If there’s one thing Southern gals know how to do, it’s gab. Silly or serious, all it takes is a glass of iced tea and time. Pull up a chair, kick off your shoes, and make yourself comfy…get ready to dish!
Newbery Update: 2000s
The end of the journey at last! These are the most recent ten books awarded the Newbery Medal, not counting this year’s winner, xxx by xxx. (comment on it later??)Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis – xxxA Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck – xxxA Single Shard by Linda Sue Park – xxxCrispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi – xxxThe Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo – xxxKira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata – xxxCriss Cross by Lynn Rae Perkins – xxxThe Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron – Oh,...
read moreRoundup
Closing the book on 2009–it’s been a good year. Interesting. Weird. Frustrating. You know, the usual. I did manage to read 135 books (some re-reads, but mostly new titles). I’m finally unstuck with the current WIP, and even though it’s moving more slowly than I’d like, it’s moving. We took a family trip to Washington, DC (awesome!), rode/survived the train, built a jillion memories. Tonight, we’re dropping the ball and watching fireworks at our friends’ house and hoping to stay out of trouble,...
read moreRomance is the Shizz, Y’all
Check out this terrific blog about romances posted to DailyKos by Laura Clawson, a self-proclaimed romance lover who also happens to be an Ivy-League Ph.D. with, as she says, “nary a pink sweatsuit in sight.” She does a great job deconstructing many myths about romance novels and their readers. You know, the “porn for housewives” and “rape fantasy” memes that are so tiresome. As an aside, why is it that voracious male readers of bulletproof superspy novels are never mocked for their inability to become...
read moreWhy Men Shouldn’t Write Advice Columns
My college roommate sent me this in an email, but the .jpg isn’t enlarging well. Here’s a transcript, and enjoy!Dear John: I hope you can help me here. The other day, I set off for work, leaving my husband in the house watching TV. My car stalled, and then it broke down about a mile down the road, and I had to walk back to get my husband’s help. When I got home, I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was in our bedroom with the neighbor’s daughter! I am 32, my husband is 34 and the neighbor’s daughter is 19. We...
read moreMerry Christmas
It came upon the midnight clear,That glorious song of old,From angels bending near the earth,To touch their harps of gold:”Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,From heaven’s all-gracious King.”The world in solemn stillness lay,To hear the angels sing. Still through the cloven skies they come,With peaceful wings unfurled,And still their heavenly music floatsO’er all the weary world;Above its sad and lowly plains,They bend on hovering wing,And ever o’er its Babel soundsThe blessèd angels sing. Yet with the woes of...
read moreHappiness is…
“…two kinds of ice cream…finding your skate key…telling the time! Happiness is learning to whistle, tying your shoe for the very first tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime!”Sorry! Got a little You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown there, but every time I hear someone say “happiness is,” my brain starts singing. Turns out, according to the CDC, happiness is living in Florida. Or Louisiana, Hawaii, Tennessee, or Arizona, to round out the top five. The research apparently shows that states with a lot of sunshine and a...
read moreInto the Wild
I’m playing hooky today and tomorrow for one of my own personal children…Frack and the fifth grade class are having their class campout. This means mimi is in for a decidedly unglamorous overnight trip. No makeup, layers, and Lord knows what else. Of course, it’s raining–Murphy’s Law lurches into effect whenever a momentous occasion such as this one presents itself. Of course, it’s expected to be cold tonight. Of course, I’ll be in a cabin full of squealy girls. I’ll survive. Frack’s worth...
read moreWhither Work?
Teachers tend to be of two models: vampires or early birds. I’m in camp II. I hauled myself out of bed this morning just after four a.m. to do some paper grading, and lo and behold, our web-based gradebooks are down. They were down yesterday at this time as well, according to another teacher. If regular server maintenance is scheduled between four and five in the morning, they’re going to infuriate a bunch of us. Can’t you back that up until, say, 2:30 or 3? That seems a happy medium for us teacher types.This grading is...
read moreNewbery Update: 1950s
I’m at the halfway mark now, much later in the year than I’d planned. I need to get crackin’ if I’m going to meet an end-of-the year deadline. Then again, this is the decade where things start to sound a bit more familiar. :The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli – Another de Angeli work of historical fiction, Thee, Hannah! was a childhood favorite, so I was looking forward to this one. Like her other works, The Door in the Wall is a blend of impeccable research, lovely writing, fine pencil illustrations by...
read moreLogjams
mimi has finally had a breakthrough of sorts. I had to go all low-tech, printing out a calendar, but I can see holes in ye troublesome mauscript and now have some inkling of what to do with them!See, this is the trouble with a NaNo book. You get so busy lunging from beginning to end, you don’t see the pitfalls because you skip right over them. I’ve set a book in the fall and given my heroine an October birthday, and yet her birthday doesn’t get a single mention aside from the sentence where she mentions that she was born...
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