12:42
I’m at the “Redefining the World” conference in a small town in Upstate New York. The children’s book author, Vivian Vande Velde, is talking to a large group of school library media specialists. She has already talked that one of the challenges of writing books is the limited amount of influence authors typically have on the post production of their books. She said that she has had a better experience than others, but I can vouch for that problem.
As I’m sure I have reported before in the blog, I am now publishing books using an online service, where I have complete control over the layout, illustrations, and even the price. Vivian is showing pictures from her books and talking through stories related to the book and stories from her life. She is an excellent and amazing story teller, and I look forward to reading some of her books.
By the way, many of you have realized that my blog has changed. I finally realized how much time I am spending troubling ongoing problems with the RSS files that my homemade blogging tool was generated. So I gave it a try, and sure enough, I had WordPress installed on my server in less than five minutes, and the theme laid out in less than 30 minutes more. I like it, and the RSS files seem to be dependable.
It’s getting close to time for me to do my presentation on weblogs and RSS. Great fun!
What fun. One of Vivian’s earliest YA novels was a vampire love story where the vampires used the internet to keep each other abreast of the activity of “vampire hunters.”
I hope you get a chance to meet Adam Rapp at a conference some time. He’s a really great guy. I strongly recommend “Buffalo Tree” (think Shawshank Redemption with teens)….even edgier is “33 Snowfish.” Adam’s not afraid to challenge kids to examine what life is like for some of their less fortunate peers.
Librarians are taking to blogging in a big way as you may be discovering out on the conference circuit. It’s a great tool for organizing all the minutiae that used to to fill the Vertical File and it’s not a bad tool for readers’ advisory.