Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Awards - and completion theory

The American Library Association - Association for Library Service for Children announced its literary awards this week, including the Caldecott and Newberry medals. See the winners here.
What I love about reading the awards announcements are finding out about authors and books that I haven't seen before - or being nudged toward those works that have been in my sight for awhile but not quite urgent reads yet. Here are some children's authors or illustrators of African descent who are new to me this week:
Sundee Frazier
Ashley Bryan
Magarita Engle, The Poet Slave of Cuba
Christopher Paul Curtis, Elijah of Buxton

Great to see more than one title with boys of African descent - I will probably get multiple copies of those.

About completion ...
Years ago, around a kitchen table, I had a good laugh with two friends over one of us having completion disorder - starting, but not finishing things. Let's just say that I should not have laughed, as I'm in the same boat now. I'm not much of a finisher - I start things really well and love it, but have trouble getting to the finish line.

So I was really glad to see Marilynn Griffith's post today about completion and her 8-minute to your novel talk. Here's a link to the notes from that talk - just reading this today helped me feel like things are possible and I don't always have to be surrounded by incomplete dreams. Wonderful for writers who are surrounded by lots of obligations. I hope I'll have a chance to hear her do the workshop in person - hint, hint Mrs. G.

1 comment:

upwords said...

Hey, girl. I hope to just see you in person! Thanks for sharing about 8 minutes. It seems to help a lot of people. How's the Davis crew?