace to find all of the books and activities created by First Book and Kaboom! to encourage playing to learn.

The post Make Time to Play! appeared first on First Book Blog.

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It has been a fall of vast proportions and very little sleep and soon, soon, I will sit very quietly in a still and silent spot and reflect upon it all. What have I learned? What lessons carry forward?

But there is no need to find a quiet space to reflect upon this: the power of thank you. That simple truth—so well known, so often disregarded—was reinvented for me yesterday by the arrival of a yellow-brown envelope from the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church Tutoring Center, which I had visited two consecutive Tuesday evenings not long ago. I had met with the children of West Philadelphia and their tutors. I had to read to them from books by Jacqueline Woodson, Sandra Cisneros, and others. I had talked to them about language, and what it can do, and then the children had written stories for me. Stood up before their friends and let their dreams ring out.

The joy during those two evenings was palpable. I wrote of one young writer on my blog. I left, and I left them to their stories, but I did not forget their hearts, their faces.

Yesterday, in that envelope, I received their notes, their kindness, their sprawling enthusiasm, their books of dreams, and one fine Thanksgiving turkey. I received the autographs of aspiring writers and inspired readers and home builders. I received these words: "I am really excited that you put me on your blog. That was the best that ever happened to me in my life."

The keepsake of this whirring fall. The authenticity that lives in children.

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She had been driven, with the other fourth and fifth graders, through rain and across the slick of leaves from West Philadelphia toward an old stone building in Bryn Mawr. She sat on the floor with a wide gold band on her head and a pencil in her hand. I was asking her (the others, too) to think about home—what it is. I was asking for specifics—the sounds in the streets, the light in the house, the color of the flowers in the pot. I was reading a little Julia Alvarez, a little Sandra Cisneros, a little Jacqueline Woodson, a little Charles Blow. Tell me what you are hearing, I said. Tell me which details make these memories of homes and houses particular for you.

Many hands up. Many questions. Many details.

Then, toward the end, I asked the children to imagine their someday house—where will you live when you are ten or fifteen years older than you are today? Some wrote a sentence. Some worked with their tutors to write more. This little girl with the golden hairband wrote, on her own, an entire page and a half.

She wanted to read it aloud.

I said yes. Quieted the room.

Her home of the future would have candy walls. It would have yellow, purple, orange, red, TVs, a place for everyone she loves. It would have (this was a final detail) bulletproof windows that were shaped like hearts.

Are you going to be a writer? I asked her. Oh, yes. She said. What do you read? I asked her. Junie B., she said, and (her favorite book of all) the dictionary.

Next week maybe I'll tell her that when I was her age I dreamed of being a writer, too. That being a writer is possible. That anyone who conjures candy walls and heart-shaped bulletproof windows is a heroine of mine. Next week, when she returns, with another story.

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Today’s blog post is part of our Stories For All Project series, focused on sharing the latest announcements and impact stories about our effort to put diverse, inclusive books into the hands of kids in need.

Cathy Gaudio reads aloud to a group of students in Phoenix, Arizona.  It’s a special day – every child at Sun Canyon Elementary is going home with a book of their own. The book, “Pelitos” by Sandra Cisneros, is bilingual. She reads one page in English, soon echoed by her bright-eyed helper reading the page in Spanish.  The children are thrilled.

“’Pelitos’ talks about how we all have different kinds of hair – showing that everyone’s differences are worth celebrating” explains Cathy.

Cathy, the Program Manager of AARP Foundation Experience Corps Phoenix, is joined by the school’s reading tutors for the celebration.   For an hour every week, 90 retiree volunteers from the program tutor 300 children in ten schools throughout the city. Sun Canyon is one such school.

On this day, the students gained more than reading skills from their tutors.  They saw themselves in the book they enjoyed.

“When these students can see themselves in books, they get more excited about reading, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to inspire in them,” says Cathy. “There’s one reference to very long hair that’s shiny. After we finished reading one little girl went to her book and opened to that page saying ‘This is me!  This is my hair!”

The young girl’s discovery created a larger conversation in the classroom.

“But this is me!” said one child.

“But I have curly hair, so this is me,” said another.

“At that age, they all accept each other and can find something very personal in that book,” Cathy observes.

Every child was able to find a reflection of themselves and they were overjoyed.

The post These Children Saw Themselves in a Book appeared first on First Book Blog.

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Texas Book Festival literary director Clay Smith has been named the new features editor at Kirkus Media.

Smith will expand the features section at the literary outlet, adding “more reported articles about writers and reading trends.” He had worked at the Texas Book Festival since 2005, booking hundreds of writers, including Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Salman Rushdie, Sandra Cisneros and Amy Sedaris.

Here’s more from the release: “he wrote for Publishers Weekly, indiewire.com, and Newsday, among others. He has recently written for The Daily Beast, Elle Décor, and Newsday. While at the Texas Book Festival, Smith worked closely with small and large publishers to create a diverse program of national and Texas writers. With the participation of the Litquake Foundation and other partners, he added Lit Crawl Austin to the Festival’s program and grew sales of books during the two-day weekend.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (October 2, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307597946
• ISBN-13: 978-0307597946

The internationally acclaimed author of The House on Mango Street gives us a deeply moving tale of loss, grief, and healing: a lyrically told, richly illustrated fable for grown-ups about a woman’s search for a cat who goes missing in the wake of her mother’s death. 

The word “orphan” might not seem to apply to a fifty-three-year-old woman. Yet this is exactly how Sandra feels as she finds herself motherless, alone like “a glove left behind at the bus station.” What just might save her is her search for someone else gone missing: Marie, the black-and-white cat of her friend, Roz, who ran off the day they arrived from Tacoma. As Sandra and Roz scour the streets of San Antonio, posting flyers and asking everywhere, “Have you seen Marie?” the pursuit of this one small creature takes on unexpected urgency and meaning. With full-color illustrations that bring this transformative quest to vivid life, Have You Seen Marie? showcases a beloved author’s storytelling magic, in a tale that reminds us how love, even when it goes astray, does not stay lost forever.

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[Amelia Montes is off today.]

by Rudy Ch. Garcia

As many of you 60s and 70s activists know, back in those days there were certain cosas that were not talked about in public places, things that La Raza had no tolerance for listening to. Criticism. Questioning of leadership. Talking about the jefes and jefas. It extended into the written word, as well. I remember a fairy tale I wrote that received physical threats as part of my audience review, on me, not on the tale. We seemed to be a gente allergic to the airing of laundry or anything that questioned the sanctity of our celebrities.

I don't know how much times have changed, but I found it refreshing to read a writer, new to me, detailing the type of discussion and views that those of us here at La Bloga have likely deliberately avoided presenting on our pages. Anyone involved in the Chicano lit world has heard unsavory to critical comments about some ChicanA writers. Yes, ChicanO, too. History and gente will decide whether our choices to not publicize or debate such was a journalistic weakness on our part. Likewise our tendency, sometimes, to find few weaknesses in literary works. I'll leave it at that.

Below is the beginning of a lengthy and journalistically responsible (in my opinion) article by Roberto Ontiveros. The title alone says much about its contents and the sometimes heated comments it produced:

Sandra Cisneros's defenders and detractors debate what the celebrated author has meant to San Antonio and Latino literature

[By Roberto Ontiveros, published Feb. 15, 2012 in the Current, "San Antonio’s free, award-winning, alternative newsweekly, featuring local writers and critics covering politics, arts, music, food & drink, and every other crucial Alamo City topic." – Website's "About Us"]

"As nearly everyone now knows, Sandra Cisneros — the oft-times indigenously attired author who founded the Macondo Writers' Workshop here in 1998 and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation two years later — is done with San Antonio. Judging from the comments strung to the news articles announcing her impending exit, people here feel mournfully mosaic about her departure. She is done with Texas as well, and heading for... who knows where really?
.....
"As longtime friend and absolute fan Bill Sanchez told me, Cisneros's reasons for leaving are as simple as the fact that, at 57, she feels compelled to reevaluate her life and the work she still wants to accomplish. It is time to focus on herself, she tells me. So, Cisneros is done with this state and done with the state she found herself in. To be blunt, it sounds like she is done with a lot of you, too."

RudyG: One of the commenters wrote:
"Roberto [Ontiveros], what have you done? As Latinos we haven't the
luxury of destroying one another. The profound irresponsibility of ethics and knowledge in this piece is
 heartbreaking."

What the commenter termed Latinos not having the luxury of destroying one another, I call responsible journalism. The accusation of "irresponsibility of ethics" sounds to me like charges from the old Movimiento caudillismo some of us tolerated more than others.

I leave further interpretation of this article to La Bloga readers to decide for themselves. Go here to read the full article.

Es todo, hoy,
RudyG

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Sandra Cisneros Free Public Reading
Wednesday, December 8, 6 p.m.

Get a sneak-peak party preview at Sandra Cisernos's free reading open to the public at the Twig Bookstore at the Pearl Complex, 200 E Grayson St., San Antonio, Texas. Call (210) 826-6411 for more details.

Pajama Pachanga: Sandra Cisneros's 56th Birthday Party Fundraiser for Macondo
Sunday, December 19, 6 to 11 p.m.
At LUNA, 6740 San Pedro Avenue, San Antonio, Texas

ATTIRE: Pajamas

6:30 Krayolas

8:50  Mariachis/Conjunto Taller

9:40 Chayito and Teresa Champion and El Curro

10:00 Agosto Cuellar- Jive Refried

Featuring special guest performances by Janis DeLara and S.T. Shimi.

We request a minimum donation of $56 (Sandra’s age) per person if you plan to attend the party. Even if you can't make it out please consider making a donation to help make our important work supporting writers possible. Because this is a small lounge venue, we aren’t selling the traditional table seating, but please don’t let that stop you from giving more. Seating will be limited and on a first-come-first-serve basis. The venue is intimate and the party is all night with different bands and people come and go during the evening. Click here to make your donation.

For more information call Roland at 210-432-9098 or send an e-mail to [email protected].

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Submit an application to join the Macondo Writers' Workshop in 2010. Leslie Marmon Silko will be leading the Famosa Workshop. Sandra Cisneros will also be co-teaching a workshop with Lourdes Portillo in her yellow office Casa Xochitl. Application deadline is January 29, 2010. First-year online applications are available online. Visit www.macondofoundation.org to apply.



An association of socially-engaged writers united to advance creativity, foster generosity, and honor community.


The Macondo Foundation, Inc., is committed to bringing together a diversity of writers crossing borders of all kinds. As an association of socially-engaged writers united to advance creativity, foster generosity, and honor community, the Macondo Foundation attracts generous and compassionate writers who view their work and talents as part of a larger task of community-building and non-violent social change.

Officially incorporated in 2006, the Macondo Foundation has its roots in the Macondo Writers’ Workshop, which began in 1998, in the kitchen of poet and writer Sandra Cisneros. The Workshop rapidly grew from 15 participants to more than 120 participants in less than 9 years.

The Macondo Workshop has been more successful every year, expanding community involvement through annual events with the Our Lady of the Lake University, UT-San Antonio, Trinity University, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, Jump-Start Performance Theatre, Casa de Maria y Marta and the Bexar County Juvenile Detention Center. We would especially like to acknowledge the generosity of Our Lady of the Lake University.

Macondo currently makes its home at Our Lady of the Lake University. Recent Macondo Foundation undertakings include the Gloria Anzaldua Milagro Award, meant to care for our community’s writers in a time of needed healing; health insurance coverage to our member writers; the Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, and the Casa Azul Residency Program.

Along with the commitment and vision of Macondo’s founder, Sandra Cisneros, Macondo enjoys the ongoing support and participation of other internationally recognized writers, including Denise Chavez, John Phillip Santos, Luis Rodriguez, Dorothy Allison, Joy Harjo, Carmen Tafolla, and a large body of emerging writers who are also publishing books, touring in the U.S. and abroad, and working in their communities.

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Sandra Cisneros will have two readings at Santa Ana, California on Thursday, October 9.

3:30-5pm
at Santa Ana Community College
Phillips Hall Theatre
1530 W. 17th St., Santa Ana College campus
714.564.5600
http://www.sac.edu/homex.asp

PLAYING LOTERIA /
EL JUEGO DE LA LOTERIA
BY René Colato Laínez

LA LOTERIA of Mexican bingo, is a wonderfully fun and colorful game that has been loved by people of all ages for over 200 years. In this charming story, a little boy visits his grandmother in Mexico. With the help of la loteria he learns new Spanish terms, and his Abuela learns various English words. Together they realize that loved ones truly do have special ways of understanding each other. The rules of the game are included so you can play and learn at home, too.

"An enjoyable and visually satisfying experience." – Críticas

"�very appealing and fun... a perfect present for kids." – Tradición Magazine

Awards: 2008 New Mexico Book Award, Best Children’s Book; 2007-2008 Tejas Book Award Finalist; 2007 California Readers “California Collection”; 2006 Latino Book Award, Best Cover Illustrations; 2005 Best Children’s Books, Críticas Magazine; 2005 Southwest Books of the Year.

PLEASE CONTACT:
• Marketing Director Davida Breier at [email protected] for a review copy.
• Author René Colato Laínez at [email protected].

You can also learn more about Playing Loteria and download lesson plans at renecolatolainez.com

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René Colato Laínez

Hola Carmen, thank you for this interview for La Bloga.
Who inspired you to write?
My mother was a person with very little formal education, but a great ear for a story, and a great memory for people's stories. My grandmother was a storyteller, as were several aunts. And SO, it turns out were my GREAT-grandparents. Listening to the stories of my familia and my barrio was where I first learned to love the art of storytelling, and to respect the power of a story... orally, with all the magic of unwritten centuries behind me... Stories get more powerful when they are refined through the telling, generation after generation....

I was very, very young when I began to dream of writing stories down, preserving them, polishing them. They were our history, and they were our alma.

-As a child what was your favorite book?

We didn't have a lot of books at home, a Spanish-language Bible, a hymnal, a book about medicine (I thought! It was called La Santa Doctrina, so I figured it had to do with Doctors and Medicine...) But when I was about 5, my parents started one of these a dollar-a-month Childcraft Series offers, and the first volume was "Childhood Verses, Rhymes, and Fables." I can STILL see those pages and remember the stories! So, between that and the Old Testament and the leyendas told orally, I had plenty of exciting stories to start off with. When I was 10, the city finally put a library on the "West Side" (the Mexican side) of town, and then my Mom would walk me weekly to check out five books, the maximum they'd let me check out at a time. I never discovered Dr. Seuss or Madeleine L'Engle or Garcia Marquez or Winnie the Pooh till I was in college! And then I fell in love with books all over again.

-Tell us about your new books.


I have two children's books and one adult book out this year.

What Can You DO with a Rebozo? (Tricycle, 2008) is a colorful, imaginative picture book beautifully illustrated by Amy Cordova and targeted at children under 6. It celebrates an icon of Mexican culture through the eyes of a little girl who sees its versatility, but invents some uses of her own! I want to show little girls (and boys!) that they can use one thing for many purposes, and that sometimes the funn---iest games come from using our own imagination!


Then, That's Not Fair: Emma Tenayuca's Struggle for Justice, co-authored with Emma's niece, Sharyll Teneyuca, is a picture book biography for children 6 and up, based on the courageous Latina civil rights leader from the 1930s, who at the age of 22, organized and led 12,000 pecan shellers in a strike that represents the first successful mass action in the Mexican-American struggle for political and economic justice. Our adult biography on Emma is nearing completion, but this children's book is the first book ever published on her, and it is a really beautiful volume by Wings Press, illustrated by Terry Ybanez and designed as a tribute to those brave pecan shellers who were starving to death and still had the courage to hope for a better world for their children. Even the endpapers are pecan-colored!


And, just last month, Wings released a collection of my short stories, which I just presented at The International Conference on the Short Story in English, held in June in Cork , Ireland . The title The Holy Tortilla and a Pot of Beans, a feast of short fiction, kind of says it all – it’s about the holy and the miraculous, as well as about the mundane, most common, underappreciated blessings, like a pot of hot, homemade beans.

- Where did you get the idea for What Can You Do With A Rebozo? Do you have many rebozos at home?

Rebozos are one of my most useful clothing items. I live in San Antonio, where the weather might be 100 degrees and sweltering one minute, then walk into an air-conditioned building and just freeze till you're blue. Or it might drop 40 degrees in three hours. I also travel a lot, so a rebozo is a very useful and versatile item to help me deal instantly with weather changes and different levels of formality. It has served me as a coat, a muffler,a fan, a head scarf, PLUS, it rolls up into a tiny corner of the briefcase! I have three BIG boot boxes at home, each with a different range of colors!

In 1992, 500 years after America discovered Columbus lost on a beach, my publisher was looking for art for the front cover of my upcoming poetry book, Sonnets to Human Beings. I recommended Cata Garate, who had a whole series of oil paintings of women in rebozos. When the book came out, Sally Andrade was so stunned by the cover she asked if U.T. El Paso could exhibit Cata's whole series together with poems of mine. We did, but then one thing led to another and soon, Cata and I were at work on a coffee table book combining art, poetry, and the story behind this universal symbol of Mexican womanhood. That book will be out soon from Wings. But the idea of the rebozo's versatility soon had me "cooking on" a children's picture book and developing a spunky little Chicanita protagonist, 4 years old, who could come up with crazy, imaginative uses for her Mom's rebozo! What Can You DO with a Rebozo? just came out of Tricycle this spring, sparked a series, and the follow-up book What Can You DO with a Paleta?, is due out from Tricycle Press in Spring of 09.

- The Holy Tortilla and a Pots of Beans is full of culture and magical realism and each story tells a message. What was the selection process for the stories included in the book?

In this very blase, over sophisticated, materialistic world, where emotions are corny, human decency is looked down on as "political correctness", and everything is assessed in "measurable" terms, I wanted an emphasis on those things that lie BENEATH the skin, and outside the realm of the price tag. I wanted to select stories that filled that dimension between the stark simplicity of the Holiest things we encounter to the absolute magic of the everyday objects around us. That's why the title is not just "The Holy Tortilla" (too pious and above us) but also includes a normal, everyday Pot of Beans...

If the stories can help elevate to the holy the simple, daily values, customs, strength and beauty of nuestra gente, then I'll have done justice to the people, the everyday readers to whom this book is dedicated.

-You write for many genres. What is the difference between writing for children and for adults?

Actually, children are more demanding readers. Adults will kind of assume that SOME place in the book, there'll be something good that they might appreciate or learn from. But children-- if you lose them on even ONE page, they want to get up and go do something else. So, writing for children demands distilling every word, polishing every action, eliminating ALL excess baggage. It's almost harder than writing poetry!! But the reward-- is in the power and authenticity of what's left. If you reach children, (and I expect good children's lit to be timeless, so I want to reach children now and three generations from now), then you've hit something authentic.

- What is your message for inspiring writers?

A very long time ago (I must have been 10 or 12 years old) someone told me that to get a PhD, you had to write a book called a dissertation, and it had to be on a topic NO ONE had ever written on before. I immediately felt impatience and despair, and thought that if I didn’t hurry up and get grown up fast, like tomorrow, all the topics would be used up and there wouldn't be anything left to write about! For a long while, I thought that was true, lamented the fact that by the time I grew up, all the good storylines would be taken, all the topics explored, all the interesting devices invented already. Boy, was I naive!

Now, I tell young writers, there is NO ONE on the face of the earth who can see the world in quite the same way you do, nor who has had quite the same combination of experiences and emotions. You are unique, your voice is a necessary part of the puzzle, without which we are deprived of the full richness of the human experience. So don't worry about how you compare to others, don't follow anyone else's example, nor anyone else's rules, invent your own rules, and then master them! It is the essence of art, to reach deep into what comes from your own soul, and then turn yourself over to it, follow, explore that path. Learn from others, but also learn from that quiet voice whispering to you, that knows when you have not quite written it as well as you know it could be written. Write who you are, but trust yourself, and your art, to grow beyond your own boundaries.
For more about Carmen, visit her website www.carmentafolla.com

The Museo Alameda invites the public to a Family Day!
Children’s Costume Contest and Book Party
for Carmen Tafolla’s latest children’s book,

“WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH A REBOZO?”

Beautifully illustrated by award-winning artist Amy Cordova, this picture book aimed at 3-5 year-olds, celebrates the versatility and practicality of this icon of Mexican womanhood, and encourages young children to explore the delightful territories of their own imagination.



Hands-on activities for Children, 12-1, and 1:30-4:00
1:00 Program:
*Foklórico dances by the famous Champion family dancers *a storytelling session by award-winning author Carmen Tafolla
*a fun demonstration by San Antonio’s Hermanitas, showing styles for the elegant, practical, and fun-costuming uses of rebozos, for adults and children

*Children’s Costume Pageant & Contest (age 10 and under) with prizes for
-The Most Creative Use of a Rebozo,
-The Silliest Use of a Rebozo,
-The Most Adventurous Use of a Rebozo,
-the Most Colorful Use of a Rebozo
-the Most Elegant Use of a Rebozo
-the Scariest Use of a Rebozo

Costume Contest award-winners will each be given a free copy of the beautiful hard-cover book. One lucky family will receive the Grand door prize of a four-book collection of books by Carmen Tafolla, including her brand new collection of short stories, The Holy Tortilla and a Pot of Beans.

1:45 Presentation of Contest Awards
2- 4 Booksigning by Carmen Tafolla

All exhibits open to the public.

Books by Carmen Tafolla available in the Museo Gift Shop


If you missed last night La Palabra Eléctrica, come tonight for another great Macondo night, La Palabra Tremenda. In the tradition of Mexican Lucha Libre where good conquers evil, our writers fight for political and social issues. In Macondo Libre, writers will showcase fighting moves that will take your breath away!

Don’t miss the ultimate challenge, la Palabra Peligrosa, a literary fundraising event where nationally acclaimed poets and writers wrestle the truth out of the official story and reclaim it with a night of powerful readings and music. This dramatic lucha poetry slam will include performances by the poet Ai; poet, writer and NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu, Sandra Cisneros and musical performances by the father/son team George/Aaron Prado, the Krayolas and other special guests. All proceeds from the event will benefit Our Lady of the Lake University and the Macondo Foundation. At last, the word wrestlers are here. ¡Que viva Macondo Libre!

La Palabra Tremenda
Featuring: Macondo Writers and Special Community Guests
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
San Antonio, Texas
Our Lady of the Lake University
Providence Hall, West Social Room [PWSR]–the Red Room–at OLLU at 7 p.m. Admission: Free

Readers:
Carolina de Robertis
Ignacio Ramos Magaloni
Tatiana de la Tierra
Amelia ML Montes
Angie Chau
Ben V. Olguín
Erin Bad Hand
ire'ne lara silva
Leslie Larson
Lorraine M. Lopez
Maria Limon
Miryam Bujanda
Pat Alderete
René Colato Laínez
Rosalind Bell
Trey Moore
Wendy Call

La Palabra Peligrosa
Featuring: the poet Ai, Andrei Codrescu and Sandra Cisneros
Friday, Aug. 1, 2008
San Antonio, Texas
Our Lady of the Lake University
OLLU at Thiry Auditorium 8:30 p.m.
Admission: $25 Donation per ticket at the door

Macondo Foundation
The Macondo Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that organizes and hosts an annual workshop for professional writers. It originally began as a writing workshop around the kitchen table of poet and writer Sandra Cisneros in 1998. Since then the workshop rapidly grew from 15 participants to more than 120 participants in less than nine years. The foundation also has a writer in residency program and continues to grow in its outreach to writers. As an association of socially-engaged writers united to advance creativity, foster generosity, and honor community, the Macondo Foundation attracts generous and compassionate writers who view their work and talents as part of a larger task of community-building and non-violent social change.

For more information about the Macondo Foundation check our web site www.macondofoundation.org.

Los esperamos

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I am creating a list of writing partnerships for my students’ Literary Essay Unit of Study based on the texts they’ve selected to examine, from the packet of 11 texts I gave them, for their literary essay. Would you believe that only five of the six texts are represented from the packet?!!? I’m [...]

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During our common planning time today, my colleagues and I brainstormed a list of texts we’re going to have students select from for their literary essays. Many people think that kids should pick whatever book they’re reading, I’ve come to believe that having children select from a pre-selected set of short texts is better. [...]

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Kelly has also tagged me today as a Thinking Blogger. This award started appropriately enough at The Thinking Blog. Now I'm fairly surprised by this because, of late, my Blog's been fairly frivolous from a book-reviewing point of view - lots of raving about "Doctor Who" (Yes, I know TV drama is a form of storytelling - that's why I love it so much - aside from the current Doctor's gorgeous incarnation !), and witterings on about this and that. Not much, I'd have said, to make anyone think (except perhaps along the lines of "Is she ever going to shut about the Doctor Who/David Tennant obsession?"), at least compared to some of my earliest posts way back in July and August of 2005. Still, Kelly has declared me a Thinking Blogger, and who am I to argue with so multi-talented a woman ? (grins)

The rules are as follows:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (there is an alternative gold version of the logo if the silver version isn't to your taste!)

I'd quite like to tag some Bloggers that haven't been tagged before, but I've a sneaking suspicion it's too late in the day for that - so I'm not going to check whether these Bloggers have already been tagged, I'm just going to list five Blogs which I read regularly which make me think for one reason or another (in alphabetical order):

Jen Robinson's Book Page
Lowebrow Blog
Original Content
Wands and Worlds
Wild Rose Reader

Thanks, ladies !

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