While meetings are wonderful tools for generating ideas, expanding on thoughts and managing group activity, this face-to-face contact with team members and colleagues can easily fail without adequate preparation and leadership. Article continues
{Via Children’s Bookshelf]
Representatives for RDR Books plan to appeal last week’s ruling by Judge Robert Patterson in J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. Entertainment’s lawsuit against the Michigan-based publisher, according to the Detroit Free Press. RDR publisher Roger Rapaport told the paper that he expects his legal team to file an appeal this week, in an effort to allow The Harry Potter Lexicon by Steven Vander Ark to be published.
The Free Press reports that RDR and Vander Ark are considering presenting a revised version of the Lexicon, in the hopes that the Judge Patterson might allow it to be published. “I’ve always been very much willing to work with [Rowling and Warner Bros.] and try to see what can be done,” Vander Ark told the paper.
Acclaimed Melbourne author, screen writer and journalist Helen Garner has taken out the top prize at this year’s Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards.
Garner won $25,000 for her novel The Spare Room at a ceremony in Brisbane last night. (more…)
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by Garry Poole |
This book provides groups with 1,001 engaging and thought-provoking icebreaker questions to start and sustain meaningful conversations.
As a professional copywriter, not only do I do a lot of writing but I also look at a lot of writing. One of the things I’ve noticed that sets the good/great writers from the so so is rhythm.
What I mean by rhythm is how the writing sounds. The rhythm of the words and sentences. It’s a subtle aspect of writing, one not normally talked about, but that doesn’t lessen its importance.
Unfortunately, rhythm is also tough to teach (which is probably why it isn’t talked about very much). It’s something felt deep inside, like it is with music. It isn’t as straight forward as pointing out a grammar error. What makes it tougher is that everyone has their own style and own unique rhythm. However, these three tips should get you started thinking about your own writing rhythm and how to improve it.
First Second will release the English-language version of Alan’s War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope, by French artist Emmanuel Guibert, in October. The 336-page black and white work, a success in France, is based on the memoirs of an American soldier’s experiences during World War II and his life, and disillusionment with his country, in the conflict’s wake. Alan’s War will have an initial print run of approximately 30,000 copies.
Alan’s War came about after Guibert and Cope struck up a friendship in France, where the veteran moved in 1948. After taping Cope’s reminiscences, Guibert arranged his words into a coherent chronology. “My job is to make an illustrated book out of a conversation, possibly as good and vivid as the conversation was,” the artist explained. Lapin, the in-house magazine of comics publisher L’Association, serialized the work, and in 2000, a year after Cope died, the first of the three volumes of Alan’s War appeared. The volumes have since been translated into Spanish, Italy and German; First Second is publishing the series in one book.
It was important to Guibert that the book in appear in Cope’s native language, and the artist sees its publication in America as the closing of a circle. Cope recorded his memoirs in what the artist describes as “a truly wonderful French, the literary and poetic French the strangers speak.” In the translation, “the language had to appear as natural as it would have been if Alan had spoken directly in English.” He worked closely with the translator Kathryn Pulver, noting “It certainly wasn’t an easy job for the translator, whom I salute with much gratitude.”
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The International Reading Association provides online resources for use in the home or the classroom, to encourage reading and develop literacy skills. Created and collected by experienced educators (or, in the case of Choices booklists, by experienced kids) they’re designed to make your teaching task a little easier and a lot more effective. The detailed, research-based lesson plans and activities are available from Kindergarten up to year 12.
