public pushback for Justine Larbalestier’s LIAR

The kidlit blogosphere is aflame with this story.  If you are unfamiliar you can read about it here.
Or here.
Or here.
Or here.
Or even here.
I’ve already posted this idea in comments sections of blogs and on facebook but I thought I’d make the suggestion a little more formal by stating it here.
Whatever Bloomsbury’s reasons, they are a [...]

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nicknames – just one of those things?

Nicknames are usually one of those things kids do to each other as a way of “owning” another kid, either as a friend or an enemy.  Rarely do kids give themselves nicknames, and those that do self-name rarely stick unless they’re insistent to the point of violence.
I’m not talking about the difference between Dave and [...]

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res/write 3

Another day in workshop, another writing exercise.  This is an oldie-but-goodie.  You get a random slip of paper with two characters and a subject and have to convey the information entirely in dialog.  Since the point was to read these aloud and let everyone guess who and what is going on I’ll let you read [...]

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res/write #2

Today was my day for workshop, and for the first time I wasn’t nervous about it.  They were a pair of short stories and I didn’t really feel I had a handle on the short story.  I still don’t, though I do feel a lot better about them after hearing everyone’s thoughts.
Today’s writing assignments in [...]

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res/write

Today we had our first workshop meeting.  Ours is one of the small groups – six people and one advisor as opposed to ten or twelve people and two advisors.  Our faculty advisor is Tim Wynne-Jones.  And because it is a smaller group we have more time to spend not only discussing workshop pieces but [...]

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res eve

The incoming class is already starting to filter in, their first official meeting is tonight.  The faculty is already there.  The rest of us will be filtering in as well, arriving in time for orientation just after lunch tomorrow. Time again for that thing we call “the res,” or simply “res,”
The Vermont College of Fine [...]

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what if we got it all wrong

For a century now we’ve been running this great experiment called adolescence.  With the rise of theories on social development, we’ve come to refine the compartmentalization of childhood into such neat little slices of experience and expectation that I’m wondering if maybe it isn’t time to step back and ask ourselves if we’re doing right [...]

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fire works

Had a nice, casual 4th of July.  The less said about the 3rd of July’s tequila the better, but the day was very mellow.  After a casual dinner Suze and I sauntered casually down to the Charles River for the fireworks.  Boston sure does love its fireworks.  Standing among half a million people on a [...]

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