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I'm not sure how to put it up on the sidebar of my blog or on website so I put it here.
Thanks to Suzanne Young!
Details below:
Artists, authors, business owners... please consider donating an item or service to sell in an auction to benefit Bridget Zinn and Barrett Dowell. Bridget is a 32-year-old writer and librarian who was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in March. She and Barrett, who have been together since they were teenagers, were married in the hospital just minutes before she went into surgery to remove a large tumor on her colon. She is now undergoing expensive treatment to shrink - and we hope obliterate - additional tumors. The treatment seems to be working, but much of it is not covered by her health insurance. Bridget & Barrett's friends and family are rallying to help them pay the bills so that they can focus on Bridget's health. You can learn more about Bridget at her blog, www.bridgetzinn.com/blog.
Between Friday, November 27 and Friday, December 11, we (a group of Bridget's friends) will hold an online silent auction on the website www.32auctions.com, with all proceeds going to Bridget and Barrett to cover their expenses.
Here's what it means to donate an item or service to the auction:
- You are donating the item to this auction, all proceeds of which will be given to Bridget Zinn. This is not a tax-deductible donation.
- You must provide an item title, description of up to 400 words, and starting bid for the online auction. You may also choose to provide a subtitle, fair market value, reserve price (amount that must be reached in bidding for the item to be sold), up to two photos/images, and website address for further information about you or about the item. All of this should be emailed to cailin.oconnor (at) gmail.com no later than November 25.)
- You may choose how you want to get the item to the winning bidder: (1) Keep the item until the auction ends, and mail it to the winning bidder (or contact the winner to arrange pick-up/delivery if feasible). We will contact you with the winner's contact information when payment has been received, and ask that you put the item in the mail to the winning bidder within 3 business days. (2) Give your donated item to one of the auction organizers, who will get it to the winning bidder. This is a good option if you will not be available in the middle of December when the auction ends. If you are giving your item to an auction organizer, please indicate that (and who) when you send in your item description.
Between Friday, November 27 and Friday, December 11, we (a group of Bridget's friends) will hold an online silent auction on the website www.32auctions.com, with all proceeds going to Bridget and Barrett to cover their expenses.
Here's what it means to donate an item or service to the auction:
- You are donating the item to this auction, all proceeds of which will be given to Bridget Zinn. This is not a tax-deductible donation.
- You must provide an item title, description of up to 400 words, and starting bid for the online auction. You may also choose to provide a subtitle, fair market value, reserve price (amount that must be reached in bidding for the item to be sold), up to two photos/images, and website address for further information about you or about the item. All of this should be emailed to cailin.oconnor (at) gmail.com no later than November 25.)
- You may choose how you want to get the item to the winning bidder: (1) Keep the item until the auction ends, and mail it to the winning bidder (or contact the winner to arrange pick-up/delivery if feasible). We will contact you with the winner's contact information when payment has been received, and ask that you put the item in the mail to the winning bidder within 3 business days. (2) Give your donated item to one of the auction organizers, who will get it to the winning bidder. This is a good option if you will not be available in the middle of December when the auction ends. If you are giving your item to an auction organizer, please indicate that (and who) when you send in your item description.
Thank you.
Special guest at his school:
Dear son was very impressed with the Secret Service and all the security measures that were taken in the days leading up to the event. The day of the event, he was up at 5:00. "If I'm not there by 8:15, I'll be locked out."
Here's why there was no garbage pickup that day. I guess garbage trucks make good barriers:
Finally they let the visitors in.
Dear son got a seat near some VIPs:
The governor was sitting just in front of the mayors. (That's his blurry head in the bottom right corner of the top photo.)
Wonder how this guy got through security. Did they x-ray his cheese head?
Finally, after much waiting, and an introduction by the amazing Principal Nancy Evans:
Imagine having this man speak right at you, telling you that it's up to you to do your best and succeed in this world. Yeah, he was there to make some political point, but to my son, it meant so much more.
A day he'll remember the rest of his life.
OK, I've been doing that. Unfortunately not in children's fiction, but in my day job, which is fine, since it pays the rent. Except I misjudged how much work something was going to be and accepted another assignment, producing The Deadline from He**. Then, the week before the deadline, I got the flu.
Oh, and all that waiting in the kidlit biz doesn't last forever. All of a sudden there are copyedits and a cover and page proofs and an ARC and pre-orders. And then I realize that my new website is not live and I'm all behind in everything marketing and my book comes out in FOUR MONTHS.
I finally caught up on my day job (only missing my deadline by three days) and I'm taking the day to reassess my marketing priorities and cross some tasks off my to-do list. A little upbeat music helps get stuff done, and I'm starting to feel less stressed and more excited. My book is going to be published. That's something to look forward to.
Right?
They are offering a 5% discount on pre-orders and, for a limited time, member prices for everyone. What a deal!
Order here now.
PUB DATE: March 15, 2010
Visits always give pleasure - if not the arrival, the departure.
~Portuguese Proverb
~Portuguese Proverb
No, that is not my cover. That is my cover as envisioned by my daughter when she expressed a wish for:
Which would result in this:
The real cover is coming soon. I promise.
(I won't mention that "Ultimate First Paragraph" is a bit of an oxymoron.)
Prizes include a critique by Nathan (although it wasn't specified in the rules. Maybe the critique is by Sarah Palin or something...) and a galley of THE SECRET YEAR by fellow Tenner and Class of 2K10 Classmate Jennifer Hubbard, along with a signed bookmark.
Hurry! The contest ends Thursday!
This is Jim, the actual flesh and blood crossing guard after whom the fictional crossing guard Jim in THE REINVENTION OF EDISON THOMAS is named. (He doesn't know it, though.) He was profiled in this article, from which I lifted the above photo.
My dear husband chats with Jim frequently. Jim's corner is on DH's bike commuting route to work. I've met Jim a few times when I've ridden along with DH to get a bit of exercise. Every school day Jim is there, in downpours, in subzero Wisconsin winters, standing for hours and placing himself between our kids and inattentive drivers. He always greets DH with a smile and a kind word.
Danger at school crossings is a major plot point in EDDY, and it's a major concern of mine. We live next to an elementary school attended by the littlest ones--kindergarten through second grade. There is a stop sign on the street between our house and the school, and I can see it from my kitchen window. Drivers often fail to come to a complete stop at that sign, and many ignore it completely. I share my protagonist's outrage at this.
It may seem like a trivial issue, but if you read the article, you will see that two schoolchildren were injured in one day. I have also witnessed the aftermath of another incident, a little girl lying in the middle of the street, her pink backpack beside her, being tended to by passersby. (Traffic was backed up quite a bit, angering some commuters, I'm sure. They probably complained to the people they were phoning or texting.)
A teacher friend of mine held one of her students in her arms as he died following a similar incident.
So the next time you see a crossing guard, thank him or her. And slow down.
Listen and enjoy it in all its geeky splendor!
the classic narrative structure work really well together."
Jamie Hyneman
Co-host of MythBusters
Quoted here
And here's the other:
Here are some of the differences [spoiler alert!]
- Instead of pancakes, Grandpa is making crepes. (OK, that one was pretty obvious.)
- The town of Chewandswallow translates as Ratatouille.
- After breakfast, it rains milk in the American version, but chocolate in the French. (The French just don't drink milk. I prefer chocolate as well.)
- After lunch, it's soda in the US and "limonade" in France. (Limonade can be lemonade, or a drink made with lemon flavored syrup and fizzy water. So it's soda, too, I guess).
- No Jell-O in France. They get orange flan. (The food has to look like the picture, you see.)
- Gorgonzola in the US. Roquefort in France. (No surprise there.)
- American: brussel sprouts with peanut butter and mayonnaise. French: Hold the PB and replace with whipped cream. (Peanut butter is completely foreign--and completely disgusting---to the French palate. They have Nutella, though.)
- The French hurricane include croissants, of course.
- Cream cheese and jelly sandwiches become cheese OR jam sandwiches. (Together? Beurk!)
- The American sailboats are giant peanut butter sandwiches. (Again with the peanut butter.) The French sandwiches are made with honey, which kind of looks the same.
There's more, and I'll clue you in as soon as I finish reading this:
Dorking, which is in Surrey, is the site of a two-story house built entirely of Lego bricks, over three million of them. It's part of a BBC series called James May's Toy Stories. And here's a shot of the building in progress:
James May, also host of the BBC show Top Gear, promised to live in it for a few days. Rumor has it that it actually has a working loo. James May is no stranger to colorful, plastic environments. For another episode of Toy Stories, he built a garden entirely out of Plasticine modeling clay. See it here and here.
Ignore the computer animation in the beginning of this, but watch how the white blood cells first move through the vessel, then sort of roll along the edges, then squeeze between the cells that line the blood vessel to get to the site of infection. The cells are communicating. The cells that line the blood vessels are telling the white blood cells where they need to leave the bloodstream and enter the tissues to do their job.
So that's leukodiapedesis. White blood cells (leukocytes) moving through the walls of the blood vessels.
Here's some more about the bloodstream.
And, in honor of the impending release of "Here Comes Science," here is an encore performance of "The Bloodmobile" by They Might Be Giants:
The Class of 2K10 is a group of first-time middle grade and young adult authors.The group was first founded in 2007 and has seen great success. We've come together to help promote each other's books through a group website, blog, newsletter, author chats, and much more. Our debut authors hail from both the United States and Canada and write a variety of genres for middle grade and young adults.
If you are interested in joining the group, please contact Janet Fox: jfoxtx at aol dot com.
To join the Class of 2K10, this must be your debut novel in YA or MG, you must be published in the USA with a release date of 2010. Your publisher must be listed in CWIM or CBC. You must be willing to pay the dues of $275.00 and spend a minimum of 10-15 hours a month on group projects. All applications must be in no later than October 1st 2009. We look forward to you joining our class.
I am now off the crutches and into a real pair of shoes. OK, they are my dear son's outgrown, extra-wide sneakers, but they count as shoes. I still walk very gently and slowly, with a bit of a limp.
How do I answer the inevitable question: "What happened to you?"
Since I fancy myself a writer of children's fiction, I should be able to come up with something more compelling, or at least interesting, than "I stubbed my toe on my bed."
Something "inspired by" the truth: "A sales rep from a well-known telecommunications company dropped a telephone pole on my toe."
Something heroic: "I saved a baby duck from a runaway bowling ball by kicking it out of the way in the nick of time (the bowling ball, not the duck)."
Something really heroic: "I was whisking the kidnapped heir to the throne out of the collapsing castle, when a gargoyle fell on my foot."
Something artistic: "I overdid the en pointe at an all night ballet rave."
Something paranormal: "A claw mishap during my last werewolf transformation."
Something romantic: "An overexuberant polka with my dear husband at a wedding." (Oh, wait. That really happened. That's how I sprained an ankle during Graduate School.)
Something Potterish: "I splinched."
Hmm, maybe I broke the only creative bone in my body.
Can anyone help me out?
