Tag: travel

BYU event before LTUE

- Stacy 4 Comments

Life, the Universe, and Everything is NEXT WEEK! That means I’ll be seeing many of you then. If you’re unable to attend LTUE, though, and are in the area, you should check out this event. It’s free for any who’d like to attend—you don’t have to be a student. And if you are going to LTUE, come anyway! Karen won’t be on any panels officially, so this is your chance to ask her questions and perhaps even get a book signed after the program.

So You Want to Work in Publishing For Young Readers?

Courtesy Howard Tayler, SchlockMercenary.com

If you are interested in working as an author, an illustrator, an editor, or in any other position in the publishing for young readers market, you are invited to come listen to, discuss with, and learn from Stacy Whitman, on February 8th, from 5:10-7:40 pm. in room 251 Tanner Bldg at BYU.

Stacy Whitman is the editorial director of Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books. In 2009 while living in Orem, Utah, she founded a small press named Tu Publishing, dedicated to publishing multicultural fantasy and science fiction for children and young adults, which was acquired by Lee & Low Books of New York City and became Tu Books. The imprint launched fall 2011 with Tankborn, Wolf Mark, and Galaxy Games: The Challengers, and will follow up with BYU graduate Bryce Moore’s book this spring, Vodnik. Whitman holds a master’s degree in children’s literature from Simmons College. Learn more about Tu, including submissions guidelines and links to buy books, at http://www.leeandlow.com/p/tu.mhtml. Stacy’s blog of writing and publishing advice can be found at www.stacylwhitman.com.

Stacy’s presentation will be a wide open discussion on the publishing business, including, but not limited to the following topics:

  • Preparing for a career in publishing
  • What does an editor do all day?
  • Working with authors and art directors
  • Advice for writers and illustrators on getting published
  • Diversity in publishing and books
  • Genre fiction and children’s fiction

Stacy will be accompanied by author Karen Sandler.

Karen Sandler is the author of seventeen novels for adults, as well as several short stories and screenplays. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as a software engineer, including work on the space shuttle program and communications satellites. TANKBORN, published by Tu Books, is her first young adult science fiction novel. She lives in northern California with her husband, three cats, and an Andalusian/Morgan mare. For more information about Sandler, visit karensandler.net.

 

 

Adding another language to my pitiful repertoire

- Stacy

I post four times in one week, and then I disappear for a week [ETA: whoops, I guess it was two weeks]. Yep, I’m like that. And next week I’m disappearing again, this time not just online but IRL: I’m heading off for a camping trip. I’m looking forward to getting out of the city.

So what’s been happening, everyone? As for me, as any of you who are on Facebook know—because FB is really good about getting the word out about birthdays!—it was my birthday this last weekend. Friday was a Summer Friday for me, as well, so I had a nice long, relaxing weekend involving bike riding along the Hudson River, eating Korean food with friends, watching Cowboys and Aliens, and learning Korean.

That last one: Yep. I’ve been putting off actually learning it for over a decade. I first had an interest back in the late 90s when I roomed with two Korean girls in succession, who were both here to learn English before going to college. Hyun Mi was a culinary arts major who was always bringing us home desserts from school but who never cooked at home. “Cereal,” she’d say, “is the food of the gods.”

We hung out a lot with the Korean student community in Provo back then, and I tended to only get half the conversations because, of course, the other half were in Korean. So I’ve wanted to learn it ever since, but assumed that learning it would be way too hard for me, who didn’t do well even in German and whose grasp of Spanish still involves more understanding than an ability to form coherent sentences.

But with all these Korean TV shows I’ve been watching lately, I’ve decided it’s time to actually do more than mean to get to it someday. And you’d be surprised how much you can pick up when you’re reading subtitles and start to notice repetitions in what you’re hearing. Usually of the melodramatic variety, of course—sorry, I love you, please forgive me, those sorts of phrases and words.

So I bought a very basic book and CD set that teaches some very 101 Korean, and after a week of working on it, I’m already able to start reading a few names in Hangeul (Korean writing)! I can recognize the letters that form the syllables kim, seung, jeon, and a few others. I can now not only say hello (which is the only thing I’ve remembered all these years) but also goodbye and have finally figured out why sometimes Koreans say “annyeong” and sometimes they say “annyeonghaseo.” (The first is informal and only happens with friends and others close to you, the other is the polite way to say hello to strangers/those of higher stature/elders.)

Hey, it’s a start! I’m having fun.

And I can practice a little at lunchtime—I work not far from Koreatown, where I often eat lunch, so it’ll be fun to eventually be able to parse out the signs in Hangeul.

And who knows? Maybe next year I might top off this latest kick with a trip to Korea.

New York, New York

- Stacy 1 Comment

I’ve been meaning to post pictures to Facebook of all the things I’ve been up to lately (including pictures of my CUTE nephews from my visit as I drove through on my way to New York), but I can’t seem to find my sync cord for my camera to my home computer. I was able to upload the pictures to my work computer via a borrowed card reader, which means I can now put them on my jump drive and take them home, but I keep forgetting to.

So, while I kill an hour before meeting a friend for dinner—not enough time to go all the way home to Harlem—I thought I’d post a few pictures that I’ve taken around the city and on my way here. It’s been too long since I shared my photography (too long since I took pictures on a regular basis!). I found pictures from LTUE in February that I’ve been meaning to post for about a month or so, as well. But I’ll do those in a separate post, because I have enough from New York to fill one post.

Some pictures of a recent trip to New York before I moved. Apparently I forgot to get the camera out except for at the top of the Empire State Building—my first time up there despite many trips to NYC by that time.

View of the Chrystler Building and the Queensboro Bridge (I think)
View of the Chrystler Building and the Queensboro Bridge (I think)

View of southern Manhattan, with the Statue of Liberty just barely seen silhoutted in the distance.
View of southern Manhattan, with the Statue of Liberty just barely seen silhoutted in the distance.
The Flatiron Building and just a little bit of Madison Square Park. I work about 3 or 4 blocks north of here, and on nice days it's nice to go down to the park at lunchtime.
The Flatiron Building and just a little bit of Madison Square Park. I work about 3 or 4 blocks north of here, and on nice days it's nice to go down to the park at lunchtime.
Me, at the top of the Empire State Building
Me, at the top of the Empire State Building

A dizzying view of the streets of NYC from the top of the Empire State Bldg.
A dizzying view of the streets of NYC from the top of the Empire State Bldg.
- Stacy

I’m back from my trip to New York City. It was really nice to see everyone, and those of you I missed, I’m sure I’ll catch you on the next trip, which I’ll take more time to plan. 🙂 I also made it to The Strand for the first time, and wow! I think I want to live there. Just set up my little leather chair and ottoman and read to my heart’s content. I took some pictures with my cell phone, but I need to find my microdisc adapter before I can post them. It’s just a 2 megapixel little cell phone, not my regular nice camera, so the clarity isn’t so hot, but it was fun to memorialize a little of my trip.

There are some things in the works which I’m not ready to talk about on the blog yet, but hopefully I’ll be able to post about them soon when I get all the information together.

In the meantime, I was thinking about all the reading that I’ve done recently, and it occurred to me that this is the perfect place to talk to bookish people about all those good books.

So: what have I read lately?

Alcatraz vs. the Scrivener’s Bones by Brandon Sanderson. Disclaimer: Brandon is a friend of mine from college. But who cares? Whether I know him or not, the book is funny–even funnier than the first book, Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians (well, disclaimer on that too: I read book 1 in draft form, so I bet book 1 in print is even funnier).

I got started on Bad Kitty by Michelle Jaffe (the YA novel, not the picture book) before the flood happened, and I haven’t had a chance to finish it yet. So that goes back in the TBR list (i.e., books I want to read but don’t have physical copies for for the TBR pile). As far as I read, I was enjoying the snarky teen girl voice.

The Luxe by Anna Godberson. I had expectations going into the paperback version–because I think I had read spoiler at some point–that were conf
irmed by the end, but despite my expectations being confirmed I loved the way this story was told. One thing I did not expect was five different viewpoints, but it was really amazing how it all fit together so well, despite the different characters’ vastly different agendas. We in publishing can often make generalizations about the number of viewpoints a book should have; this book is a great example of the exception to he rule. If you’re thinking about doing more than one viewpoint in a book you’re currently working on, The Luxe is one to look at as a craft example. I’ve been told that its sequel, Rumors, is even better, so that goes in the TBR list.

Currently reading

Lamplighter by D.M. Cornish. The sequel to Monster Blood Tattoo (or Foundling, as it’s now called, and now the series name is Monster Blood Tattoo), which I heard on audio. Highly recommend that listening experience–I loved the narrator. I’m not very far into Lamplighter yet so I can’t really comment on it–yet!

Skinned by Robin Wasserman. Seems like science fiction for teens is taking a turn from the dystopian, which I’m really glad to see. There’s so much more to science fiction than that one subgenre. So far so good–the main character Lia Kahn is in an accident that nearly kills her and her consciousness is downloaded into a new body. It’s almost a zombie meets an android, I suppose–it almost fits in with books like Zombie Blondes and Generation Dead, but not quite–so if you have readers who liked those books this might be one of those "if you liked _________ then you might enjoy ________" recommendations (depending on the reader, of course). It looks like it’s going to tackle some interesting subjects while Lia deals with being dead, but not dead.

On the TBR pile/list (not comprehensive! 🙂 and amazingly enough, they’re not all YA)

Manolito Four-Eyes by Elvira Lindo
How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justina Larbalestier
The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, and The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
My Rotten Life: Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie by David Lubar (this looks HILARIOUS)–ARC for the book coming out Aug. 2009, so no link yet
Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi (a YA branch-off in the world of Old Man’s War)
Veil of Lies: A Medieval Noir by Jeri Westerson
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama (which I’ve been meaning to read for a couple years, and wanted to read before the election)
Lord Loss by Darren Shan
Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey
The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett (this is an ARC–the book doesn’t come out until March of 2009)
Minders of Make-Believe by Leonard S. Marcus (another one that I started before the flood but hadn’t gotten through before all the craziness began. I fou
nd it at The Strand for $13! I heart The Strand!)
The Good Neighbors–Book One: Kin by Holly Black and Ted Naifeh
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci (which also looks hilarious–stories about geeky life). Also, another ARC for a book coming out Aug. 2009, so no link yet.
Sovay by Celia Rees. This looks awesome, but I haven’t started it yet. It’s about a rich teen girl in the late 1700s who becomes a highway robber. If you’ve read Witch Child, it’s the same author. I LOVED Witch Child, though its sequel, Sorceress, wasn’t as strong. I haven’t had a chance to read Pirates! but I’ve heard good things about it.
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. I’ve been meaning to read Grace Lin’s books for a while, so I’m excited to get a chance to read the ARC of her new book, which comes out next year.
Meg Cabot’s 1-800-WHERE-R-YOU series.

Oh, and another reason I love The Strand? Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day? for $10.50. Not even Amazon has that price. I had this book as a kid but I can’t find my copy of it. I also had the fairy tale book–little kitty as Little Red Riding Hood? It was awesome! I didn’t go looking for it, though. Too much temptation, if I found the Richard Scarry section. I
didn’t go with a lot of extra money in my pocket. But oh, the temptation! I think this is an updated version of a book my brother and sister and I had as kids. My brother had Cars and Trucks and Things That Go. I think one of these days I need to get them all and do an homage post to Richard Scarry.

Jetting off

- Stacy

I’m taking a trip to New York City this week. I’m leaving on a redeye tomorrow night and staying through Saturday. It’s going to be a short little trip, but I’m excited to see the city again and see friends I haven’t seen in a while.

If you’re in the area, perhaps we might have a get together or do some touristy things. I’ve talked to a number of you already and started to make plans, but I’m still looking for fun things to do, so comment here or email if you’ll be around.

Sadly, there will be no pictures because my camera was ruined in the flood. But perhaps it will make me remember all the more, because I won’t spend half my time behind a camera. 🙂