http://bookstotheceiling.blogspot.com/ Nancy Smith, avid reader and language arts teacher, has started Books to the Ceiling, a book talk blog. It’s a great palce to find something new or talk about something you’ve already read. The fun part is that Nancy really loves books, and she reads all the time, and always has something worth saying about what she’s reading. So, join the conversation, and BTW, tell her happy birthday.

The American Library Association Conference in Seattle was an amazing place to connect with people who love books.

 The SCBWI booth at the ALA.

I’m on the left with Bonny Becker http://community.livejournal.com/wordygirls/in the middle and Randy Powell http://www.randypowell.com/ on the right. One of the highlights was getting to know both of them. Bonnie writes children’s books, her latest is Holbrook, A Lizard’s Tale. Randy writes book for teens with great titles like Whistling Toilets!

The local public library was a magical place when I was growing up. Not only was it a place of refuge when I needed one, but it had hundreds of, thousands of stories hidden away on its shelves. You could almost hear the books whispering. I always checked out too many books to read at once and always had overdue fines. But a wonderful librarian,  (I don’t even remember his name), always beckoned me to the side and let me turn my books in without a fine. And I kept coming back because of the stories, and because one librarian remembered me, knew my name, and never scolded when my books were overdue. So if you were a male, Japanese-American librarian in San Jose, CA at the Camden branch in the 60’s and 70’s–my heartfelt thanks!

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”   

         John Wesley 

This weekend the librarians leave the library to attend the American Library Association Mid-Winter Conference in Seattle.  I will be at the SCBWI booth–so all you librarians, I’ll see you there.

It is also the weekend for the Future Cities Competition at Seattle Center. Teams of three students, from all over the state of WA., imagine, desgin and engineer a city of the future. I’ve been helping a middle school team of three boys design the city of Enceladus, located on the ice moon of Saturn. It has an active water volcano providing all kinds of interesting opportunities for energy innovations: fuel cells, geothermal and even fusion, and imagine the view! Science fiction story anyone?

Happy wedding wishes go out to Mr. Timothy Grassley and Jennifer White.

My new chapbook, Relentless Light, is now available for pre-order : www.finishinglinepress.com Click on new releases. The limited edition book gets shipped April 6th, but if you order before that date, you get free shipping. My son, Brennan, is responsible for the cover art. He took the original photo in Florence, Italy. The collection of poems won the New Eden Chapbook Competition. For more info and some early reviews, click on the poetry link.

 Now I am promoting two books and once. I’m afraid friends will start to run when they see me coming, hat in hand.

A joyous New Year to you all!

There hasn’t been much posted on this site of late because I’ve been finishing the first go round of Wolfproof’sThe Travelers’ Market. And I’m happy to say that my first readers, and invaluable critics, have the manuscript in their hands. But more about TTM later. Now on to other things… sequel,

I’ve always liked this quote from Peggy Noonan:

“… words, like children, have the power to make dance the dullest beanbag of a heart.”
—Peggy Noonan, What I Saw at the Revolution

We all need something to jolt our beanbag hearts into dancing. I thought I would share two things that recently set my heart dancing. The first is the YA novel, Endymion Spring, by Matthew Skelton. Matthew is an expert on books and printing and it shows in his writing. I haven’t finished the novel yet, but the language is beautiful. Consider wrods like “shambolic” and descriptions that compare paper to “tattered moths.”

The second encounter is with a group called the Kindlings Muse. I’ve been listening to their podcasts, on my new Christmas Ipod, over the last few weeks. Hosted by Dick Staub, a live audience meets Monday nights at Hale’s Pub in Seattle to discuss important ideas related to arts and culture. Their website offers this description:

In a media age characterized by the confluence of polarization & trivialization, The Kindlings Muse is an intelligent, imaginative, hospitable exploration of ideas that matter most in contemporary life as sparked through our personal journeys and through our shared cultural experience in art, movies, books, music and events. http://www.thekindlings.com/

Definitely worth a visit to their site.

Words as Gateways

My friend Nancy, one of the finest Language Arts teachers I know, mentioned an assignment she plans to use as part of a final exam. The assignment is based on the idea of words as gateways to ideas. To be fair, the idea of words as gateways came from a discussion on NPR concerning the value of words. Many words are more than their literal definitions; they open us up to larger ideas. Consider words such as Diaspora, chaos or incarnation. These are words that contain worlds. We find that like the stable in The Last Battle, ( C.S. Lewis), the inside is bigger than the outside.

What was the assignment Nancy proposed? Take a word that has captured you over the last few months and explain how it is the gateway to new ideas. How did it challenge you? How did it make you see the world in a different way? What new paths did it lead you down?