It's the 2013 Comment Challenge Finale!

So, how did it go?

***

Commenting is a good habit to get into

it reminds me that I am not the only one who like[s] comments.

-Alex

I found some great new blogs and connected/reconnected with some amazing people. I even joined a conversation on another person's blog that continued back and forth there before it moved over to my blog as we shared similar interests. What fun!

-Michelle

My goal was to change my thinking about comments…

one of the things this challenge reminded me is that one of the best things about blogging is the dialogue.

-Debra

I visited everyone who signed up.
I've got some new boo[k]s to read and found some wonderful posts. A very enjoyable journey.

-Susan

it was a lot easier this year than last year, because after last year, I kept commenting regularly!

-Mrs. Silverstein

It was my first year in the comment challenge, and I had a great time! I loved having new visitors to my blog, and I stretched myself to leave thoughtful, reflective comments on as many blogs as I could visit. (Even when captcha attempted to thwart me!)
Definitely a win - win experience!

-Cathy

While I was nowhere close to 100, I definitely commented more than I ever have and I loved it!

-Stacey

This was my first time participating in the challenge. It led me to some wonderful posts and I discovered blogs that were new to me. Thanks for hosting.

-Jeanette

This was my first time doing some like this and I really enjoyed it! I found so many wonderful blogs and added a lot of books to my reading list. …It's helped get me into the habit of commenting (and not overthinking the comments)!

-Katrina

at it's core the Comment Challenge is a reminder that we're all connected by a love of kid lit that we share across the kidlitosphere, and that's a beautiful thing.

-Lee

***

It's been 21 days, and the goal was to leave 5 comments a day on kid lit blogs.  We gave you one day off, so the numerical goal was 100 comments.  But there were other goals, hidden inside (and besides) those numbers.  Tell us about those, too!

Leave us your responses in comments here (you're so good at that by now!) and I'll update the body of this post with some choice quotes throughout the day and weekend ahead.

Winners will be randomly selected for prizes (kid lit and teen books, naturally) and MotherReader and I will announce those next week.

I'm off to New York for the Winter SCBWI Conference, so the comments will be approved in bunches - please be patient with me (and with my internet connectivity on a travel day!)

I'm still (somewhat unrealistically) aiming for 100 comments, but I figure I have until the end of the last day... today!  So I'll chime in a little later on with how I ultimately did...  stay tuned.

***
Lee's final update, at 11:43pm Thursday January 31, 2013:  This year was really challenging.  I got nowhere near 100 comments, clocking in at 35 total.  I know, I know.  But I'm determined to keep going and visit EVERYONE's blog who signed up.  Participating did make me realize that I miss the interactions and discussions and engagement, as I've become so busy that my blog-hopping and commenting has really slowed down... and I did enjoy the blog reading and commenting I managed to do!  I learned something else, too:  It's okay to not be perfect.  Sure, I wanted to get to 100 to be a good example, but perhaps this year I'm an example that there's a lot to be gained from the comment challenge even if you just put more intention into the blog reading you do!  Even if you leave a handful, or even one, comment more than you might usually do.  Because while it's great to cultivate a new habit like 5 comments a day, at it's core the Comment Challenge is a reminder that we're all connected by a love of kid lit that we share across the kidlitosphere, and that's a beautiful thing.
***

I'm grateful to all 73 people who signed up for participating, and to everyone reading this for being part of our wonderful kidlitosphere community!

I hope the Comment Challenge fired you up about commenting on blogs and participating in the online discussions more throughout the year ahead.  We'll be back in 2014, and until then...

Comment On!
Lee

One In Every Crowd: Stories for and about Queer Youth

One in Every Crowd by Ivan E. Coyote

Comprised of new stories and others culled from previous collections, One in Every Crowd is for anyone who has ever felt different or alone in their struggle to be true to themselves. Included are stories about Ivan's own tomboy past in Canada's north, where playing hockey and wearing pants were the norm; and about her adult life in the big city, where she encounters both cruelty and kindness in unexpected places. Then there are the tales of family and friends who live their lives by example, like Francis, the curly-haired little boy who likes to wear dresses, and the brave kids she meets at queer youth camp.

Funny, inspiring, and full of heart, One in Every Crowd is really for everyone; it's about embracing and celebrating difference and feeling comfortable in one's own skin, no matter what the circumstance.

Add your review of "One in Every Crowd" in comments!

Blue Magic - A Teen Lesbian Dystopian Novel with Magic and a Transgender Parent

"Blue Magic" by A.M. Dellamonica

Astrid Lethewood fears the chaos and violence that has sprung up in the newly magical world, and seeks to find a solution for the impending global apocalypse. She must work against her former best friend, Sahara Knax, who, after becoming a fanatic self-proclaimed goddess, is now on trial for treason. Astrid’s quest to stop the apocalypse is complicated by her romantic feelings for Sahara, which Sahara had manipulated to achieve her own ends. What’s more, Astrid’s mother now goes by the name of Everett, having transformed into a man.

Conflicting ambitions, star-crossed lovers, and those who fear and hate magic combine in a terrible conflagration, pitting friend against friend, magic against magic, and the power of nations against a small band of zealots—all with the fate of the world at stake.

This book is the sequel to Dellamonica’s 2009 Sunburst Award-winning novel "Indigo Springs."  Add your review of "Blue Magic" in comments!

On Fuddy Duddiness - A Guest Post By Ryka Aoki

Ryka Aoki

Maybe I am a fuddy duddy. Maybe I'm a workaholic. Maybe I'm a spoilsport, a killer of dreams, a wet blanket. Maybe I need to go to Disneyland again. But I have to say it.
Most of us will never become movie stars. Even here in Hollywood, most of us will not be discovered by a director, or a music producer. A very few of us might. But not really too likely. We may start in this queer film or that queer film, but are you really expecting to parlay that into major studio success?

Nobody is going to become wealthy and secure by lip synching Lady Gaga, no matter how well. We already have someone who does this. She is called Lady Gaga and, from what I can tell, she performs her own stuff.

Besides, I know people who have succeeded in these businesses. You may know some, too. Most of them are fanatics. They put everything into their art--it's not all glamour--it's a lot of effort and most of it is unnoticed and misunderstood.

I worry about selling such dreams to our queer youth. We are stars and special, and amazing, yes--but to present the dream of success in a field that has destroyed so many--a field where being out is still a career killer--where people are paying their dues night after night without ever being in front of a camera. Are we really doing queer youth a service by saying you can be a star by just coming to our programs and being the fabulous you?

Everyone is fabulous, but that is both a great thing and a problem. Being fabulous is not enough. It takes luck and powerful friends and connections and often being monomaniacal to the point of insanity about your craft. It is not about being too cool for school. It is LIVING at school. Oh, and you can't just be fabulous--you have to be brilliant...gifted. Do you have any idea how GOOD some of these performers are?
When I ask an LGBT youth of color "What do you want to be?" and they reply with Madonna or Gaga or West or Minaj or whateverever, part of me breaks inside.

Somewhere, somehow "achievement" has been conflated with "fantasy." If you want to be an actor, great. A musician, great--but do you have the will to practice your craft and get better at it? Day in night in? As in not seeing your friends because you have to practice? As in having door after door shut in your face? As in dealing with all the cruelty the entertainment industry can throw at you?

Some people will say yes, and for them--go for it! But know what you are in for. You are going to be a trailblazer and the odds are that you will fail. If you have it in you, you won't care. In fact, you're probably too busy working to be reading this now.
But for those who want to be a star for the image, the identity, the fun... For those who won't give up partying now--it's just not going to work. And even if it did, chances are, you'd be too [f-ed] up to enjoy it.

I wish we wouldn't present stardom as the end point. I wish we would push continually reaching for excellence. I wish we would talk about working hard for something and getting closer each day. I wish we valued glitter less and determination more. I wish it would be less about building self esteem and more about building literacy. Less about being gorgeous for the cameras and more about improving living conditions.

Most of all, I wish we could present other options to our youth. A queer youth in LA has a greater chance of becoming a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a police officer, a restauranteur, a nurse, a CPA... than becoming the next media darling. This sort of excellence does not require luck nor knowing the right people, nor cameras nor glitter.

All it requires is a certain faith...a faith that you will be here tomorrow, and the day after. That if you work hard, you not only can...you will get better. That better means more opportunities and pride for yourself. That is what I wish we would present. That we'd work to help give our youth a faith in their tomorrows, and an accountability to their futures. Flash and glitter fades. Skills, knowledge and wisdom take you forward. Our youth are beautiful, yes... But we can help them be more than that. We can start them on the paths to being wise. We can help them believe that they can grow older, more fulfilled and grateful for every day ahead, that life is not something to burst in a dream, but something that can be nurtured, loved, and raised into ever more meaningful, beautiful and rewarding tomorrows. 

This brilliant essay originally ran here, and with Ryka's kind permission I'm sharing it.  Find out more about Ryka here.

Special Saturday Post! Los Angeles Writer's Days: A Two Day Conference Exploring Diversity In Children's Literature

One of my many hats that I wear in a silly-high stack is that I'm a co-Regional Advisor for the Los Angeles region of the Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators.  In that capacity, I'm working with a team of fellow volunteers to put on our annual Writer's Days conference, which will happen this year on Saturday March 9, 2013 and Sunday March 10, 2013.

The conference faculty is amazing (literary agent Adriana Dominguez of Full Circle Literary, editor Daniel Nayeri from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Book Group, New York Times Best-Selling Author Nikki Grimes, Award-Winning Author Malinda Lo, and Author/Illustrator Eugene Yelchin, who will be presented with his Crystal Kite Award for his illustrations of Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told In Haiku!)

One great benefit of a smaller regional event like this one is that it IS smaller - the faculty are right there with you to talk to! 

Saturday will be keynotes and panels and writing exercises all focused on Diversity - there are writing contests and awards!

Sunday offers four different intensive tracks to explore in more depth picture books, novels, poetry/novels-in-verse and world building.

I'm excited to share that the conference registration and information page is UP and registration is open!

So go check it out, and if you're going to be in the Los Angeles area on March 9 and 10, we'd love you to join us!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Obama's Inauguration Speech - Gay People (and our equality) are Included in the task and journey ahead! (But What About Transgender People?)

"We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths, that all of us are created equal, is the star that guides us still.  Just as it guided our forebearers through Seneca Falls, and Selma and Stonewall, just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great mall to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone, to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.  It is now our generation's task to carry on what those pioneers began.  For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.
Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law.  For if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well." 
- President Barack Obama, January 21, 2013, emphasis is mine

[13:30 in...]

Watch the entire speech here:



It's very cool to be included - and very important as well.

However, as this 11 year old transgender girl Sadie asked, why weren't transgender people included in the speech?

Here's a great video dialog about it:

And here's Sadie's letter in response to President Obama's speech:

It reads in full:

Sadie's Dream for the World

The world would be a better place if everyone had the right to be themselves, including people who have a creative gender identity and expression.  Transgender people are not allowed the freedom to do things everyone else does, like go to the docter [sic], go to school, get a job, and even make friends.

Transgender kids like me are not allowed to go to most schools because the teacher think we are different from everyone else.  The schools get afraid of how they will talk with the other kids' parents, and transgender kids are kept secret or told not to come there anymore.  Kids are told not to be friends with transgender kids, which makes us very lonely and sad.

When they grow up, transgender adults have a hard time getting a job because the boss thinks the customers will be scared away.  Doctors are afraid of treating transgender patients because they don't know how to take care of them, and some doctors don't really want to help them.  Transgender patients like me travel to other states to see a good doctor.

It would be a better world if everyone knew that transgender people have the same hopes and dreams as everyone else.  We like to make friends and want to go to school.  Transgender people want to get good jobs and go to docters [sic] like they are exactly the same.  It really isn't that hard to like transgender people because we are like everyone else.

Find out more about Sadie and her letter here.

Here's to the next four years, and may they continue the progress forward toward full equality for all gay, lesbian, bi, transgender and gender non-conforming people in the United States of America and beyond!

Namaste,
Lee

ps - my thanks to Greg for the heads-up on Sadie's letter.  

pps - and an apology:  in my excitement about being mentioned in the speech, I didn't think about the people who WEREN'T mentioned.  I learned a lot from an 11 year old today, and I hope you did, too.

Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality

Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality Edited by Kevin Simmonds

Editor Kevin Simmonds has created what Rigoberto González of National Book Critics Circle calls the "sacred text of our queer times;" over 100 LGBTIQ-identified established and emerging poets from around the world writing on faith, religion & spirituality.

Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Two Spirit, Agnosticism, Atheism and many other religions, spiritualities and faiths are represented.

You can see videos of a number of the poets sharing their works from the collection here.

Add your review of "Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality" in comments!

Confessions of a Teenage Hermaphrodite - an Intersex Novel

Confessions of a Teenage Hermaphrodite by Lianne Simon

Born between the sexes, Jamie can be a boy after minor surgery and a few years on testosterone. That’s what his parents always say, but he sees an elfin princess in the mirror. To become the man his parents expect, Jamie must leave behind the dreams of a young girl.

When a medical student tells Jamie he should have been raised female, Jamie discovers the life he can have. The elfin princess can thrive, but will she risk losing her family and her education for a boyfriend who may leave her, and a toddler she may never be allowed to adopt?

Add your review of "Confessions of a Teenage Hermaphrodite" in comments!

Way To Go - A Coming Out Story For Both Boys and Girls

"Way To Go" by Tom Ryan

Kierce has a rule for everything, not to mention his whole future planned out. Jay has bad grades, no plans, and could care less.

As for Danny, he’s stuck somewhere in the middle and can’t stop stressing out about it. His dad keeps nagging him about his post-high school plans, his friends won’t stop bugging him about girls, and a run-in with the cops means he has to to get a summer job – about the last thing he had planned. Worst of all, the secret he’s been keeping for years is threatening to spill out into the open.

Just when he’s beginning to wonder how he’ll get through the summer, let alone survive another year in Deep Cove, Danny meets Lisa Walsh. Lisa is dynamic, beautiful, and different from any girl he’s ever known. She’s also from New York City, which is about as far from Deep Cove as the dark side of the moon. For the first time in a while, things begin to look like they might turn out all right after all – that is, if friends, family, and reality don’t get in the way.

Add your review of "Way To Go" in comments!

Shaun Tan: The Exclusive Pre-#NY13SCBWI Interview

Shaun Tan with some feathered friends

From the first time I opened "The Arrival," I was blown away by the artistry, the narrative, and how I felt I was in the hands of a master storyteller.  I stood there in the book store and read the entire thing, cover to cover!

Shaun Tan grew up in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, and currently works as an artist, author and film-maker in Melbourne. Books such as "The Rabbits," "The Red Tree," "Tales From Outer Suburbia" and the acclaimed wordless novel "The Arrival" have been widely translated and enjoyed by readers of all ages. Shaun has also worked as a theater designer, feature film concept artist, and wrote and directed the Academy Award-winning animated short "The Lost Thing."  In 2011 he received the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in Sweden for his body of work. His most recent publication is "The Bird King."

Shaun will be giving a Keynote address the Saturday February 2, 2013 of the upcoming 14th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference, titled "Internal Migrations."  I'm delighted to share with you our discussion...

Lee: You've written about your work opening "a passage between familiarity and strangeness" (when you were discussing "The Lost Thing") and I also see that same space explored in "The Arrival." Is that space magical for you?

Shaun:  Yes, it certainly is, magic in that it partly makes sense, but not entirely. There's the craziness of imagination, which can sometimes be a bit too crazy to communicate anything meaningful (as with dreams), but when it's anchored to other familiar, very real and studied things, it can present a kind of alternate reality on the page. It shifts subtly from ordinary to extraordinary. I think all of us are vaguely aware that the 'real world' we live in happens to be just one of many possibilities. We might have been born anywhere, at any time, and maybe even in any universe! So what then makes us who we really are? The Arrival plays with that idea a little bit, that we have to make sense of ourselves within a world that can shift and change radically, and taking the point of view of an immigrant in order to examine this.

Lee: I've read that many of your characters and moments in books are taken from sketches you've done over time in your notebooks. I imagine you walking around your life, always ready to doodle something that catches your eye or inspires you. Do you have a system where you go back and look through your old sketchbooks to find images and re-new inspiration?

Shaun:  No, I wish! My note-keeping is extremely haphazard. However I've found that the act of sketching is enough to plant an idea in my mental library, it's a form of study that lends itself to easy retrieval. Then when I'm in a creative emergency, I can just remember that little thing I might have sketched a couple of years ago. If need be, I might then look it up physically, if I can endure my terrible filing system. On rare occasions I will actually thumb through an older sketchbook, and be reminded of new ideas that may in fact generate fresh inspiration, or provide 'missing ingredients' for a current project.

Lee:  You also wrote that "my concern is to involve the reader by the use of their own imagination, in trying to make sense of the 'unfinished' stories that I'm presenting to them." But there must come a point where a story is so 'unfinished' that it isn't satisfying. And your stories often have a numinous resonance that stays with me long after I've put them down. (Like the ending of the short story "Eric" in "Tales From Outer Suburbia") Can you talk about crafting the end of your stories?

Shaun: Yes, basically a story is finished for me when it feels satisfying, so I keep working on it up until that point. Interestingly though, that feeling of completeness comes from a story or image feeling a bit incomplete, by which I mean it doesn't reveal too much about character, motivation or meaning, but the direction of all these things is implied. I usually over-write or over-draw my stories, spelling things out in a little too much detail, and then spend a lot of time stripping them back to their bones. Sometimes - including on the advice of editors - I have removed a final paragraph from the story, and that's often improved it a lot... it's as if you are left with a footprint or wake of an idea, and the reader can then fill that little vacuum themselves, in a personal way. The physical constraints of picture books, and animated films - limited page numbers or screen-time - has also been instrumental in helping me learn how to edit carefully this way. The fact that drawing and painting just takes so long to do is also helpful, a good discipline. It forces me to think very carefully about how little I can get away with, and still convey a good story.

Lee:  I like that question - how little can I get away with, and still convey a good story! "Distant Rain" also stayed with me (the image of the massive ball of poems hovering over the neighborhood!) That story's fusion of words and drawings was - not seamless - but seeing all the seams made it even more beautiful. Having both words and pictures in your 'toolbox' presents a challenge: how do you best express what you're going for. So, in telling a story, how do you choose the moments to illustrate, the moments to use words?

Shaun:  That's the question! I know with that story in particular, I changed my mind a lot and I still wonder about alternative presentations. In the end, to use that as a good example, I always return to a fundamental concept, asking what is the story really about? In Distant Rain, it's really about forgotten poetry and mismatched experiences, the chaotic detritus of ordinary life. So the story is predominantly a written one, torn into little scraps, and the illustrations take a back seat. Elsewhere, such as in The Arrival or The Lost Thing, the central concept involves a failure of language or communication, and in that case the illustrations carry almost all meaning, because they can show things that can't be named. Generally speaking, words are good for interpretative concepts, such as identifying a creature as 'lost', and other things too tedious to show in pictures. Pictures are great for presenting much more ambiguous ideas, and have their own economy. The companion creature in The Arrival would take an entire page to describe physically, and even then we would not quite 'get it', whereas a picture is just so instant and matter-of-fact: look, here's a creature. You can also hide things in pictures, go off on little tangents, offer optional things to examine, which might be harder to do with a page of text.

Lee:  As a writer, I'm familiar with the revision process for words. What's your revision process for images?

Shaun:  Very similar actually, like moving paragraphs around, rewording sentences, adding and subtracting here and there. For images, I tend to do equivalent visual adjustments by drawing over the top of previous draft sketches using a lightbox. I keep the bits I like - trace them off - and rework the bits I don't like. I'll sometimes use scissors and tape to cut out and rearrange parts; since working digitally, I can do a lot of this in Photoshop too. In fact, although almost all my final art is hand-made, there's a lot of digital editing that goes in in my preliminary sketches.

Lee:  That's fascinating! What have you learned over the course of your career so far that you wish you had known when you started?

Shaun:  I think to just relax and have more faith in my intuition. As a younger artist, I worried too much about where my work fit in, its significance and so on, not to mention the problems of generating income. Most of those issues resolved when I just trusted in my own ideas, beginning with a picture book 'The Rabbits', where I more or less thought, to hell with it, I'll just do whatever I want and not care if it all falls in a heap or even gets published. As it turns out, that book was the turning point in my career as an illustrator, doing something nobody else had really seen before (including me!).

Lee:  Excellent advice - be yourself!  Okay, Bonus Speed Round:  Coffee or Hot Chocolate?

Shaun:  Coffee - I'm not a morning person!

Lee:  Pencil or Pen?

Shaun:  Impossible to decide: enjoy pencil, but hate stopping to sharpen. When sketching I usually use a cheap ballpoint.

Lee:  Karaoke Song?

Shaun:  Anything instrumental that requires no actual singing. Sparing you all from needless misery.

Lee:  Thanks, Shaun!

Shaun:  Thanks, see you soon.

And if you want to see Shaun's keynote, there are a limited number of spaces still available for the Saturday and Sunday of the 2013 SCBWI Winter Conference (the Friday intensives have sold out.) You can find out more details and register here.

Bonus Saturday Post: Lambda Literary Announces Faculty and takes Applications for their 2013 Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices

A very cool opportunity!  From their website announcement:

2013 Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices

Workshop Faculty include

Samuel R. Delany, Malinda Lo,

David Groff and Sarah Schulman

Applications Now Open Through April 1, 2013

January 14, 2013 - The Lambda Literary Foundation is proud to announce details for the 2013 Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices, the nation's premier queer writers residency. The Retreat will be held July 28 - August 4, 2013 on the campus of the American Jewish University (AJU) in Los Angeles.

Faculty include Samuel R. Delany teaching the Fiction workshop, Sarah Schulman teaching the Nonfiction workshop, David Groff teaching the Poetry workshop, and Malinda Lo teaching both Genre Fiction and Young Adult Fiction. See faculty bios here.

"The emerging writers who attend LLF's Retreat represent the future of LGBT literature," said LLF Executive Director, Tony Valenzuela. "We are incredibly fortunate to be working with an extraordinary group of faculty once again who will challenge and mentor these up-and-coming authors to the next step of their professional careers."

The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices was established in 2007 and is the first of its kind ever offered to LGBT writers: a one-week intensive immersion in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. The retreat is an unparalleled opportunity to learn from the very best writers in the LGBT community.

Applicants of the Retreat submit twenty pages of fiction/nonfiction or 10 pages of poetry that are evaluated for craft, creativity and originality. Twelve students per workshop are accepted into the competitive program where they spend the week working on their manuscripts and attending guest lectures by publishing industry professionals. Ability to pay is in no way part of the decision-making process and scholarships are available.

Good luck if you're applying!

Namaste,
Lee