Etc.

The winners of the 2012 CHILDREN’S WRITER’S AND ILLUSTRATOR’S MARKET, edited by Chuck Sambuchino, are…

Erik Metz
Laura Burdette

Email me your addresses at mary at kidlit dot com!

For the rest of you, it’s still not too late to treat yourself or the kidlit writer and/or illustrator in your life to this fantastic, info-packed book. It makes great pampering for yourself or a fabulous gift for others…or both. And don’t forget to review it on Amazon and Goodreads!

With Thanksgiving coming up tomorrow, it’s important to stop and acknowledge how amazing it is that we’re all brought here together by the love of children’s books, creativity, and making something lasting that will inspire and teach others.

Meanwhile, I leave you with two of my favorite web comics. The first is about a common writing error and, if you haven’t seen it, you might want to check your pulse as you could very well be a ghost. I present, the Alot. (I often have to physically restrain myself from sending this link to people who make this mistake to me in email.)

The other perfectly encapsulates the existential malaise of social networking and building platform. You can find this “it’s funny because it’s true” bit of wisdom here. (Speaking of which, I just wrote about platform a few weeks ago.)

I wish you all the blessings of time spent together with family and friends this holiday season. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a turkey to brine…

This Summer, non-profit organization LitWorld is bringing the power of story to hundreds of young people from Kenya to Harlem, and they need your help! LitWorld is calling out to the community to help by donating books and school supplies as they embark on two important summer missions:

KENYA:

On July 8, 2011, members of the LitWorld team are headed to Kenya to visit our partners at the Children of Kibera Foundation. LitWorld works very closely with the Children of Kibera Foundation’s Red Rose School, where we run programs such as the Girls Clubs for Literacy Project. The Red Rose School is a beacon of hope for the children of Kibera, and is a positive learning environment providing education for children who are HIV/AIDS orphans.

HARLEM:

Starting this summer, LitWorld will set up the Story Power Camp project, a summer reading enrichment program for the youth of the Children’s Village, Polo Grounds Community Center. The Story Power Camp aims to engage young people in reading and writing through fun, interactive activities, while encouraging each participant to boldly share their personal stories. The Children’s Village works in partnership with families to help society’s most vulnerable children so that they become educationally proficient, economically productive and socially responsible members of their communities.

To contribute, view their wishlist via Amazon here (donations are being accepted until 6/30/2011): http://tinyurl.com/litworlddrive

I’m in Utah and preparing for my keynote this morning. I will post Thursday or Friday with Workshop #2 instead.

Also, I have to address some of the comments. I was using the term “passive voice” in a different context other than subject/object stuff. However, “was” is a big signal for both definitions of the passive voice, the more technical that I linked to, and the more craft-and-writing-oriented one, where I mean that voice just lies flat on the page. This is also signified by “was” a lot of the time. Sorry for the confusion, none of that was originally articulated by me.

A lot of the time I take writing textbook terms and use them as a jumping-off point. This is one case. It made more sense in my head.