CMIS Evaluation Fiction Focus

EBay is being used more and more often for the forces of good. Recently a Shaun Tan drawing raised big money for War Child, via Kids Night In 3 anthology.

Now Amra Pajalic, author of The Good Daughter, is auctioning her services to assess an unpublished manuscript, with a starting bid of $250.  All proceeds will go to the Indigenous Literacy Project.

Here’s why Amra has decided to do this.

It’s probably too early to have any NaNoWriMo manuscripts looked at, but if you have something else tucked away, or know someone who does, please spread the word. It’s for a good cause.

The auction closes on 27 November.

And thanks to Simmone Howell for letting us know.

It’s November, and it’s NaNoWri Mo – National Novel Writing Month. National as in US, of course, but an interesting concept nonetheless.

The website explains how it all works, but in essence, by the end of this month the aim is to have a 50,000 word novel in the bag. Not of publishable quality, of course, but perhaps a first draft of something more promising.

Here are the rules. It might be a fun way of keeping students engaged in these twilight weeks.

POSTSCRIPT: 3 November

John Green on NaNoWriMo, the writing process, discipline, revision and the permission to be far from perfect. This is on of his Vlog Brothers videos – he’ll be updating his NaNoWriMo reflections daily.

This one if you or your students want to write. For here is where Patrick Ness (The Knife of Never Letting Go) will be blogging about writing as part of his online residency with Booktrust.

And here is the article from The Guardian that alerted us.

Justine Larbalestier is devoting her January blog to writing. And a teensy bit of cricket.

Only students from the UK can enter the competition that Patrick Ness is running in the Guardian.  But that doesn’t mean that his premise isn’t relevant elsewhere.

As the long summer days kick in here in Australia, and the task of keeping end-of-year classrooms engaged becomes ever more challenging, it’s an idea that English teachers might want to consider.

Or look at the lovely images given to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by a variety of children’s book illustrators. Could be the springboard for a collaborative class venture.

Isn’t it great to see how much success some of our YA authors are enjoying? We have already acknowledged Sonya Hartnett’s outstanding achievement earlier this month in winning the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, but some of our other stars are being published in Europe and North America to considerable acclaim.

Markus Zusak has created an international buzz with The Book Thief, which was a Printz Honor Book in 2006 and winner of a prestigious prize in South Africa last year.

This weekend, Markus featured in the regular ‘Why I write‘ column of the Guardian newspaper. Determined to become a writer from the age of 16, Markus offers insights which are worth sharing with any young aspiring writers you know.