Tag: Announcements

I’ll be attending the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting at the end of next week. I am most looking forward to the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt banquet on Sunday, January 17, where I’ll be speaking with other HMH authors about our new spring 2010 books. If you know me and my book love issues, you’ll understand how excited I am to be speaking alongside:

Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Jeanne Birdsall
Beth Fantaskey
Russell Freedman
Lois Lowry
Sally Mavor
Linda Urban

There are lots of other exciting events going on at the midwinter meeting, including the ALA Youth Media Award announcements, which take place at 7:45am on Monday, January 18. So many of the books I adored this year are up for awards; best of luck to all the nominated authors!

Hope to see some of you in Boston …

 

I had a lovely chat with author, artist, creative director, and blogger Heather Zschock this week. Heather keeps a delightful and eclectic blog that features, among other things, a weekly Author/Artist Series. I’m this week’s guest author. Heather is a new mom, and so we talked a bit about creating and parenting at the same time. My words of wisdom?

It’s an endless struggle for balance.

(Well it is, isn’t it?)

You can read our entire interview here, and you can find previous interviews in the Author/Artist Series here.

Enjoy!

 

Tufted titmouse, Massachusetts December 2007
© Betty Jenewin

1 red-bellied woodpecker
7 song sparrows
8 white-breasted sparrows
3 mourning doves
14 juncos
2 blue jays
9 black-capped chickadees
3 white-breasted nuthatches
5 tufted titmice
3 crows
3 downy woodpeckers
11 American goldfinches
1 northern cardinal
24 mallards
2 American tree sparrows
6 house finches

No, it’s not my Christmas list, but a list of the birds I saw on Saturday morning at the Broad Meadow Brook Audubon Sanctuary in Massachusetts. I tagged along as volunteer naturalist Howard Sheinheit and fellow bird enthusiast Dick Auger conducted a winter count. I’ve been a casual birder for most of my adult life, but on Saturday, as we three traipsed quietly along the brook sharing sightings and debating identifications, I began to understand how birding the hobby can turn into birding the obsession.

In related news, I can finally announce why I have been doing so much monarch banding and bird watching. I’m researching a new book, aptly (but tentatively) called CITIZEN SCIENCE, which will be published by Henry Holt in 2011. I have some incredible research trips coming up, each of which will have me cavorting with scientists of all ages. Yippee!

 

The International Reading Association’s Teachers’ Choices booklist was published in the November 2008 issue of The Reading Teacher … and I was thrilled to find TRACKING TRASH in the Advanced (Grades 6-8, Ages 11-14) category.

Thank you, IRA teachers!

 

On Saturday I attended the first New England Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Salon. It was a fabulous event and I have to start my recap by encouraging published New England SCBWI members to consider attending future Salons. (Find more information here.)

The forty writers and illustrators in attendance were treated to an overview of “Working with Independent Booksellers” by Carol Stoltz of Porter Square Books, Alison Morris of Wellesley Booksmith and Carol Chittendon of Eight Cousins Bookstore.

These women are passionate about books and experienced in the art of connecting books to readers in their community. They freely shared their wisdom with us and I left inspired to find more ways to support independent booksellers … even though I live in an area without one.

So, how can we writers and readers support independent booksellers and other retailers in our communities? It’s actually pretty easy, thanks to IndieBound. Check out this IndieBound Declaration:

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for individuals to denounce the corporate bands which threaten to homogenize our cities and our souls, we must celebrate the powers that make us unique and declare the causes which compel us to remain independent.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all stores are not created equal, that some are endowed by their owners, their staff, and their communities with certain incomparable heights, that among these are Personality, Purpose and Passion. The history of the present indies is a history of experiences and excitement, which we will continue to establish as we set our sights on a more unconstrained state. To prove this, let’s bring each other along and submit our own experiences to an unchained world.

We, therefore, the Kindred Spirits of IndieBound, in the name of our convictions, do publish and declare that these united minds are, and darn well ought to be, Free Thinkers and Independent Souls. That we are linked by the passions that differentiate us. That we seek out soul mates to share our excitement. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the strength of our identities, we respectively and mutually pledge to lead the way as we all declare that we are IndieBound!

As writers, we can support this movement by becoming IndieBound Affiliates (much like you can with other online bookstores) and encouraging our readers to buy our books through local, independent bookstores. You can add an IndieBound button to your website and give readers the option to support their own local booksellers at the same time that they support you. I plan to do that as soon as humanly possible. (Read: As soon as my web guy can do it!)

In the meantime, if you need a copy of TRACKING TRASH, just click the link below. You’ll be taken to an IndieBound webpage; simply punch in your zipcode and you are hooked up with a bookstore near you that carries my book. Go ahead, test it out!

BUY TRACKING TRASH NOW!

 

My neighbor called me on Monday and said to my answering machine: “Hi Loree. I’m thumbing through the new issue of Ranger Rick and found an article called ‘Trash Tracker’ by a Loree Griffin Burns. Is that you?”

Tee hee. Can you imagine another Loree Griffin Burns out there writing about trash for young people?!

Anyway, if you have the October issue handy, check out the feature article on page 31. It’s me!

 

(Posted with permission)

It’s a derivative of Murphy’s Law that if two very important events are scheduled for the same month, they will fall on the same day. For example, this Saturday is both International Coastal Cleanup day (see this earlier post for details) and West Boylston Arts Festival Day.

Ack!

What’s a girl to do?

My only choice is to make the best of it.

So, after a morning of collecting and counting trash at Salisbury Beach State Reservation, I’ll be heading to West Boylston for an afternoon of celebrating the arts. The Arts Festival will be jam-packed with artsy fun for the entire family, and entrance is only five bucks. The forecast looks stupendous and this event is Truly. Going. To. Rock.

Oh, and did I mention that all proceeds will benefit music and art programs in West Boylston public schools? Here’s a link to an article about the festival and its mission from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

Here’s the full festival schedule. (Can you say WOW?!)

And here’s the lineup for the Children’s Story Tent, where I’ll be later in the day:

10am Katie Green
11am Jennifer Morris
12pm Sarah Lamstein
1pm Dot Johnson
2pm Ellen Dolan
3pm Loree Burns

Come celebrate with us!

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