{"id":430,"date":"2007-01-15T22:59:01","date_gmt":"2007-01-16T03:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=430"},"modified":"2008-01-21T14:02:07","modified_gmt":"2008-01-21T20:02:07","slug":"the-edge-of-the-forest-and-our-interviewwith-the-courteous-mr-alan-gratz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=430","title":{"rendered":"<em>The Edge of the Forest<\/em> and Our Interview<br>with the Courteous Mr. Alan Gratz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"Http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/willows2.jpg\">Check out the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theedgeoftheforest.com\/archive\/2007\/jan\/\">January &#8217;07<\/a><\/strong> issue of <strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theedgeoftheforest.com\/\">The Edge of the Forest<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, edited by Kelly Herold of the ever-informative <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/kidslitinformation.blogspot.com\/\">Big A little a<\/a><\/strong>. In addition to this month&#8217;s features and book reviews (including features by Allie at <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slayground.net\/bildungsroman\/\">Bildungsroman\/Slayground<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/motherreader.blogspot.com\/\">MotherReader<\/a><\/strong>, and Franki from <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/readingyear.blogspot.com\/\">A Year of Reading<\/a><\/strong>), Eisha and I contributed to this month&#8217;s issue by <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theedgeoftheforest.com\/archive\/2007\/jan\/interview.shtml\">interviewing Alan Gratz<\/a><\/strong>, the YA author who penned <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alangratz.com\/\"><em><strong>Samurai Shortstop<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (reviewed <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=94\">here<\/a><\/strong> by Eisha way back in August) and who is working on a new title, which you can read all about at the interview.<\/p>\n<p>Because Eisha and I both knew Alan when we all lived in Knoxville and both worked with him in theatruh endeavors, I am including a picture of him here as a very solemn-looking Badger (with a walking stick at that) in a children&#8217;s stage adaptation of <em>Wind in the Willows<\/em> from ten years ago! Hee hee. Gotta love it. I think Alan has a healthy sense of humor and will laugh, though for all I know he&#8217;s now plotting my demise, at the very least attaching a picture of me to the center of a dart board at this very moment. To be fair, that&#8217;s me, standing in the center of all the actors &#8212; the one with the bizarre mime-like make-up, hand-flapping my way across the outdoor stage as a shadow interpreter in the show. I&#8217;m signing &#8220;DANGER!&#8221; and with a very alarmed look. I don&#8217;t remember what exactly Mole was up to at that particular moment, but it couldn&#8217;t have been good. <\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>For the record, Alan was a great Badger. Alan, if you&#8217;re highly embarrassed and need retaliation, Eisha says she&#8217;ll step up and post embarrassing photos of her and me in a stage adapation of &#8220;The Elephant&#8217;s Child&#8221; (hey, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=423#comments\">have I mentioned<\/a><\/strong> to anyone that I have memorized that. entire. story?). It&#8217;s only fair.<\/p>\n<p>And, yes, in our interview with Alan we threw the Pivot Questionnaire at him. But, lest you think we&#8217;re obsessed with it, we interviewed him <em>before<\/em> we decided to <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=423\">interview bloggers<\/a><\/strong>. We thought the questionnaire was so fun and weirdly insightful that we decided to include it in our upcoming blogger interviews. I mean, who would have thought that asking someone what sound or noise they love could tell you so much about them? (We probably both have also dreamed of being Academy Award-winning actresses who get asked those questions by James Lipton and get quizzed by adoring acting students afterwards, but I digress. Eisha <em>has<\/em> been holding on to &#8212; for years now &#8212; her favorite funky, second-hand, thrift store dresses for the day she wins the Oscar or Tony. She won&#8217;t let the dream die. Good for her). Where was I? So, no, we don&#8217;t ask strangers on the street what their least favorite word is. Asking Alan those questions inspired us to include them in our upcoming blogger interviews. <\/p>\n<p>Enjoy <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theedgeoftheforest.com\/archive\/2007\/jan\/interview.shtml\">the interview<\/a><\/strong> (and, as always, the rest of the informative write-ups and reviews at <em>The Edge of the Forest<\/em>). Alan made the interview easy and fun to do. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Check out the January &#8217;07 issue of The Edge of the Forest, edited by Kelly Herold of the ever-informative Big A little a. In addition to this month&#8217;s features and book reviews (including features by Allie at Bildungsroman\/Slayground, MotherReader, and Franki from A Year of Reading), Eisha and I contributed to this month&#8217;s issue by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}