Hanging On… and Letting Go

11 Comments / Title Thoughts Mini-Series / By

The book title that inspired today’s post in my ongoing miniseries is Something to Hang On To, by Beverley Brenna (whose name has come up a couple of times on my blog this week!) The book is a collection of Young Adult short stories, on a variety of topics, some serious, including one heart-wrenching story that opens the book, Dragon Tamer, about the death of a boy’s father; some taking the reader into another culture, such as Gift of the Old Wives, which retells a Cree legend; and some just plain funny, such as Toe Jam, based on a true story of getting one’s toe caught in the vacuum cleaner (ow!). This title led me to some thoughts about writing.

And the nominees are…

4 Comments / Wednesday Worthies / By

I’m doing a second Wednesday Worthies post today, because this is my blog, and I get to make the rules about posting. My friend Brian Sibley, journalist, author, broadcaster, raconteur, et cetera, et cetera and so forth, adapted Mervyn Peake’s novels about Titus Groan for BBC Radio, and the series was broadcast last year. It has received three nominations in the BBC Audio Awards, which will be presented January 29th, 2012.

Shout-out for “New Beginnings” (a blog)

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Occasionally for my Wednesday Worthies post, I will be doing shout-outs for blogs that I’d like to call attention to for one reason or another. I want to say right up front that no one should feel slighted if I don’t mention your blog – there are so many wonderful blogs, and I’ve come to know so many great people through blogging, that I can’t possibly highlight all of them. Please know that I do appreciate all of you! That said, I’d like to introduce you to a blog that hasn’t been around long, but is already one I look forward to reading daily. And there’s an extra reason why you might want to check it out in the near future…

Giggles Galore

19 Comments / Title Thoughts Mini-Series / By

One of the chief objections a young reader had to the first version of my middle grade manuscript was that it wasn’t funny. She said she likes funny books. In the comments about genre-identity yesterday, Erik (about the same age as the reader mentioned above) said that he liked writing funny stuff. There’s a message there, and it’s the message I got from the title that suggested today’s post (a rather unlikely source, I must admit…)

What’s Your Genre-Identity?

43 Comments / Monday Musings / By

Some writers are immediately and exclusively identifiable with one genre. You can’t imagine that author writing anything else. Agatha Christie writing a picture book? Mo Willems writing suspense? For those of us, like me, who are just starting out in our writing careers, our genre-identity is perhaps more fluid, not yet obvious. Or perhaps, like me, there is a desire to write in more than one genre.

Waiting for No One wins 2012 Dolly Gray Award!

36 Comments / Just Want to Say / By

  I am delighted to announce that my cousin Beverley Brenna‘s YA novel about a girl with Asperger’s Syndrome, Waiting for No One, has won the Dolly Gray Children’s Literature award for 2012 along with one other intermediate/YA novel and two picture books. To learn more about Bev’s book, to learn about the award itself, and to find out how you can enter a giveaway for a copy of this book, click on “read more” below…

Making the Connection

6 Comments / Title Thoughts Mini-Series / By

The second post in my mini-series in which I use book titles as springboards to musings about writing was inspired by a glance at the cover of Leil Lowndes’ How to Instantly Connect with Anyone. This book’s “96 … little tricks for big success in relationships” has a great deal of useful information in it – but that’s not what I plan to write about today.

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