Sunday, January 24, 2010

My article published, news, links, and my next VCFA advisor

My article, "Turn the Page," which is about page turns in picture books, was published in the January/February 2010 SCBWI Bulletin.

Uma Krishnaswami’s picture book, Chachaji's Cup can now be enjoyed as a musical, presented by the Making Books Sing company! The show can be seen in New York City and Stanford, California. Here is a schedule and venues of the performances. I wish I could attend.

Congratulations to Carrie Jones, Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) alumna, whose new novel, Captivate, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list and to Kekla Magoon, another VCFA alumna, who won the ALA Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe Award for The Rock and the River.

Highlights from January 2010 Residency--Vermont College of Fine Arts

(a photo I took of College Hall after it snowed)

My next advisor, the faculty member I’ll work closely with during the next six months, is Kathi Appelt! She is the author of The Underneath and numerous other books. This is my critical thesis semester and I’m hard at work on my first draft. I’ll also work on novel revisions and a couple picture books.

I was in a great workshop with Cynthia Leitich Smith (Cynsations blog) and Sharon Darrow. VCFA workshops are like laboratories where we examine each student's submission and discuss craft techniques.

The faculty and graduating students always give excellent lectures. There are usually a few lectures each residency that really helpful to what I’m dealing with in my writing right at that time. The incredible lectures given by Martine Leavitt (theme) and Uma Krishnaswami (voice and point of view) are still swirling in my head.

This sign popped up one day on campus.

It says: "WRITE AT YOUR OWN RISK"

It reminds me that writing takes courage.

(Photo I took of the ice skating rink on the campus green. Someone changed the word "skate" to "write")

2 comments:

Kathy Cowley said...

I love the "Write at your own risk" picture. Classic--and quite true.

I hadn't realized it snowed so much when you were in Vermont--guess it makes sense. You were in Vermont.

Mary Witzl said...

I like 'Write at your own Risk' too, though in my case it should have been 'Start Writing at your own Risk' I'm in it for good now, like it or not.

You are doing what I know I should have done: learning how to write properly. I've gone about this in a much more piecemeal, less straightforward way, and I've suffered the consequences.

I will have to check out Uma's picture book musical.

Sarah, for some reason, your comments don't show up on my site! I can't figure out why that is: I get notification of your comments in my in-box, but not the comments themselves.