Ever wonder what a publishing masters thesis looked like?
6 06 2009Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: Grad School, Publishing, Thesis Paper, Word Cloud, Wordle
Categories : Etc.
A BEA Moment & Mind Your Manners Alice Roosevelt
3 06 2009So there was one particular heart-warming moment from BEA that I wanted to share with you all. Back in undergrad I interened with a children’s publisher back in Atlanta called Peachtree Publishers. It was my first ever forray into the publishing world, and in marketing no less which largely helped to lead me to my next two internships (one in scholarly marketing, the next in children’s editorial) and then finally my current job. What was really great about that particular internship was that I got to do tasks for the other departments from time to time and was invited to sit in on the acquisitions meetings. I got the broad spectrum of the process and it was great. Prior to the acquisitions meetings, we got to read the manuscripts and practice filling out reader’s reports for each. At one such meeting there was a manuscript that would become Mind Your Manner’s Alice Roosevelt, a children’s picture book pubbing this fall, and at BEA last weekend I got to flip through the BLAD.

Mind Your Manners Alice Roosevelt
By Leslie Kimmelman Illustrated by Adam Gustavson
ISBN: 978-1561454921 List Price: $16.95
Pub Date: September 1, 2009
Publisher: Peachtree Publishers
I smiled from ear to ear. This was the first time that I could say, I remember where it all began. It’s nearly the finished product; talk about your warm fuzzies. This was a pretty major milestone. Anyway, just felt like sharing. I know I don’t usually blog about picture books here, but I want you all to by this book if you’ve got a tiny tike in your life. Personal bias aside, the artwork is lovely and the story is a cute one with a some educational value in the details it reveals about Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency. What I also liked was that Alice is a young woman and not a child (historically true). There is a lot of anxiety for them when trying to relate to one’s elders and especially teenagers. For children sometimes its nice to see older folks behaving a little mischievous. I know I had the hardest time with my cousins when I was a child. I was all of six when the eldest was fifteen. She acted like an adult, but sometimes she would play with me on my level. But the mood swings were lightning fast and it was just all together too stressful to be fun. I just couldn’t keep up or act old enough for her with my pretty princess make-up kit. So I waited glumly until she felt like being “immature” once again.
/End of Line
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: Adam Gustavson, BEA, Book Expo America, Books, Children's Books, Historical Kids Books, Leslie Kimmelman, Mind Your Manners Alice Roosevelt, Picture Books
Categories : Picture Books
Orbit’s $1 E-book: Midnight Never Come
2 06 2009Introducing June’s Offering for the One Dollar E-book from Orbit: Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan. Yet another great selection from Orbit. I’ve had my eye on this for one for a while now; looking forward to trying the series out. The next book in the Onyx Court series, In Ashes Lie, will be out this month.
Summary from Amazon:
Stunningly conceived and exquisitely achieved, this rich historical fantasy portrays the Elizabethan court 30 years into the reign of the Virgin Queen, often called Gloriana. Far below ground, her dark counterpart, heartless Invidiana, rules England’s fae. Brennan (Warrior and Witch) pairs handsome young courtier Michael Deven, an aspiring agent under spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, with bewitching fae Lune, who attempts to avoid Invidiana’s wrath by infiltrating Walsingham’s network in mortal guise. History and fantasy blend seamlessly as Deven and Lune tread their precarious tightropes between loyalty and betrayal. Brennan’s myriad fantastical creations ring as true as her ear for Elizabethan and faerie dialogue. With intriguing flashbacks to historical events and a cast of deftly drawn characters both real and imagined, Brennan fleshes out the primal conflict of love and honor pitted against raging ambition and lust for power in a glittering age when mortals could well be such fools as to sell their souls forever.
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: $1 E-books, Book Giveaways, Books, E-books, Marie Brennan, Midnight Never Come, One Dollar E-books, Onyx Court, Orbit
Categories : Orbit $1 E-books
New Moon Trailer
1 06 2009Well it’s here Twilight fans: the New Moon Trailer. For a movie trailer it was oddly straightforward. I am so glad we got to see a transformation. That had been my biggest worry for New Moon because werewolf transformations are notoriously bad, IMO. In Twilight it had been the meadow scene.
Not sure what I think of it yet, still ruminating about the clip, but at least there is nothing to wonder about.
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: Books, Jacob, Movies, New Moon, New Moon Trailer, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight
Categories : Twilight
Book Expo America 2009 and a tiny bit of Aperture Science
1 06 2009BEA wrapped up Sunday and now that I’ve had my rest, it is time for some post-show impressions. Or it would be, but it is honestly hard to process it all. This was my first time at the conference so it was an experience to say the least. Unfortunately I delted the photos I took with my phone to show you the size of it.
There were so many booths, so many publishers. Surprisingly though, attendance was not what I expected but this was my first BEA so what do I know! Saturday was light and Sunday was astoundingly dead. I was told at the show by a few people that next year’s show may be entirely during the week.
Of the ARC’s that I picked up the ones that I am most excited about are:
Fire by Kristin Cashore
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Ghostgirl Homecoming by Tonya Hurley
The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
The Girl in the Arena by Lisa Haines
And the odd one of the list: Connected – The surprising power of social networks and how they shape our lives by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler.
My favorite panel of the weekend was Friday night’s 7×20x21 during which several publishing professionals were invited to share what inspired them about their jobs and their hopes for the industry for seven minutes using twenty power point slides. We’ve been hearing so much bad news what with the economic times that it was nice note to end the work week on. Every speaker did a fantastic job. There were a lot of smiles and a lot of laughs, and even a reference to the game Portal. (Though I imagine only a few of us actually got that one.)
All in all, I’m making a note here….HUGE SUCCESS! Tomorrow though it’s back to work for those of us who are still alive.
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: BEA, Book Expo America, Book Trade Shows, Books, Publishing
Categories : Events
Agent For A Day: Quick Observation
18 04 2009If you hadn’t heard, literary agent Nathan Bransford hosted an event on his blog called Agent For A Day. On Monday, April 13th, Nathan began posting 50 queries (considered a light-load for an average day of submissions) to his blog and allowed readers one week to review the submissions and post either their rejection or request in the comments of each individual submission. Participants were only allowed to request five manuscripts. The goal was to give writers an chance to experience what it is like being a literary agent.
I thought the exercise was genius, but I had to post about one curious observation. For all the angst writers so frequently express after receiving the form rejection, it was a little surprising to me to see most of the responses being form rejections. And some I thought walked a very fine line between constructive criticism and unnecessary snark. Very few participants seemed to dole-out the constructive responses to queries so craved by the writing community.
Anyway, had to share.
~ Darcy
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: Agent For A Day, Agents, Literary Agents, Publishing, Query Letters, Rejection Letters, writing
Categories : writing
Hamlet As Told Through Facebook
22 03 2009Some of you may remember Pride and Prejudice as told through Facebook. Well today a friend sends me a link to Hamlet - somewhat truncated and less of a riot than P&P but amusing and rightly full of awesome all the same.
Enjoy! And will someone please give Dune the Facebook treatment? Pretty please?
~ Darcy
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: Books, Facebook, Hamlet, Hamlet as told through Facebook, Humor, Plays, Shakespeare, Theater
Categories : cool things

Recent Barks