Enchanted Conversation: Call for Submissions

Enchanted Conversation, "a journal where lovers of fairy tales can write and read and find community" is calling for submissions for its first issue! The theme for the first issue is focused on the "Sleeping Beauty" fairy tale. Guidelines for submissions can be found on the site and authors will be paid for their work. The deadline for this first issue is November 15, 2009, so you have some time to create and revise.

When the Library System Shuts Down

From August 31--September 7, 2009, all Seattle Public Library branches will be closed due to budget cuts. No employees will be paid during this enforced furlough. Seattle is supposed to be one of the most literate cities in the United States. Library closures mock this claim.

While there used to be equal reciprocal borrowing between Seattle Public Library and King County Library System, that is no longer the case. Seattle residents may use KCLS databases and borrow KCLS materials when they go to a specific branch, but Seattle residents may not place holds on KCLS items. This change was implemented because more Seattle residents borrow from KCLS than KCLS borrows from SPL. This makes sense: KCLS has more money, and can purchase more materials. The reciprocal borrowing agreement states why Seattle residents can't buy KCLS library cards and why the two systems can't merge. KCLS gets much of its funding from property taxes while SPL gets its funding from the city's general fund.

The SPL website reciprocal agreement page says:

We deeply regret any inconvenience this change causes. Both KCLS and SPL look forward to continuing our long history of cooperation and commitment to excellent library service to all residents of King County, regardless of jurisdictional boundaries.

I am not interested in regrets unless they spur us on to fix what is broken. I want full reciprocal borrowing privileges reinstated. I want my elected officials to recognize libraries as providing core services relating to literacy and education. I want my libraries to remain open. If the current funding plan doesn't work (obviously it doesn't), then fix it. If KCLS can remain open by being funded by property taxes, then perhaps Seattle should get on board as well. As KCLS director Bill Ptacek said in 2004, "The primary thing a library does is be open." ("Libraries for All, Except When They're Closed" by Susan Byrnes)

Stars and Stories

YA/Teen writer Justine Larbalestier's blog post Very Wrong Questions (which links to her fellow writer Ally Carter's blog post The Wrong Questions...) resonates with me and reminds me of why I quietly dropped out of my local SCBWI chapter. I enjoyed hearing the guest speakers, but the questions so often depressed me. I also didn't have a finished manuscript. I still don't.

However, now I'm ready to think again about working on a longer manuscript. There's a story I want to tell. It's the kind of story I want to read. It deals with space-travel, the longing to connect with beings on other planets in the universe, and the frustration of slower-than-light travel that currently stymies humanity's thirst for exploration and discovery even more than the money involved to undertake such ventures. It's character-driven.

It's altogether possible that you will never read it. I would be thrilled if I wrote and edited a manuscript that I felt was worthy enough for you to read. If it were also worthy enough of publication, that would be wonderful, too. However, I realize that all these years, my internal pressure to have written rather than to write has sabotaged my will to create stories.

I remember a moment years ago when I rode the escalator from one level of a bookstore to another. I looked down at the shelves and tables of books, and suddenly felt melancholy. "I'm so glad I don't have a book down there," I thought. The expanses of books that might never be brought home and read made me feel overwhelmed. How odd, then, that entering a library or looking up at the night sky brings exhilaration and excitement over the possibilities of discovery.

If after we die, we get to have our questions answered, my husband and I both know what our first question will be: "Is there alien life on other planets?" We'd really like to find out the answer to that question in our lifetimes, but we will take what we can get.

Now, if there is alien life, the next question might be, "Is it friendly?" And perhaps that answer would be, "It depends. How friendly are humans, anyway?"

Touché.

Guitars Break United Airlines (or at least bend them a bit)

I appreciate it when an artist shames a big big beaurocratic organization into realizing that they can't get away with bad policies. I don't know if United Airlines' policies will change, but David Carroll of the band Sons of Maxwell have certainly made the airline pay attention after baggage handlers broke his Taylor guitar. For almost a year, Carroll, tried to get some compensation, only to be put off repeatedly. Finally, he asked United to compensate him for the repair of his guitar with airline vouches. That offer was rejected. Carroll wrote,

At that moment it occurred to me that I had been fighting a losing battle all this time and that fighting over this at all was a waste of time. The system is designed to frustrate affected customers into giving up their claims and United is very good at it. However I realized then that as a songwriter and traveling musician I wasn’t without options. In my final reply to Ms. Irlweg I told her that I would be writing three songs about United Airlines and my experience in the whole matter. I would then make videos for these songs and share them on YouTube, inviting viewers to vote on their favourite United song. My goal: to get one million hits in one year.

Carroll did better. The first video went viral. You can read the first part of the story here and the continuation here. You can view the videos themselves here:

United Breaks Guitars Song 1

United Breaks Guitars Song 2

While Carroll would have preferred that his Taylor guitar had never been broken in the first place, I'm pleased that he was able to take the experience and turn it into something bigger than himself. I am tempted to start humming "United Breaks Guitars" the next time I deal with a difficult airline policy and mention casually, "By the way, I'm a songwriter."

Math, Music, and Marie-in-the-Garden

Here at last are the dolls I've been working on. The Royal Math Gnomes have been a project long in the making (and briefly halted when I wasn't able to sew), but are now finally listed in the shop. The hypertext links below the photos will take you directly to the shop listing:


Royal Math Gnomes

I'm thinking of the Royal Math Gnomes as a showcase project. As promised, I've made a singular Accounting Wizard Math Gnome:


Accounting Wizard Math Gnome

I had a lot of fun creating the Music Elemental. The hood is embroidered with fermata symbols, and the cape has both a segno and a coda. The bottom of the cape has notes that portray a simple waltz. I made a guitar for the elemental, and then realized that the guitar needed a stand. I reined myself in from sewing an electronic sound system:


Music Elemental

Last but not least, here is Marie in the Garden. This past summer, a Waldorf teacher saw one of my dolls and said, "She reminds me of the song and game 'Marie in the Garden'." She sang:

Marie in the garden, the garden, Marie,
She is as tiny as she can be.
Marie in the garden, the garden, Marie,
Open your eyes, now where is she?

In the game, the children hide their eyes while the teacher tucks Marie away in a pocket. When they open their eyes, they have to guess where the doll is hidden.


Marie in the Garden

I'm quite pleased to be a brand new member of the Etsy street team called Natural Kids! It's an active promotional team with certain rules for qualification, one of which is that a person has to have been an active seller for 3 months prior to application. I'm glad to be finally on board.

This post was updated on August 24, 2009.

Third Annual Kidlitosphere Conference

I thought I had already written about the Third Annual Kidlitosphere Conference, or "KidLitCon" as people are starting to call it. Then, I realized that I'd had it as part of a post in draft form that I never published. MotherReader is organizing it this year. The conference will be in Washington, D.C. on October 17.

I grew up in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area and also lived there for two years during library school. There are a number of good things about that area. Free admission to museums is at the top of the list. I remember the first time I ever visited the Air and Space Museum. I was thrilled. I was in love with outer space. The piece of moon-rock at the entrance is probably the closest I'll ever get to touching the moon, but there was a lot of "scope for the imagination" as Anne of Green Gables would say. I saw my first IMAX film there (To Fly) and was introduced to the short film The Powers of 10. As the years passed, I had the privilege of viewing a number of traveling exhibitions. The penultimate special exhibit I visited was the Vermeer exhibit with my grandmother in 1998. We had free advance tickets and then stood two hours in the snow before admittance to the gallery. I wore two pairs of woolen socks and was still frozen through. It was worth it! The following year, I almost had my first date with Bede when he invited me to go the Pre-Raphaelite exhibit. I wasn't able to go when he asked me, as I was working*, but I went later, and kept the flyer. (Even though we wouldn't get together for another two years, I still thought of it as our "almost date.")

Unfortunately, I will not be in attendance this year. I would have liked to have met those of you who live in that area. I'll be heading East for a wedding the previous weekend and will have a chance to spend time with family a little further north.

*Why we didn't try to get together for another excursion probably had to do with each liking the other person but not knowing if the feeling was mutual. A few weeks later, Bede headed off to Seattle and I went to New York.

Felt Elephants Upon a Spider's Web

I'm ready to emerge from my brief hiatus. I've been able to rest some, my thumb has healed to the point that it's no longer keeping me up at night, and I can sew again! Thank you for all of your kind, supportive comments. I look forward to catching up on your blogs over the next couple of days.

A little over a month ago, I posted a song I was preparing for French camp about five elephants balancing on a spiderweb. The week has arrived for me to present the song, and I have the felt-board figures for it:



I also completed my Royal Math Gnomes for the shop. I'll post photos on Crafty Thursday. I have singular Accounting Gnomes planned for future listings. As of this time, it appears that people searching for the kinds of dolls I make are more likely to find them if I post information about the dolls on this blog and on Flickr.

The Pause

Q: What is the difference between a cat and a comma?
A: One has claws at the ends of its paws. The other's a pause at the end of a clause.

It was only one digit-joint that got squished in the car trunk door, yet the pain has sapped my energy and curtailed my sewing. Last Saturday was also the 6th anniversary of my youngest brother's death. I usually put some sort of marker in honor of him on this blog, but this year I just didn't have it in me to do so.

Usually, when I say that I'm taking a blog vacation, I get a sudden burst of creativity that inspires me to write anew. I hope that the process of creation will happen once again.

And now, I'm going to stick my thumb in a glass of ice water. :)

The Show Must Go On

I had two gigs last weekend. One was great, and one was not. Fortunately, the great one was on Sunday and the experience was the opposite of the one on Saturday in every way. I know it's unrealistic to expect every storytime to be wonderful, but I always strive to give my best performance possible despite factors beyond my control. The Sunday performance helped to take away some of the sting of the Saturday performance, and the commiseration of friends and fellow performers helped with the rest.

This morning, my "best performance possible" was put to the test when I slammed my left thumb into the car door trunk right before my monthly gig at Third Place Books. For a split-second, I just couldn't believe it. Fortunately, the car keys were still in the trunk door, and I got it open. As I looked over the damage, Lucia was yelling, "I don't want to see it! I don't want to see it!" I insisted she get out of the car while I ran indoors to get bandages for the thumb, but I didn't have time to put the hand in ice-water before the gig. I made it to the bookstore in time, and before I started, I explained to the audience what had happened. I said "Sometimes one has to smile through the pain, and I wanted to let you know what happened in case I grimaced during the program."

I was able to fret the chords, tell my stories and finish well. Afterward, I got to hang out for a bit with Eric Herman and his daughters, who were kind enough to make it to the storytime before Eric's evening performance at Crossroads Bellevue. Lucia, Bede and I attended that concert as well and had a good time (I got to be the "Local Celebrity Judge" for the dance contest again!). We all wish that we could see Eric and family more often, and may very well have to take a trip to the Tri-Cities area of Washington so that our visits aren't just once-a-year occurences.

It's been a hard week, and there have been moments that I wanted to crawl under the covers and sleep for weeks. Many thanks to all of my friends and family who helped the show to go on.

Liar cover to be changed for publication

From Publishers Weekly, A New Look For Liar, by Karen Springen:

Proof of the power of the web: Bloomsbury Children’s Books has told Publishers Weekly exclusively that it will change the controversial cover of Justine Larbalestier’s Liar. Bloggers, commentors and the author herself had criticized the publisher’s choice of a white girl with long, straight tresses for a novel about an African-American girl with “nappy” hair.

Good. Thanks to Melangell of Pipers at the Gates of Dawn for the link.

'Possum's Dilemma

Brer Possum’s Dilemma is an African-American folktale retold by Jackie Torrence. If you click on the link, you may read the story in its entirety. This story of a kind-hearted opossum who listens to the seductive pleadings of the snake despite knowing that snakes are bad news is an interesting counterpoint to the Good Samaritan parable. It's a hard lesson, and it hurts.

What do you look for in a museum?

From the New York Times: At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap, but Few Stay to Focus, by Michael Kimmelman:

...[T]ourists now wander through museums, seeking to fulfill their lifetime’s art history requirement in a day, wondering whether it may now be the quantity of material they pass by rather than the quality of concentration they bring to what few things they choose to focus upon that determines whether they have “done” the Louvre. It’s self-improvement on the fly.

I've always had a hard time going to galleries with other people. I like to go at my own particular pace. Sometimes I want to spend a long time with pieces that draw me in, and other times, I just want to whirl through. I'm not very adventuresome in my artistic tastes. I was one of those freshman college kids who had Monet posters on her wall, and it took me years to appreciate Picasso and Pollack. These days, I still gravitate toward the Italian Renaissance artists.

Bede and I are pretty fortunate in that our ways of visiting galleries are compatible. When we went to Italy for our honeymoon, we realized that the Uffizi gallery in Florence was so overwhelming that we would have to find a focal point in order to be able to begin to appreciate the treasures before us. That was when we decided to look out for Mary Magdalene in art. I wrote about this "I Spy" exercise four years ago in the blog post Magdalene in Florence and Rome.

What about you? How do you experience art? Do you prefer the ajoining gift shop? Growing up outside of Washington, D.C., my favorite gift shop was the one in the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of American History because of its fabulous collections of paper-dolls. The Smithsonian Natural History museum's gift shop was great, too, because of all the stones and bones.