Trouble keeping up with all the reading on the Winter Blog Blast Tour? Don't just throw in the towel. Read what you can. Read without guilt.
A couple of suggestions:
The Sherman Alexie interview at Finding Wonderland. Fantastic. Be sure not to miss what he has to say about tribal affiliation and subculture.
The Maureen Johnson interview at bildungsroman. "I wrote two books for practice. One was for a friend. The other lives in a drawer. They aren't for publication. They really were just exercises for me to try things out. I put myself through a kind of self-imposed writing boot camp when I graduated college, writing four to ten hours a day..." Yeah, that's pretty much what you have to do. Not everyone realizes that going in, though.
Then, if you want a break from questions and answers, you can go over to The Edge of the Forest and read Pam Coughlan's article Can a Funny Book Be Taken Seriously? I just happen to be reading An Abundance of Katherines right now, but even if you aren't, the article raises interesting questions about how humor is perceived in our culture.
If you have any strength left, you can check out some Cybils reviews. (Sheila links to some toward the end of her post at Wands and Worlds.) The Cybils is a valuable award not because it singles out one book to bring to the public's attention, but because it brings so very many books to the public's attention. Many more reviews are available at the Cybils website.
Thanks for reading the interview!
ReplyDeleteGo Cybils!
Thanks for the Cybils shout-out. We miss ya' over on the nominating panel! And I agree that one of the things that's really exciting about the Cybils is that we get to draw attention to many books that deserve it, not just the finalists and winners.
ReplyDeleteThanks also for posting a selection of the Winter Blog Blast Tour interviews. I do have trouble keeping up with these things and then I feel guilty for not keeping up! You really hit the nail on the head with that one.