Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

We at 7-Imp are taking an SBBT interview break today. However, we’ll bring to you an interview with Mitali Perkins tomorrow and an interview with Holly Black on Friday. We encourage you to check out the SBBT interviews at other blogs today; Wednesday’s schedule is below.

Wow, everyone, are you keeping up with all the great interviews this week at all these amazing blogs? Good stuff.

Schedule for Wednesday, June 20

• Mitali Perkins at Hip Writer Mama
• Svetlana Chmakova at Finding Wonderland
• Dana Reinhardt at Interactive Reader
• Laura Ruby at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
• Holly Black at Shaken & Stirred
• Hilary McKay at Bookshelves of Doom
• Kirsten Miller at Miss Erin
• Julie Ann Peters at A Fuse #8 Production
• Carolyn Mackler at The YA YA YAs
• Jordan Sonnenblick at Writing and Ruminating

{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.

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{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 �

Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers out there! It’s time for our 7 Kicks, but before we get to that, don’t forget the Summer Blog Blast Tour and its inaugural interview today. That would be an interview with Gene Yang over at Finding Wonderland. Don’t miss it, people. It’s really well-done. And we here at 7-Imp will have our interview with Brent Hartinger tomorrow and an exclusive interview with Sonya Hartnett the next day. For our other interviews this week, visit this link (and here’s the Grand Master Schedule).

Hey, look up there at our 7 Kicks illustration-of-the-week. It’s Hugo and Miles! Have you read Hugo & Miles in: I’ve Painted Everything (An Adventure in Paris)? (Jules reviewed it here, and here is a February review of Kara LaReau’s Ugly Fish, which Scott also illustrated). Author/illustrator Scott Magoon sent us this illustration for this week’s list; Hugo and Miles there are atop the Eiffel Tower, taking in a grand view of Paris. Thanks to Scott!

And, wait, there’s more . . . Look, it’s an illustration from his upcoming Fall picture book (Houghton Mifflin), called The Luck of the Loch Ness Monster: A Tale of Picky Eating by Alice Weaver Flaherty (a neurologist who teaches at Harvard no less, according to this link). Scott says it’ll be out this September, and we went and found the Houghton link to it. Looks like good stuff. We are fans of Scott’s work, and we thank him for not only the Hugo & Miles art work but the sneak peek Lochness illustration, too.

Okay, let’s get to the lists then. Here’s our usual intro for any new people: It’s time for another installment of 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks. For those new to our series, this is where we all stop in every Sunday to report seven (more or less is fine) Good Things that happened to you (or that you read or saw or experienced or . . . well, you get the picture) this week. Absolutely anyone is welcome to contribute, and your lists don’t have to be book-related. Read the rest of this entry �

{Note: Today’s Poetry Friday round-up is over here at The Simple and the Ordinary}.

STAR, STAR, STAR. I’m giving this book a huge STAR! I. love. this. anthology (and my goodness, isn’t Jane Yolen prolific? I know we all know this, but the amount of good books this woman churns out amazes me so much that I have to mention it again). Here we have a first book of poetry for the wee-est of children, the poems having been collected by Yolen and the very tall poet Andrew Fusek Peters. And the anthology is graced with illustrations by POLLY DUNBAR, one of my favorites (who has one of the best illustrator websites EVER). Yes, I’m yelling a lot here, ’cause I’m tellin’ ya, this is one very handsome and entertaining book that works on every single level — completely engaging poetry for young children, excellent design, and Dunbar’s captivating, exuberant illustrations. There are over sixty poems here, including poetry from Langston Hughes, Lilian Moore, Lee Bennett Hopkins, Gertrude Stein, Jack Prelutsky, Michael Rosen (the latest and fifth British children’s laureate; thanks to Big A little a for the link), Robert Louis Stevenson, Rosemary Wells, Myra Cohn Livingston, and much more (including poetry from our compilers and a traditional British street rhyme thrown in for good measure). Read the rest of this entry �

{Update: Colleen has posted the grand, master schedule for the Summer Blog Blast Tour over at Chasing Ray today. Go see!} . . .

Hello everyone! Just in case you haven’t heard, the amazing dynamo Colleen Mondor of Chasing Ray has organized the first ever Summer Blog Blast Tour, and it starts this Sunday!

The SBBT is a week-long barrage of interviews with YA authors on a massive scale: over 15 blogs, over 25 authors, for a total of over 50 interviews. Colleen will be posting the entire schedule on her blog, but we wanted to give you a heads-up on who we have the honor of interviewing here at 7-Imp:

Monday, June 18: Brent Hartinger
Tuesday, June 19: Sonya Hartnett (exclusive, as those journalists say)
Thursday, June 21: Mitali Perkins
Friday, June 22: Holly Black

We hope you’ll stop by and hear what these excellent authors had to say, and we look forward to reading the other 40-odd interviews in the tour. We also want to thank Colleen for coming up with such an amazing idea, recruiting bloggers, contacting authors and their agents/publishers, coming up with the timetable, and making sure we all worked together. At this point, we would follow Colleen into battle and trust her with our lives. Or, at the very least, eisha wishes she could pay Colleen to help her move.

Jules here. Quick post that is not a book review (or blogger interview or author interview or Poetry Friday or a 7-Kicks list — hmmm, I guess we need to stop saying we stick to book reviews only here at 7-Imp!). Incidentally, I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve done a proper review myself, but what with Eisha’s heroic 48-Hour Book Challenge efforts and the two of us getting ready for next week’s Summer Blog Blast Tour (more on that later), whew, we’re busy. I should have two children’s poetry anthology reviews for this Poetry Friday.

Anyway, back to what I was saying . . .

Here’s the thing: I have no clue as to how many middle Tennessee readers we have. I do know, amazingly enough, that we have readers all over the country — the world, for that matter — and we have publishers and agents and authors and illustrators reading our blog. It’s a bit odd that I know that for a fact, yet I’m not sure how many readers we have here in Tennessee (or even the South), where one-half of 7-Imp (Yours Truly) lives.

But, I’m going to post this anyway for any middle Tennessee readers we may have (and I’m going to email this post to every person I know in middle Tennessee!). And even if you don’t live here, this is an issue that repeats itself all over the country and affects librarians and library-lovers everywhere, so you may want to read anyway.

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We’ve been tagged again, and we’d hate to ignore it, especially since it was the kickin’ Anne at Book Buds who tagged us.

This one is a bit more challenging: Share 10-15 professional goals for the summer. Hmmm . . . okay, here goes:

Do I have to be serious here? Ah, okay . . . This might be challenging, as I’m taking a temporary break from librarianship (and sign language interpreting, for that matter), but I do work from home, and, hell, this blog is like a full-time job (but I do not say that bitterly) . . .

• First and foremost, Eisha and I have a freelance writing gig with The Poetry Foundation about which we are very excited. What an honor to write for the children’s section of their site. And if they like us, we’d love to do more. We’re looking forward to starting this summer writing assignment . . . we’ll share the link once it’s done.
• My buddy and pal, Shannon, and I are working on a YA poetry anthology, a project that began for me back in grad school. I haven’t given this project the focus it deserves and hope to do better, uh, starting now-ish. Good news is that I’ll actually see him this week (he lives about 200 miles away), and we can really talk about it all nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts, face-to-face.

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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 �

Time: Monday, 12:35 a.m.

Books Finished: 5. Read Defect by Will Weaver this afternoon, and Grand & Humble by Brent Hartinger this evening.

Pages Read: 1213

Time Spent Actually Reading: 15.25 hours.

Time Spent Blogging About It: 2 hours.

Unicorn Sightings: none.

Pathetic. I thought I would rock at this. I mean, seriously, sitting around reading is pretty much how I spend every weekend. Why was it so hard this time? Here’s what I think: because reading is what I usually do to procrastinate whatever I should be doing but don’t really want to, like cleaning or packing or whatever. When reading becomes the thing I’m supposed to be doing, my whole equilibrium is thrown. Good to know for next year.

But hey, I read some good books. Wanna hear about them?

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