Jennifer Crusie (beloved, wise, hilarious, helpful) has an essay on the Big Lies we tell ourselves. Are you falling into the trap? A writer isn’t a real writer until she’s published.A writer has to distort herself and deny her own stories in order to write to the trends and catch an editor to publish her.... Continue Reading →
A writer’s payday
Peg Kehret has an entertaining and thoughtful post up about the work we do and the money it brings.Kids sometimes ask me (usually to their teacher’s or parent’s chagrin) how much money I make. I respond by explaining how royalties work. They assume that if I wrote the book, I get all the money from... Continue Reading →
5 tips for success from the San Francisco Writers Conference
Here are the first couple, which come from Jane Friedman's blog on Writer's Digest:I took my first trip to San Francisco to speak and attend the San Francisco Writers Conference. It was a fabulous event, and I covered as much as I could on Twitter.Thanks to the work of Jeanne V. Bowerman (Writer's Digest's favorite... Continue Reading →
On rejection
Here's an amusing post on famous writers and the blistering rejections they've seen.And here's the blog of some guy who's racked up 11,000 rejections (and managed to sell 80-some stories).I confess that I am both highly flattered and somewhat dumbfounded tobe the subject of such literary interest. I assure you that I don'tthink of myself... Continue Reading →
Doug Keith in the NYT
Illustrator Doug Keith got nice praise this weekend in the New York Times.THE BORED BOOKBy David Michael Slater. Illustrated by Doug Keith.Simply Read. $16.95. (Ages 5 and up)This wordless book begins perfectly, with an image of two bored siblings fighting on the sofa in Grandfather’s study while he looks on morosely. Then he opens a... Continue Reading →
He had me at “undead folks … after our brains”
Adding the zombie cat? Even better. Check out Stix & Bones, a new comic by our colleague Darrell Toland.
Daniel Handler/Lemony Snicket event postponed
Daniel Handler, the genius behind Lemony Snicket, was coming to Benaroya Hall on March 5 at 7:30 p.m. as part of the Seattle Arts & Lectures series.It's been postponed till fall, though. This means we can all go to Joni Sensel's book launch on Friday without worry that we're missing out on an Unfortunate Event.
On plagiarism and “mixing”
Joni has a great post on a new plagiarism scandal--this time involving a German teen who's getting praise for her work, despite ripping parts off wholesale from another author.Read what Joni has to say. (And right on, Joni!)
Free watercolor painting class
Dana Sullivan sent this along--I was out last week, which is why I wasn't able to post it in time for the first class. But here it is:This February, Seattle artist, Molly Murrah, is leading a special 5-week live watercolor painting class in the Creative Techs worldwide classroom. I "attended" Molly's experimental first class a... Continue Reading →
Are you down with OPP?
If you have no idea what OPP is, apparently you were elsewhere when Generation X was having its frisky way with the radio waves.Today, though, it stands for Other People's Pixels, which is a service that builds websites for illustrators.One of our colleagues, Elizabeth Sattler, used it to build her new site.Check out Other People's... Continue Reading →