Young Adult Literature Bridges Generations

If you didn't know about Young Adult novels until now, chances are you're a boomer.

Around age nine I had finished all the books in the children's department of our local library. At the time my parents and I lived in a rural northern province in the Netherlands. Used to reading, or at least looking through my parents' collection, books on history, in particular WWII, Agatha Christie and Pearl Buck novels, I automatically moved on, borrowing books I claimed were for my dad. Claimed, because I was denied access the first time I brought an adult book to the check-out table, and truthfully said I was excited about reading that particular book.

Found out by the librarian at a later time —borrowing books supposedly for my father who was ill, yet reporting on a certain title with the enthusiasm of the reader— I was forced back to the "age appropriate" section of the small library.

Fast forward to 2000 when I became aware of a YA section at the Seattle Public Library, thanks to the display table positioned immediately inside the entrance of the Greenwood branch. The aim of the librarians was to attract teens of course, but I was drawn in as well.

"Is kissing a girl who smokes like licking an ashtray?" was the first YA book I took home with me,

and from there on I kept going back for more. Recognizing yourself in teen lit can help bridge the schism between you and teens in your life. Did you forget how much you relied on the connection with your best friend? Or how lost you felt between being your parents' pet, and turning into a (young) adult? The literature geared toward YA of today can help you recall, and realize, you made it out of those horrid years too. Right? Or perhaps being a teenager wasn't that terrible for you, all the better. At any rate, YA lit can open eyes on both sides, parents and teens, it may be hard to grasp, but you do have something in common.

Many of my writer friends write for the YA market, so while our present
neighborhood library has no table for YA lit near the entrance —their focus groups change from week to week— I'm staying abreast Online of what's out there. YA lit is not a grey area, but colorful and exciting, as you are bound to find out. Explore the list of new an exciting titles on the site of Book-ish, and stock up for summer.

This work by by Judith van Praag is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

On Writing and Sending Out Chapters or Stories

This morning I woke up thinking I've never been good at sending out my writing, unless for pay. 
 

Labeled pages with "calls"

Not that I lack knowledge about where to send material. I've been a subscriber to writers' trade magazines since 1989, with exception of the years I lived in Amsterdam, and relied on The American Book Store for my fix on writers' craft publications. As such, a subscriber to Poets & Writers, Writer's Digest and The Writer Magazine, I've spelled out the "wanted" ads in the back, noted deadlines for contests and such. But with the exception of 1989-1990 the year I decided to become a writer for real, sending out poems to literary magazines such as Trivia, I have hardly ever put my creative writing pieces in the mail with the intention to get them published.

What's up with that?

It's not that I haven't been published, I have, by paying publications. Yet, the work created when I'm not working on assignment mostly just remains filed on my computer. Telling, no? Writing for pay, means your work is accepted already. While sending out unrequested material, may mean a possible rejection.

Little Stevie King pinned rejections slips to his wall.

These early morning musings were no doubt influenced by reading "On Writing: a memoir of the craft" by Stephen King last night. His mom really encouraged him to write, not just copy stories he'd read, and paid him a quarter for each of his first four. He started sending out his work when he was a teen, pinning rejection slips on his wall, meanwhile he kept on writing and kept on sending out. The rest is history. 

I wish I was better at sending out work, but the moment I've written something short, I forget about it. Easy, since on my computer, anything out of sight is out of mind, lost in the black hole. The pieces that are part of a book length manuscript thank goodness are tied together by a red line, the plot line if you will. But why wait until the book is finished? Why not send out a chapter that can stand on its own? 

Send out a chapter that can stand on its own. 
For “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans” ~ John Lennon.

This work by by Judith van Praag is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship

	Passing on the News to you all: USC Annenberg seeks journalists, designers and developers for Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship Contact:  Arianna Sikorski, USC, 213-740-1899 or Melissa Abraham (310)440-6861 LOS ANGELES, June 12, 2012 -- The USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism announced this week that applications for the 11th annual USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program, which will operate as a 15-member pop-up newsroom in Los Angeles, are now being accepted. The fellowship, which will be held Nov. 8-18, 2012, seeks to assemble an all-star team of arts journalists committed to using their skills to imagine and create new and innovative ways of reporting on arts and culture. Most costs are covered by the fellowship, including air travel, hotel, transportation within the city and most meals. National and international arts journalists, web designers and developers are welcome to apply. Applications are due July 24, 2012 click here to apply. The USC Annenberg/Getty Fellowship will be built around creating next-generation reporting tools for arts journalism. The fellowship, funded by The Getty Foundation, plans to design, develop and build this new project over the course of 11 days in a pop-up newsroom called Engine30. The program is looking for fellows who fit into one or more of these categories: ARTS JOURNALISTS who are committed to finding and telling stories in new ways, thinking about journalism as a dynamic system and process rather than a product, as well as those who care about finding better ways to engage with audiences. DESIGNERS who are committed to thinking imaginatively about information architecture, user interaction, story-telling and visualization of multi-level data with design that is intuitive, simple and fun to use. DEVELOPERS who are committed to imaginatively finding, adapting and integrating existing tools into Engine30 with a focus on ideas/intent behind what is developed rather than specific ways to realize them. Engine30 is the latest in a series of experimental arts journalism projects dedicated to rethinking the ways journalists report on the arts. Engine28 was a pop-up newsroom with 40 journalists who produced 100+ stories around two theater festivals in one week. Engine29 sent 28 arts journalists to explore gaming, crowd-sourcing, community engagement, slow journalism, meta-data, distributed storytelling, incremental journalism and social media as tools for covering the arts. Engine30 will build on the lessons of Engine28 and Engine29 and focus on creating a series of stories told in innovative ways. “We have discovered that bringing groups of talented people together and having them work side-by-side inventing something new is tremendously creative and fulfilling,”said Sasha Anawalt, who will direct the 2012 USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program. “Each of the fellows chosen for Engine30 will bring some skill or way of thinking that will challenge and help the team. The sparks of these collaborations will expand our collective thinking about arts coverage.” Joining Founding Director Anawalt will be Douglas McLennan, director of the newly-created USC Annenberg Center for Arts, Media & Audience, and the project architect for Engine30. Also part of the programming team is Edward Lifson, a frequent NPR arts and culture reporter. “We think of this project as ‘360-degree’ or ‘liquid’ journalism,” said McLennan, “How do you build stories that have context and depth and that engage people where they live? This is an opportunity to assemble a team that will go about creating stories in multi-dimensions.” The only program of its kind in the United States, the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program underscores the importance of arts journalists covering the arts ecosystem as a whole. The fellowship emphasizes the societal value of arts coverage and strengthening a global arts journalism network while working collaboratively toward making the arts accessible to all. “The Getty Foundation is delighted to once again collaborate with USC Annenberg and to support these special arts journalism fellowships. In a fast-changing world, it is critical that the fellowship program continues to evolve and seeks to establish a new standard of excellence in arts and cultural coverage,” said Getty Foundation Director Deborah Marrow. The Getty Foundation fulfills the philanthropic mission of the Getty Trust by supporting individuals and institutions committed to advancing the understanding and preservation of the visual arts locally and throughout the world. Through strategic grants and programs, the Foundation strengthens art history as a global discipline, promotes the interdisciplinary practice of conservation, increases access to museum and archival collections, and develops current and future leaders in the visual arts. The Foundation carries out its work in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Research Institute, and the Getty Conservation Institute to ensure that the Getty programs achieve maximum impact. Additional information. About the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism Located in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism is a national leader in education and scholarship in the fields of communication, journalism, public diplomacy and public relations. With an enrollment of more than 2,200 students, USC Annenberg offers doctoral, master's and bachelor's degree programs, as well as continuing development programs for working professionals across a broad scope of academic inquiry. The school's comprehensive curriculum emphasizes the core skills of leadership, innovation, service and entrepreneurship and draws upon the resources of a networked university located in the media capital of the world.
	Contact USC Annenberg Public Affairs at (213) 821-3015

Writing is War

Imagine this turned left

As a potential housemate I had to take the Keirsey personality test, the owner and builder of the house in Austin, Texas, said. Odd, I thought, I had local references, and they were good. He explained it wasn't about whether I was cheerful and trustworthy, but whether I would fit in with the geeks who occupied the other rooms in the bee-hive-like structure he had designed and build himself.

If he had his concerns, I had mine. No AC because the house was build to funnel air from top to bottom? No heat either (it was February and cold), because he had calculated one light bulb combined with the body heat of the occupant would warm the hexagonal cells? Yes, he was a mathematician. His former fellow students, friends, and housemates were computer freaks, and I had to promise I would not share —outside the walls of the beehive— what was created inside. As though I would understand what I saw, I thought. I, who tried to grapple the MS-DOS code of my Commodore 64. That I used a laptop was a plus point in the household though, that much was clear.

The outcome of the test said I was a Field Marshall. Not bad, my future landlord said, not bad at all, as long as I would keep everybody's stuff alone and mind my own business and not try to re-organize. With that he handed me a key, no need to sign a contract or pay a deposit. It wasn't that he had no business sense —for goodness sake, the guy financed a local upstart, started by fellow students at U.T. called Whole Foods— he knew about watching his nickel.

Looking into The 4 Temperaments I can see how being an Abstract Utilitarian or Rational Field Marshall affects my way of writing. And it somewhat explains how I've been able to work on different books within one manuscript. What would drive any other person crazy comes to me naturally. Which doesn't mean it's easy.

I've been working on three projects, overseeing developments across-the-board, moving each forward. Probably makes no sense to others, but since all of the material comes from the same source, a monster manuscript, it makes sense to me.

Right now some troops are on furlough, and I'm proceeding with just one commando. Yes, there's a war-like strategy to my way of writing! I'm deepening my novel's main character's love interest's part for greater balance in the book. At the moment I'm writing the whole story from her p.o.v. instead of the previous M.C.'s. We'll see where this leads.

I have a feeling this strategic move will help me win one of my word wars not to long from now. Are you following me?

This work by by Judith van Praag is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Birthday Theme Storytelling in Seattle

Tonight, Thursday July 28 7 - 8:15 p.m., we hope to see you at Starbucks in Madison Park in Seattle

for Auntmama's Storycorner 

Come listen to Kathya Alexander, Olubayo, Judith van Praag and Auntmama aka May Anne Moorman
Spin Tales around a Birthday Theme.

Directions to Madison Park Starbuck's

4000 East Madison, Seattle, WA.

This work by by Judith van Praag is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

I Am Who I Am Now and Then

I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self-Reliance

Prompt by Harley Schreiber

Think about the type of person you’d NEVER want to be 5 years from now. Write out your own personal recipe to prevent this from happening and commit to following it. “Thought is the seed of action.”

After e.e. cummings *)

 

In some of my worst nightmares, I am Ms. Judy, a counter help at a fast food restaurant, who has an eight hour work day, wears a polyester uniform, dishes out colorless food to tasteless people, bikes home suffocating on the exhaust of rush hour coaches, watches the crafts programs on t.v. only, whose social life is like a Tupper ware party, and who retires in a U.V. park.

In some of my best dreams, I am the Dutchess abroad, a traveling artist and writer, who works twenty-four hours a day, wears whatever she pleases, sends meaningful visions into the expectant world, passes time pleasantly while waiting for a good time to travel, discriminately stays home alone or with her love, and never retires at all.

 

Judith van Praag

20 November 1994

 

My personal recipe works miracles: Thought IS the seed of action.

*) Norman Friedman insists on capitalization: E.E. Cummings

This work by by Judith van Praag is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

End Of The Rope Determination

I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Prompt Ashley Ambirge

Think of a time when you didn’t think you were capable of doing something, but then surprised yourself. How will you surprise yourself this week?

"If you don't want to move for yourself, do it for your daughter," my mother's physician pleaded, "She's concerned about your welfare, always writing letters and calling me." The doctor, her hands palm to palm in the fold of her skirt's fabric, seemed to pray.

"Is she really?" My mother appeared surprised, pleased even and indignant.

"Yes," the doctor looked at me, "It's difficult for her, living so far away."

"I understand, but I don't want to leave. I'm staying here. This is my home, this is where I wish to die."

The look on her face was triumphant. Earlier in the week she had fooled a geriatric psychiatrist and a psychologist who arrived by car at the crossroads between forest and fields to evaluate her capacity to live by herself in the old dilapidated farmhouse.

"As long as people do no harm to themselves or others we have to reason to deem them incapable, the psychiatrist told me. 

Same old, same old, I thought. My intelligent paranoid psychotic mother knew exactly how to play the others. The gentlemen belonged to the club of outsiders, not she.

"Go pack our suitcases," I said to my husband, trembling inside.

He got up, but hesitated, his hands on the back of his chair.

Remembering our arrival, seeing my mother's bent shape through the window, her spine broken by four spontaneous fractures, the protruding vertebrae ... I insisted, "Go pack. Please?"

"Why, where are you going?" my 79-year old mother glanced from my husband her "number one son" to me, her only child.

"We're leaving and we're not coming back, not ever. We can't stand seeing you live like this and you refuse to move. You say you want to die here, and you surely will. And we're not going to watch you do so under these circumstances. We're out of here." 

One moment of silence during which I tried not to blink. 

"All right then," she said, "I'll go."

End of my rope determination is what I need to challenge myself, to push over the hump before the finish line. I will surprise myself and receive the answer I've been waiting for, merely by continuing the way I am going, perseverance, fist on the table —with the knowledge that it's time to act.

This work by by Judith van Praag is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.