May 13, 2013

Salutations!


Hello blogosphere!
So, after almost 36 hours of children’s literature-related activities this past weekend I decided it was time to finally get this thing up and running. I spent Thursday through Sunday at the Body Electric Institute hosted by the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College.
Although we were really cold and stupid-tired we got to meet the rockstars of children’s literature and, suffice it to say, I walked away with a ton of signed books, a much lighter wallet, and a lot of scribbled notes to Kristina.
Prior to this class, students of Simmons College were invited to participate in a Body Electric Symposium, a month-long class that met twice a week to discuss the various books by the authors attending the Institute. I spent six hours a week talking about cerebral palsy, allergies, child abuse, child-fox body-switching (there were a surprising amount of foxes), ADD, ADHD, slavery, sexuality, and anything that addressed the body in any of our texts. We read tons of articles, novels, graphic novels, poetry, picturebooks, and textbooks that deal with the treatment of the body, perceptions of the body, limitations of the body and more.
And on top of that I had another paper due on Tomi Ungerer (if you don’t know him check him out) so I discovered way more about the body than I bargained for.
But it was fabulous and it got me thinking about my own contribution to the body (get it, body?) of children’s literature. I’m getting my MA in Children’s Literature and my MFA in Writing for Children so, of course, I hope to publish books some day, but that’s too far off into the future–what do I do now, today?
Yup, you guessed it: a blog.
I’ll post when I can and hopefully I’ll post something interesting enough for you to keep reading. I have a feeling that most of my posts will deal with picturebooks (the first ones totally will) but I just restarted Harry Potter and I have a ton of YA novels on my list so I’m sure some of that will pop up somewhere in here. And I’m re-watching LOST so I can’t guarantee I that that won’t seep in too. Gotta vent somewhere, right?
Until we meet again…

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