>Texas Library Association 2010
>By: Duane Sherman, Fiction Marketing Manager at Moody Publishers
We had a great time this year at the Texas Library Show in San Antonio (April 14-17th). John Matsuoka, marketing manager for Moody Video, and I staffed the Moody Publishers booth for this three-day show. We had some great traffic with over 1,000 librarians stopping by to say ‘hi’.
We saw some enthusiastic interest in our fiction products, especially books for children and teens. Folks really gravitated towards our urban fiction (designed to be ‘clean’) from our African American line, Lift Every Voice Books. Especially popular was the Yasmin Peace Series with librarians stating a hole in the market for good, clean, yet “real” youth fiction.
Another highly requested product was fiction for High School age students. While we haven’t done something just for this age range in a while, several adult fiction books were well received including William Henry is a Fine Name, I Have Seen Him in the Watchfires, and The Missionary.
After show hours John and I had some good times visiting the Alamo, the beautiful Riverwalk (don’t miss this if in the area!) and dining on some of Texas’ finest cuisine (octopus is chewier than I expected).
>Writing is Like…
>
At the Festival, I am always interested in hearing authors desrcibe their own writing process. Sometimes it is like a battle, fought until the last word, or like the struggle then joy in having a baby, or once I heard an author explain that his writing is like making his way through a mud swamp. Because writers are (of course) so good with words, it is interesting to learn from them how they understand the journey of writing a poem, story, or book.
So here are some ‘writing metaphors’ I’ve collected below…
Leslie Leyland Fields, author of 6 books and professor at Seattle Pacific University, compared writing to a more painful process in her session titled, “The Art of Bloodletting: Translating Suffering to the Shared Page.” Her basis is that writing can be a painful, though holy, activity, as we honestly struggle to face the reality around us with our pen.
Kate DiCamillo, children’s author of Because of Winn Dixie and other books, said her writing is like building a ladder as she’s climbing it, “as I rest my full weight on the rung only just built, and prepare to take yet another step.”
These next few quotes do not come from Festival speakers, but some speakers quoted these classic writers:
Dorothy Sayers, after finishing a novel, said, “I feel like God on the seventh day.”
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.” -George Orwell
“An idea in the head is like a rock in the shoe; I just can’t wait to get it out.” -Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
“Writing is like walking through a dense forest in the dead of night with a pencil flashlight between your teeth…” -Kurt Vonnegut
“There’s nothing to writing. Continue reading / Leave a comment…
