Michelle Knudsen

Boulevard Books & Cafe, This Weekend!

2012-01-25T22:10:00.000-05:00

Come see me at Boulevard Books & Cafe this Saturday, January 28! (This is a rescheduling of last week's event, which was postponed due to the snow.)

I'll be reading Argus and Library Lion, signing books (both picture books plus The Dragon of Trelian), and there will also be fun activities for kids!

NEW DATE: Saturday, January 28, 2012
11:00am
Boulevard Books & Cafe LLC
7518 13th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11228-2410

Facebook invite: http://www.facebook.com/events/179336918832486/
(RSVP not required, but it would be great to know if you're coming!)

It's probably not a good sign...

2012-01-22T14:05:00.000-05:00

...when you start googling "how to figure out plot points."

Sigh.

Boulevard Books & Cafe Event Postponed

2012-01-21T10:01:00.000-05:00

Hi guys - just a quick note to say that my event today at Boulevard Books & Cafe has been postponed due to the snowy weather. It's now next Saturday, January 28. Would love to see you there!

Reading (Argus and Library Lion), book signing (both picture books plus The Dragon of Trelian), and fun activities (coloring! clay! eggs! dragons! yay!)

NEW DATE: Saturday, January 28, 2012

11:00am
Boulevard Books & Cafe LLC

7518 13th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11228-2410

VLOG needs you

2012-01-16T18:15:00.001-05:00

Some of you out there know that one of my favorite non-writing activities is performing in community theater productions of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. The group I perform with in NYC is The Village Light Opera Group — a wonderful organization that has been around for more than 75 years, bringing G&S as well as other plays, musicals, and theatrical offerings to the NYC community.

Like many other theater organizations, we rely greatly on contributions from theater-loving folks to keep our group going. Recently, VLOG was fortunate enough to receive a matching grant from a very generous donor, who has pledged to match every dollar we raise by January 31, 2012 up to $10,000.

If you love theater, or Gilbert & Sullivan, or community organizations, or tax deductions, or me, I hope you will consider helping us to meet our goal! Even a small amount would be greatly appreciated, and the website is set up to accept donations starting as low as $5.00. You can donate online here, and can also send donations by mailing a check to:

Village Light Opera Group
PO Box 143
Village Station, NY 10014

Thank you! :)

Books Read 2011

2011-12-31T12:45:00.013-05:00

Last year I posted a list of all the books I read in 2010 (after reading and enjoying lots of other people's lists) and thought I'd keep up the tradition for 2011.

The following are all the books I read in the past year, except for the picture books—I read a lot of picture books and don't usually remember to add them to my Goodreads list, which is how I keep track of my reading these days. The notation "A" following an item means I listened to the audiobook, and "R" means it was a reread.

I read a lot fewer books this year than last year, partially because I no longer had my MFA program driving me to get a certain number of books read each month and partially because a number of 2011's events left me less time than usual for reading (especially: moving to a new apartment, teaching several writing classes and critiquing student manuscripts, and taking on a new day job). I also probably didn't really *need* to re-listen (again) to so many Bujold books, but they make me so happy that I can't really regret the time spent on those too much. But I do wish I'd gotten to more new books over the year (both newly published and old-but-new-to-me), and will definitely try to get more reading accomplished in 2012.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (A)
Scrawl by Mark Shulman
Podkayne of Mars by Robert A Heinlein (A, R)
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Sense And Sensibility by Jane Austen (A)
Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver by E. Lockhart
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (A)
Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
Lord Valentine's Castle by Robert Silverberg (A)
Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris
Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold (A)
Bellwether by Connie Willis (A)
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie (A)
Thirsty by M. T. Anderson
The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse (A)
Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (A)
Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris
The Grand Plan to Fix Everything by Uma Krishnaswami
Bossypants by Tina Fey (A)
All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris
How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford
Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold (A, partial R)
Charlotte's Web by E. B. White (R)
Brothers in Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold (A, R)
Each Little Bird that Sings by Deborah Wiles
Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
Bat 6 by Virginia Euwer Wolff
Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom by Eric Wight
Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute by Jarrett J. Krosoczka
Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold (A, R)
From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris
Komarr by Lois McMaster Bujold (A, R)
A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold (A, R)
Fire by Kristin Cashore
Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold (A, R)
Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris
Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (A, R)
Also Known As Harper by Ann Haywood Leal
Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (A)
Eighth Grade Bites by Heather Brewer
Aliens on Vacation by Clete Barrett Smith
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (A)
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger

There were also a couple of audiobooks I started but didn't finish, which I didn't list here.

Reading now (started in 2011, but not yet finished): Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and American Gods by Neil Gaiman (A).

WORD 3rd Annual Holiday Open House - This Weekend!

2011-12-10T11:38:00.000-05:00

Come to WORD in Greenpoint, Brooklyn this weekend for their fabulous holiday open house! Authors will be on hand to make book recommendations (their own and their favorites written by other people) and to gift wrap your purchases for you. Oh and of course, signing books, too! :)

I'll be there tomorrow 12/11 at 3pm, but the fun starts today with Sarah MacLean (The Love By the Numbers series), Michael Showalter (Mr. Funny Pants), and Emma Straub (Other People We Married), Michael Buckley (NERDS, The Sisters Grimm), and Fiona Robinson. You can see the full schedule and author lineup here.

Why Picture Books Are Important

2011-11-23T07:43:00.003-05:00

My post is up today at http://picturebookmonth.com!

You can read why I think picture books are important here. And if you haven't already, go back and read earlier posts by the other authors and illustrators who have been singing the praises of picture books all month long!

Make November Picture Book Month!

2011-11-08T23:23:00.000-05:00

Celebrate picture books every day this month at http://picturebookmonth.com!

Picture Book Month is an international initiative to designate November as Picture Book Month, encouraging everyone to celebrate literacy with picture books. Founder, Dianne de Las Casas (author & storyteller), and Co-Founders, Katie Davis (author/illustrator), Elizabeth O. Dulemba (author/illustrator) , Tara Lazar (author), and Wendy Martin (author/illustrator), are putting together their worldwide connections to make this happen.

Each day, you can see a new post by an author, illustrator, or editor about why picture books are important. Mine will be up on November 23! The site also includes great information and resources about picture books, authors and illustrators, literacy, industry news, kidlit bloggers, and more.

Click here to learn how you can help celebrate picture book month!

Sunday afternoon audiobook musings

2011-10-02T15:35:00.001-04:00

I love audiobooks. I listen to them on long walks and short ones, on bus rides, while doing the dishes. A good audiobook is a gift, a treasure, a tiny miracle of story unfolding in your head, courtesy of your own private narrator, reading it just for you. Good audiobooks make boring tasks tolerable and add an extra layer of pleasure to already-pleasant rides and walks and wanderings. Great audiobooks make me go for extra walks and do extra housework so I will have the excuse to keep on listening for a little bit longer. And the best ones, the ones I love like crazy, can sometimes make me just stand there in the middle of my apartment, out of convenient excuses to keep listening but unable to bring myself to remove my headphones.

The problem, of course, is that eventually you listen to everything in your library and have to find some new ones. I love and hate this part. As a reader, the anticipation of starting a new book in any form is always exciting, but choosing a new audiobook often seems more daunting than choosing a new paper book to read. The disappointment factor is higher somehow, and there's the additional challenge of not only finding a good book but one with a good narrator, as well. And I haven't yet come up with a very good system for this. I sometimes buy audio versions of books I've read before to re-experience them in a new way, and when there's a good narrator, this is wonderful fun—Lois McMaster Bujold is my favorite author to re-listen to (and her narrators have been great, especially the fabulous Grover Gardner). But I've already listened to all of those, many more than once, and I'm just about done with my current audio selection—another re-"read"—Stephen King's On Writing. So . . . now what? How do I find the next great book to inspire me to longer and longer walks and marathon cleaning sessions?

I'm feeling extra cautious right now because a recent audio download turned out to be such a disappointment that I couldn't make myself finish it. That rarely happens, that I dislike something that much, but sometimes I just can't bear to stick it out until the end. And so I flit around Audible and Goodreads, reading reviews and trying to figure out if the person who loved the book I'm considering is someone who shares similar tastes to mine, and trying to figure out what kind of book I'm in the mood for anyway, and whether a particular narrator's voice is one I'll want to listen to for eight or twelve or nineteen hours of time. I need to go out and run some errands pretty soon, and my current audiobook won't last long enough to carry me through, and instead of biting the bullet and choosing something I'm writing this long blog post instead.

All right. I guess that's not very productive of me. Back I go. But if anyone reading this has some great audiobook titles to recommend, feel free to post suggestions in the comments, to give me some more options to explore in my selection efforts the next time around . . .

The Trelian sequel has, uh, another title!

2011-08-31T12:36:00.001-04:00

Choosing a title for the sequel was so much fun, we decided to do it again! Actually, the sales folks had some good thoughts about keeping "Trelian" in the title to help make the connection clear between the two books, so we decided to tweak it a little. The new title is:

THE PRINCESS OF TRELIAN

Goes quite nicely with The Dragon of Trelian, I think, and one more "of Trelian" title for the third book would make a lovely set all together.

The Trelian sequel has a title!

2011-07-29T12:16:00.000-04:00

And it is:

The Dragon Princess: A Novel of Trelian

Calen fans: fear not! There is still a lot of Calen in this book. This story, like the first one, is told from both his and Meg's point of view, and a LOT of things happen to both of them throughout the novel. Exciting and significant things. Some of them are VERY VERY exciting and significant. But I am not going to tell you what they are. You will have to read the book.

And when can you do that, you ask? I will tell you: Spring 2012. When we know the exact month, I will post it here. And when the cover is ready, I will post that here, as well. The story itself is written and complete, but I'm still making little changes here and there. This week I'm reviewing the copyedits and trying to decide once and for all on an important character's name that I keep changing from draft to draft.

In other news, I have other news but I am not allowed to tell you about it yet. But it is GREAT news and I am SO EXCITED!!! I will post it here as soon as I can. For now, you will just have to take my word for it. :)

OK - back to work with me. Hope you all have been having a great summer! I know I've been absent from the blogosphere for a while—crazy-busy as usual and also moved to a new apartment in a new neighborhood (hello, Greenpoint!) which left little time for anything else for a while. Insert my usual promise about blogging more often here. I will try! I will at least try to make sure I post the important things in a timely fashion.

Oh and one last thing: I now have an official Facebook page, so please stop by and "like" me to get updates on new books and book signings and other things like that.

The Grand Plan to Fix Everything!

2011-05-25T14:17:00.000-04:00

Author and VCFA faculty member Uma Krishnaswami's wonderful new novel The Grand Plan to Fix Everything was released this week! Please head on over to Through the Tollbooth to read my interview with Uma about her book, breaking with conventions, monkeys, punctuation marks, and more.

You can get the full scoop on Uma's blog tour at her own blog, Writing with a Broken Tusk.

Library Lion reading Library Lion!

2011-05-22T23:47:00.002-04:00

Saw this great photo courtesy of Joyabella on Twitter. Are you seeing this? It's a LION reading LIBRARY LION on the steps of the New York Public Library between Lego replicas of Patience and Fortitude. There is so much awesome happening here, I don't even know where to begin. I will just let the photo speak for itself:

The Lego lions were created by Nathan Sawaya as part of the celebration of the NYPL's 100th anniversary.

You can see a larger version of the photo by clicking on it.

You can see an even larger version of the photo here: http://yfrog.com/z/hs21458721j

Argus review by Violet the Telekinetic Puppy

2011-05-17T18:04:00.000-04:00

Violet the Telekinetic Puppy has posted a lovely review of Argus over at Bigfoot Reads. Please go on over and take a look!

Bronx Zoo Appearance Rescheduled

2011-04-22T12:40:00.000-04:00

Due to the rainy forecast, my Bronx Zoo Animal Tales appearance has been rescheduled to Sunday, May 1, at 1:00pm. I hope some of you can make it! And that we get a nice sunny day next time around...

Love your library!

2011-03-31T12:01:00.000-04:00

This week, bloggers around the Internet are participating in the Library Loving Blog Challenge (created by author Jennifer R. Hubbard) to help raise money for libraries. You can help by visiting the blogs of participating folks and leaving a comment—most participants are pledging to donate a certain amount of money per comment they receive. It's that easy!

Last year, I ended up donating $250 to the Brooklyn Public Library, thanks to all the lovely people who commented on my blog. I couldn't do it this year, but wanted to help spread the word and encourage you to visit participating blogger sites and maybe consider donating a book or some moolah to your own local library.

You can see the list of participating bloggers here. Visit now—the challenge ends this Saturday, April 2!

Libraries are important! This is a wonderfully easy way to help keep them going. Spread some library love today!

Book signing at BookCourt this Sunday!

2011-03-29T10:19:00.000-04:00

Come on over to BookCourt in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, this Sunday, April 3! I'll be reading and signing my new picture book ARGUS at 11am. I'd love to see you there!

Interview at Writer Friendly, Bookshelf Approved!

2011-03-17T11:28:00.000-04:00

Author extraordinaire Bethany Hegedus interviewed me on her blog! Stop on over to see what I have to say about Argus, writing, M&Ms, and more:

http://bethanyhegedus.blogspot.com/2011/03/inside-writers-studio-with-michelle.html

Upcoming events!

2011-03-16T11:58:00.002-04:00

I have a bunch of book signings and other events coming up. Here's a list of what's on the schedule for April and May. If any of these are in your area, I hope you'll come!

APRIL
• April 3 @11am: Reading and signing ARGUS at BookCourt in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn

• April 9 @12 noon: Educator Reception at Barnes & Noble in Manhasset, NY

• April 9 @3:30pm: Reading and book signing at Voracious Reader in Larchmont, NY

• April 23 @1pm: Animal Tales Extravaganza at the Bronx Zoo!

• April 27 @4pm: Reading and signing at Mendham Books in Mendham, NJ

• April 28: Larchmont School Book Fair in Larchmont, NY

MAY
• May 3 @11am: Barnes & Noble at 86th & Lexington Ave in NYC

• May 7 @10am–4pm: Hudson Children's Book Festival

I'll also be at ALA 2011 in New Orleans in June, and at the Warwick and Rochester Book Festivals in the fall. You can always see a frequently updated list of events in the right-hand column of my blog under "Where I'll Be." Please check back often for the latest additions!

Birthday / Argus Book Launch Party

2011-02-23T22:44:00.000-05:00

Last night's party at WORD for Argus (and my birthday!) was fabulous fun! Thank you, so much, everyone who came in person and those who were there in spirit! I gave my first public reading of the book to the best audience I could ask for, and we had Q&A and cupcakes and champagne and sold out of Arguses before the night was through!

Here are a few pictures for those of you who couldn't be there:

WORD looking all cozy and inviting. Come on in!

Mmmm....delicious celebratory snacks and beverages!

Yay for Argus!

Beginning my first public reading of Argus for a wonderful group.

(I make a lot of faces when I read, apparently.)

Signing books, with some help from my lovely assistant.

I had so much fun. WORD was wonderful, and it was great to see so many friends from past and present! Thank you for giving Argus such a lovely warm welcome and for making my birthday a night to remember.

* * *

You can buy copies of Argus at your favorite real-life or online bookseller. Click here to see where you can get Argus at an independent bookseller near you.

Argus is here!

2011-02-22T10:59:00.001-05:00

Hooray! Today is the release date of my new picture book, ARGUS!

It is also my birthday. And it is also the date of my birthday/book launch party at WORD in Brooklyn this evening!

Details:
Birthday/Book Launch Party for Michelle and Argus!
WORD in Greenpoint, Brooklyn
126 Franklin Street
TONIGHT! February 22, 2011
6:30–8:30pm
http://wordbrooklyn.com/event/birthdaylaunch-party-michelle-knudsen

I hope you can come! I will be reading and signing and there will be books and cupcakes and other good things. Children and adults are equally welcome!

More Argus reviews!

2011-02-09T11:10:00.000-05:00

The pub date for ARGUS is fast approaching (are you coming to my birthday/book launch party on February 22?) and some more reviews have come in! Excerpts:

"With clean lines and muted colors, the ink-and-watercolor artwork illustrates the story in a most engaging way, magnifying the humor but keeping the absurdity in check. This pleasing picture book is fun for reading aloud." —Booklist

"Wesson’s lanky, gawky watercolor and ink caricatures capture the fragility of childhood, and the understated telling provides space to grapple with one’s own navigation through episodes of unenlightened authority. Children will relate to the drama while enjoying the humor found in both text and illustration." —School Library Journal

And Roxyanne Young just posted a truly lovely review on smartwriters.com.

I shared excerpts from the Publishers Weekly and Kirkus reviews in December; you can see them here.

I'm so happy that reviewers and early readers have been liking Argus so far! Can't wait until he's released into the wider world later this month. :)

Saturday Six

2011-02-05T10:53:00.000-05:00

1. Update: 2011 has been keeping me pretty busy so far. I've been teaching my class at Gotham Writers' Workshop, working on final revisions of my Trelian sequel, writing new picture book drafts, thinking about my next big project, doing a little freelance editing, and trying to still find some time to see friends and my nice boyfriend and go for walks and other things. I also got to spend a lovely long weekend at Kindling Words, recharging my writerly energy and wearing a fancy dress to a masquerade ball.

2. Twitter tells me that today is International Save Libraries Day. (Personally, I think every day should be International Save Libraries Day.) You can participate in the library love by going to your local library, joining if you're not already a member, and checking out a book or three. You can also use the #savelibraries hashtag on Twitter to show your support, and write to your local legislators to let them know libraries matter! I've just added a widget to this page in the column at right (thanks, ALA website!) that will help you identify and contact your local legislators.

(Thanks, Phil Bradley, for the library word art!)

3. I'm teaching a free one-hour children's book writing workshop for Gotham Writers' Workshop tomorrow evening, 6–7pm, at McNally Jackson Books in Manhattan. If you don't have Super Bowl party plans, come learn about writing for children, instead!

4. WORD Bookstore in Greenpoint is hosting a birthday/book launch party for my new picture book, Argus! It's February 22 (my birthday!) from 6:30–8:30pm. There will be cupcakes and books and general merriment. Grown-ups and children of all ages are welcome. I hope to see you there! If you're on Facebook, you can RSVP here or here (or both), but no official RSVP required—just come on over!

5. My former teacher (and current all-around person of awesomeness) Cynthia Leitich Smith is on tour for her new novel, Blessed! Check out the full schedule and go get yourself a signed book. NYC events start tomorrow and continue through the week.

6. OK, I think I really only had five things today. So I will use #6 here to remind you that The Dragon of Trelian is out in paperback as of last month, and you should probably go get yourself a copy. Or give it as a Valentine's Day gift to a special young reader (or old reader) in your life. Yay!

Books Read 2010

2011-01-02T12:35:00.000-05:00

Since I've been enjoying other people's lists of the books they read in 2010, I decided to post my own list, too.

The following are all the books I read in the past year, except for most of the picture books—I read a lot of picture books and don't always remember to add them to my Goodreads list, which is how I keep track of my reading these days. The notation "A" following an item means I listened to the audiobook, and "R" means it was a reread. Over the past year or so I discovered the joy of re-experiencing well-loved books in their audio versions, which has been an incredible treat. Especially the Lois McMaster Bujold books, and especially the Miles Vorkosigan titles, which are not only all wonderful in their own right but are narrated by the absolutely perfect Grover Gardner. (If you are new to Miles and want to experience the awesomeness for yourself, I recommend starting with Shards of Honor [available individually as an audiobook or packaged with Barrayar in the printed compilation Cordelia's Honor] and reading in internal chronological order, which is different from order of publication.) (Actually, what I really recommend is reading all the books in print first, then waiting a few years and going back and re-experiencing them as audiobooks. But I realize that's probably asking a lot.)

Aaaaaaanyway... here's the list.

A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner
Stitches by David Small
Night Road by A. M. Jenkins
Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman
Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold (A, R)
The Declaration by Gemma Malley
The Girl with the Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts (R)
Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold (A, R)
Writing Fantasy Fiction by Sarah Lefanu
Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold (A, R)
Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy by Gardner R. Dozois
Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox
The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett (A)
Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary (A)
Redwall by Brian Jacques
Lessons from a Dead Girl by Jo Knowles
Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold (A, R)
Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott (A)
The Ropemaker by Peter Dickinson
The Missing Girl by Norma Fox Mazer
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home (Season 8, Vol. 1) by Joss Whedon (et al)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No Future For You (Season 8, Vol. 2) by Joss Whedon (et al)
Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life by Terry Brooks
Sabriel by Garth Nix (A)
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt (A)
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (A)
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley (R)
The Storm in the Barn by Matt Phelan
The Fairy-Tale Detectives (The Sisters Grimm, #1) by Michael Buckley
Hate That Cat: A Novel by Sharon Creech
The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams (A)
The Uninvited by Tim Wynne-Jones
Brontorina by James Howe
The Wizard Heir (The Heir Chronicles, #2) by Cinda Williams Chima
Well Wished by Franny Billingsley
Dramarama by E. Lockhart
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (A)
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
ttyl by Lauren Myracle
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (R)
Passage (The Sharing Knife, #3) by Lois McMaster Bujold
Under The Dome by Stephen King (A)
Horizon (The Sharing Knife, #4) by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold (A, R)
Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold (A, R)
Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (A)
Persuasion by Jane Austen (A)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (A)
Sacred Scars (A Resurrection of Magic, #2) by Kathleen Duey
CryoBurn by Lois McMaster Bujold (A)
The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (A)
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (A, R)
The Gingerbread Girl by Stephen King (A)
The Gathering Storm (Wheel of Time, #12; A Memory of Light, #1) by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

Reading now (started in 2010, but not yet finished): Scrawl by Mark Shulman and Northanger Abbey (A) by Jane Austen.

See ya, 2010

2010-12-31T11:03:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone who's been stuck in the snow this week has made it home (or to whatever intended destination) safely by now.

I will not be sorry to see the end of 2010. There were some good parts in there too, of course, but I know this was a tough year in many ways for a lot of people, myself included, and I suspect I am nowhere near alone in looking forward to a fresh start tomorrow. Here's hoping 2011 brings lots of good things to all of us.

If you're the resolution-making type (or even just the resolution-reading type), head on over to Through the Tollbooth where we are posting our writing resolutions for the new year.

Have fun tonight, whatever you are up to! Best wishes for a happy, healthy, and all-around awesome 2011.

Cynsations interview: writing across formats

2010-12-16T12:01:00.000-05:00

Click on over to Cynsations today for Cynthia Leitich Smith's interview with me regarding writing across formats in children's publishing. She conducted a series of interviews on this topic with various authors while preparing a keynote address for a fall 2009 SCBWI-Illinois conference.

You should be reading Cynsations regularly anyway, if you aren't already! :)

Look, it's Argus!

2010-12-15T11:48:00.000-05:00

I just realized I never posted the wonderful cover for Argus! Behold:

ARGUS received a lovely starred review from Publishers Weekly, which concluded: "Knudsen (Library Lion) never overplays her hand, but lets the story's laughs unfold naturally from the characters and circumstances. Her grasp of the life of the elementary school classroom is spot-on; this should become another favorite."

And here's an excerpt from the Kirkus review: "Kudos to unflappable Mrs. Henshaw, Knudsen and Wesson . . . naughty Argus will capture attention and hearts." (Mrs. Henshaw is a character in the story.)

ARGUS comes out in stores on February 22. Which is also my birthday. Yay!

In the meantime, you can get yourself a copy of the Dragon of Trelian paperback on January 11! :)

Friday Five

2010-11-19T14:18:00.000-05:00

1. Tonight is opening night of Iolanthe! Performances this weekend only!! You can buy tickets here. Come see me and the other ladies of the cast work some fairy magic. Also, there are Peers of Parliament and a half-fairy shepherd and a lovely young ward of chancery and a general abundance of awesomeness, set to music, with occasional dialogue.

2. I am very pleased to announce that I'll be teaching a course with Gotham Writers' Workshop in 2011! It's Children's Book Writing I, and it meets Tuesday nights, 7–10pm, January 18 through March 29. You can enroll online through the GWW website.

3. The third and final part of my blog series on sequels is up at Through the Tollbooth today. Click on over for more Q&A with Ellen Jensen Abbott, Cinda Williams Chima, Janni Lee Simner, and Jill Santopolo.

4. I'm currently scheduling school visits for the spring 2011 semester. See the School and Library Visits page on my website for more information.

5. Have you come across Hyperbole and a Half yet? It makes me happy.

Visit me at the Tollbooth! Also: Iolanthe!

2010-11-15T09:45:00.000-05:00

I'm blogging this week over at Through the Tollbooth. Come on over today for the first of three installments about the pains and pleasures of writing sequels.

Also - if you're in the NYC area, you should come see The Village Light Opera Group's production of Iolanthe this weekend! It's our 75th anniversary season and Iolanthe is one of Gilbert & Sullivan's most beloved operettas. There are fairies (I am one) and peers of Parliament and a love triangle (kind of a love pentagon, really) and beautiful music and dancing and general awesomeness of all kinds.

Performances are this weekend only:
Friday, Nov. 19th @ 8pm
Saturday, Nov. 20th @ 2pm & 8pm
Sunday, Nov. 21st @ 2pm

At our new theater:
The Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University
3 Spruce Street
New York , New York 10038

You can buy tickets here.

Also, you can watch this fun promo trailer:

You can see more about the show at VLOG's Iolanthe website.

Yay!

Library Lion in Hungarian!

2010-11-13T10:50:00.001-05:00

Got a nice surprise from the mailman this morning—the Hungarian edition of Library Lion!

How cool is that? Yay!

I was interested to see that they left Mr. McBee and Miss Merriweather's names in English. Many of the other foreign editions change the names of the characters. A friend in Israel (Hi, Sarah C.!) recently told me that in the Hebrew edition, their names are Mister Nakdi and Miss Dafni, and I know they've been changed in the Italian edition and several others. Someday I'd love to find out how the different publishers decide whether to change the names and what to change them to. It's so odd sometimes what they choose! And odd too to catch my characters walking around with new identities. :)

Katie Davis on the Rochester Children's Book Festival

2010-11-10T23:18:00.000-05:00

Children's book author and all-around awesome person Katie Davis does a great kidlit podcast, and she just put up a new one about the Rochester Children's Book Festival from this past weekend. You can hear her interviewing several of the authors who attended, including ME! :)

Here is where you can go and listen:

New Podcast! Brain Burps About Books: a fly-on-the-wall at Rochester Children's Book Festival! http://t.co/SMy68a7

The festival was awesome once again, by the way, and if you were not there you should feel very sorry to have missed it. But don't worry - you can make yourself feel better by resolving right now to come next year no matter what!

As usual, I did not take nearly enough pictures, but here is one of me at my table, either about to sign or having just signed a copy of Carl the Complainer for a very nice young reader:

I am already looking forward to next year - can't wait!

2010 Rochester Children's Book Festival!

2010-11-04T11:26:00.000-04:00

Guess what is happening this weekend? It's the fabulous Rochester Children's Book Festival! And it will be awesome! As always! But even more so because there are wonderful new authors and illustrators coming this year in addition to those of us who, because of aforementioned awesomeness, have been coming year after year after year.

I will be reading Library Lion at 1:40pm, and the rest of the day I will be at my table signing books and talking to the nice people who come to the festival and giving out postcards and things. If you come on the early side, you might be able to score an ARGUS postcard. I'm just saying.

This Saturday, November 6
10:00am - 4:00pm
Monroe Community College Brighton Campus
1000 East Henrietta Rd.

You can see more information, including a list of all the authors and illustrators who will be there, at the festival website.

I hope to see you there!

PEN conversation with Rebecca Stead!

2010-10-24T12:39:00.000-04:00

Last month at the wonderful Brooklyn Book Festival, Susanna Reich moderated a discussion between me and Newbery-winning author Rebecca Stead at the PEN American Center booth. We talk about writing and ideas and editing and lots of other things; you can listen to the conversation here:

http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5330/prmID/1873

You may have to turn the volume up when I'm talking - I'm not really that quiet, but I think I had my mic clipped on too far away. :)

The Dragon of Trelian paperback! And stuff.

2010-09-20T15:04:00.002-04:00

The Dragon of Trelian comes out in paperback on January 11, 2011. It will have an awesome new cover, which looks like this:

In other news, here are some updates about various things:

1. This July I graduated from the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Yay! But also :( because I will miss it very much. But mostly :) because it was two years of hard work and it feels really good to have earned my degree. And I have a whole bunch of wonderful writing friends/classmates/kindred spirits who will continue to be very important to me, even if I won't get to see them quite as regularly now.

2. I am experimenting with new designs for the blog. You are looking at this experiment right now. Like it? Don't like it? Let me know what you think.

3. ARGUS comes out on February 22, 2011. February 22 happens to be my birthday. There will quite possibly be a birthday-book launch party in the works very soon. I can't wait to show you guys the cover—Andréa Wesson's artwork is perfect! But, um, I have to wait, at least a little while longer. But as soon as I'm allowed I will post the cover here.

4. Still working hard on Dragon of Trelian sequel revisions. I'm in the third draft now. Stuff is happening, there is danger and magic and intrigue and there are new characters and old characters and someone may die. That is all I am going to say at this time. The pub date will be sometime in Spring 2012.

5. I am in another Gilbert and Sullivan operetta with The Village Light Opera Group! The show is Iolanthe and we just started rehearsals and performances will be the weekend before Thanksgiving and you should all come to see it. Don't worry, I will remind you as it gets closer.

6. I have joined the crew of Through the Tollbooth, which is a fabulous group blog run by VCFA graduates. There are new posts several times a week on writing-related topics, and you should definitely stop in there and take a look!

I think that's all for now. The summer has been a little crazy, but I'm hoping the fall will prove a little less so, and will include a little more time for posting, among other things. Yeah, I know I say things like that a lot, about how I'm hoping to post more often. I know it doesn't always happen, but I remain ever optimistic about these things. :)

Brooklyn Book Festival this Sunday!

2010-09-10T10:54:00.000-04:00

Well, hello!

It's been three and a half months since my last post, and there's been lots going on, and I'll tell you all about it sometime soon, but for now I just want to say that you should come to the Brooklyn Book Festival this Sunday! It will be awesome, and lots of authors will be there, including me at 4pm in the Target Children's Area. I'll be reading Library Lion and answering questions and things and then signing both Library Lion and The Dragon of Trelian immediately after my presentation.

All events are FREE!

Hope to see you there.

Upcoming Events

2010-05-20T11:42:00.000-04:00

I have some book signings and events coming up, and would love to see you!

Thursday, May 27, 1:30pm: I'll be at BEA, signing Library Lion at the Candlewick Booth.

Saturday, June 5, 2-4pm: Come to the Dragon Day event at the Voracious Reader! I'll be reading and signing The Dragon of Trelian. Kate Klimo, author of the Dragon Keepers books, will be there, too!

Sunday, June 27, 11:30am: I'll be at ALA, signing Library Lion and The Dragon of Trelian. I'll also have postcards for my new picture book, ARGUS, which comes out next Spring!

You can always see an ongoing list of upcoming events in the right-hand column of this blog.

Hudson Children's Book Festival!

2010-04-27T15:29:00.004-04:00

I'll be signing books with more than ONE HUNDRED other children's book authors and illustrators at the Hudson Children's Book Festival this Saturday, May 1, from 10am to 4pm.

For more information, including a full list of the authors and illustrators who will be there, please visit the Hudson Children's Book Festival website.

I hope to see you there! :)

Operation Teen Book Drop

2010-04-14T11:05:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow, on April 15, Operation Teen Book Drop will deliver 10,000 new books to teens on native reservations and tribal lands, an event that coincides with Support Teen Literature Day. This event is being coordinated by readergirlz, the Young Adult Library Services Association, GuysLitWire, and If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything, a national reading club for Native children.

How can you participate?

Visit GuysLitWire to help “rock the drop.” GuysLitWire has created a wish list of 750 books that supporters can buy from Powells.com. These purchases will be sent directly to one of two tribal school libraries, Ojo Encino Day School or Alchesay High School.

In addition, if you are a teen author, you can leave a copy of one of your books in a public place for a young reader to find. Download a bookplate at the readergirlz site to paste into your book. More than 100 YA authors have already pledged to do this in their local communities.

Teen readers and fans of YA literature are also invited to leave copies of favorite teen books in public places for other readers to find. There are bookplates for you to download at readergirlz, too.

For more information, please see the far more comprehensive posts at Cynsations, readergirlz, ALA, and GuysLitWire.

You can also watch the TBD trailer below, or click it here to view at YouTube.

Five reasons why there isn't a real Friday Five today

2010-04-09T11:28:00.002-04:00

1. VCFA Packet 3 deadline April 19.

2. Trelian sequel revision deadline May 24.

3. Appointment with tax guy today at 3pm.

4. Spent most of the past week doing activities related to the above (mostly, sadly, #3).

5. Okay so I only have four reasons but really #1 should count twice at this point.

Bonus random #6: Since my blog didn't take up much of your time today, go over to books i done read and read this review of The Dragon of Trelian!

Friday Five

2010-04-02T11:02:00.005-04:00

Hooray for another week of good things! :)

1. On Sunday afternoon, a bunch of us went to see our friend Freddie perform in ImaginAerial's fabulous production "Luminarium" at the Streb Lab for Action Mechanics. Freddie was in the duo trapeze act, and the whole show was amazing and lovely. You can see a cool slideshow of photos from the performance here.

2. On Monday, I met up with Margaret and Paula at our secret writing location and DANNY STRONG from BUFFY (and, apparently, Gilmore Girls, if that's more your thing) was sitting at the table next to us! We behaved very responsibly and didn't even make any fangirl comments until he was getting up to leave. At which point he was very sweet and shook my hand and introduced himself to all of us and asked our names and it was a very nice celebrity-meeting experience all around. Yay!

3. I finally hooked up my Wii and Wii Fit this week, which was a small personal success since I'd been meaning to do this for at least a week and aside from the suspiciously unhappy sound the balance board makes when I first step onto it, I was pleased with my first day of playing around with the system. I like the balance games and the yoga stuff, so far. I also ordered myself a Super Mario Brothers game, since having the Wii can't just be all about the Wii Fit, of course.

4. On Wednesday it stopped RAINING and I finally got back outside to the park.

5. Today promises to be gorgeous and I am going to (a) be productive for a while as soon as I finish this post, (b) get outside for a nice long walk, and (c) go out to dinner and possibly a movie tonight with the boyfriend. Yay for Friday!

Random Photo of the Month

2010-03-31T12:25:00.001-04:00

Last week I had two fabulous school visits in Newfane and Lockport, NY. I'll post more about that soon, but for now here's a quick preview of some of the cool stuff the schools did in preparation for my visit. In addition to other fun lead-in activities (like the daily trivia question contest about me and/or my books), the students in both schools did writing and art projects, including these wonderful library lions that were on display in DeSales Catholic School when I arrived to give my presentation:

The Lockport Union-Sun & Journal came to DeSales and wrote up an article about my visit. You can read it here!

Thanks for the library love!

2010-03-28T20:00:00.000-04:00

Hooray! Thanks to all the fabulous people who left comments over the past several days, I'm giving $250 to the Brooklyn Public Library. You guys are awesome! Thanks for helping out with the challenge, and for all the great comments, library-related and otherwise.

Jennifer R. Hubbard, who came up with the library-loving blog challenge idea, is compiling all the totals—stop by her blog to see how much money has been raised all together.

Thanks again, and I hope all of your own local libraries continue to be places you love to visit and support for years to come!

Library-Loving Blog Challenge!

2010-03-23T11:34:00.001-04:00

I came across this challenge on Janet Fox's blog, and it all started with Jennifer R. Hubbard (view her original library-loving challenge post here). The deal is, for every commenter in response to this post between now and midnight on Saturday, March 27, I will donate $1.00 to my local library: Brooklyn Public Library.

Your comments don't even have to be clever—you can say, "I love libraries!" or "Unicorns are pretty!" or whatever you like. (Just, you know, keep it clean, people. I write books for kids, remember.) And if you are moved to make a flat-fee donation to your own local library or to start your own challenge, please do! And let me know that in the comments, also.

Some rules: only $1.00 per individual commenter, so if one person comments 50 times, that's still just $1.00. And I'm going to say for now that I'll donate up to $250 ... but if the comments actually reach that high, keep posting—I may be inspired by your enthusiasm to donate more. I do love the library, and I make very good use of my local branch of the BPL. Let's see how much of my hard-earned money you can get me to give away! :)

You can do even more by spreading the word ... please link to this post, tweet about it, and send your friends here so they can comment and raise more money.

For a complete list of participating bloggers (and to visit other sites where you can help libraries just by leaving a comment!) visit the writerjenn blog at http://writerjenn.livejournal.com/.

Friday Five

2010-03-19T13:00:00.002-04:00

I've been a fan of other people's "Friday Five" lists on other blogs, and thought I'd try doing a little Friday Five of my own. I like a little structure/routine but not too much, so this will be the kind of feature that involves talking about five things in some kind of context that will vary from week to week and won't really have any limitations/requirements beyond that basic set-up. Sort of like the structure of beginning readers, where you've got a basic format you've got to stick to, but the variety of content you can play with inside that structure is wide open. (See how I tied it into children's book writing, there?)

Anyway. Thought I'd start with a nice happy one:

FIVE GOOD THINGS THAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK

1. I met up with two nice writer friends for a writing date on Monday. They've been meeting up with each other for some time, and have often invited me to join them, but it kept not working out for me for various reasons. This time it worked out, finally (partly due to a looming deadline that made me feel a writing date was particularly necessary and partly due to my shiny new laptop and my desire to take it out for a spin) and it was great. We had coffee, discussed a plot problem one of us was struggling with, and sat and wrote and got a lot done. We agreed on a regular Monday writing time and place and will continue to meet up every week. I feel very good about this.

2. I picked up the Girl Scout cookies I'd ordered from my friend Jen's daughter. OMG they are very delicious. Yay for Thin Mints! And yay for Jen's husband who very nicely brought the cookies into work with him so I could stop by and pick them up.

3. I took a lovely long walk in Prospect Park on Tuesday afternoon, enjoying the beautiful weather and listening to Neil Patrick Harris reading Beverly Cleary's Henry Huggins.

4. Yesterday I went out to NJ to visit one of my best friends who I don't get to see often enough. We had lunch and I got to see her beautiful new house and her parents and her kids and we went shopping and caught up on a lot of things and it was great.

5. Late Wednesday night I bought a super-cheap leather jacket on eBay. This was my second-ever eBay purchase (the first being a Buy-It-Now purchase of the CD single of Baltimora's "Tarzan Boy" in 2004—no, seriously) and I have already won another auction since then for something else and I'm a little concerned about how fun it suddenly seems to shop on eBay. But that's not the good part—the good part is that the leather jacket is to wear while riding on the back of my boyfriend's motorcycle, because it is no longer winter, really, and I am very excited to go for my first ride of the year. Hopefully this weekend (hint, hint, boyfriend, if you are reading this).

NYC Teen Author Festival!

2010-03-11T13:03:00.009-05:00

The 2010 NYC Teen Author Festival is happening NEXT WEEK!

I'll be signing The Dragon of Trelian at the HUGE multi-author signing at Books of Wonder on Sunday, March 21. The signing runs from 2:00 to 5:45pm, but because there are so many (70!!!!) authors, we're signing in shifts. I'll be there from 2:45 to 3:30pm.

Here's a full list of all the events, which begin on Monday, March 15!

2010 NYC Teen Author Festival

Monday, 3/15 (NYPL, Tompkins Square Branch, 331 East 10th Street, 6pm):

First Draft to Final Draft – Talking About the Writing Process
featuring:
Gayle Forman
Daphne Grab
Carolyn Mackler
Sarah Mlynowski
Blake Nelson
Marie Rutkoski
Eliot Schrefer
Natalie Standiford

Tuesday, 3/16 (Barnes & Noble Tribeca, 97 Warren Street, 7pm):

Getting Inside the Mind of a Teen Boy
featuring:
Nick Burd
Matt de la Pena
Gordon Korman
David Levithan
Barry Lyga
Michael Northrop
Jon Skovron
Jake Wizner

Wednesday, 3/17 (South Court, 42nd Street NYPL, 6pm):

The Treasure Map to Going Bovine with Will Grayson(s)
(or, an evening of readers’ theater)
featuring:
Libba Bray
John Green
David Levithan
E. Lockhart

Thursday, 3/18 (Five Borough Read, 10am):

Authors read to high school students and the public in libraries across the city.

Manhattan:
Countee Cullen Branch, NYPL, 104 W 136th St
Donna Freitas
Eliot Schrefer
Rachel Vail
Lynn Weingarten
Ebony Wilkins

Jefferson Market Branch, NYPL, 425 6th Ave
Gabe Guarente
Carla Jablonksi
Kristen Kemp
Barry Lyga
Samantha Schutz

Muhlenburg Branch, NYPL, 209 W 23rd St
Alice Hoffman
Emma McLaughlin
Lauren McLaughlin
Courtney Sheinmel
Jennifer Smith

Grand Central Branch, NYPL, 135 East 46th Street (between Lexington & Third Aves.)
Angie Frazier
Aimee Friedman
Robin MacCready
Sarah Maclean
Amanda Marrone

Seward Park Branch, NYPL, 192 East Broadway
Cathleen Bell
Susane Colasanti
Matt De La Pena
Gayle Forman
Daphne Grab

Yorkville Branch, NYPL,, 222 East 79th St
Micol Ostow
Robin Palmer
Shani Petroff
Robyn Schneider
Abby Sher
Jake Wizner
Michelle Zink

Brooklyn:
Central Branch, Brooklyn Public Library, Dweck Auditorim, 10 Grand Army Plaza
Emily Horner
Melissa Kantor
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
Matthue Roth
Siobhan Vivian
Adrienne Maria Vrettos
Melissa Walker
Robin Wasserman

Bronx:
Bronx Library Center, NYPL, 310 East Kingsbridge Road
Coe Booth
Sarah Darer Littman
Neesha Meminger
Maryrose Wood

Queens:
Broadway Branch, QPL, 40-20 Broadway, Long Island City
Jessica Blank
Sarah Burningham
Heather Duffy-Stone
Marianne Mancusi
Elizabeth Scott

Staten Island:
West New Brighton Branch, NYPL, 976 Castleon Avenue
Elizabeth Eulberg
David Levithan
Michael Northrop
Kieran Scott

Thursday Evening, 3/18 (Books of Wonder, 18 W 18th St, 6-8pm):
Sourcebooks Fire Launch Party
featuring authors Lisa Brown, Anne Eliot Crompton, Helen Ellis, Adele Griffin,

AND

the rocking tunes of Tiger Beat! (with Libba Bray, Dan Ehrenhaft, Barnabas Miller, and Natalie Standiford)

Friday, 3/19 (South Court, 42nd Street, 2-5 and 6-8:30)
NYC Teen Author Festival Symposium

Afternoon
2:00 Introduction
2:10 – 3:00: Using Genre to Tell the True Story of Adolescence
featuring:
Judy Blundell
Sarah Beth Durst
Lauren McLaughlin
Diana Peterfreund
Sara Shepard
Maggie Stiefvater
Robin Wasserman

3:00 – 3:30: Making a First Impression – 2010 Debut Authors
featuring:
Angie Frazier
Emily Horner
Alyssa Sheinmel
Ebony Wilkins

3:30 - 4:15: Grief, Loss, and the YA Novel
featuring:
Alexandra Bullen
Heather Duffy-Stone
Donna Freitas
Alice Hoffman
Sarah Darer Littman
Lisa Ann Sandell
Samantha Schutz

4:15 – 5: The Boy You Can’t Have
featuring:
Susane Colasanti
Elizabeth Eulberg
Robin Palmer
Elizabeth Scott
Melissa Walker
Maryrose Wood

5-6: Break

Evening
6:00 – A Tribute to Regina Hayes
featuring:
Sarah Dessen
Joy Peskin
Jacqueline Woodson

6:45 – 8:30: What it Feels Like for a Girl – Writing in a Teen Girl’s Voice
featuring:
Jessica Blank
Eireann Corrigan
Sarah Dessen
Jenny Han
Terra Elan McVoy
Siobhan Vivian
Adrienne Maria Vrettos
Jacqueline Woodson

Saturday, 3/20 (Bartos Forum, 42nd Street, 1pm):
Stuff for the Teen Age Event

Come check out Stuff for the Teen Age, The New York Public Library’s list of the hottest books, movies, music, and video games from 2009. Talk with your favorite authors. Rock out to your favorite songs. Have fun. Hear a very special presentation from keynote speaker, Libba Bray, the author of Going Bovine.

Sunday afternoon:

Books of Wonder Signing (18 W 18th St, 2-5:45)

NOTE: Because of the number of authors, signings will be in shifts. Below is the approximate schedule, which is subject to change

2:00-2:45
Alma Alexander
Nora Baskin
Cathleen Davitt Bell
Judy Blundell
Libba Bray
Coe Booth
Elise Broach
Alexandra Bullen
Nick Burd
Sarah Burningham
Susane Colasanti
Matt De La Pena
Violet Haberdasher
Maggie Stiefvater
Robin Wasserman

2:45-3:30
Tom Dolby
Heather Duffy-Stone
Sarah Beth Durst
Elizabeth Eulberg
Gayle Forman
Aimee Friedman
Jenny Han
Alice Hoffman
Carla Jablonksi
Melissa Kantor
Kristen Kemp
Michelle Knudsen
Peter Lerangis
David Levithan

3:30-4:15
Sarah Darer Littman
Barry Lyga
Robin MacCready
Carolyn Mackler
Sarah Maclean
Marianne Mancusi
Amanda Marrone
Wendy Mass
Lauren McLaughlin
Neesha Meminger
Sarah Mlynowski
Michael Northrop
Robin Palmer

4:15-5:00
Diana Peterfreund
Shani Petroff
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
Matthue Roth
Marie Rutkoski
Lisa Ann Sandell
Samantha Schutz
Elizabeth Scott
Kieran Scott
Courtney Sheinmel
Sara Shepard
Abby Sher
Jon Skovron

5:00-5:45
Jennifer Smith
Natalie Standiford
Rachel Vail
David Van Etten
Siobhan Vivian
Adrienne Maria Vrettos
Melissa Walker
Suzanne Weyn
Lynn Weingarten
Martin Wilson
Jake Wizner
Maryrose Wood
Michelle Zink

BONUS EVENTS:

Also keep in mind…
Before the Festival:

March 11: Blake Nelson and the Care Bears on Fire at Barnes & Noble, Union Square, 33 E 17th St, 7pm, for a night of reading and rock

After the Festival:

April 14: The Next Teen Author Reading Night, 6-7:30 at the Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL, 425 6th Ave, at 10th St.

Helen Ellis, The Turning
David Levithan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, Dedication
Sarah Mlynowski, Gimme a Call
Marie Rutkoski, The Celestial Globe
Elizabeth Scott, The Unwritten Rule
Rachel Vail, Brilliant
Adrienne Maria Vrettos, The Exile of Gigi Lane

For another look at the schedule, including any last-minute updates, click here.

Unrelated final note: I'm grateful to Kristin Cashore for linking to one of the best songs from the Buffy musical on her blog today. I love Buffy, and it was nice to have an excuse to listen to a bit of the musical today. I think I might be up for a full rewatching sometime soon. And btw, if you haven't yet read Kristin's Graceling, you should. Maybe you can buy a copy at Books of Wonder on March 21!

I FOOLED YOU release day!

2010-03-09T10:58:00.003-05:00

Hooray! I Fooled You is out in the world today! It's a middle grade anthology from Candlewick Press and contains my very first published short story ever, "The Bridge to Highlandsville." Stop by your favorite real-world store or order a copy through Indiebound.org!

You can see more info about the book in my 2/26 blog post.

Also out in the world today is the YA novel Saving Maddie, by my friend and fellow VCFA'er Varian Johnson! Visit his blog to follow along with the Saving Maddie blog tour and find out more about the book and the author.

Edited to add: just realized today is ALSO the release day for The Sky Is Everywhere, the debut novel from Jandy Nelson, also a VCFA'er! Yay!

Random Photo of the Month

2010-02-28T11:26:00.001-05:00

My cat, Cleo: paperweight/literary critic. This was taken November 29, 2008, when I was going over near-final pages for The Dragon of Trelian. The photos I took of her "helping" with my work always make me smile.

I Fooled You!

2010-02-26T11:54:00.000-05:00

This week I got my author copies in the mail for I FOOLED YOU—a middle-grade anthology edited by Johanna Hurwitz and containing short stories by Johanna herself, David A. Adler, Eve B. Feldman, Douglas Florian, Matthew Holm, Ellen Klages, Carmela A. Martino, Megan McDonald, Barbara Ann Porte, and yours truly. Mine is called "The Bridge to Highlandsville," and is actually my first-ever published short story, which is very exciting to me.

Also very exciting: look what Kirkus had to say(!):

"...Hurwitz has asked a group of ten writers to create stories that include the line, 'I fooled you,' a concept that, she reminds readers, is a common feature of most folk and fairy tales. Matthew Holm provides a funny, nearly wordless graphic tale. The final two stories, a new take on the troll guarding a bridge by Michelle Knudsen and a story with a satisfying surprise ending by Ellen Klages, are the best. Douglas Florian contributes a bouncy poem, and stories by Johanna Hurwitz and Eve B. Feldman offer gentle messages about the sometimes-questionable behavior of middle-grade students."

The book releases in hardcover and paperback on March 9, 2010. Visit Indiebound.org to order a copy from your favorite independent bookstore.

Library Lion in Hebrew!

2010-02-18T11:49:00.002-05:00

This week I received a copy of the Hebrew edition of Library Lion—so cool!

Library Lion is becoming quite the world traveler—he's already been published in the following countries/languages:

• United Kingdom
• Australia
• Japan
• Korea
• Taiwan (Complex Chinese)
• Italian
• U.S. Spanish-language edition
• France
• Spain (Spanish)
• Spain (Catalan)
• Holland (Dutch)
• Finland
• Slovenia
• Turkish

Looking forward to seeing where he'll turn up next! :)

In other good news, I'm excited to share that The Dragon of Trelian was selected as one of 20 titles on VOYA's Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers booklist! You can see the full list here.

Scott Magoon!

2010-02-01T12:49:00.002-05:00

I am VERY EXCITED to announce that the wonderful Scott Magoon will be illustrating my upcoming picture book BIG MEAN MIKE!

That is all. I just wanted to share. :)

p.s. "Upcoming" in the publishing world is of course not meant to imply "soon to be appearing" in any kind of normal-world-time sense. MIKE is currently tentatively scheduled for Fall 2012. But that is okay, because in the meantime there will be THE DRAGON OF TRELIAN PAPERBACK (this fall!) and ARGUS (2011, illustrated by Andréa Wesson!) and THE DRAGON OF TRELIAN SEQUEL (which will one day have a real title!).

Random Photo of the Month

2010-01-31T15:54:00.001-05:00

This afternoon I happened across this very fun photo of me, Lev Grossman, and Maura Madden at a Word Bookstore event this past December. AMAZINGLY, we just happen to be standing in a row reading one another's books. What are the odds? ;)

It was a nice reminder of a lovely afternoon at the store, meeting great authors and enjoying the hospitality of the wonderful folks at Word. For more photos from this and other events, see Word Brooklyn's Photostream on Flickr.

Newbery Blueberry!

2010-01-29T12:26:00.001-05:00

How cool is this? The students of Solomon Schechter Day School in New Milford picked The Dragon of Trelian as their "Newbery Blueberry" mock-Newbery award winner!

Students Pick Own Winning Books

Thank you, student voters! :)

January 2010 Reentry

2010-01-22T12:24:00.000-05:00

Got back Wednesday from the winter residency at VCFA, and it was as expected—awesome and inspiring and exhausting and happy and sad and wonderful. Ten days of lectures, workshops, readings, and events, with dear old friends and many new friends and brilliant writers and teachers. There was a moving memorial for Norma Fox Mazer, which I was honored to have the chance to attend. There were fabulous conversations over meals and hilarious late-night games of Exquisite Corpse (or Picture Telephone, as most of us called it) and also a kick-ass party thrown by my class (the Thunder Badgers) for the graduating class (the Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines) which involved a Wild West theme and much dancing and fun and cowboy hats.

My cowgirl attire (note the awesome belt, borrowed from Nice Boyfriend):

There were also fun cowboy-themed items:

And cowboy-themed foods:

Also there was dancing and game-playing and a piñata shaped like a boot. Much fun was had by all!

During the rez we were also assigned our advisors for the next semester, and I am SO EXCITED to be working with the fabulous Margaret Bechard. This will be my final semester, which makes me more than a little sad, although at the end I will have an MFA, which will (I hope) help alleviate some of the pain of VCFA withdrawal. And of course, the VCFA community embraces alumni and keeps them involved, and so I know I won't really be saying good-bye to VCFA, just moving on to a new relationship with it. But still, I will miss being a student and going to residencies and all the rest. But it's too early for all that, really! Fourth semester is only just starting, and I have another six months before I have to think about graduating. So I will not think about that just now at all.

Another fun thing happened at rez, which is that I finished my first knitting project! It was a scarf. I am very proud. Many thanks to Madeleine, who got me started over New Year's and donated yarn and knitting needles and taught me how to knit and purl, and to the nice knitter/writers (like Sarah and Linden) at VCFA who helped me when I got stuck, and to knitter/writer/awesome VCFA faculty member Rita Williams-Garcia, who showed me how to cast off at the airport while we were waiting for our flight back to NYC. I am excited to start a new project, although I will have to figure out how to knit in the presence of my cat, who will no doubt want to involve herself with the yarn in highly disruptive ways.

And that is all for now. I have ridiculous amounts of things to do, writing and otherwise, and should get to work. Wednesday was all about getting home and seeing my boyfriend and my cat, and yesterday was all about cleaning up my apartment and trying to get oriented, and now I need to be all about the writing for a while. And then hopefully maybe soon I can think about some other things, like my apartment-fixing-up plans. I was briefly daydreaming today about hiring an interior designer to help me make the most of the space I've got and give me painting and decorating advice. This will probably not happen, as I imagine interior designers are expensive and so are new furnishings and as you may remember I was hoping to NOT spend money like a crazy person this year. But it's fun to think about anyway.

OH! Almost forgot to say I am SO HAPPY for my friend Rebecca Stead who WON THE NEWBERY!!!! Congratulations to her and to all the other award winners. YAY! :)

2010 is going to be OK

2010-01-09T10:25:00.009-05:00

Just finished my second cup of coffee, which means it is time to get up from the computer and go do things. Mostly today's things will be about packing and getting ready for rez and getting my cat ready to spend ten days at my boyfriend's apartment while I am gone. There are things I wanted to get done before I go that will not get done, and I am deciding to be ok about this.

I think I want to make Deciding to Be Ok about Things my goal for 2010. I spend way too much time worrying about everything (and I mean seriously, EVERYTHING), and while there are some small number of things actually worth worrying about (e.g., health and well-being of friends and family), many of the things I worry about are just not worth it. Some things can just be ok. For example, it is ok that I didn't get all the reading done that I would have liked to do for the residency. It is ok that my apartment is a mess, and that my friend Kristin will see it this way when she comes over to water my plants next week. It is ok that I do not have my whole life figured out, and that I have big questions about lots of significant life things, and that I do not have a five-year plan or a fully updated checkbook register or a functional exercise regimen.

Which is not to say I'm not going to set goals for the coming year or anything like that. Actually the whole point is to direct my energy toward what matters, instead of wasting it on things that don't. I'm going to finish my Trelian sequel by March 1, which is my new deadline and which CANNOT be missed if I want the book to come out when it's supposed to. I'm going to finish the first draft of another novel that I'm working on, hopefully by July. I'm going to fix up my apartment, and paint and get curtains, and I'm going to cook more and try not to spend money like a crazy person. I'm going to exercise more, but it's going to be ok if that takes the form of long walks listening to audiobooks instead of my former ideal of going for runs and rejoining the gym.

I read David Small's Stitches last night (some of the reading for rez that I *did* finish) and by the end I was feeling pretty silly about some of the things in my life that upset me. Seriously, my life is pretty ok, more than ok, and some people have Real Problems and sometimes it helps to remember that and try to put things in perspective. Not that my life is all candy and roses by any means, and of course some things are going to get me down, but there are also many things in my life that I need to remember to be grateful for on a regular basis.

Anyway. I should get up and go do things now, for real. Need to pick up a package at the post office and stop at the bank for laundry and vending machine quarters for school, and pack and pack and transfer files to my laptop and update my iPod and everything else. I doubt I will post anything while I'm away, but if you're interested in getting a glimpse of the goings-on at the residency, VCFA alum Tami Brown will be posting at Through the Tollbooth, and Cynthia Leitich Smith will be tweeting VCFA faculty quotes on her Twitter page.

Dr. Horrible Killed My Bedtime

2010-01-04T02:57:00.001-05:00

Nearly 3am, spent 8 hours in the car today on the way back from snowy New Year's fun in Maine, really tired, should have been asleep a long time ago, but stayed up watching and rewatching Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Selected scenes are replaying behind me even now. The problem was that I had just rewatched the final episode of Firefly and couldn't go to bed on the sad feelings of no-more-Firefly-ness, and I had Dr. Horrible from Netflix and thought, I'll just take a look. Yes, I know I'm late to the game on this one, but whatever, you're just jealous that you can't go back and experience Dr. Horrible for the first time again like I did tonight.

Oh, Joss Whedon. I wish I had one teeny fraction of your amazingness. You and your crack team of creative types and Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion and all the rest. You make me want to write more things and try really hard to make them awesome.

OK. I have a crazy week ahead before I leave for my second-to-last VCFA residency on Sunday and must try to get to bed so I can get up and get lots and lots of things done tomorrow. Just had to share my Dr. Horrible love before turning in. Oh, man.

Nebulas and Andre Norton Award

2009-11-30T15:24:00.001-05:00

Now through February 15, members of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) can nominate books for the 2009 Nebulas, including The Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book. Fellow fantasy author Janni Lee Simner has a great post about this on her blog:

http://janni.livejournal.com/617575.html

I would love to encourage any SFWA members who might see this to nominate books for the Norton Award! I am behind in my 2009 reading, still catching up on books published in the last few years, but so far can definitely recommend Janni's Bones of Faerie, Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me, and Julie Berry's The Amaranth Enchantment, all of which are eligible this year. I am in the middle of Kristin Cashore's Graceling and loving it, and I think that one might also be eligible because of the transition rules in effect this year which allow some books to be included if they were published after July 1, 2008. I'm not 100% sure if that applies to the Norton books as well as the "regular" Nebulas, though. BUT: books for younger readers can be nominated for the Nebula award as well as for the YA-specific Norton.

The Dragon of Trelian is also eligible this year, just so you know. :)

Other books I'm hoping to read before nominations close:
The Dragon Heir by Cinda Williams Chima
Fire by Kristin Cashore (sequel to Graceling)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Sacred Scars by Kathleen Duey

I know there are lots more I'm not thinking of at this moment. Your suggestions and recommendations are welcome and encouraged!

Bloggety Blog

2009-10-09T13:23:00.001-04:00

There probably ARE people who blog less often than I do out there, right? I mean, even excepting all those people who do not actually have blogs. Once again, I am here to promise to do better. And now I will tell you all about how busy I have been and will continue to be and thereby lay the foundation for future infrequent blog posting.

I don't even remember where I left off. I will go check. *Consults previous post* Oh, right. Baltimore Book Festival! It was great. Had a lovely time reading Library Lion and an excerpt from The Dragon of Trelian, and signed some books and chatted with lovely authors and illustrators and bookstore people. And I bought a shirt from these nice folks. Then I spent a couple of days with my nice friends Bridey and Joe and little Evie, and went to Evie's third birthday party at a FARM with a PETTING ZOO and there were CHICKENS and BABY GOATS and OTHER FUN ANIMALS. I gave Evie books for her birthday, of course.

Last weekend I went back to Baltimore for the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association conference, which was awesome. I went two years ago when Library Lion received the 2007 NAIBA Children's Picture Book Award and once again I had a great time. Booksellers are really nice, fun people. And they love books. And there were other nice publishing types and authors and illustrators there as well, and I got to talk to people about the novel and hear about other authors' books and generally just had a wonderful time. Plus I scored so many free books that I had to send a box home from the hotel. Yay!

In other news, I am continuing to work on the sequel to The Dragon of Trelian, the first draft of which will be finished by the end of the year. And I'm still working on my critical thesis for my MFA, which will also be finished by the end of the year, but hopefully sooner—say, by my next packet deadline, which is November 10. ALSO working on a new YA novel for school, which started out great and fun and exciting but has been less great lately...still trying to figure out what the deal is with this story.

What else...on October 17 I will be at the Mandell School Book Fair, and on October 24 I will be reading Library Lion to help celebrate the opening of Brooklyn's new Greenlight Bookstore, and on October 31 I will be reading from The Dragon of Trelian while dressed as a princess at the New York Public Library Shop at the NYPL main branch. And on November 7, I will be at the FABULOUS Rochester Children's Book Festival in Rochester, NY, which is my favorite event to go to every year. This time I'll be doing a joint presentation with Rebecca Stead in addition to signing books and talking with kids and parents and teachers and other authors and anyone else who comes out that day! If you are in the area you should definitely come. This is the 13th year of the festival, and it just keeps getting better and better.

And then on December 12, I'll be reading and signing books at the Elmira Barnes & Noble in Elmira, NY.

And because I apparently did not already have enough on my plate, I am in the ensemble of the Village Light Opera Group's fall production of Starship Pinafore. You should all come see it, because it will be AWESOME and a lot of fun. If you know me personally, you can email me directly for tickets. Otherwise, you can get them online here. Performance dates are:

Friday, November 13 at 8pm
Saturday, November 14 at 8pm
Friday, November 20 at 8pm
Saturday, November 21 at 2pm
Sunday, November 22 at 2pm

And, as always, I have been playing lots of Facebook Scrabble and reading lots of books. (If you are curious about what I'm reading, you can always check out my reading list on Goodreads.)

And I suppose that is enough for this update. I should get back to work!

Baltimore Book Festival!

2009-09-24T10:22:00.000-04:00

I hope anyone in the area will come to the Baltimore Book Festival this weekend! I'll be presenting at 4pm on Saturday at the Children's Bookstore Stage, and there are lots of great authors and events all weekend long.

You can find out more here.

I'll be reading and signing Library Lion and The Dragon of Trelian. Looking forward to seeing you there! :)

Princeton Children's Book Festival!

2009-09-11T12:30:00.000-04:00

Just a quick reminder that everyone should come to the Princeton Children's Book Festival tomorrow!

You can see full details here.

More than 40 children's book authors and illustrators will be there, reading and signing books and looking forward to meeting you!

BIG MEAN MIKE!

2009-08-25T19:56:00.004-04:00

I'm very excited to announce that Candlewick will be publishing another picture book written by ME! It's called BIG MEAN MIKE, and that is all I will tell you at this time. :) Pub date still to be determined.

Candlewick will also be publishing my picture book ARGUS in Spring 2011 and the sequel to THE DRAGON OF TRELIAN...at some point after I have finished writing it.

In other news, I have finally updated my website a bit. You can see it here: www.michelleknudsen.com. I like the new colors; the old version was starting to seem a little boring. I'm still planning to have a real redesign at some point by some talented web designer-type person who is not me, but for now I'm having fun playing around with it myself.

In other other news, I had a wonderful time traveling around upstate NY with S. I hiked mountains and caught my first trout and swam in lakes and floated down rivers in tubes and saw a lot of lovely lovely nature.

Here is a picture of me enjoying nature:

And here is a picture of me enjoying nature on my boyfriend's motorcycle (I don't drive it myself, I just ride on the back. So usually he is sitting there in front of me, but in this case he is not because he is taking the picture.) Yes, those are fishing poles lashed to the back. That is the cool way to travel to fishing spots in the Adirondacks, FYI.

And here is a picture of nature for you to enjoy, without me in it:

Now I am back in Brooklyn, trying not to miss the lovely cool lakes and mountains. I am spending a little too much time looking at the pictures...

Dragon of Trelian review at Fuse #8

2009-08-12T12:13:00.002-04:00

Yay! Lovely review by Betsy Bird at her Fuse #8 blog!

I've been traveling almost nonstop since July 11, which is my latest excuse for the lack of blog posts. Currently I am in the Adirondacks, trying to balance nature-appreciation-time with critical-thesis-writing-time. The first draft of my critical thesis is due Sunday morning at 6 a.m.

I should get back to it. Just wanted to stop in and say hello and post the above link. I will try to do a proper update when I get home!

Hello and pelicans and interview and things

2009-07-08T23:20:00.001-04:00

Yikes - more than a month since my last post. Busy, busy, as usual.

But you know, I've been thinking that maybe it's not such a bad thing that I don't post more often. Whenever I fall behind on reading other people's blogs, I am always a little distressed to see 12 or 34 or 119 new posts waiting to be read on each blog I follow. Sometimes it's nice to see that only one or two posts have gone up while I've been too busy to read regularly. So maybe it's nice for anyone out there reading this blog to know that if you don't check in every day, you're not going to miss tons and tons of posts. I am the intermittent blog reader's blogger!

Anyway. Now that I'm here, quick update.

Just got back last night from a lovely vacation in sunny, sunny Florida with my nice boyfriend. We visited his friend Erin there, and had a great time. Here is a picture of me, in Florida:

There are lots of pelicans in Florida. They are cool, but also kind of creepy up close. They often look as though they are sizing you up for possible ingestion.

While I was in Florida, I stopped in at Haslam's Book Store, which is huge and wonderful and if you are in the area, you should go there. I happen to know there is a signed first edition of Library Lion waiting for you! Or at least there was, as of several days ago, when I signed it. They sell both new and used books. I bought a choose-your-own-adventure-type Dungeons & Dragons book from 1983 called Dragon of Doom. I am very excited to read it. I used to love those choose-your-own adventure stories. And with a dragon theme...well, it seems just up my alley. :)

I am now getting ready to head out again on Saturday for my next residency at The Vermont College of Fine Arts. I'll be kicking off my third semester in the program, and am very excited to see my VCFA friends and find out who my next advisor will be!

While I was away, Amy Kraft of Media Macaroni posted her recent interview with me. You can see it here, and there are some additional questions and answers on the Hooked on Phonics blog. There's a photo of me in the Media Macaroni interview that shows my dragon tattoo. (Nope, it's not Jakl - a lot of people ask me that!)

Amy and I actually sat down and talked in PERSON. It's the first interview I've done in a long time that wasn't conducted over email. It's harder to make your answers sound smart when you have to just, you know, SAY them, on the spot. But Amy asked such great questions and it was very fun to chat with her. Also, there was iced coffee.

OK - I am supposed to be doing a million things to get ready for school. But I wanted to check in because it had been so long, and also to let people know about the interview!

I hope you're all having a great summer so far. I probably won't post again until late July. So don't worry if you are going on vacation and will be away from your blog reader for a while. I won't get too far ahead of you, I promise. :)

Excuses

2009-06-06T14:17:00.000-04:00

Real life continues to interfere with my efforts to post things here with any kind of regularity. What are my excuses this time? Here you go:

1. My poor cat has been in and out of the hospital over the past two weeks, first because she ate an enormous piece of string for some reason (like, the biggest piece of string EVER) and had to have surgery to get it out of her intestines, and then because she became super-sensitive to her insulin during her recovery and went into insulin shock and nearly died. Oh and also her incision is infected. BUT the good news is that she gets to come home this evening, and I will hang out here with her as I deal with my second-most stressful blog-interfering item, which is:

2. My final packet deadline of the semester. The cat drama really set me back, and so now I am racing to get everything finished. My revisions are done, but I'm still working on my new pages and my essay. I'm a little sad that the semester is almost over; it has been so awesome working with Cynthia and I will miss having her thoughtful eye on my work and receiving her encouraging comments. I feel really good about the progress I've made this semester, though, and I'm actually almost sort of looking forward to working on my critical thesis starting in July. (I'm sure I'll feel differently once I'm actually in the thick of it, though. CT definitely = kind of scary.)

3. I also got called for jury duty, but luckily only spent the one day (Thursday) and was then dismissed. If the timing had been better I think I would have liked to serve on a jury. The selection process was really interesting, and I'm sure the trial would have been even more so. Oh, well. I'll get another chance in 8+ years.

4. Oh and BEA was here in the mix, too.

5. Plus there's all the rest of the regular life stuff, like cleaning my apartment and finding things to eat for dinner and trying to get outside for walks once in a while and occasionally getting to see my friends. But that stuff is always there, of course.

OK. I suppose I should try to get back to work, assuming I can manage to block out the ridiculously loud music pumping in through my closed windows. I like my neighborhood, but nice days on the weekend = very loud outdoor BBQs and I suppose I really am going to have to get myself a pair of noise-canceling headphones if I'm going to get anything done this summer.

Blog Tour, Day 2

2009-06-02T10:37:00.006-04:00

The Dragon of Trelian Blog Tour continues!

(edited since this morning to include interviews/reviews posted during the day)

New interviews:
Becky's Book Reviews
Reading Is my Superpower
Through the Looking Glass

New reviews:
Abby (the) Librarian
All About Children's Books
Cafe of Dreams
A Christian Worldview of Fiction
Dolce Bellezza (SPOILER ALERT - this review includes some plot surprises you may not want to see if you haven't read the book yet.)
HomeSchoolBuzz.com
Small World Reads
Through a Child's Eye

Blog Tour!

2009-06-01T11:52:00.003-04:00

Today through June 3, I'm participating in a blog tour through KidzBookBuzz.com. You can read interviews with me and reviews about The Dragon of Trelian!

KidzBookBuzz has a full list of participating bloggers, and I will also post links here as they go up.

Interviews:
Cafe of Dreams

Reviews:
All About Children's Books
Becky's Book Reviews
Novel Teen Book Reviews
Reading Is my Superpower
Small World Reads
Through the Looking Glass

Quick mentions:
HomeschoolBuzz.com (Full review to post tomorrow)
Through a Child's Eye (Includes Library Lion review)

Thanks so much to all the bloggers who took the time to review the book and send interview questions! I had a lot of fun talking about the story and hope this event will help introduce the book to new readers.

BEA, Cat Yodeling, and WHEN YOU REACH ME

2009-05-26T12:51:00.000-04:00

I'll be signing The Dragon of Trelian at BEA this Saturday, May 30, at the Candlewick Booth from 3 to 4 p.m. If you're going to be at BEA, I hope you will come by!

Also BEA-related: I will be attending the BEA edition of Betsy Bird's Kidlit Drinks Night on Friday evening. Looking forward to seeing some old friends and meeting some new ones, too!

Been catching up on some blog reading today (because I have a ridiculous amount of stuff to get done, and so of course blog reading seemed very important suddenly) and very much enjoyed the cat yodeling video posted by Jo Knowles, which she heard about from Eric Luper.

Speaking of blog reading AND of Betsy Bird... my friend Rebecca Stead has a wonderful book coming out July 14 called WHEN YOU REACH ME. If you have not been fortunate enough to get your hands on an advance copy, you should run out and buy her book as soon as it comes out. Betsy did a lovely interview with Rebecca recently, which you can read here.

And speaking of interviews... I'm currently answering lots of interview questions for my blog tour June 1–3. I'll post links to those interviews when they go up next week.

OK - back to work with me. Also today I need to return some library books and go visit my poor kitty at the hospital, who had to be operated on because she ate a very long piece of string. :(

Interview at dulemba.com!

2009-05-18T12:55:00.004-04:00

Elizabeth O. Dulemba posted an interview with me on her blog today! You can see it here.

Dragon of Trelian Update

2009-05-17T14:47:00.002-04:00

I had a wonderful time at the First Annual Hudson Children's Book Festival yesterday. It was lovely to see so many author and illustrator friends and to make some nice new ones. Thanks to everyone who came out for the event and bought books and chatted with authors and illustrators and listened to stories and attended panels and participated in activities!

When you run into author friends you haven't seen since the last conference or festival, two questions often come up:

(1) How's the new book doing?
(2) What are you working on now?

It's been just over a month since The Dragon of Trelian came out, and I'm really happy about its reception so far. I still need to add a lot of this information to the book page on my website, but here's a roundup of some of the responses to the book...

First, I am so excited to say that The Dragon of Trelian has been selected for The Summer 2009 Children's Indie Next List!

It has also received nice reviews from some of the print journals. Here are excerpts:

“Appealing characterization” and “charmingly honest portrayals of family life, the dizzying heartbreak of first romance, the insecurities of loneliness and the rewards of scholarship....[T]he narrative moves at a brisk clip to a satisfying conclusion, with a broad hint of sequels. A promising start.” —Kirkus

“Calen and Meg’s easygoing, entirely believable friendship is the core of this adventurous first novel. Meg is gutsy and impulsive, while Calen is thoughtful and steadfast; and they make an appealing duo....[A] solid addition to the fantasy genre.” —Booklist

“[T]his strong debut novel should find a welcoming audience among Gail Carson Levine and Shannon Hale fans.” —Horn Book

Readers have been saying absolutely lovely things about it on Goodreads and LibraryThing. I can't tell you how good that makes me feel, to know that people are reading and liking my novel!

Several bloggers have also posted reviews, including:

Janet Fox at Through the Wardrobe
Marcus at The Rad Librarian
Greg Leitich Smith at GregLSBlog
Sheila Ruth at Wands and Worlds

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to write a review and put it up to share with other readers. I'm not usually comfortable responding directly to reviewers; the etiquette rules are fuzzy on this, I think. As far as I know, it is rarely if ever considered appropriate for authors to respond to print reviews, but some authors do seem to feel okay about responding to online reviews. I still feel odd about that, though, so I wanted to say a general and public thank-you here, to all of you. The first few months after publication can be a very weird and scary time for an author—the book is out there, in the world, on its own...people are reading it(!), or maybe they're not(!!).... Hearing back from readers is so important, and of course it's especially wonderful to hear positive things! :) So thank you again, and I hope to hear back from more of you, either via email or blog comments or through the reviews you post in public forums.

(Incidentally, I'd be very interested to hear other opinions on the responding-to-reviews issue. Are the rules changing? Were they never rules in the first place?)

I'm also participating in a blog tour June 1–3 with KidzBookBuzz.com; stay tuned for more links and information about that!

As for that other question, the what-are-you-working-on-now one...the answer is a sequel to The Dragon of Trelian as well as another, completely unrelated YA novel. And more picture books. Always more picture books! :)

Hudson Children's Book Festival

2009-05-15T15:42:00.005-04:00

I am a bad, bad blogger lately, and have not posted a thing since last month. Even now, I am only popping up here for a second to say that if you're in the Hudson, NY area, you should come to the Hudson Children's Book Festival tomorrow! The event takes place from 10am to 4pm at the Hudson Middle School, and more than 50 authors will be in attendance!

You can find details here:
http://hudsonchildrensbookfestival.com

Yay!

Multi-Author Event at Books of Wonder this Sunday

2009-04-24T11:50:00.003-04:00

I'll be reading and signing The Dragon of Trelian this Sunday, April 26, at Books of Wonder. Tamora Pierce, Dena K. Salmon, and Peter Kujawinski will also be there, and we'll all be reading and talking, signing books, and answering questions. You can see the full event details here. I hope to see you there!

Dragon Day!

2009-04-14T10:15:00.008-04:00

Hurrah! The Dragon of Trelian releases today!!!

You can order a copy from indiebound.org here.

You can read an interview with me at Janet Fox's blog here.

And if you're in the NYC area, please come to my launch party tonight at Books of Wonder! Full details here.

The Dragon of Trelian Launch Party!

2009-04-07T12:13:00.002-04:00

The Dragon of Trelian comes out ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!!!!

I am very excited about this.

I'm having a book launch party that evening, and everyone is invited. Yes, you! You're invited! Here are the details:

The Dragon of Trelian Book Launch Party
April 14, 2009, 5 to 7pm
Books of Wonder
18 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011
(212) 989-3270

I'll be doing a short reading/Q&A around 6pm, and there will be refreshments before and after. And during, I guess, too! :) And general chatting and mingling and looking at books the whole time.

So please come on out, get a signed book, support a fabulous independent children's bookstore, and help me celebrate the release of my first novel! I hope to see you there.

National Poetry Month, and other things

2009-04-03T13:04:00.002-04:00

In case you were unaware: April is National Poetry Month! Gregory K. over at GottaBook is celebrating children's poetry with the first annual 30 poets/30 days event. Take a look today to see poems by my awesome writer friend Charles Ghigna (a.k.a. Father Goose)!

Also being celebrated today: author Kate Messner has declared it to be Say Something Nice Day. I think this is a lovely idea, and will happily participate. Here are just a few people I'm appreciating right now:

The administrators and parent volunteers at the Manhattan New School who kicked off a series of author visits yesterday so that every class in the school will get a chance to meet an author, ask questions, get signed books, etc. I had a great time visiting the first graders, who were excellent story-listeners and asked really good questions during our talk!
My agent and editor, who are both awesome beyond measure in every possible way and who do a wonderful good-cop/bad-cop routine and apply just the right amount of pressure regarding certain manuscripts and proposals THAT THEY WILL HAVE VERY VERY SOON I PROMISE!!!! (Thank you for not going ahead with the bad-cop/bad-cop approach...yet.)
The nice woman who works at my local laundromat who always has a smile for the customers and who makes the often-annoying task of doing laundry very much more pleasant. Little things like being friendly really make a big difference. I wish more people would remember that.
My friend Steph, whose birthday it is today, and who has been a wonderful and supportive and all-around fabulous friend since we first met freshman year of high school. Happy birthday, Steph!
A certain other person, whom I appreciate more than he probably knows, for lots and lots of reasons.

OK - Back to work with me.

C is for...Cookie?

2009-03-25T12:42:00.001-04:00

Julie Larios, VCFA faculty member and poet and goddess of the inspiring challenge, recently posted about a blog-challenge going around in which you are assigned a letter of the alphabet and then must post a list of 10 things you love that begin with that letter. She volunteered to assign letters to anyone else who wanted to play, and I was given the letter C. Now that my second packet for school has been sent off and I actually have a few minutes to post something, please allow me to present my C-list:

1. Cats. My cat (Cleo, another C!) in particular and also cats in general. My family always had cats growing up, and while I like dogs too, I am definitely a "cat person." They are cuddly and cute and sure, they can drive you crazy, but don't the ones we love always make us a little nuts? Even when Cleo is contrary to the point where she makes me want to cry, all it takes is a few minutes of her curled up with me on the couch, and all is forgiven.

2. Coffee. A delicious over-sweetened cup while I'm sitting at the computer in the morning: complete contentment.

3. Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Surely this needs no explanation.

4. Creatures, especially of the mythological kind. Dragons, centaurs, unicorns, manticores, hippogriffs, what-have-you.

5. Children. The ones I write for; the ones that belong to nice friends, old and new; and the ones I am lucky enough to be honorary "Aunt Mikki" to (Hi Maddie, Sophie, Emily, Alex, and Evie!).

6. Computer games. Even though I'm on temporary hiatus (trying not to cave and get a new, supercharged video card until after I'm done with my MFA), I have very fond memories of hours and hours and hours spent at my computer playing role-playing fantasy adventure games like Fallout and Neverwinter Nights. I hear I am totally missing out by not playing Fallout 3 right now. I believe it. It is very hard to resist. When I play the D&D-style games, I am usually some sort of combo character, so I can fight and use magic—I can never choose just one specialty, which means I never fully realize any particular set of skills...but choosing just one is hard, when there are so many cool options available.

7. Cereal. I used to have a real problem with cereal—like, I would eat three bowls at a time—but I've got it more under control these days. Still love it, though. I try to eat relatively healthy cereals for breakfast, but I almost always have some Frosted Flakes on hand for emergencies. When absolutely required, I will go to the corner store and get some Lucky Charms. And I have a deep nostalgic love for Smurfberry Crunch.

8. Chinese food. My go-to take-out option and one of my top two comfort foods of choice (the other is Italian food, which is probably my top favorite, but that doesn't begin with C). I especially like chicken chow fun (usually with snow peas but no other vegetables) and fried rice and egg rolls. You know, the classics.

9. Cherry Garcia frozen yogurt, from my good pals Ben & Jerry. Okay, I guess this is really my top comfort food option. I have to make myself stop buying it. I crave it pretty much all the time, though, and get a little thrill every time I see that green-rimmed little container in the freezer section at the store. My favorite way to eat it is with chocolate syrup and chopped walnuts. (Actually, my VERY favorite way to eat it is with oreo cookies smushed up in it, but that way lies madness, and I never go there except when suffering serious illness or broken heart.)

10. And finally...yes, cookies. Oreos are my favorite packaged variety. My favorite bakery variety are the chocolate chip walnut cookies they used to have at the Ithaca Bakery, until one day they told me they were no longer making them. I hope they have since come to their senses. I will check the next time I'm up in Ithaca, which will hopefully be this spring. If I bake cookies, which does not happen very often, my favorite kind to make is cranberry oatmeal. Although you can never go wrong with good old-fashioned Nestle Tollhouse, either.

11. Can't believe I almost forgot one of my favorite C animals - chickens! Plump, cluck-a-licious bundles of white fluffy goodness. Okay, yes, I know not all chickens are the fat white blobs that I love so much, but some of them are, like my favorite children's book chicken, Minerva Louise. Also when I lived in Lansing, NY, there was a house I used to pass sometimes that had bunches of those perfect fat white chickens running around on the lawn. They made me very happy. :)

If anyone out there would like to play, let me know and I'll assign you a letter!

Support your local independent bookstore!

2009-03-08T17:39:00.010-04:00

As I learned via Laurie Halse Anderson, author Joe Hill has declared March to be Love-Your-Small-Bookstore-Month. This seems like a great idea to me, and so I took a nice walk over to my own small local indie this afternoon and bought myself a couple of books. (What books, you ask? Here, I will tell you: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan and First Test by Tamora Pierce.)

My local indie, btw, is The Community Bookstore in Park Slope. (I live on the other side of the park, but it's an easy and pleasant walk.) If you live nearby, or if you live elsewhere and just happen to be visiting Park Slope, you should go there. They have friendly dogs and things. And books too, of course. And every time I've been in, they've had Library Lion in stock. What else could you ask for? :)

If you don't know where your local independent bookstore is, indiebound.org will help you find it.

Bookstore visit bonus: I'm pretty sure I passed Steve Buscemi on the street as I was starting my walk home. That was cool.

good day for the to-do list

2009-03-06T22:07:00.005-05:00

I actually crossed off all three items on my to-do list today. What were they, you ask? Here, I will tell you:

1. Call the gym to reschedule my Tuesday morning training session for the afternoon.
2. Work on novel for school.
3. Work on freelance editing projects.

All three of these things were accomplished. And in addition to some more backgroundy, world-building, figurey-out-y stuff, I wrote ACTUAL NEW WORDS in the novel. A whole new scene. Three and a half pages. 1142 words. I feel very good about this, considering how panicky I've been feeling about not moving forward.

I also even managed to get out for a couple of hours tonight and saw Shayfer James play at Bar 4 in Park Slope. Very fun—I've been trying to catch one of his shows forever, and was very glad to finally make it happen. I'm a big fan.

In other news, yesterday I finally finished a website redesign for www.michelleknudsen.com. I think it looks a little more streamlined and professional than the old version, and hopefully it will be easier to update as well. Someday there will be a real redesign, by a real web designer, but I'm happy with this for now. Part of me was a little sad to say good-bye to my old site, which I did completely in HTML (and I liked getting to be all proud of myself for doing all that coding and stuff). But it was a pain to update, especially to add new book information, and so I hadn't been updating it, and not being updated is not really a good thing for a website.

Here's hoping for another good productive day tomorrow...

writer's hours

2009-03-03T12:29:00.006-05:00

I've been reading bits and pieces of various craft books lately for inspiration and advice, including Lawrence Block's Telling Lies for Fun and Profit. Today I was reading his chapter on writer's hours, and all the things that "count" as work and not-work to his writing mind. Bascially, nothing REALLY counts as work except writing—not editing, not revising, not reading, not correspondence with editors, not (he didn't say but I am certain he'd agree) blogging. And it's true, I am sorry to say. Even though it's all necessary and important, it still doesn't feel like Work with a capital W unless pages are being produced and word counts are growing. Fitting that I should read that chapter today, when I spent way too much time playing around with making the Dragon of Trelian countdown widget you can now see at the top right of my blog's main page. I won't even mention all the additional time I wasted trying to get the damn thing to work in Facebook. (It never did; I finally gave up.)

As much as I share Block's feeling about only writing counting as, you know, writing, I am trying to relax that mentality just enough to let me feel good about all the background and figuring-out work I've been doing on my novel-in-progress. Because all that stuff really is essential right now, and I can't move ahead with writing until I get some things figured out. But I hate that there's no way to measure it, really. I can't add it to my pages/word count log, can't brag to anyone about what a great writing day I had, can't point to anything concrete as the fruit of my labor. I know it's important. It is. I just have to try and remember that while retaining just enough of that uncomfortable this-doesn't-count feeling to help speed me along to where I'll be ready for the actual word and page accumulation to begin again.

By the way:

Finally updated "where I'll be" with upcoming festivals, etc.

Also, check out my friend and classmate Janet Fox's interview on Cynsations!

And today is the release of fellow VCFA'er Julie Berry's debut novel, The Amaranth Enchantment!

as usual

2009-03-01T19:24:00.004-05:00

Behind on blogging, writing, and everything else. Today I had a four-item list of things I wanted to do. Most were biggish things—making a plan of attack for the rest of packet 2, finishing getting my tax stuff assembled for my rescheduled tax appointment, dealing with some of my email backlog—but still, only four. So far, at 7:26pm, I have only crossed out the one small item on the list, which involved making a quick phone call. Sigh.

I did accomplish some other stuff today, including a couple of things that had been hanging over my head for a while and were good to get done. But I keep putting off the two main things I need to address—packet and taxes—and I know that I just need to stop jumping around to other things and focus already. FOCUS, ALREADY! They're both just so big and overwhelming. Well, actually, I did the worst of the tax stuff already, I think, so that won't even be so bad to just finish up. But the packet stuff is so...much. Hard to get my head around all the stuff I need to do. Which is exactly why I need a plan of attack. Especially since I was totally sidelined for the past week with what I believe was the very first time I have ever had the flu. (It was extremely unpleasant. I do not wish to repeat the experience. Ever.)

While I wasn't doing the big things I needed to do today, I joined Twitter. Not sure yet how I feel about that, but it seemed to be time. Lots of VCFA types on there, and you can follow VCFAwriters as a group if you would like to hear about all the great things VCFA students, faculty, and alumni are up to.

Oh and also—last Sunday was my birthday. Had a lovely Italian dinner with good friends the night before, which turned out to be good timing since the flu took me down out of the blue on Sunday night.

OK. Update achieved, I guess. Still time to make progress on my list. Focus, focus, focus. Srsly!

better day

2009-02-03T14:30:00.004-05:00

Still stressed out and too busy but doing a lot better than when I put up my last post. This will be short (see "stressed out and too busy," above) but I wanted to say that everyone who is in the NYC area should come to the Barnes & Noble in Greenwich Village tonight to get a signed copy of BONES OF FAERIE from the wonderful Janni Lee Simner! Here are the details:

Tuesday, February 3, 2009
7:30pm - 8:30pm
Barnes and Noble Greenwich Village
396 Ave of the Americas at 8th Street

Hope to see you there!

bad day :(

2009-01-27T15:21:00.007-05:00

Today is not turning out to be a good day in all kinds of ways. Feeling down for assorted reasons, and also just have too much to do this week, and certain things are taking WAY MORE TIME than they should, which just means all the other things I need to do are still sitting there, waiting. Impatiently. Looking at me.

STOP LOOKING AT ME!!!

Blogging while blue and frustrated and stressed out is probably not the best idea. So I won't go on and on. Just felt like sending out a small wail of angst to my internet friends.

Some good news to even things out:

So happy for VCFA faculty types Kathi Appelt and Tobin Anderson for their well-deserved honors yesterday!

Also was really glad to see some wonderful children's author friends last night at Betsy Bird's Kidlit Drinks Night at Gstaad.

And forgot to mention happy news from school in my last post, which is that my advisor this semester is none other than the fabulous Cynthia Leitich Smith, and I am very excited to be working with her.

See, good things are going on, too. Just need to try and focus more on those and less on the other things. And to just keep my head down and work, work, work. But also to get outside for a few minutes to clear my head at some point. Maybe right now.

Reentry

2009-01-25T11:45:00.007-05:00

Vermont College of Fine Arts students often mention the difficult transition back to the regular world at the end of each residency. And it's true—it's like a piece of the Hero's Journey, all of us crossing the threshold back into the Ordinary World, but carrying with us some magic treasure from the Special World we were temporarily and gloriously a part of for ten timeless days. Not that we don't love the Ordinary World, too, with its beloved family members and friends and boyfriends and cats, but there is definitely a period of adjustment as we struggle to realign with the normal rules of the universe.

I got home on Thursday, and have been trying to take this weekend to relax and recover before plunging back into work and packets and cleaning and bills and general craziness of regular life. The craziness is looming though, and it's hard to relax in its everpresent shadow. Only two and a half weeks until my first packet is due, and there is freelance work to edit and a book proposal to write and a picture book manuscript to revise and a website redesign to complete and lots of mail to go through and packages to send and birthday parties to plan and two-month old babies to visit and gym schedules to get back on track with and other things but I'm already stressing myself out with this list so I will stop listing. One of my unofficial new year's resolutions this year was to learn to relax, but I'm finding it a difficult skill to acquire.

Anyway. Missing all my VCFA friends already and wishing you great starts to the semester! And will be missing all my Kindling Words friends next weekend, but I was right in thinking I would not be ready for another bunch of days away so soon after getting back from school. Hoping I might be able to swing it next year, though!

December 2008 Wrap-Up

2008-12-27T14:46:00.006-05:00

Fellow VCFA'ers Rachel and David and Gwenda inspired me to also try the first-line-of-the-first-post-of-each-month-of-the-past-year thing. Which produced the following, which mostly just makes me realize that some of my first sentences are very long and that I should probably strive for punchier first lines in 2009. And maybe try to be a better blogger overall, so I can spend less time explaining/apologizing for not posting. No first sentence for August, and December's is the first line of this post. Which is either cool and full-circle-y or kind of lame...can't decide. Anyway:

Here's hoping the new year brings good things to everyone, all around. I was settling down to begin work on writing (well, reading and prewriting for) my first critical essay in 12+ years (part of an MFA application, due March 1) and I had a sudden urge to check that I'd locked the front door and there was a large spider climbing the wall in the front hallway. I seem to be continuing my trend of not blogging very regularly. I was honored to be interviewed by First Book as part of their celebration of National Library Week! All right. Found out last night that an appointment today was being canceled, so I find myself with the gift of a suddenly free morning. So clearly this posting-at-least-once-a-week thing is not exactly happening. Okay, so I kind of skipped August. I'll be reading and signing Library Lion at the NYPL Library Shop at 2pm this Saturday, October 18 - please come by if you're in the area, and bring your kids! Got back today from Rochester, NY, where I attended the 12th annual Rochester Children's Book Festival on Saturday. Fellow VCFA'ers Rachel and David and Gwenda inspired me to also try the first-line-of-the-first-post-of-each-month-of-the-past-year thing.

Hmm.

So what's been going on in the last month or so? First there was the Savannah Children's Book Festival, which was great fun and only got rained out at the very end, which wasn't so bad considering what the weather reports had been suggesting. I had a wonderful time with old and new writer friends, including Katie Davis, Elizabeth O. Delumba, and Charles and Debra Ghigna. I also got to meet the amazing Mo Willems, which was very cool. And I bought way too many pralines at the candy shop across from the restaurant where a bunch of us had dinner after the festival.

While I was in Savannah I also spent a few days visiting my mom and Bob in Richmond Hill. We had a great time even though I had to work a lot while I was there and didn't get a chance to play Boggle even once. I did, however, manage to get a delicious Chic-fil-a sandwich on the way to the airport. Thanks, mom! :)

I had a lovely Thanksgiving with dear friends (Ginny, Len, Bridey, Joe, Ryan, and Evie) in Maryland. I made the cranberry sauce for the first time, and was very excited about this as evidenced by the many, many photos I took of the cranberry sauce in progress. A sampling:

There were, of course, all the other delicious Thanskgiving items, like stuffing, which is the very best part of all, and turkey and sweet potatoes and everything else. Here is what my plate looked like just before I began the traditional eating of way too much:

Earlier in the day there was also the new tradition (for me, anyway) of the lasagna lunch, and Joe actually made a special mini cheeseless version just for me:

Okay, okay, enough pictures of food. Everything was so good, and best of all was getting to spend quality time with people I love.

After Thanksgiving, unfortunately, I came down with a terrible cold which became a terrible sinus infection and kind of knocked me out of the world for a couple of weeks. Took FOREVER to get really better, and I ended up needing to ask for an extension on my final packet for school. But eventually I finished Packet 5 and then plowed through the surprisingly time-consuming end-of-semester paperwork and now I am officially done with my first semester! Can't wait for the next residency in January, when I will get to see all my school friends and find out who my next advisor will be.

I also finished final changes on The Dragon of Trelian, and then the final final changes, and then the last couple of really final last-minute changes. And now it's done! Or at least, I am not allowed to make any more changes. :) The ARCs have been produced and look great (although they were printed with the pre-final changes, so the last rounds of fixes are not reflected therein). I am also now allowed to share the cover art, which looks like this:

Yay! The cover artist is the fabulous Antonio Caparo.

The official release date for the novel is April 14, 2009. Why not go ahead and preorder your copy today? :D

In between all of the above I have been doing the usual watching of Netflix, playing too much online Scrabble, and having fun with some of my favorite Brooklyn people. One particular favorite Brooklyn person whisked me off to Vermont for a much-needed wonderful weekend getaway and later to Connecticut where I had a lovely Christmas with his family and met some very nice new people and learned how to make gravy and play Rummikub, among other things.

I've still got a bunch of things to take care of for school before the January residency, most significantly trying to revise as much of my novel-in-progress as I can before handing it off to my next advisor. We also received our workshop books, and I'm looking forward to reading everyone's pieces and getting ready to discuss them at the rez.

I guess that's everything for now. Probably won't post again before the year is out, so here's wishing everyone a wonderful final few days of 2008 and a happy, healthy start to 2009!

Today's Write-or-Die Results

2008-11-23T19:48:00.004-05:00

Okay, I won't keep posting it every day. Just sometimes. :)

	2009

57

lab.drwicked.com

Write or Die

2008-11-21T20:21:00.006-05:00

Hats off to Dr. Wicked. I have been having a terrible time getting moving again on my novel-in-progress for school, and while clicking around the internet, procrastinating up a storm, I read about Dr. Wicked's Write or Die application on schoolmate Rachel Wilson's blog. As the evening wore on and I had accomplished little more than starting two or three new games of Scrabble on Facebook, I decided to give it a try. And wow.

	1152

39

lab.drwicked.com

Hooray for negative reinforcement! And enforced freedom to write without stopping. I set a goal of 1000 words, then started typing. Afterward, I pasted the result into my Word doc and spent a little more time going back over the text, changing all the straight quotes to smart ones and adding/editing a little bit as I went along. And now I feel like I'm moving again.

p.s. My final word count for the day after my post–write-or-die once-over was 1273. Yay! I've got a daily 1000-word goal for the novel (every day between now and December 6 except for Thanksgiving) as I try to push through to the end of the first draft. Don't get too excited—"first draft" is a very generous description here, considering there are huge gaps in the narrative and lots of skipping around and things that already need changing in the early chapters...but still. Getting the major events sort of worked out through the end would still be awesome, and should make revision next semester a little easier than it would be if I hadn't yet figured out where the story will end.

Rochester Children's Book Festival

2008-11-09T17:08:00.025-05:00

Got back today from Rochester, NY, where I attended the 12th annual Rochester Children's Book Festival on Saturday. I've been going for about...five years? Six? And it just keeps getting better and better. There were more than 40 authors and illutrators this year, covering everything from board books to YA novels. Amazing numbers of kids and grown-ups came to get books signed and listen to readings and do fun activities. It's wonderful to get to meet and talk with so many book-loving people, and to see author friends I only get to hang out with once or twice a year at events like this one.

Here is the festival hall in the morning, before it was opened to the public. That's Bruce Coville right in the center, and Vivian Vande Velde with the camera to the left. You can also see some of the fabulous volunteers (in the yellow t-shirts) who make this event possible (not to mention awesome) year after year:

Here's the hall a bit later, after the doors were opened:

Packed does not begin to describe it. I don't even think this was the festival at its busiest point.

Later on, there was a celebratory dinner, where the authors and illustrators and organizers and volunteers got to kick back and relax after a great but exhausting day. I didn't take nearly enough pictures, but here are a few. I am in most of them, because I like to get my picture taken with fabulous people.

Me with author Mark Shulman, whom I also know from the Kindling Words retreat and who is a great person to talk to when you are stuck on a story idea and need advice:

Me with Newbery-award winning author Linda Sue Park:

Leander Watts and I with Spock-hands and blinding flash:

Me with author/illustrator Dan Mahoney, who was also nice enough to ferry some of us around in his car on festival-day:

Fearless leader Carol Johmann, being thanked on everyone's enthusiastic behalf by Volunteer Coordinator Barbara Underhill:

Festival attendees who stopped by my table got to see a special sneak peek of the cover The Dragon of Trelian. If you weren't there, you will just have to wait. :)

Can't wait to go back again next year! In the meantime, I'm looking forward to the fifth annual Savannah Children's Book Festival next weekend. If you're in the area, I hope you will come on by!

Three Weekends of Reading and Signing

2008-10-29T11:29:00.016-04:00

This Saturday, November 1, at 1 p.m., I'll be reading and signing Library Lion at Best Bargain Books in Centereach, NY (WalMart Shopping Center, 217 Middle Country Road). Please come by and say hello!

The following weekend, I'll be reading and signing at the Rochester Children's Book Festival on Saturday, November 8. If you're in the area, this is a GREAT event with lots of authors (more than 40!) and fun activities and wonderful people. I've been going to this festival for about five years now, and it's one of my favorite annual events, both because of the author friends I get to see while I am there and because of all the great kids, parents, teachers, librarians, and other folks who come out for it every year.

The weekend after that, I'll be presenting and signing at the Savannah Children's Book Festival on Saturday, November 15. This is another fabulous event with multiple authors, including Marc Brown, Katie Davis, Charles Ghigna, and Mo Willems! Plus, it's in Savannah, where you can get delicious Chick-fil-A and pralines (yum!).

Somehow, in between all of these events I will be keeping up with my reading and writing for school, going over the pages of The Dragon of Trelian ("pages" are when the publisher sends the text all laid out in pages for the first time, in the same typeface and everything that will be in the book, and it's my last chance to make any significant changes), and finally really getting to work on a sequel to TDoT, which so far is just some vague ideas and a page or two of notes.

And sometime soon I will need to work on editorial revisions to my upcoming picture book ARGUS (no pub date yet, but we're looking at 2011 at the earliest, sigh) and hopefully one of the other picture book manuscripts I'm working on will come together into something my editor will want to publish. There are three or four I'm actively working on right now; I will give them some code names for further discussion, because that's fun and will let me avoid having to talk about their actual prospective titles or what they are about:

Picture Books Currently in the Running:

Codename "Secret" (has been through multiple drafts, still trying to find the right approach)
Codename "Baker" (first draft completed; will be included in my next packet for school so I can get some feedback from my MFA advisor)
Codename "Two" (latest draft currently with my agent for her thoughts)
Codename "Mike" (revised version currently with my editor)
Codename "Frank" (first draft in progress)

Okay, the fifth one is currently only one sentence long and so obviously has quite a ways to go, but it's a good sentence, and I'm kind of excited about it, so I'm still going to consider it as being in the running.

But speaking of writing...I should get to work. Blogging doesn't really count, I guess.

Library Lion at the New York Public Library Shop!

2008-10-15T11:25:00.006-04:00

I'll be reading and signing Library Lion at the NYPL Library Shop at 2pm this Saturday, October 18 - please come by if you're in the area, and bring your kids! Reading starts at 2pm, and I'll be staying after to sign books. Not sure how much after, though, so if you want to get a book signed, don't come too late!

Here's all the info:

Saturday, October 18, 2008
2:00 p.m.

The Library Shop
New York Public Library
5th Avenue and 42nd Street
212-930-0641
libraryshop@nypl.org

ridiculous procrastination

2008-09-27T15:03:00.007-04:00

It's interesting to me how I continue to sink to deeper and more ridiculous levels of procrastination the closer I get to my next packet deadline. Here is what I have been doing lately to avoid writing:

Wasting time on Facebook (nothing new there).
Scrolling through home tours at Apartment Therapy and daydreaming about all the ways I could fix up my apartment.
Looking at lolcats.
Ordering things online. This morning, even though I knew I had limited time today and wanted to get right to work, I ordered a plastic chair mat to protect my floor, a tray for Cleo's cat food and water bowls, a new drain strainer for my kitchen sink, gray shoelaces, a litter-trapping carpet square for Cleo's litterbox area, and a new toner cartridge for my printer. All things I need and have been meaning to get for some time, but it certainly didn't have to be TODAY.
Deciding I absolutely must buy a pot rack right now, then, after looking around for way too long at different types and measuring the space above my stove and looking at photos of other people's kitchens online, deciding I need more time to figure out exactly what I want/need in that department and not ordering anything.
Emailing all my friends to whine about how I'm not getting any work done.
Eating Lucky Charms.
Feeling bad after eating too many bowls of Lucky Charms.
Watching Dexter on Netflix.
Looking up Rita from Dexter on imdb because it was killing me that I couldn't figure out who that actress was, then being really appalled at myself for not immediately realizing it was Julie Benz, who played Darla on Buffy/Angel. Did I not just recently finish rewatching all of Buffy? Yes. Yes, I did.
Playing with the Pandora Radio website.
Trying to find (more) good music to write to.
Taking on more freelance editing work and then doing that instead of writing because it's due even sooner.
Scheduling and then unscheduling personal trainer appointments.
Scheduling and then unscheduling doctor and dentist appointments.
Looking up "unscheduling" on Merriam-Webster and deciding to use it even though it's apparently not a real word ("unscheduled" is a real word, but "unschedule" and "unscheduling" are not).
Making way more plans with friends than I should even think about making right now.
Collecting books for one of my essays and then not reading them.
Posting to my blog.

All right. Now that I only have about an hour of worktime left to me today, I should get to it. And then tomorrow, tomorrow, I will REALLY start working early in the day. Until it's time to get ready to go out because of course I have plans tomorrow evening, too.

Sigh. And also: sigh.

whiny and growly

2008-09-17T15:36:00.011-04:00

If there's a fly in my apartment, doesn't my cat have a responsibility, an obligation, to chase that thing down and catch it? She should be running after it with her eyes all wide and crazy and her mouth making little unconscious chewing motions. Instead she just lies there on the floor, kind of glancing up with annoyed disinterest whenever it buzzes by. I have tried urging her on with both supportive words and general mockery, but to no avail. Some predator. Lazy thing.

Of course, I can't really throw stones in the laziness department, since I have done pretty much nothing but lie on my couch for the past couple of days, nursing this horrible cold. It may actually be a sinus infection at this point; it's starting to look that way, anyway. I got sick on my last day in Oregon, where I was visiting my dad, and have been feeling pretty awful ever since. And the timing is not very good, because I have tons of writing work to do. I have enough resistance to writing when I'm healthy; when I'm sick like this, the thought of actually trying to be creative is almost painful to contemplate. Pretty much everything becomes almost painful to contemplate. I turn into a big baby. To be fair, it's a really bad cold/sinus thing... we're not talking a little bout of the sniffles here. I actually threw my back out coughing yesterday morning. And my head is all heavy and yucky and I'm generally just feeling weak and gross and unable to muster much energy for anything other than pressing the buttons on the DVD remote.

Waaah. See? Big whiny baby. And I'm missing out on all kinds of fun social things this week, including some live music tomorrow night with someone I'd been looking forward to seeing. I suppose it's possible I'll wake up feeling 100% improved tomorrow morning, but somehow I doubt it. (In addition to whiny, being sick makes me grumpy and pessimistic. Grrr.)

Anyway. Oregon was great, and it was good to see my dad and some old and new friends while I was out there.

I haven't posted any photos on here in a while... here's one of my dad and me at the International Rose Test Garden in Portland:

Back to whining: there is some sort of pep rally or something going on at the school a few blocks from my house, and there is lots of VERY LOUD drumming and shouting going on. I am all for school spirit, but it's been going on for hours and it's one more obstacle to actually being able to concentrate on reading or writing or anything else productive that I should be trying to do. GRRRR!

My next due date for school (Packet 3!) is October 7, and I've got 30-40 pages to write on my novel, plus tons of reading, one new essay to write, and one old essay to revise. I have not yet started any of these things, except a tiny portion of the reading. And I don't really know where the novel is going, which complicates the whole "write 30-40 pages" thing. But my advisor gave me some very helpful comments, and permission to jump around in the timeline, which makes me feel a little less anxious. It also means having to trust that eventually all the jumping around will work out and I'll be able to work everything into one coherent narrative... but that's the part of writing that I always have trouble with, the trust and the acceptance that there will be lots of revising, and no matter how clean and right I try to make the first draft, revising is PART OF THE PROCESS, and not punishment for not getting it right the first time or in any other way something to try to avoid. Revision is where the real book comes together. I know this, intellectually; I just need to keep working toward truly accepting and believing it.

As my VCFA friend David has said: Hail the process!

I am trying.

And now all I can hear is Yoda's voice in my head: No. Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.

[And after Yoda frees the X-wing from the bog...]

Luke: I dont- I don't believe it.

Yoda: That is why you fail.

Sigh.

Um, August?

2008-09-05T12:37:00.005-04:00

Okay, so I kind of skipped August. Here's what happened: I did some writing, I did some reading, I tried to win tickets online to see Hair with my friend Steph but we never won, I went to the gym, I made a difficult decision and later reversed it, I received loving care and attention from friends, I went out, I stayed in, I stressed about Packet 2 (that part is still ongoing), I saw Hellboy 2 (so good!), I bought new earrings, I got two MRIs (but apparently I'm fine), I visited the library several times, I cooked bluefish from the farmer's market in my grill pan and it was delicious, I ate too much frozen yogurt, I made good use of Netflix, and as the month wrapped up I had a wonderful weekend off the coast of Maine with some very lovely people.

So far September has been mostly about writing/reading stress and getting ready to visit my dad in Oregon next week. I've still got another essay and many more pages of my novel-in-progress to write before Monday morning. So clearly it was time to procrastinate by updating the old blog here.

I should probably get back to work, though. Just popping my head up to say hello.

July 2008 Update

2008-07-29T11:52:00.007-04:00

So clearly this posting-at-least-once-a-week thing is not exactly happening. Maybe I should be shooting for once a month. Ah, well. It's not like blogging is the only thing I'm not doing as much of as I would like. (Hello, writing, reading, exercising, cleaning my apartment, spending quality time with friends...)

I'm a little over a week into re-entry after my first residency at The Vermont College of Fine Arts. It was everything everyone said it would be, and more. Met some wonderful people (you can visit some of them online - see the list of VCFA peeps in the right-hand column); attended excellent lectures by faculty, visiting writers, and graduating students; received wise and helpful guidance from my awesome workshop group on two picture book stories I have been struggling with; enjoyed the (mostly) lovely Vermont weather; and was introduced to the addictive anagram game Snatch, which promises to haunt me for years to come. I was also assigned my advisor for the semester: Uma Krishnaswami! I am so looking forward to working with her for the next several months. Now I just have to actually stay on top of all that work... I've got 20 to 40 pages of creative work and two critical essays due August 12, not to mention tons and tons of reading.

I'm starting a new middle-grade novel for my semester project, and will be working on some new picture books as well. I'm also hoping to continue work on two other novels in my, uh, spare time (hahahahahahahahahaha)—a sequel to The Dragon of Trelian and a new, unrelated fantasy novel. Wish me luck. Wish me lots and lots and lots and lots of luck. Please.

In other news...Library Lion has been nominated for another state book award! It's the 2009 Nevada Young Readers' Award in the picture book category. Hooray!

And...I sold another picture book to Candlewick! It feels too early to share details, but I am very excited. I will post more about this when it feels appropriate.

So, with everything I've got on my plate, I have no idea how often I'll be able to post, but I'll try to pop my head up whenever I can. Hope everyone out there is having a good summer and doing fun things and enjoying life in general. :)

My book has a title.

2008-06-23T15:50:00.001-04:00

And it is:

The Dragon of Trelian.

There Can Be Only One

2008-06-09T11:10:00.008-04:00

At least, that's what I'm trying to believe with regard to the super-creepy spider that was in my bathroom this morning. He looked like he'd escaped from a National Geographic special: big, black, jumpy, fast, and possibly furry, although I certainly didn't touch him to find out. He almost got away, too, which would have been terrible...knowing he was in there, somewhere, but not knowing exactly where or when he'd pop out at me again...ugh.

A friend recently suggested that maybe the universe is trying to tell me something with all the spider encounters. And I thought, well, yeah, the universe is trying to tell me that it is vast and full of spiders. But I've been trying to think of other, more positive, possible meanings. For example, each time I face down one of these eight-legged beasties, I can't help but think about how far I've come in the spider-managing department. There was a time when I would have been paralyzed with fear, unable to even imagine doing the Dixie Cup catch-and-release thing. And so each time I handle a spider in my current still-phobic-but-much-better-able-to-deal state, I try to feel good about it. It's useful to remember that you really can change and improve, and that things that are hard now will not always be hard, and that lots of obstacles that seem insurmountable are actually things you might be able to get past at some point. Okay, maybe I'm getting a little carried away with the extrapolating, but hey, ya gotta take inspiration where you can find it, right? And if I can find something inspirational about spiders, by golly, that's pretty amazing. Well, to me, anyway. :)

ANYWAY. I really never intended for this to become such a spider-centric blog. Sadly, there just happens to be more spider activity than writing activity going on right at this moment. I do have some nice book-related news, though: Library Lion was nominated for the 2009 Colorado Children's Book Award! I just received a nice certificate in the mail. You can see the full list of nominees here.

In other news, I'll be visiting students at P.S. 33 in Manhattan this Wednesday. Can't wait!

Hope you're all managing to stay cool somehow. This heat is awful. I'm not a big fan of the summer in general, but this is crazy. CRAZY! Why can't it just stay in the 70s? Would that be so much to ask?

Quick June Update

2008-06-02T10:54:00.004-04:00

Found out last night that an appointment today was being canceled, so I find myself with the gift of a suddenly free morning. The problem with gifts like these are that I spend too much time stressing about how best to use the suddenly free morning, instead of actually using it. Mostly I'm going to get in a couple of extra hours of work, I think, but I also thought I should add a blog post, since it's been a little while.

So, quick update:

Still not 100% sure the title we've sort of selected (mostly by running out of other options) for the novel is final, but when I know, I'll post it.

Still reading, reading, reading for the Vermont College MFA program.

Still dealing with spiders; there was a particularly speedy guy in the bathroom last night. He almost got away, but eventually was relocated down the hall.

Been rereading bits and pieces of David Allen's Getting Things Done in the hopes of, well, getting things done. It's a brilliant system but a little overwhelming to try and implement. Hours of internet searching, however, reveal myriad ways that other people have found to adapt the GTD system to be a little easier to swallow. I have been making lots of lists.

What else...? Saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall last night, which was really funny. Perfect for helping me get over my frustrating afternoon of dealing with my local Rite Aid that likes to close the pharmacy randomly and without warning, especially when I've walked all the way over there to get syringes for my poor kitty. Grrr.

All right. The morning is rapidly slipping away from me. To work, to work.

Happy June, everyone.

Two-Spider Sunday: A Haiku

2008-05-25T17:12:00.006-04:00

Unwelcome beasties.
Giant crawling in the tub.
Wee one in the sink.

* * * * *

They were both relocated (i.e., trapped in a cup and dumped out my kitchen window). The little one was a jumper and didn't want to get out. But I made him.

The other day there was a tiny one ON MY PILLOW. Just sitting right there in the middle of one of the pillows on my bed. Not okay! Just totally not okay!

Sigh. Stupid warm weather. I like when it is cold, and most spiders are sluggish and hiding.

Reading Lists

2008-05-10T11:36:00.006-04:00

I need to find a better way to keep track of the books I want to read. How do other people do this? Right now, I have a list on notepaper in the back of my datebook/planner, I have a Word file on my desktop, I have a list in Visual Bookshelf on Facebook, I have a somewhat outdated list on my website, I have a few things saved in my Amazon wishlist, and I have scribbled notes on post-its and little pieces of paper scattered around my desk.

This is not especially efficient.

I would love to have just one master place to keep track of books I want to read, but each of the above systems has particular benefits not shared by all the others. For example, the Word file is great because I can cut and paste reviews or listserve comments to help me remember where I heard about the book and what made me want to read it and why. But the scraps of paper are great for when I'm not at my computer, or when I am at my computer but Word isn't open and I don't feel like waiting for it (my computer is getting a little old and slow, and those extra few seconds it takes to open programs can sometimes feel like hours, and I am often late, rushing, or just impatient and have no time for such things). And the datebook list is great for when I'm out somewhere and I see a book in a store or get a good recommendation from a friend, but then sometimes I forget that I even started that list until the next time I'm out and someone gives me a recommendation.

As so often happens in various situations in my life, I find myself wishing for the Star Trek computer arrangement, so I could just say to the air around me, "Computer. Add Jumpy Jack & Googily by Meg Rosoff to Master Reading List. Include note that I read about it on the PlanetEsme blog." And Majel Barrett's voice would say, "Acknowledged. Title and note added." (I fear that technology is still some years away, unfortunately. Along with the holodeck. Sigh.)

I've got a new list now of books to read before my first residency at Vermont College, and those are currently divided on little pieces of paper titled "Get at Library," "Requested from Library," and "Ordered from Amazon." I will post them here, sort of as a backup (in case I lose my little pieces of paper) and also in case it is interesting to anyone. These are mostly just the novels and books on writing; there are also many picture books I want/need to read, but I'll have to tackle those another time. Maybe a library day where I try and read as many as I can at the library without checking them all out and carrying them home. I certainly can't buy them all; gotta save my moolah for tuition and besides, I'm already at full capacity on my bookshelves.

Anyway. Novels/stories and craft books I'm reading/going to read before July:

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
What's Your Story? A Young Person's Guide to Writing Fiction by Marion Dane Bauer
Spacer and Rat by Margaret Bechard
Trash by Sharon Darrow
The Painters of Lexieville by Sharon Darrow
Odd Man Out by Sarah Ellis
The Art of Writing for Children by Connie Epstein
Writing Books for Young People by James Cross Giblin
The Vanishing Point by Louise Hawes
Waiting for Christopher by Louise Hawes
The Gate in the Wall by Ellen Howard
Naming Maya by Uma Krishnaswami
The Broken Tusk by Uma Krishnaswami
Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt
100 Best Books for Children by Anita Silvey
Every Time a Rainbow Dies by Rita Williams-Garcia
Rex Zero and the End of the World by Tim Wynne-Jones

If anyone out there has some awesome system of keeping track of their reading list(s), please share!

Novel update, MFA, and Behind the Book. And cookies.

2008-05-08T11:48:00.009-04:00

All right. In the interest of avoiding having the most boring blog EVER in the history of blogging, I'm going to try to post more often. Like, a lot more often. Like, at least once a week. If not more than that. I have no idea what I'll have to say, but I'm hoping things will come to me. Sort of like that other kind of writing, where half the battle is to actually show up, and then sometimes you suddenly find yourself working on a story.

I'm also going to pretend that at the very least, I have some friends and family members out there who are looking at this thing occasionally (hi mom!) and so I won't feel like I'm posting into the abyss. As always, comments are very welcome, just so I'll know you guys are out there, occasionally checking in.

So, update. Right now I'm working on reviewing copyedits on my middle-grade fantasy novel, which is currently scheduled for a February 2009 release and which still does not have a title. Title selection has been proving extraordinarily difficult, and we are running out of time. Also, this copyediting stage is my last chance to make text changes with abandon, so it's kind of a high-pressure experience.

In other news, I've been accepted into the Vermont College MFA program in writing for children and young adults, which I am very excited about. The first residency is in July, and there is lots of preparation going on and plenty of stress and positive anticipation in about equal measure. It is going to be a LOT of work, but it will all be good work—writing the kinds of things I want to be writing more of, critical work on topics that relate to my writing, and reading other students' work and books by members of the faculty and more great children's literature and books on craft and other things.

In other other news, I had a fabulous school visit yesterday with a great class at P.S. 274 in Brooklyn. This visit was through the Behind the Book organization, which is a literary arts nonprofit group that does wonderful things in schools. If you'd like to help support them, please visit their website to volunteer or make a donation. The students I met with are working on creating their own books, and next week I get to go back and hear their first drafts and help them with revising! I can't wait; all of their ideas sounded very exciting and I know they are going to come up with some wonderful stories.

One last thing: I was up in Ithaca last weekend to visit some very dear friends, and I was shocked to discover that the Ithaca Bakery has stopped making my favorite cookies (chocolate chip walnut). They now only make regular chocolate chip, no nuts. This may not seem like a big deal to some people, but those cookies are one of the things I really look forward to on my Ithaca visits, and I am greatly saddened to think that they are gone forever. If you live in Ithaca, please add your voice to mine in asking them to bring the walnuts back! I don't see why they can't make both kinds—with walnuts and without—and thereby keep all their devoted customers happy.

First Book Podcast!

2008-04-20T20:58:00.005-04:00

I was honored to be interviewed by First Book as part of their celebration of National Library Week! The podcast of the interview is available here (on the First Book Blog).

Please visit the First Book website to learn more about this wonderful organization.

Another Nomination!

2008-03-25T14:27:00.004-04:00

Library Lion has been nominated for the 2009 Monarch Award, which is the Illinois K–3 Children's Choice Award! You can learn more about the award at the Illinois School Library Media Association website.

Children's choice awards are especially wonderful because children get to vote on the books THEY like best. :)

Winners will be announced in March 2009. I hope the students of Illinois have a wonderful year of reading!

SCASL

2008-03-15T12:21:00.005-04:00

I just returned from a lovely time at the South Carolina Association of School Librarians conference. Despite the challenge of having to be awake and coherent and speaking to an audience at 8 a.m. (two days in a row!), it was a great experience and wonderful to be around such a passionate and dedicated and friendly group of library people. I also got to hear the announcement of the 2007–2008 South Carolina Children's Book Award winners and found out that Library Lion has been nominated for the 2008–2009 Book Award!

Oh, and the weather in SC was so beautiful - right in the 70s, just perfect!

And they make very good peach cobbler down there, just FYI.

Of course, one side effect of the conference preparation and traveling is that I have fallen totally behind in the March Madness writing project. It doesn't help that I'm not loving the way the writing has been going, either. This weekend will be about trying to get back on track and figure out how to catch up and start working toward fixing or changing or whatever else might be necessary to change how I feel about the MS in progress.