Needing tissues...

What a nasty week...My body decided it was the time to lie down and let a rampant cold stomp all over me...cue tissues. I retired from the world as far as internet was concerned. The problem with that is, the emails still keep coming and the things to do list just gets longer.

So crawling back to my notes, made a couple of weeks ago what interesting tidbits from the publishing blogosphere do I have to share with you.

Penguin’s acquisition of Author Solutions still has everyone talking.

Mike Shatzkin looks at the moves to publish in the cloud and why it makes sense if you are a small to medium sized publishing company...here small means up to 200 titles a year.

Roni Loren recently got burned using a pic on her blog post...She talks about the hazards of pictures and how you can get around law suits from photographers.

Porter Anderson has been checking out the author shadow career...do you have one...it’s called author platform and it happens when you misuse the 80/20 rule. 80% networking....There are some interesting observations in the article and check out Eion Purcells link right at the bottom...

For those of us who like an inspirational story Inkygirl has a link to an interview with Helaine Becker...something in this interview for everyone.

Catherine Ryan Howard has tips for anyone who has ever tried to get a US Tax number....

Karen Woodward has the writers definitive must have gadget if you get your best ideas in the shower....

Rachelle Gardner has reposted her article about top ten query mistakes. It makes good revision reading...especially rhetorical questions that ask the agent to answer NO.

Victoria Shockley writes about what it is like to be a virtual assistant to a bunch of writers.

Cheryl Shireman sends a thoughtful open letter to all traditionally published writers.

The magnificent Chuck Wendig has written a thoughtful response to a question about whether writers should care....This is worth the read to discover that Chuck can write without using any dubious humour or needing any warnings on language...It is quite touching...grab the tissues.

Over in the craft section,

Check out these wonderful links

Josh Whedon’s top 10 screenwriting tips

Super agent Donald Maass on predictable plot turns...and how to shake them up

Roz Morris takes a hard look at dream sequences...

The write practice shows you what to do with loglines...especially when your log line doesn’t match your manuscript.

After the shock of Margaret Mahys death last week, New Zealand children’s writers and illustrators have been discussing how best to remember the colossus of our genre. Several writers had a bright idea to gather in public libraries around the country and read Maragret Mahy books at 11 oclock on the 11^th August...the day that there is a big public memorial to Margaret in Auckland.

We would like to throw this date and time open to the world so wherever you are across the time zones...at 11’oclock on the 11^th grab a Margaret Mahy story...there are over 200...find some kids or read to yourself and remember this remarkable storyteller and the impact she has made on children’s literature around the world. You can let us know what you are doing on the official website where you can get a cool poster and craft activity.

photo: Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/burstyriffic/4569392331/

Margaret Mahy 1936-2012

This week we mourn the loss of Margaret Mahy.

Tributes have flowed in from around the world with obituaries appearing in the The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Herald Sun, The Huffington Post...and are still flowing in.

The world mourns the loss of THE STORYTELLER.

Margaret Mahy published over two hundred books for children and was the recipient of The Hans Christian Andersen Medal (commonly called The Little Nobel) for her world wide impact on children’s literature.

She won the Carnegie Medal twice for two young adult stories.

She was inducted into The Order of New Zealand, our highest civilian honour retricted to only 20 living people.

She was THE children’s writer.

Her awards are many...from her first ever published book, The Lion In The Meadow...discovered by chance in 1969, on an open page of our (famous) School Journal (in a glass case) as a book fair trade exhibit, by a New York editor,  through to her NZ Book of the year in 2011 with The Moon and Famer McPhee which was also named as an IBBY Honour Book this year.

A fact only lightly touched on in the media, but for me goes above the awards so richly deserved was that her little stories and poems made up a significant portion of the expanded Ready to Read series which introduced children to reading. She brought bounce and rhythm and fun into the challenging process of interpreting squiggles on the page as words and made reading time in the classroom a joy. This series was sold around the world...and so the world's children learned to read and laugh and understand that language could be playful and reading could be the best activity you could ever do.

Beautiful tributes have appeared in the last few days from this poignant personal poem from a close friend of Margaret’s, to the Pundits Of Literature trying to compare her with other well known New Zealand writers.

As the tributes and tears flow throughout the land (and now, as I write this) I am reflecting on the loss to the Children’s Literature community here in New Zealand.

In the children’s writing community you couldn’t and didn’t compare her. She was and is a colossus and a genius, as her friend and fellow children’s writer, Jack Lasenby said on National Television. 

On Facebook today I read this comment from John McIntyre owner of The Children’s Bookshop and National Reviewer of children’s books.

We have a growing, and perhaps irrational frustration at the comparisons of Margaret Mahy as "up there" with our finest authors, Katherine Mansfield and Janet Frame.
Hell, she wasn't up there, she was streets ahead. 
We like some of Mansfield's stories, but her's was a slight cannon of work over a short time span, most of it written in the many years she spent overseas whinging about how restrictive New Zealand was.
Janet Frame lead a reclusive life, and wrote for a small literary audience. She wrote brilliantly, and has had some international recognition, but could walk down the street without being recognised.
Margaret Mahy is the greatest writer we have ever produced, in any way you measure greatness. International recognition, generosity of spirit, quality of output, length of career, range of genre, awards won, languages translated into, critical acclaim, markets conquered.
Is it because she was a "children's" author that they need to qualify her greatness, or a we just being unreasonably insensitive. (and feel free to tell us if you think we are.)

This has roused a hearty cheer amongst the children’s writers and illustrators here....Margaret’s words helped children form an appreciation of reading so they could go on to appreciate the work of other writers.

I had to stand up and deliver a speech at our Children’s Book Association Annual General Meeting less than 24 hours after the news filtered through. How do you encapsulate her impact, personally and professionally and profoundly to people for whom children’s literature is why they are on this earth? You don’t. You leave it to the Storyteller herself to provide the words.

The Fairy Child

by Margaret Mahy

The very hour that I was born


I rode upon the unicorn.


When boys put tadpoles in their jars 


I overflowed my tin with stars.


Because I sing to see the sun


The little children point and run.


Because I set the caged birds free


The people close their doors to me.


Goodbye, goodbye, you world of men -
I shall not visit you again.

Margaret Mahy

Storyteller

1936 - July 23, 2012

Not R.I.P but...Dancing Among The Stars

Margaret Mahy’s last book, The Man From The Land of Fandango, illustrated by Polly Dunbar, published by Clarion will be out in October.