Chuno

| May 29, 2011

I’ll have some pictures from BEA, hopefully, if my phone hasn’t corrupted them all, but until I figure all that out, here’s a fun one for you. I’ve posted before about how I’m currently in a Korean drama phase. Here’s one that will have enough action/sword fights/political intrigue for any fan of epic fantasy (though [...]

Oh hey, look what I found

| May 24, 2011

Pictures from a recent visit to NYC by Cynthia Leitich Smith! These were taken in Feb. 2011, but I completely forgot to post them. What’s that? You don’t know Cyn? How could you miss this unyielding advocate for children’s literature? In fact, I’m surprised you somehow managed to make it to MY site if you [...]

Beyond Orcs and Elves, part 3

| May 21, 2011

And finally, part 3. Read parts 1 and 2 here and here. So now let’s talk about writing cross-culturally! Writing Cross-culturally A few months ago, I answered a reader’s question on my website, in which she asked, basically, “Is my character ‘black enough’?” which prompted a wide variety of responses, some voices expressing why the [...]

Beyond Orcs and Elves, part 2

| May 19, 2011

See here for part 1. Many authors have broken that mold & followed Ursula K. Le Guin’s admonition to write more of the “other.” But there’s still a strong British tradition—among the  biggest touchstones for kids from the 70s and 80s era are arguably Susan Cooper, Roald Dahl, Diana Wynne Jones, etc. All touchstones for [...]

Beyond Orcs and Elves: Diversity in Science Fiction and Fantasy for Young Readers, part 1

| May 18, 2011

Here you go! The first installment. Note that this was written to be spoken, so sometimes the diction might seem a little weird for a blog post. But I’m just going to leave it as-is, because you’ll get the idea. Beyond Orcs and Elves: Diversity in Science Fiction and Fantasy for Young Readers Ursula Le [...]

Chimamanda Adichie: The Dangers of a Single Story

| May 17, 2011

To hold you over until I can get my own talk up, here’s an even better talk by author Chimamanda Adichie, which I told everyone to go google, “The Dangers of a Single Story.” In it, she talks of how, when she was growing up in Nigeria (it was Nigeria, right? I need to go [...]

Beyond Orcs and Elves: a prelude

| May 17, 2011

Now that NESCBWI is over, I will be posting parts of my talk, “Beyond Orcs and Elves: Diversity in Fantasy & Science Fiction for Young Readers” here on my blog. I will be breaking it up over the course of several posts—it was designed as a 40-minute–to–hour-long talk, and it’s just too long for one [...]

The set is complete!

| May 16, 2011

Awe. Some. ETA: Oops, the uploading ability from my phone doesn’t seem to work with my blog—probably because my blog has been broken for over a year. In fact, old pictures I’ve uploaded have disappeared from the archives. So I’m using Flickr now. Anyone know an easy way to upload directly to Flickr from Android? [...]

“I have this GREAT idea!”

| May 9, 2011

I see this so often—most recently earlier today: A “writer”* tells his or her friends, “I have this great idea for a novel! What do you think? If I wrote it, would you read it?” There’s no way to answer this one honestly as a friend if you’re also an editor. Because my honest answer [...]

Street fair youth fundraiser

| May 9, 2011

I’m going to be out of town at NESCBWI this weekend, which means that I’m going to miss the street fair they do every year on the Upper East Side to raise money for the young women and young men in my church here in New York. The funds raised from the tag sale and [...]