The Restless Reader

January 3, 2013January 3, 2013 / still a dreamer / 2 Comments

Have you ever experienced periods of time in which you wanted to read … well, everything in sight? Yet at the same time, you couldn’t find exactly the book you wanted to read? It’s a special and odd kind of frustration.

Here is but one bookshelf of books all waiting to be devoured … but I can’t make a choice. These are largely from the library’s annual book sale, but a couple are purchased or from a friend, and I really do want to read every single one, but I can’t choose.

But wait – there’s more! Like one of those TV infomercials in which you can get twice as many items for the same price if you’ll just order NOW, there are more books waiting to be read! Some of these are middle grade, some YA and some adult … some from my friends’ book swap … and all are calling to me as well. (And we don’t want to know, there is another small group on top of another bookcase.) Plus I’m still in the middle of another fabulous book, Paradise by Toni Morrison. So what’s with the restlessness? Are you experiencing this, too?

I’m thinking it might be the holidays – schedules are completely off for work, rest, entertainment, visiting … and distractions, wonderful as they are … are at a yearly high. Sometimes we just have too many choices. But if fabulous books that cost me little or nothing are what I have too many of, well … it sure could be worse.

Things are settling back into some semblance of a routine and the evenings have become particularly chilly. Seems like the right time to cozy up with a hot cup of cocoa and open up a good book. That and the sound of so many fabulous authors calling my name is becoming deafening.

Coming Around

September 24, 2012 / still a dreamer / 6 Comments

Coming around to myself, that is. I almost remember me!

As I’m sure any of you reading this can avow, there are periods in our lives which are especially challenging, (and that is a euphemism for what I’d really like to say, but we’ll leave it at that.) These periods may be short and intense, blowing in and shaking us hard like a sudden squall and just as soon blowing out, leaving us crumpled in their wake. They may be prolonged periods of seemingly endless things to cope with, large and small, which pick at us until we seem a mass of tiny scabs.

This is life. We accept it in all its glory and beauty and also in its times of travail. And when we are in the latter, there inevitably comes a day, only a moment perhaps, when something feels a little different, as if there’s been a barely noticeable turn in the universe somewhere and we know we have paralleled it and turned some corner ourselves. It may be ever so tiny; it may not grow overnight; but it happened.

The weather is now getting cooler, the days getting shorter, and the warming sun flows inside earlier and earlier. I have worked all day, and that western sun was drawing me, drawing me, to it and I succumbed. I brought my just-delivered copy of the SCBWI Bulletin, enamored of the cover illustration by Eliza Wheeler, to the back porch. I sat in a chair, my feet up on another, and indulged myself in some reading with the sun full on my face. The cats next door came to be petted and then sprawled on the porch, taking advantage of both the sun and the company. I read till my cheeks burned hot, loving every second of it.

There are times when we put everyone and everything else ahead of ourselves. Sometimes by necessity, sometimes by natural inclination. And there are times that we are called to come around to ourselves. It may be but a whisper, but listening is always exactly what we need.

2012 NJ SCBWI June Conference

June 8, 2012 / still a dreamer

Cheers to reading! And cheers to children’s books of all genres!

And here we come – a whole bunch of us aspiring writers and illustrators flocking to the annual NJ SCBWI (New Jersey Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators), June Conference for one 3-day weekend where we eat, breathe, drink children’s books. Today, Friday, is the day of the intensives. These are in illustration, picture books, novels, and many more. The next two days are packed with workshops, one-on-ones with agents and editors, first page sessions, meals with the editors and agents, and outstanding keynote speakers – Kate DiCamillo and Dan Yaccarino. There’s a Book Fair, book signings, scholarship raffle, mix and mingle, and more. It’s simply an amazing event. (Take a peek at what the schedule looks like.) All to inform and guide us to being the best children’s book writers and illustrators we can be.

So cheers to everyone attending – faculty and attendees alike, and to all the wonderful people in NJ SCBWI that organize and work the event.

Whether lost in a traditional book or engrossed in an e-book, children are still reading and loving it. And all of us in SCBWI are inspired to be a part of it.