CMIS Evaluation Fiction Focus

It’s been a while. A few of the twitterverse exchanges this week:

• The 20 most annoying reviewer cliches (I think we have seen this before, but the repeat is every bit as entertaining)
• Favourite children’s books we should never have loved
• That The Snow Goose needs to be rediscovered
• The NY Times Children’s Book special edition
• A new review of Tales from Outer Suburbia
• A startling story about the late Esther Hautzig and why Newbery honours never came her way
• A video interview with Garth Nix
• The Inkys are drawing to a close and apparently it’s neck and neck for the Gold. Voting closes next week.
• The Roald Dahl Funny Prize
• The writing tips for NaNoWriMo from Justine Larbalestier. Here’s Number 10
• Flickr images for Remembrance Day
• Susan Cooper’s contribution to the Exquisite Corpse project
• Fairytales for our cybersafety-conscious times
• An interview with SciFi writer Kim Stanley (on time travel, Galileo and why SF writers aren’t prophets anymore)
• Siegfried Sassoon’s manuscripts now online
• The Melbourne Prize for Literature
• Enid Blyton, as played by Helena Bonham Carter
• What Will I Read Next? A rather nifty website that will suggest titles (and also that you visit your libary)

That’ll do. Just a few. Just this week. Take one, take them all, but better still follow us and don’t miss a thing!

And while we are here, can we say (in modestly small print) how chuffed we all were to read this blog post this week. Thanks Tania

The Guardian comments on the phenomenon of tweets to story, as is being used by Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself), Melvin Burgess (@MelvinBurgess) and Philippa Gregory (@elizwoodville):

“I thought I’d start with a line and see where it went,” said Burgess, whose controversial novels have tackled subjects from teenage sex to heroin addiction in the Carnegie medal-winning Junk. “It’s more just to be able to write something under no pressure – for fun – and let it go where it will, rather than worry if it will be acceptable or published.”

Not that any of these miscellaneous topics are unimportant, it’s just easier to group them together right now, especially as many of our shorter posts are now being tweeted rather than blogged.

• Michael Rosen on poetry : ‘Kids don’t get the chance to enjoy poetry. They’re too busy counting adjectives’.
• Speaking of poetry – Clive James as Oxford poetry professor? My, the boy from Kogarah sure has come far. Can’t imagine him turning it down if it were to be offered.
• Be at the launch of the 2009 Inky Awards – even if you aren’t in Melbourne.

Not with us on twitter yet? Here’s a sample of what we have been sending out to the twitterverse, but not necessarily blogging (except here):

• 2009 Mythopoeia Awards – Kristin Cashore, a first time novelist, trumps the amazing Neil Gaiman.
• A discussion about books with female protagonists that boys will enjoy, sparked by this article.
• A link to an important academic study of children’s fiction about 9/11.
• Mary Manning from SLAV talking about teacher librarians on Life Matters this morning.

We are pretty quick on the retweet button, too, when we receive something interesting about the YA Lit world. And you’ll also know as soon as we have made a new post on this blog – instant twitter alert.

C’mon in, the water’s fine. Join us soon.

The American Library Association won’t have its text-messaging service this year.

Instead, ALA’s awards will be texted in real time via Twitter.

You can follow (and find) the Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/ALAyma

If you are new to twitter here is a quick introduction.