The English Inquisitor

Ever thought of trying to publish some of your writing? It can seem like a daunting process, sending out letters and excerpts, and getting rejection letter after another.

But more and more frequently writers are turning to the internet. Between online publications like Slate.com, traditional newspapers going more online to cut costs, and writers themselves just deciding to put their stuff out there. At the National Book Awards, Maxine Hong Kingston, a published writer many times over, described how she published her own work on the internet. She wrote a letter, sent it out to many newspapers, but no one would publish it. So she put it out herself. 

Some of our students are doing the same. Raven is in 10th grade, taking English with us at FLVS. She writes a regular blog for the Herald Tribune. It’s been a great way for Raven to start to get her foot in the journalism door. Check out Raven’s blog, Teens Today.

If you really want to publish, you have the tools in your hands to get your stuff out there!

Episode 4 – Wordstock

Authors

• Shannon Wheeler works as a graphic artist, producing comics, graphic novels, and other ventures.
• Bonny Becker and Laura Kvasnosky share their passion for writing for children. Bonny has written “A Visitor for Bear” now on the New York Times Best Sellers List and Laura  has written many picture books including the Zelda and Ivey series.
• Ellen Heltzel and Margo Hammond are The Book Babes! They have a new book out, and radio show with WMNF 88.5 FM based out of Tampa, FL. You can listen to them online here!
• John Hodgman plays the PC in the Apple commercials. The man is seriously funny. Don’t discount him for his minor tv commercial fame. He’s an awesome writer.

Literary Events

• Leon County Books Groups
• Moonrise Book Group in Jacksonville
• Florida Writers Conference November 14th – 16th in Lake Mary
• Miami Book Fair November 9 -16

So what is NaNoWriMo?

The Young Writers Program of National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your- pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a novel by midnight, November 30. The word-count goal for our adult program is 50,000 words, but our Young Writers Program allows participants who are 17 years old and younger to set reasonable, yet challenging, word-count goals.

I will be working in the challenge, and am very excited! Please join me for a month full of writing fun!

The only thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: you will be writing a lot of strange stuff, and some of it will be just plain bad. But that’s a good thing! For 30 days, you get to lock that inner editor in the basement, let your imagination take over, and just create!

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants of all ages are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel.

In 2007, over 100,000 adults participated through our main site, and 14,000 young writers participated through our Young Writers Program.

Click on the image below to go to the website

From AlanGratz.com: “Alan is the author of one of the ALA’s 2007 Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults, Samurai Shortstop (Dial 2006), and a 2008 ALA Quick Pick for Young Adult Readers, Something Rotten (Dial 2007). A sequel, Something Wicked (Dial 2008), is on shelves now. His first book for middle grade readers, The Brooklyn Nine (Dial 2009) debuts in March 2009, just in time for the baseball season.”

Riffing off of Hamlet, Something Rotten is a great read! “A stinking-rich family. A reeking paper plant. A murder most foul. Something is definitely rotten in Denmark, Tennessee, and only 17-year-old etective Horatio Wilkes can sniff out the killer.”

And you can read it for FREE! But only until November 30. Click here, here, here, or even here to read this great book!

The Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington D.C. is putting on an all-male version of Romeo and Juliet. The director felt that it brought out new aspects of the play he wasn’t familiar with before. Remember that during Shakespeare’s time, women were not allowed to perform on stage, so all of the parts were always played by men. Are they performing the play the way it was originally intended? Or is it just a ploy?

Listen to an interview on NPR with the play’s director and the man playing Juliet HERE.

Shakespeare Theatre Company Website - Watch a video and see pictures of the production.

Resources and Articles:

It’s a Man’s World by Akiva Fox

About All Male Productions

Harper Collins will be posting free books on its website. For more information, check out the New York Times Article by Motoko Rich.

Titles to be offered: “The Witch of Portobello” by Mr. Coelho; “Mission: Cook! My Life, My Recipes and Making the Impossible Easy” by Mr. Irvine; “I Dream in Blue: Life, Death and the New York Giants” by Roger Director; “The Undecided Voter’s Guide to the Next President: Who the Candidates Are, Where They Come from and How You Can Choose” by Mark Halperin; and “Warriors: Into the Wild”  by Erin Hunter. Also a graphic novel by Neil Gaiman will be available soon.

“To posterity the balding man in the courtroom was the greatest writer in the English language. To the maidservant formerly employed at his lodgings, he was “one Mr Shkespeare that laye in the house.” To the Court of Requests, taking depositions in a lawsuit in 1612, he was simply a witness who gave his statement, signed a hurried “Wm Shakspe” and then took his leave.”

This is an excerpt from a review, “The Tenant Who Wrote ‘Macbeth’” by William Grimes. The book uses historical records to put together a picture of the Bard. You can read the rest of the review of The Lodger Shakespeare at The New York Times.

“The Story of ‘Night’” by Rachel Donadio in The New York Times

“This fall, Elie Wiesel’s “Night” was removed from the New York Times best-seller list, where it had spent an impressive 80 weeks after Oprah Winfrey picked it for her book club. The Times’s news survey department, which compiles the list, decided the Holocaust memoir wasn’t a new best seller but a classic like “Animal Farm” or “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which sell hundreds of thousands of copies a year largely through course adoptions. Indeed, since it appeared in 1960, “Night” has sold an estimated 10 million copies — three million of them since Winfrey chose the book in January 2006 (and traveled with Wiesel to Auschwitz).”

Click HERE to read the rest of the article.

From History.com: On this day in 1978, Toni Morrison wins the National Book Critics Circle Award for Song of Solomon. The award brought the writer national attention for the first time, although she had already published two moderately successful books, The Bluest Eye (1969) and Sula (1973). Morrison went on to win the Pulitzer in 1988 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. For more information about Toni Morrison and her award, you can go to History.com.