blogging life & creation for young minds
The last of the pirate books has been approved, the short story for Kayak mag is in the can, and the latest Max Finder is complete. What’s that mean? It means I am done for the holidays!
It’s time to sleep in, eat chocolate that tastes of oranges and relax.
Hope everyone else enjoys this year’s consumermas festivities. I might post again, but don’t hold your breath – that’s what an RSS feed is for.
Happy non-denominational celebration to all and I’ll see you in 2006.
With the snow definitely here to stay, I’m finding myself thinking back to the warmer days of summer. And that leads me back to my book reading on Franklin’s Island and the photos I never posted. Well, the wait is over, here they are!
It was the weekend before Labour Day so Franklin’s Garden on the Toronto Island was pretty busy as people were squeezing in one last trip before the winter came.
The stage in set up like an amphitheatre, which is perfect for singers and performers, but not for a quiet bit of picture book reading. So, I invited everyone up on the stage, where we could all sit around and enjoy a bit of storytelling.
I started out with a personal favourite, Tracker: On the Job. As you can see from the photos, the kids were immediately hooked.
Some more than others.
The best part of the day, was definitely having the kids to help me with the story, guessing what happened next, meowing like kittens and discussing the chances of seeing a cat on a ferry (apparently not very good, although I wrote a whole story about that.)
Four Pet Tales adventures later, it was time to wrap up story time. After a quick photo session and some brisk book sales, the kids headed off to explore the rest of the island and hopped back on the ferry, keeping a keen eye out for any cats who might have hitched a ride.
Special thanks to Mel for taking photos, setting up my book display and being a great “agent for a day.”
tagged: [writing] [readings] [appearances]
No tag for this post.I’ll admit it – I’ve never worked in a cubicle, or an open plan office or any office as matter of fact. When I was 15, I told my mom that I never wanted to work in a place where I had to wear a tie. She was very sad at the time, but I’ve kept that promise. I don’t have the health plan or the diversified mutual fund portfolio that others do, but at least I can revel in tales of corporate servitude. And so can Max Barry.
I’m eagerly aniticipating the his new novel, Company, and I’m once again impressed at his sinisterly effective marketing strategies. To help promote his latest novel, Max has created Tales of Corporate Oppression, a new site that allows visitors to tell their worst stories from the corporate trenches. There are many, but as Max puts it: it’s amazing just how clear a company can make it that you’re completely unimportant.”
So, as I sit in my office just off the kitchen, overlooking the coffee maker and the fridge, I’ll read the stories of others who must toil away in corporate offices all the while knowing that they are utterly replaceable. But hey, at least they get dental.
tagged: [company] [max_barry] [writing]
It’s no secret that I wear my politics on my sleeve (or blog, in this case), so I’ve got to come out and say that I’m very pleased with the NDP and their latest ad.
The spectre of “going negative” is looming over this Canadian election, like one of Scrooge’s ghosts (sorry.)
With their latest ad, the NDP are rising above the negative and using one of advertising’s most powerful weapons: wit.
View the ad in Quicktime, Windows Media or Realplayer and find out what I’m giving Paul Martin this Christmas.
Watch all the NDP ads and learn more about the NDP.
tagged: [ndp] [politics] [canada]
Been trying to get this one out since November the bloody 28th:
I know I just posted about fellow kids writer Arthur Slade and his monstrous podcasts, but he’s done it again.
Arthur has created two short videos showcasing his writing. You can see him talk about his upcoming novel Megiddo’s Shadow and watch him tell you how he out ran Count Dracula at the end of a long interview, for his current book Monsterology.
The videos are short, fun, casual and another example of how authors can use the web to do the promotion that many publishers can’t or won’t do. Like meettheauthor.com, Arthur’s videos will make a connection with readers and do more to boost book sales than the best-written blurb ever could.
Way to go, Arthur. Can’t wait to see/hear (and read) more in the future.
tagged: [writing] [vlogs] [promotion]
Holy Crap! I can’t believe I’m posting again. Two weeks of frantic emails to tech support and an endless stream of 005:sftpException errors and I’ve finally got this blog back on track again. What a pain in the butt.
It all started when my gracious hosting company decided to beef up security and start using sftp for posting. I’m all for that and happy they did it. Blogger, on the other hand, wasn’t so pleased. It didn’t like that at all and failed to recognize me and my login for about a week. Very frustrating, but solved with a quick google search that turned up the problem. But it didn’t stop my posting dilemmas. Instead it spat up a cryptic 005:sftpException error. Plug that into Google and you only get 16 entries for it. Dropping the 005 only gets you 174 entries. And Google Help was anything but. Was I the only person in the internet to have this problem? Seemed like it. So, for those of you who have come up against a sftpException error in Blogger, and have landed on this blog via a desperate search for answers, try this: Disable Post Pages. Don’t ask me why this works but it did for me. I have no idea if it’ll work for you.
And after two weeks of kicking my computer, I’m finally posting. Next step is to dump Blogger and migrate everything over to Wordpress. Sorry Blogger, but in the words of the great Stephen Colbert: You’re on notice (and soon to be dumped.)
tagged: [blogger] [sftpexception] [wordpress]
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