Having Fun With Our Books

There are so many fun sites that allow you to share photos and such. I thought you might enjoy seeing more of The Write Sisters' books, so, I created a little slide show at www.RockYou.com.

--Diane

It's Nice to See Picture Books Getting Some Attention

This morning on NPR's Morning Edition there was a short segment on Jane O'Connor's Fancy Nancy series of picture books, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser (published by HarperCollins).

Although I've never been a "girly-girl," I've always been a free-thinking girl, much like Nancy. Reading Fancy Nancy for the first time brought to mind my favorite book from my childhood--Kay Thompson's Eloise in Paris. If you like Nancy, you'll love Eloise. Eloise has seen a resurgence of interest over the past few years. I suppose that's good, but I hated seeing her turn into a cartoony licensed character. Ah well...

I hope Nancy doesn't go too commercial, but it is nice to see the media paying attention to picture books by long time writers. I do however want to point out a mistake in the first book. Nancy says, "My favorite color is fuchsia. That's a fancy way of saying purple." Wrong, it's a fancy way of saying purple-pinky-red. I know because fuchsia's been my favorite color for a while now! Fuchsia is delightfully complex--just like little girls are!

--Diane

Creative Fun on Thursdays

Laura Salas, whom some of us know from Chautauqua a few years back, has a great blog for children's writers. Every Thursday Laura runs a poetry challenge--15 Words or Less Poems. She posts a photo for inspiration and invites her readers to create a poem with no more than 15 words (guidelines here). I've become quite addicted to it and now post every week. I love to read the other submissions and am amazed at how people look at the same picture and come up with such interesting variations! Give it a try some Thursday.

--Diane

BUSY BEES

The Write Sisters spent much of the day yesterday going over our presentation for the NE-SCBWI conference (see posting from 2/23/08).

We found that the best way to clarify our group goals was to put them in writing. Here are Mur and Kathy looking through pages of notes.




Here's Sally with her laptop. We've become so dependent on our computers we often wonder what it was like back in the olden days when the group began 20 years ago! Pencil and paper? What were they for? (Don't even get us started on the joys of carbon paper from the stone age!)




Here's our appreciative audience. We hope that when we present on Sunday, April 13, our audience will be a little more active! Sign up for the NE-SCBWI conference here.

Stretch Your Wings!

The New England chapter of the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators will be holding its annual conference April 11-13, 2008. The conference theme is "Stretch Your Wings."

The Write Sisters will be presenting a workshop on Sunday, The Write Sisters: Build, Maintain, and Ignite Your Writers' Group, in which they hope to inspire others to find an effective group or to breathe a little new life into stale and fading established group. Don't forget to visit our website to learn more about The Write Sisters.

If you're interested in attending the NE-SCBWI conference, and especially if you want to have a critique, we'd suggest you sign up soon! See you there!