A visit to Walker Books

I was fortunate enough to be invited to have lunch(Burritos) at Walker Books and discuss their forthcoming Graphic Novel and Manga line with Fiona MacDonald and a colleague (whose name escapes me at the moment).

The meal was excellent as I am a Burrito fan (picked that habit up from watching too much Invader Zim - but that is another tale altogether). What really made me excited was the books that they hav lined up for release starting next year. The first book we looked at was Skim a graphic novel written and drawn by Canadian cousins Jillian and Mariko Tamaki. This book has been nominated for a number of literary awards in the USA and Canada and has just been nominated for the Canadian Governor-General's Award which has sparked some controversy, for more details on that click here and here.

The other titles lined up for release include Glister by Andi Watson, Vermonia - a manga series by Studio YoYo. Vermonia will also contain hidden clues within the illustrations to enable readers to take part in an online game. Raven's Gate by Anthony Horowitz is also undergoing the Graphic Novel treatment, Salem Brownstone: All along the Watchtowers a gothic graphic novel by John Dunning and Nikhil Singh and finally (for now anyway) The Legend of Robin Hood.

For more details on Walker Books Graphic Novels click this link

Dr Mel - Comics

Dr Mel Comics

Dr Mel - Comics

November is NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly. (taken from http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/whatisnano)

This writing project is a good way of encouraging young writers to attempt to write a novel.

Find out more here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Hallowe'en Idea

This evening at my Library I ran my Hallowe'en Teen BOO!k Group. So as not to offend the religious sensibilities of the parents of the attendees the book discussion was fairly generic focusing on scary books they have read or are reading. I also provided some Halloween sweets in the shape of body parts (candy teeth and gums were the most popular) and sherbert in a skull.

At the September TARGET (TeenAge Reading Group EdmonTon) meeting a couple of the group members asked me to make them a Librarian mask each, so instead of making them individual masks I photographed my face,

and made a mask template and photocopied it for all the attendees.

This event was one of the most popular book sessions I have run this year and it really creeped out some of the library staff when they saw several mini-mes running around the Library.

New author website

Rachel Wright author of You've got Blackmail and Get your Paws Off has joined the ranks of the online brigade. Visit her website here: www.rachelwright.me