Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Seven Things You’re Going To Love About Mitali Perkins (Like You Don’t Already):

1* When we asked for a picture to go with this interview, she sent us this lovely portrait by Jamie Hogan, illustrator of her recent middle-grade novel Rickshaw Girl. Aw. Pretty.

2* Her website. Mitali’s Fire Escape is chock full of resources like booklists, contests, and frequent updates about public appearances and interviews. It also has a fabulous new look, thanks to the excellent web stylings of Little Willow.

3* Her blog. Mitali is an active and beloved member of the kidlitosphere, and posts on a range of topics: book reviews, movies, writing…

4* …and an ongoing series of posts called “Why I Write For Children,” which deserves its very own mention.

5* Her other blog. Well, actually, that of her character Sameera from First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover. Sameera, aka Sparrow, is the adopted daughter of a presidential candidate, so she posts about the current crop of “first kid wannabes and their parents.” She’s also on MySpace and Facebook. For a fictional character, she’s awfully prolific.

6* She really is as nice in person as you’d think she is from her blog. I got to meet her at Charlesbridge’s Open House a few weeks ago, and she was utterly charming and gracious and funny. And she’s an engaging public speaker, too.

7* Most of all, her books. Mitali writes about kids “between cultures” – i.e., kids who are struggling with a cultural identity, having been born and/or raised in a different culture from their parents – with all the empathy and candor of someone who has been there herself, and wants to reach out to the next generation.

Read the rest of this entry �

{Note: For a listing of the other interviews in the Summer Blog Blast Tour featured at other blogs today, scroll down to the very bottom of this post}.

1). Though her writing is terrifically poetic, she doesn’t particularly like most poetry.
2). The Catcher in the Rye makes her shudder.
3). She adores the writing of Robert Cormier.
4). She’s a rather cheery person, despite the “dark” label repeatedly attached to her writing.
5). The love she has for her dog rivals the burning intensity of the sun (as Eisha would put it).
6). She vividly remembers the feelings and simple pleasures of childhood.
7). She loves writing for young adult audiences and finds them very forgiving readers, but the issue of labelling her books and to whom they get marketed (“YA” or “Adult”) has haunted most of her career. In short, she’s weary of the entire topic. If you meet her on the street, best not ask her about it. We don’t blame her.

Read the rest of this entry �

{Note: For a listing of the other interviews in the Summer Blog Blast Tour featured at other blogs today, scroll down to the very bottom of this post}.

Visit YA author Brent Hartinger’s web site, and you’ll read in large print: “I am Brent Hartinger, and I live to write.” And in having the opportunity to chat with him here at 7-Imp for this week’s Summer Blog Blast Tour, it’s evident to us that this passion for writing pervades all he does. (He’s also really fun and, as YA & Kids Book Central put it in a 2005 interview, “a heck of an interesting guy”). As Rosemary Ponnekanti wrote in this recent article in Tacoma, Washington’s News Tribune, “Plays. Screenplays. Gay teen novels, straight teen novels. Teaching, speaking, gay support groups -– Tacoma writer Brent Hartinger’s career has run quite a gamut.”

And if, as a fan, you visit his site (“Brent’s Brain”), you will be rewarded with all kinds of information about Brent and his writing. Accessibility seems to be his middle name and a large part of his endearing charm. Yes, visit “Brent’s Brain” and get full access to all his lobes, frontal and otherwise. There’s his bio; a link to events; a listing of his books; his “deep dark past” and his story about discovering, as a teen, that he was gay; an entire page devoted to “being gay” (“It’s a cliché to say it, but I’ve always known I was gay”); a page which links to his blogs and MySpace presence; a press room and media coverage page; a page of FAQs about his novel (“questions that haunt me”); and even more. (To boot, there are even squishy brain sounds when you click on links in the form of brain lobes). Read the rest of this entry �

We’re tickled pink (okay, we don’t normally say that, but that’s in honor of the background color of Adrienne’s blog) to be featuring in our blogger interview series Adrienne Furness of one of everyone’s favorite blogs, What Adrienne Thinks About That (WATAT). Adrienne is a freelance writer and Children’s and Family Services Librarian in western New York (here is Adrienne’s column at the website of the Monroe County Library System, and here is the Children’s Series Binder wiki her library created, in which series books for children are listed for use by librarians, teachers, parents, and kids. It’s organized by series title and genre, and the entire wiki is searchable by keyword. Cool, huh?). We at 7-Imp are big fans of her blog, in which she “reviews books, movies, and life in general.”

Would it sound a bit too cheesy to say that Adrienne’s blog is always a joy to read? Well, it’s true. She always keeps things interesting and informative and fun, three must-haves — in our book — for a blog. Read the rest of this entry �

We are happy to have a cyber-visit today here at 7-Imp with author/director/performance artist/indie rock musician Cecil Castellucci, everyone’s favorite “punk rock prom queen” (as Little Willow called her in this recent interview). We had a lot of fun talking to her, and — jump back! — she even shared a brand-spankin’-new original poem with us when we asked, so we thank her kindly for stopping by and thank her for the poem on this first Poetry Friday of June. We have had her on our mental to-interview list, and what a perfect time to chat it up with her. Why? you ask. Well, because Cecil currently has two books out at once — yes, two (The Plain Janes and Beige) — and as to how she’s feeling about that (is it an exhilarating rush or tremendous pressure?), you can read below in our interview with her. One of her essays (“My Fairy Godfathers”) is also included in the recently-released Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: True Tales of Love, Lust, and Friendship Between Straight Women and Gay Men (Dutton Books)? Whew, she’s one busy literary punk rock star. Read the rest of this entry �

It’s with a bit of sadness that we complete our series of interviews with The Blue Rose Girls this week (you can scroll down and see some goodbye photos under this interview), but it’s with pleasure that we tell you about author Libby Koponen.

Libby is pictured here (middle) with two of her Blue Rose cohorts, Alvina Ling and Anna Alter. The photo was taken, Libby told us, during a Blue Rose Girl weekend after she’d just moved to Mystic, Connecticut (they’re standing on the Mystic Bridge in this photo).

Read the rest of this entry �

Whew, this interview was almost difficult to snag. When we asked David at the excelsior file if he wanted to be interviewed in our blogger interview series, his response was one of interest and excitement, but he then said, “I haven’t even been at this blogging stuff for a year (at least not with kidlit) and I still feel as though I’m poking my way through the dark . . . there are so many bloggers out there, maybe they deserve it more than me?” Now, we think the last thing David would want us to do is make him out to be some sort of meek-and-mild saint, but it’s true when we say he’s (obviously) terrifically humble, even though we’ve said time and again (and again) here at 7-Imp that he’s one of our top-five favorite bloggers (do a search here at 7-Imp of “the excelsior file” and there are all kinds of links to David’s reviews, since — as Jules has stated here repeatedly — his reviews are always spot-on).

Read the rest of this entry �

We here at 7-Imp are taking a break this week from chatting with The Blue Rose Girls (we’ll get to know Libby Koponen a bit more two weeks from now). And, during the interim, we’re going to take some time to chat with the smart, opinionated, dauntless go-getter of Chasing Ray, Colleen Mondor.

If you don’t frequent Chasing Ray, why then, we hope we can change your mind and turn you into a regular reader. Colleen states at the site itself that Chasing Ray is “all about the literary world and my place within it.” Even that sounds modest, ’cause when you visit her blog, you’re always rewarded — with detailed, thoughtful reviews on specific titles or her always-passionate take on general topics in the realm of literature, such as this post on the importance of print book reviews in today’s increasingly-prevalent online world, this post on blog tours, this post on censorship, or this post in which she spoke out about the recent comments that have been swirling around cyber-space about unpaid book-reviewing via blogs. She’ll occasionally keep you up-to-date on the blogosphere’s goings-on, such as she did here; she’s really knowledgeable and enthusiastic about YA literature; and she’ll sometimes write very candidly about her own fiction-writing or write beautiful personal posts, such as this one about her father and her son.

Read the rest of this entry �

As mentioned last week, we’ve had a great deal of fun chatting with the savagely smart Blue Rose Girls, and this week our site is graced (figuratively and literally) by the presence of the prolific and talented Grace Lin. As their site explains, Grace is one of the original Blue Rose Girls, having initially bonded with fellow illustrators Anna Alter and Linda Wingerter in 1996 and then eventually bringing the other ladies (Alvina, Meghan, Libby, and Elaine) on board. Grace is a consistent and always informative blogger over at the BRGs’ site — posting on such topics as racial identity and labelling in multicultural books; her thoughts on blogger book reviewing; her conference visits and author talks; how to boldly and confidently get your name out there and make a living as an author/illustrator; her own party-throwing (parties to rival the New York KidLit Drink Nights any ‘ol time, thanks very much); what it means to her to be a “multi-cultural author”; and much more. And Grace also has her own personal blog, Pacyforest, where she’ll keep you up-to-date on her writing and illustrating (“I’m a children’s book author and illustrator which means my secret life is full of drama, intrigue, adventure . . . and pink fuzzy bunnies,” she writes at the site).

Read the rest of this entry �

Eisha is actually on her way to Tennessee to meet her brand-spankin’-new punkin head nephew, Miles, and will be making a visit to the Danielson household (that’s me) as well (woo hoo!), but I’m still speaking for the both of us here in this short note about blogger interviews.

We have had a lot of fun chatting with The Blue Rose Girls, and we’re still not done (did you see our interviews with Elaine, Alvina, Anna, Meghan, and Linda?). We’re excited to be bringing you an interview with Grace Lin this coming Monday, and two weeks after that, we’ll feature author Libby Koponen. I think we’ll be sad to say goodbye to our Blue Rose Girls series, but we’re glad they graced our site with interviews and we’ve enjoyed them all.

Two quick notes, then, about the blogger interviews: Since there will be a one-week lapse between Grace’s and Libby’s interviews, we will take a temporary break from the savagely smart Blue Rose Girls to bring you the savagely smart Colleen Mondor from Chasing Ray. She’s agreed to be highlighted in our ongoing blogger interview series, and we’re looking forward to her telling us all about the upcoming Summer Blog Blast Tour, a week-long series of interviews with YA authors and at multiple blogs. It’s gonna be swell, I tell ya.

Second quick note: When we interview bloggers such as The Blue Rose Girls who not only blog but also write and/or illustrate books, we always tack on a few extra questions about their work as authors and illustrators. We’re kicking ourselves that we didn’t ask Blue Rose blogger Alvina Ling more about her work as an editor, which is just as important as authoring and illustrating, of course (we had simply gotten into the habit of doing that for authors and illustrators only, and we weren’t thinking). Mitali Perkins also made a great comment at Alvina’s interview, stating that she, for one, would love to see a full list of books edited by Alvina. That would be the precise moment we smacked ourselves on our collective head and thought the same thing, as well as wondered why we didn’t tack on some extra questions for her. Shame on us. So, I have since that time asked Alvina if she actually could produce such a list, and she said she’d be happy to in the near future (she’s got quite a bit on her plate right now). Thanks, Alvina. We look forward to that.

And, as for extra questions for Alvina (she also said she’d be happy to do follow-up questions), what are some things you’d like to know about the work of editors — or, specifically, her work as an editor? Eisha and I can compose questions, but we thought we’d bounce it off you all, too. Perhaps in the near future, we can have a follow-up interview of sorts with the talented Ms. Ling . . . If you have any general editor and/or specific Alvina questions, drop them in the comment box. Cheers!