2008 is four days old, so I think it’s safe to say that the new year is here. I wish you all a very happy and prosperous one. Judging from the turkey bones, wrapping paper and empty wine bottles, I also think it’s safe to say that the holidays are officially over. Whew.

I am really excited for the coming year for reasons that go beyond my own egotistical ramblings about my writing. Throughout 2007, I repeatedly complained about being crazy busy but I was usually pretty vague about what I was up to. That’s because it wasn’t writing projects that were keeping me busy; it was teaching, or more accurately learning about teaching.

Since September of last year, I’ve been enrolled in the teacher education program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. So far, it’s been a fantastic (and fantastically busy) few months of lectures, assignments, presentations and actual teaching in an actual honest-to-goodness classroom.

All this study of education theory and practice teaching has helped to formalize and clarify many of the interests and themes I was already exploring in my writing: engaging reluctant readers through multimodal texts like comics, promoting alternative literacies such as video games as vehicles of education and wisely using the power of technology to connect with an increasingly disconnected generation of students.

As I continue my studies at OISE, I’ve made it a 2008 resolution to find/make time to post here more often and post about things that go beyond simply announcing my new books – I’ll continue to brag a bit, I’ve got too many good ones coming out to stop that completely. Like this one. Is that a cute dog or what?