Author Appearance - Cedar Falls, Iowa

If you're anywhere near Cedar Falls, Iowa, come join me!

Thursday, April 25th, 2013

6:30 - 8:00pm

Cedar Falls Public Library
Cedar Falls, Iowa

I will be presenting and signing books in celebration of Cedar Valley's annual Youth Read. This event is made possible by the Kathryn Ray Foundation and the Waterloo and Cedar Falls Friends of the Library organizations. 

For more information: http://www.cedar-falls.lib.ia.us/archive/2013/april2013/author2/?searchterm=None

How a book is made, a video series by Lauren Oliver

I just came across this marvelous collection of videos made by bestselling children's book author, Lauren Oliver. 

Teachers, you're going to love this video series! 

You can watch all seven episodes by clicking on the link below.

http://mrschureads.blogspot.com/2013/03/lauren-oliver-shares-how-book-is-made.html

Ava's 6th Grade Savvy Book Talk

I love seeing the great work readers come up with. Thanks Ava's mom for sharing this with me!

Having Fun with Spine Poetry

Inspired by Jesse Stommel's spinepoetry.com, I had to try a bit of book spine poetry for myself. It's fun! Raid your bookshelves and give it a whirl! I call this one: The Making of a Poem.

The Making of a Poem:

illusions,

breadcrumbs,
clay,

red glass...

a crooked kind of perfect

shine.

The ruby notebook,

33 minutes.

Good enough!

Thanks authors: Mark Strand and Eavan Boland, Anne Ursu, David Almond, Laura Resau, Linda Urban, Lauren Myracle, Laura Resau (again), Todd Hasak-Lowy, and Paula Yoo, for the wonderful titles used in my spine poem.

Poison, by Bridget Zinn

I'm often asked what it was like to see my first book in print, to see it sitting on a bookshelf inside a bookstore, waiting to be purchased by some eager reader who happened to like the cover or the description inside the jacket flap. It was a thrilling moment. A moment filled with an overwhelming sense of giddiness and disbelief. Of excitement. Of dreams fulfilled.

This week marks the release of Bridget Zinn's debut novel, Poison. Bridget, sadly, died of cancer before she could see her book in print, before she could go into a bookstore and poke the cover and run away giggling, the way my kiddo and I did together when we first found Savvy, released a week early, on a shelf in Borders. 

Since Bridget, who was also a librarian, is not here to see her book on the shelves of a library or bookstore, there are many, many, many other people--people who knew her, people who didn't--who are celebrating for her this week and sending our thoughts to her husband, Barrett Dowell.

About Poison, Kirkus wrote: 

"Don't let the title or cover fool you! No grimdark teen fantasy or angst-y heroines here; just a frothy confection of a fairy tale featuring poisoners, princesses, perfumers and pigs, none of whom are exactly what they appear (except maybe the pigs)…. Good silly fun—a refreshing antidote to a genre overflowing with grit and gloom." We're sure this is the first of many happy reviews to come for Bridget's debut.

I've read that Bridget's last tweet was, "Sunshine and a brand new book. Perfect." Bridget was 33.

I hope your day, this day, is filled with sunshine and a brand new book... maybe a brand new book by a lovely woman, taken too soon. A lovely woman named Bridget Zinn.

To learn more about Bridget's life, and her book, check out her official website: www.bridgetzinn.com

Happy World Read Aloud Day!

I am so thankful to have grown up in a family that valued reading aloud. I have the best memories of my mom reading The Chronicles of Narnia and The Little House on the Prairie books to my sister and I while we ate breakfast each morning, before we went to school. And I'll never forget my father's voice, and his laugh, as he read aloud The Princess Bride every night after supper one summer, back when I was nine or ten years old.

My dad was also my 4th grade teacher and the highlight of any school day was "Story and Drawing." Dad read our class the Chronicles of Prydain while we drew anything we wanted--none of us ever wanted 'Mr. Visser' to stop reading. I was also blessed with an older sister who read aloud to me into my teens (and beyond)--particularly during summer vacation. Michelle introduced me to the books of Diana Wynne-Jones, Dorothy Gilman, Joan Aiken, Gillian Bradshaw, P.C. Hodgell, and more.

For myself, I was lucky enough to have a child who wanted a bedtime read-aloud until birthday #17. I got to read so many wonderful books aloud for so many years--we went all the way from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to The Mouse and the Motorcycle to The Ranger's Apprentice series to--coming full circle--The Princess Bride.

Today, via Skype, I had the opportunity to read aloud to group of 4th and 5th Graders at Mill Pond School, in Massachusetts, in honor of World Read Aloud Day. I hope everyone gets the chance to read to someone special before the day is done. Pick a book! Pick a poem! Find a child! Find a friend! Read, read, read, read, read!

A Mighty Girl

There is a really terrific online resource called A Mighty Girl, www.amightygirl.com, that anyone who is a girl, who teaches girls, who parents girls, or who has a niece or a granddaughter, will appreciate. A Mighty Girl is "The world's largest collection of books, toys and movies for smart, confident, and courageous girls." Pretty cool, right? Right!

I grew up wanting to be a mighty girl. I pretended I was Princess Leia, a knight at King Arthur's round table, a superhero, a wolf-riding, sword-weilding elf, a viper pilot on the Battlestar Gallactica... and yes, *sigh* even one of Charlie's Angels.

So, you can see why I was over-the-moon and pleased-as-punch when the awesome Mighty Women at A Mighty Girl asked to interview me for their new Creators Series. I am happy to share a link to the interview HERE.

and here http://www.amightygirl.com/blog/?p=1564

Be mighty!!

Savvy Soiree in Pasadena, California - November 8, 2012

Photo by Jen Pino,
Vroman's Bookstore

In the Pasadena area? Come join me at the "Savvy Soiree" at Vroman's Bookstore on Thursday, November 8th. It's sure to be great fun. 'Hope to see you there!

  Savvy Soiree!!!

   Start: 11/08/2012, 4:00 pm

   Location: 

   Vroman's Bookstore
   695 E. Colorado Blvd
   Pasadena, CA 91101
   Tel: 626-449-5320

   http://www.vromansbookstore.com/savvy-soiree

   email@vromansbookstore.com

Meet Samson's turtle, take a photo on the pink bus, share your savvy on our wall, play ring toss, and stop by our tattoo and science stations. Special guest: author Ingrid Law will be joining us to present and sign Savvy at 5pm. Refreshments will be served.

Vroman's Bookstore is proud to sponsor the Young Readers League, a community-based program that encourages and fosters a love of reading! Our committee (comprised of educators, parents, booksellers and students)  read and voted on our first selection: Savvy by Ingrid Law. This title is recommended for grades 3-7.

Interview on KidsEBookBestsellers.com

KidsEBookBestsellers.com recently asked me to answer some interview questions for them, asking about Savvy and publishing and e-books. To read the interview, click on the link at the bottom of this post.

I don't have an e-reader myself. I briefly owned a first generation i-Pad after a friend gave me his. I'd only just begun to use it for reading e-books when I left it in a rental car at the Atlanta airport and never saw it, or my electronic copy of St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, again. And I was enjoying that book, too!

Here's the link to the interview:

KidsEBookBestsellers.com: Ingrid Law Has the Savvy to Hit the Kindle Top Ten...: On September 15th, Savvy by Ingrid Law reached the number 5 spot in the "Children's & Young Adult" section of the Amazon Kindle store. So o...

1st Annual Steamboat Springs Book Feast

Bud Werner Memorial Library - Home of the Steamboat Springs Book Feast

September 8th was a beautiful day in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I enjoyed my day as part of the town's first annual children's Book Feast. I shared the day with (see above) Janet Stevens, Michelle Rodenburg, Craig Brown, Sneed Collard III, Avi, Caroline Stutson, Bonnie Phipps (not pictured) and more. Below, you can see Janet Stevens drawing a wonderful bear for the crowd during her presentation in the morning.

So many talented kids attended my writing workshop, Go Crazy and Get Creative! And my student 'Gopher,' Olivia, was the best assistant anyone could ask for. The great folks from Off the Beaten Path Bookstore (www.steamboatbooks.com) worked their tails off! The people of Steamboat were warm and welcoming. And the aspen trees were already beginning to turn.

If you're in the Colorado area--or even if you're not--watch for this festival next year! I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Illustrator Janet Stevens

Girl Scouts Studio

I'm so excited to be this week's featured author at The Studio, Girl Scouts online "Behind the Scenes" site designed to inspire storytellers of all kinds.

http://studio.girlscouts.org/

There are all kinds of fun things to check out for each and every featured author: Q&A, writing exercises, background information... So, if you enjoy learning about the process of telling stories, you'll certainly love exploring this site. In fact, I highly recommend reading Kate DiCamillo's comments about being a professional RE-writer. It's so true for all of us, and so good for people to know and remember! Nobody writes a perfect first draft.

Thanks, Girl Scouts!

The Secret DMS Files of Fairday Morrow: Author Interview with Ingrid Law

I'm wondering if the lovely bloggers who interviewed me on their site today put the crawling spider in the sidebar just for me... *shudder* Where is Uncle Autry when I need him?

Don't let the spider stop you...

The Secret DMS Files of Fairday Morrow: Author Interview with Ingrid Law: The DMS was lucky enough to interview   I ngrid Law , author of the middle grade novel  Savvy .  Lizzy reviewed this fantastical book and i...

Three Times Lucky, by Sheila Turnage

Rising sixth grader Miss Moses LoBeau lives in the small town of Tupelo Landing, NC, where everyone's business is fair game and no secret is sacred. She washed ashore in a hurricane eleven years ago, and she's been making waves ever since. Although Mo hopes someday to find her "upstream mother," she's found a home with the Colonel--a café owner with a forgotten past of his own--and Miss Lana, the fabulous café hostess. She will protect those she loves with every bit of her strong will and tough attitude. So when a lawman comes to town asking about a murder, Mo and her best friend, Dale Earnhardt Johnson III, set out to uncover the truth in hopes of saving the only family Mo has ever known.

Full of wisdom, humor, and grit, this timeless yarn will melt the heart of even the sternest Yankee.

Sometimes I lose track of time. Other times, I fear I'm simply lost in time as we know it. When it comes to Sheila Turnage's new middle grade novel, Three Times Lucky, I've been both early and late in my timeliness. Early, because I had the enormous pleasure of getting to read Sheila's utterly delightful debut last August (was that really when it was?) when I received it before it was even an ARC. Late, because the book was released weeks ago (with three starred reviews!) and I'm only now coming out of my hermit-writer cave to sing its praises.

When Three Times Lucky arrived for me to read and blurb, it came as a fully edited and formatted story, but one printed on loose sheets of letter sized paper bound together with a rubber band. But those lovely white pages were filled with the most delicious arrangements of words, describing a bevy of quirky characters--led by the hysterical and stout-hearted Mo LoBeau...

Erm...

To be unabashedly honest, my personal collection of loose Three Times Lucky pages still decorates my bedroom floor, where I left it in a heap of rapidly-turned-and-flung-over-the-arm-of-my-chair papers... and yes, it now becomes painfully obvious that I need a housekeeper--badly--but I prefer to think that I simply love knowing that the story is still right where I left it, in the same whirlwind-jumble of affectionately tossed pages.

In closing, all I have to say is: If the fate of the world rested on a single jaw-slacking simile, I would want Sheila Turnage to craft it.

Huzzah!

****

For more about Sheila and her book, check out Katherine Erskine's interview with this talented new voice in children's literature.

http://kathyerskine.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/sheila-turnage-three-times-lucky/

Or, head on over to Sheila's website: www.sheilaturnage.com

A One Shoe Writing Day

I had a One Shoe Writing Day today.

When I say ‘one shoe,’ that’s a good thing… I think. When I have a One Shoe Writing Day, it means I have sat for hours not realizing that I’m only wearing one shoe.

Now, normally, I kick my shoes off (both of them) at the first moment humanly possible. But today it took me four-and-a-half hours before I looked down and said, “Oh! I forgot something.”

On such one-shoe days, my mind becomes so lost in what I write, I don’t even know if the writing is good. I don’t know if what I'm writing has quality, or worth, but I’m so absorbed in the things I’m writing...

And the words I’m putting together...

And the poetry I’m building...

And the worlds I'm creating...

And the universes I am EXPLODING!...

that I look up and I realize—

Oh! I am sitting in a very small room.

Outside my door is a very big world. But it is not the world I was just in. It is not the world in which people who don’t even exist... cried. Or laughed. Or had dreams of barn owls that were once clocks.

And for a moment, the small-big, big-small real world right in front of me is both mundane and wondrous at the same time. Because it feels almost as fictional as the place I’ve been for the last four hours.

Wearing only one shoe.

AISL Conference... and more

I'll be coming out of hiding, briefly, to give the opening speech at the 2012 Association of Independent School Librarians' conference on April 18th. I'm looking forward to taking part in an event celebrating "Mountains of Information!"

For more details: http://aisldenver2012.weebly.com/index.html

I will be going back into hiding immediately after. (At least for a while.) But if you're local (in the Denver Metro area, in Colorado) and longing to meet some other really terrific authors at a book-signing event this spring--my friend (and brilliant, award-winning writer... really, I'm not kidding, I own every one of her books--except for the newest, which is a problem I will soon remedy), Laura Resau, will be at the Boulder Bookstore, 1107 Pearl St. Boulder, CO, on Saturday, May 5th, at 2pm, along with authors Todd Mitchell, and Amy Kathleen Ryan. I plan to go listen to Laura, Todd, and Amy speak, and I can't wait to get my hands on their new books.

You should come, too! Everyone is welcome!

Amazing Student Projects

I think one of my favorite things about being an author is my weekly trip to the post office. While I may sometimes be slow in responding to the letters I receive, they never go unread, or unappreciated. Kids, parents, teachers, librarians, booksellers... you all knock my socks off and inspire me to keep working hard to write new books and make them the best they can be.

Take these recent projects that readers shared with me:

First, images from a class project in which SCUMBLE came to life--in LEGOs! Students in a classroom in my home town recreated and presented scenes from the book.

And second, just this week I got to enjoy another awesome SAVVY project--and a very elaborate one at that! Third graders from a book study group run by parent volunteers at Windsor Elementary School in Illinois mailed me a VERY fun package.

After reading SAVVY, the kids compiled a CD that included an original SAVVY song. They created the artwork for the CD case as well as the disc, and even wrote liner notes. Then they made a video of the whole group singing the song, "I've Got a Savvy and I know it!"

Needless to say, I was impressed.

And, I sort of wish I was in 3rd or 4th grade again.

Savvy and the Homeschool Literature Book Club

I was pleased as punch to learn today that Savvy is one of the first two books to be featured on the new online Homeschool Literature Book Club.

Homeschool Literature is a site that promotes fictional children's books with homeschoolers as the main or supporting characters.

For more information about the website, go to:

www.homeschoolliterature.com

Snail mail...

Sooooo behind in getting snail mail letters from readers answered! Guilt... guilt... guilt. It's easier to keep up with email--fewer steps, I guess.

If you've sent me a letter sometime in the past... er, 2 months? Maybe even (cringe) 3? I still have it and it is staring me in the face right now from a stack on my table. I haven't forgotten you, wonderful readers. I promise!

Winterling, by Sarah Prineas - out now!

My friend, Sarah Prineas, award-winning author of the THE MAGIC THIEF series, has a new book out today! It is called WINTERLING. Kirkus calls Sarah's new book "...an atmospheric middle-grade fantasy that ties the coming of age to the turning of the year..." and also says that "readers will find refreshment in a tale as muted and miraculous as the return of spring."

Here is the description of the book from Sarah's website:

With her boundless curiosity and wild spirit, Fer has always felt that she doesn’t belong. Not when the forest is calling to her, when the rush of wind through branches feels more real than school or the quiet farms near her house. Then she saves an injured creature—he looks like a boy, but he’s really something else. He knows who Fer truly is, and invites her through the Way, a passage to a strange, dangerous land.

Fer feels an instant attachment to this realm, where magic is real and oaths forge bonds stronger than iron. But a powerful huntress named the Mor rules here, and Fer can sense that the land is perilously out of balance. Fer must unlock the secrets about the parents she never knew and claim her true place before the worlds on both sides of the Way descend into endless winter.

Happy Publication Day, Sarah!

Here is the book trailer...

Happy Holidays

May your days be filled with blessings,
answered prayers,
rewarded hopes,
and dreams that find fruition
this holiday season.
xo
Ingrid