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Well, it's been about a thousand years since my last post.
Give or take.
When I teach YA through Media Bistro, I like to bring guest speakers in to meet the class. It's good for all of us to hear from other writers, editors, agents, librarians, and the like (true confession: I enjoy as much as the kiddies do, if not more). We were recently lucky enough to have both Betsy Bird, Scott Westerfeld, and his fabu wife, Justine Larbalestier. Which brought us to the topic of blogging.
Seeing as how I'm Miss Remiss, I'm in no position to tell others what makes for good blogging. But these three are. Betsy's blog, Fuse #8, was so widely read and influential that the good folks at School Library Journal brought her aboard and made her all kinds of official (don't worry. She still hasn't sold out). And Scott and Justine are two ultra-talented authors who have managed to drive traffic to their sites despite increasing congestion of the blogosphere mainly due to their content. Ok, sure, there's the requisite occasional discussion of "process," or the completely understandable self-promotion. But it's more about discussion. It's conversation, and it's updated frequently. And therein lies the rub.

I'll admit it: I'm That Author. The one that blogs when she hears good news from her agent, or sees her shiny new book on the shelves while she's out and about. I'm not so much with the current events, or even industry updates.

And updates do I have! The gods have been good to me of late. My new series, BRADFORD, is coming along at a nice clip. Never mind those punishing mass-market deadlines, this is one project I am majorly excited for.
All confessional behavior notwithstanding, this wouldn't be an author blog if I didn't share.
Book 1 now has a release date (er, month: January '09). And we've got links. Howdy, have we got some preliminary links!

A main splash page for the site:
http://bradfordnovels.com/Home.html
that tells a little bit about the series and the interactive nature of all of its various online components.
And a beta template for the Bradford Prep website:
http://bradfordprep.com/Welcome.html

The character profiles are still being populated, but if you click on "blog," you will actually get a brief teaser of the text written by little old moi.

Fun times.

Since Bradford is all about "extensive, innovative online content," it would stand to reason that I'd hop back on the blogging horse again with renewed determination. Also, Noah and I are back at the final chapters of our SASS Super-Special, "Up Over Down Under," and I thought some bloggity-tasticness might get my brain going.

(So far, only minimal success at that).

Meanwhile, speaking of Noah--and because everyone enjoys a good visual aid, we've got a new roommate in our West Village digs:



She is a real, live Emmy award! Isn't she shiny?
Noah won her for his wonderful short piece, "A Clearing in the Fog," which aired on WGBH Boston last fall. The subject was "war" (in association with the Ken Burns documentary of the same name), and it told the story of his grandfather, a thoracic surgeon in WWII. Makes me cry every time. No joke.

If you look closely, you will see a huge stack of papers behind the statuette. This is all of the mail that has built up during the last eight weeks, as I was frantically Bradfording, teaching, and finally, fleeing to the South of France for some much needed r&r.



Anyhoodle, dearies, all by which to say that I am back. Or, at least, I mean to be. A writer friend told me that she considers blogging to be an exercise, and I'm thinking she might be right. This next week is going to be packed: my last VCFA packet of the semester (seriously?) due in tomorrow, some "extensive, innovative online content" due in to the Bradford folk (as well as an outline for book 2), and--oh, yeah, final revisions on TRIBE and a first draft of SASS.

But blogging is way more fun than any of that.

I had a very nice note this morning from teacher Terrell Shaw, to let me know that he has put some original poetry to my photograph of a robin's egg. As I replied to him, the kids got quite a kick out of seeing my photo accompanied by his poem; and in the midst of a Canadian winter, the idea of robins and their eggs gives me a little thrill, not to mention hope for Spring. In addition to his