JacketFlap connects you to the work of more than 200,000 authors, illustrators, publishers and other creators of books for Children and Young Adults. The site is updated daily with information about every book, author, illustrator, and publisher in the children's / young adult book industry. Members include published authors and illustrators, librarians, agents, editors, publicists, booksellers, publishers and fans. Join now (it's free).
Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.
Blog Posts by Tag
In the past 7 days
Blog Posts by Date
Click days in this calendar to see posts by day or month
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Coyote Tales, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 6 of 6
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: Coyote Tales in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
Yep, it's time once again for a little 2k8 horn-tooting!!
If you have a few minutes, clickity-click on some of the linkety-links below and enjoy getting to know about some of our authors and titles.
The fabulous Little Willow sure has been busy!
Check out this interview she did with Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, author of AUTUMN WINIFRED OLIVER DOES THINGS DIFFERENT.
Next up, Little Willow reviewed Nancy Viau's book, SAMANTHA HANSEN HAS ROCKS IN HER HEAD. "Samantha Hansen Has Rocks In Her Head by Nancy Viau is fun and funny. I'm sure young readers will dig Samantha, especially those who like the Clementine books by Sara Pennypacker."
She also talked to Nancy about the writing of the book and asked some very interesting questions in this interview.
I think Samantha Hansen might say, "You rock, Little Willow!"
For another review of SAMANTHA HANSEN HAS ROCKS IN HER HEAD, you can read Book Review Maniac's review which includes this praise, "I ab-so-lutely enjoyed this book. It was well written and the plot was great. It had me thinking what Samantha was thinking and wondering what she was wondering. And I even got a little bit mad when she was."
The amazing Cynthia Leitich Smith interviewed Zu Vincent about her book, THE LUCKY PLACE. You already know Cynsations is THE place to get the scoop on must-read books!
Finally - we leave you with a fabulous contest! Terri Clark is giving away TWO early copies of her September 2 release, SLEEPLESS. If you'd like a chance to win a copy of this YA thriller and an official RWA tote bag visit her BLOG for details.
1 Comments on Shameless Saturday, last added: 8/10/2008
2k8: So, Zu, what do you think happens to Cassie and her mom as Cassie gets older?
Zu Vincent: I know what happens; I’ve already written the companion book. The Lucky Place ends when Cassie is twelve and the next novel picks up there and takes her through age eighteen. In writing about this family, it turned out that The Lucky Place is more a story about a father and daughter, but the new story centers around a mother and daughter. Cassie’s mother, Belle, really goes off the deep in my next novel. So does her brother Jamie. The sixties hit with a vengence and all hell breaks lose. It’s a pretty wild ride.
2k8: What’s the most satisfying part of the writer’s life?
Zu Vincent: Doing what I love and having so many wonderful friends who do the same thing to share it with.
2k8: What are you writing now?
Zu Vincent: I’m completing what might be called a literary mystery about a kidnapped boy and a senile old lady who hopes to save him. Its subtext is the perils of old age—a time in our lives which oddly enough has a real parallel to adolescence, the time of life Cassie is just entering in The Lucky Place.
So, interested in reading a chapter of The Lucky Place? Click here. Hint: You need to register first, then click on "Library."
And check out Teen Libris where Zu has an essay, "Mind the Gap", in the anthology Through the Wardrobe.
We're honored, Zu, to have been a part of your exciting launch week! We'll be following your bright, bright literary future!
1 Comments on Day 5: Zu Vincent: The Future, last added: 4/11/2008
Today, Zu Vincent, author of The Lucky Place, talks with us about her passion for writing.
"Traveling in Ireland inspired me to write a story about a man duped by a leprechaun."
(Zu Vincent on her short story, "The Good People")
2k8: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
Zu Vincent: I composed my first poem when I was three, and the sheer joy of mixing words with emotions made me decide then and there I was going to write. Even though I didn’t yet know how to put words on paper.
Fueling that, I think, was a passion for language. I fell hard for books when I was really little. I remember my first book—a collection of poems and fairy tales bought from a door to door salesman—I can still smell the ink on those glossy pages and see the fascinating art and mysterious stories.
I grew up writing and when I wasn’t writing I was listening to words in my head. A story ran through me all the time. I “wrote” about everything, rearranging words, events and images until I was pleased with them, as if the whole world needed setting down in a book.
2k8: How did this desire to write become reality?
Zu Vincent: I don’t know if writing is as much a career as a vocation, which means you do it for love even in the leanest times. I started out by teaching myself. Before I could afford my first computer I practiced writing stories on my dad’s old Underwood typewriter, propped on the kitchen table. But I did take a night class early on. It was taught by a caustic, old-school journalist who demanded we publish or perish before the class was over. So I wrote a short story that actually sold. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the teacher. But I was hooked.
2k8: How has freelancing helped you as a novelist?
Zu Vincent: By interviewing so many people I’ve met a great cast of characters. And in doing research I’ve learned a little bit about a lot of incredible places. I’ve studied art, science, history, building, you name it. I’ve done a lot of traveling. But most of all I’ve studied people, which is a writer’s dream. And in interviews people are so willing to give of their emotional selves if you’re willing to listen. It’s that connection that makes a story come alive. So the fiction writer in me delights in interviewing because it always leaves me knowing a bit more about life.
Coming tomorrow ... details on The Lucky Place and what it's like to write in vignettes!
1 Comments on Day 3: Zu, the Writer, last added: 4/9/2008
Yes, folks, it's another exciting launch week at the Class of 2k8! We proudly raise our glasses of cyber bubbly to debut author Zu Vincent and her young adult novel, The Lucky Place.
Without further ado, here's the beautiful cover:
And we want to tell you about The Lucky Place:
“Here’s what I think. I think having two daddies is like riding the elephant. You don’t know until you get up there what an elephant smells like, or how high you will be on the elephant’s back. But then you realize. And the basket tips one way and then the other, like you might fall, every time the elephant steps.”
Her drunken father lost her at the races when she was three. Her down and out mother believes in luck. Her wild brother wants to be a dancing star. And her new father’s secret could destroy them all. But when the chips are down in an ordinary life, the view from a young girl’s heart can still look extraordinary.
Now, let's meet Zu!
Zu Vincent holds an MFA from Vermont College where she began writing a story about fathers and daughters that became The Lucky Place. She was awarded Harcourt’s post-grad semester at Vermont College in 2006. Her photos and features have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines including Harper’s, Yoga Journal and Flyfishing, and she’s written non-fiction books for Scholastic, Harcourt, Signet and Plume. In addition her essays and short stories have appeared in several literary journals and anthologies including Through The Wardrobe, edited by Herbie Brennan.
So, Zu, tell us how The Lucky Place began…
Isabelle Allende calls writing “an exercise in nostalgia,” a long, slow dance in an ever-widening circle of memory. I like that. I think we forge the details of this dance from love and longing, remembered place and the rub of character against character. In this way all novels are true, even if they aren’t factual. For example, the title for The Lucky Place came from a childhood memory about a white horse. When my mom would see this white horse in the field near our home, she’d lick her thumb and stamp it on her palm for luck. I remember being sure this would work, that our family would stay charmed forever.
But nobody’s family stays charmed forever. And in The Lucky Place, I created Cassie and Jamie, threw them into a messy family relationship and watched what happens when this early magical belief meets reality.
Advance praise for The Lucky Place:
“A quietly powerful and important story. Zu’s vignettes weave a novel that, from moment to moment, takes your breath—then gently hands it back to you again. Lovely.”
—Jacqueline Woodson, author of Hush
“The Lucky Place is a pitch-perfect little symphony.”
—Tim Wynne-Jones, author of The Maestro
“A magical book—joyful and heartbreaking—singing with life. Zu leads us gently into the heart and soul of a girl we come to love. I didn’t want it to end.”
— Susan Wooldridge, author of Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words
Come back and visit as we spend the week getting to know more about our classmate, Zu Vincent, and The Lucky Place!
Narrative forms have the potential to inspire, sustain and heal us, and traditional folktales have a special healing magic for children. Witch and monster stories like Baba Yagaand Heckedy Pegshow how to get through the dark woods of life and suggest that there are helpful beings along the way. The Elves and the Shoemaker illustrates the practice of generosity. Talking Eggs, a traditional Louisiana Creole Cinderella tale, demonstrates the eventual triumph of good over evil. In the Uncle Remus stories, underdogs like tar baby and the rabbit outfox the scary fox himself. Native American coyote tales offer tales of connectedness with the natural world. In our stress-filled lives, these stories provide steadying information and wisdom.
For folktales from Asia, search the wealth of the PaperTigers website, or go directly to interviews with authors like Debjani Chatterjee and Demi, who have written stories based on folktales. For faves of Asian kids, here’s a review of a collection of folktale retellings. And for Hispanic folktales, check out Tales Our Arbuelitas Told.
PaperTigers welcomes your feedback about this important form of literature for the child within each of us.
2 Comments on Folktale Medicine, last added: 9/20/2007
As a social worker at a family resource center in Mendocino County, California, I have been using folk takes as a means for helping “at risk” children develop resiliency as they navigate some tough life circumstances. We have used some of the stories that Charlotte has listed in a class that we call “Story Play”. We have created an aesthetically inviting, emotionally safe setting where children in groups of about 8, come together to hear stories, dress in costumes and act out the stories. Our acting is more a sense of play rather than performance. The children have also written their own stories. One child, recently returned to his family from foster care, directed his story about a baby bird who is returned to the nest. We also use visual art and crafts as a means of internalizing the stories.
Charlotte said, on 9/20/2007 7:33:00 PM
Thanks for this fascinting account, DorothyGayle. There’s a reason that these stories are timeless; they speak to such deep human concerns. It’s great that you’ve found such a creative–and healing–way to share them with children.
Yep, it's time once again for a little 2k8 horn-tooting!! 
Thanks, you all!