I was trying to think of a unifying theme for these links I’ve been collecting for you, but there isn’t one. Let’s just call it the "new-friends-cool-holiday-gifts-picture-book-pagination" edition.
1. My friend and fellow middle school English teacher marjorielight is blogging on LJ now, with a cool mix of posts about writing, teaching, and her frequent visits to Montreal to eat good food. She’s working on a post-apocalyptic YA that scares the bejesus out of me and posted today about "active writing." Go be her friend, okay? You’ll like her a lot.
2. I hope you’re buying books and supporting small businesses in your holiday shopping! Along those lines, check out:
- The Chronicle Books Gift Finder – a great tool to select the perfect book for everyone on your list.
- This offer from author Sara Lewis Holmes – a signed copy of the awesome middle grade novel Letters from Rapunzel AND a Read-Write-Believe pencil mailed to your doorstep.
- Just about the coolest social justice t-shirts ever…from Jenna & Kara LaReau at STAUNCH. I’m partial to this one.
- And this offer from the 2009 Debutantes community…a group of 2009 Debut Authors sharing their journey with one another…and with you! Become a watcher of this community — debut2009 — comment on this entry, and you could win a $25 gift card to Powells or your favorite independent bookstore.
3. In the flurry of excitement over finding out that my picture book, OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW, has an illustrator now, my editor at Chronicle and I talked about dividing the text over 12 spreads. I played around with the text last night and spent a good amount of time with some other Chronicle picture books we own, like the beautiful A SEED IS SLEEPY by Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long, to see how they’re set up. I also ran across this post from Editorial Anonymous, which is a fantastic primer on how picture books are laid out. It’s a great resource if you’re working on spreads or just writing a picture book and wondering if it will work in the standard 32-page format.
Happy friending and shopping and writing!