Thursday, July 26, 2012

Margaret Mahy 1936-2012



This week we mourn the loss of Margaret Mahy.

Tributes have flowed in from around the world with obituaries appearing in the The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Herald Sun, The Huffington Post...and are still flowing in.

The world mourns the loss of THE STORYTELLER.

Margaret Mahy published over two hundred books for children and was the recipient of The Hans Christian Andersen Medal (commonly called The Little Nobel) for her world wide impact on children’s literature.
She won the Carnegie Medal twice for two young adult stories.
She was inducted into The Order of New Zealand, our highest civilian honour retricted to only 20 living people.

She was THE children’s writer.

Her awards are many...from her first ever published book, The Lion In The Meadow...discovered by chance in 1969, on an open page of our (famous) School Journal (in a glass case) as a book fair trade exhibit, by a New York editor,  through to her NZ Book of the year in 2011 with The Moon and Famer McPhee which was also named as an IBBY Honour Book this year.

A fact only lightly touched on in the media, but for me goes above the awards so richly deserved was that her little stories and poems made up a significant portion of the expanded Ready to Read series which introduced children to reading. She brought bounce and rhythm and fun into the challenging process of interpreting squiggles on the page as words and made reading time in the classroom a joy. This series was sold around the world...and so the world's children learned to read and laugh and understand that language could be playful and reading could be the best activity you could ever do.

Beautiful tributes have appeared in the last few days from this poignant personal poem from a close friend of Margaret’s, to the Pundits Of Literature trying to compare her with other well known New Zealand writers.

As the tributes and tears flow throughout the land (and now, as I write this) I am reflecting on the loss to the Children’s Literature community here in New Zealand.


In the children’s writing community you couldn’t and didn’t compare her. She was and is a colossus and a genius, as her friend and fellow children’s writer, Jack Lasenby said on National Television. 

On Facebook today I read this comment from John McIntyre owner of The Children’s Bookshop and National Reviewer of children’s books.
We have a growing, and perhaps irrational frustration at the comparisons of Margaret Mahy as "up there" with our finest authors, Katherine Mansfield and Janet Frame.
Hell, she wasn't up there, she was streets ahead. 
We like some of Mansfield's stories, but her's was a slight cannon of work over a short time span, most of it written in the many years she spent overseas whinging about how restrictive New Zealand was.
Janet Frame lead a reclusive life, and wrote for a small literary audience. She wrote brilliantly, and has had some international recognition, but could walk down the street without being recognised.
Margaret Mahy is the greatest writer we have ever produced, in any way you measure greatness. International recognition, generosity of spirit, quality of output, length of career, range of genre, awards won, languages translated into, critical acclaim, markets conquered.
Is it because she was a "children's" author that they need to qualify her greatness, or a we just being unreasonably insensitive. (and feel free to tell us if you think we are.)
This has roused a hearty cheer amongst the children’s writers and illustrators here....Margaret’s words helped children form an appreciation of reading so they could go on to appreciate the work of other writers.

I had to stand up and deliver a speech at our Children’s Book Association Annual General Meeting less than 24 hours after the news filtered through. How do you encapsulate her impact, personally and professionally and profoundly to people for whom children’s literature is why they are on this earth? You don’t. You leave it to the Storyteller herself to provide the words.

The Fairy Child
by Margaret Mahy

The very hour that I was born

I rode upon the unicorn.

When boys put tadpoles in their jars 

I overflowed my tin with stars.

Because I sing to see the sun

The little children point and run.

Because I set the caged birds free

The people close their doors to me.

Goodbye, goodbye, you world of men -
I shall not visit you again.

Margaret Mahy
Storyteller
1936 - July 23, 2012
Not R.I.P but...Dancing Among The Stars

Margaret Mahy’s last book, The Man From The Land of Fandango, illustrated by Polly Dunbar, published by Clarion will be out in October.

Friday, July 20, 2012

There Be Ice Bergs Ahead....



Today I had an email interview with a reporter on the subject of FaBo Story. One of the questions asked was how did Fabostory get started. This got me thinking about the power of Facebook for writers. Facebook can be a timesuck, a waste of time, a time waster, and sometimes it can be a catalyst for a really cool project.
On my second day on Facebook, Kyle Mewburn (cool Kiwi kids writer) said ‘Wouldn’t it be neat to have an online kids story which lots of writers can contribute to.’ A bunch of us started talking about how it could be done and before long it had morphed into an online writing challenge involving children’s writers, illustrators and kiwi kids all writing against each other in an hilarious mad story, which lasted for 18weeks! 
We did it again last year trying out one off stories, in different genre’s on another planet. 
This year there is a huge sporting event happening...What could go wrong at the Titanic games?....well we are about to  find out! FaBostory3 launches next week!

Around the blogosphere there has been lots of talk about the excellent piece on creative writing courses by Kristine Rusch. I posted it up on Facebook where it got picked up and discussed by tutors in creative writing around the country. Judging from the huge pile of comments it has struck a real chord in the online community. I know some of the sentiments struck home personally. At a writers lunch I attended last week, there was first hand description from a writer who was a student on a masters course in creative writing. The description of how a University Tutor (and name writer) conducted this course was hair raising!  Read the Kris Rusch's article and all the comments...It is worth the $5000 the poor writer, at lunch last week, paid.

Ploughshares Literary Magazine has published a piece on Plagiarism as Pedagogy from a creative writing tutor...who confessed they taught a student to plagiarise unintentionally and then thought about it and gave them an A. Their arguments make for interesting reading and so do the comments!

 They say a week is long in politics...at the moment it is the same in publishing. David Gaughran turns the spotlight on Authors Guild...who seem to have completely lost the plot in their recent diatribes against Amazon. He questions whether they are really serving their members well when they direct them to go to Publish America (a vanity publishing firm with eye watering tactics and prices, read Writer Beware.)

This morning I turned on my computer to see the news that Penguin have bought Author Solutions, a sister ship to Publish America operating on the same lines. And the comments are flying on Twitter! Will they do a Harlequin and offer rejected authors a  ‘but if you pay us $000’s we will publish your manuscript in our ‘boutique’ self publishing operation...’solution. This will be a big story to watch! (And watch out for the ice berg underneath,Writer Beware comments.)

Another blog to get a lot of comment was Porter Anderson asking whether publishers are doing any R&D? The comments about how self publishers are doing R&D are very enlightening...(marketing 301)

The Atlantic Monthly has an opinion piece on why the new books coming out are all looking the same. Does it have anything to do with e readers? Check out this crop of covers.

The Stats are out....and are getting commented on all over the place (yesterday in my car the local rock station DJ commented on them!) Ebooks are now 31% of the total publishing market and have doubled in sales to $2 Billion. Children and Young Adult books are the fastest growing category.

Joel (the Book Designer) has gathered up a collection on resources for you on the best book fonts to use that will warm all designers hearts.

Bestseller Labs has a fabulous interview with Lorna Suzuki about being a bestselling indie author and how she did it. Reading about Lorna is an inspiration in itself never mind that she writes as well!

In the craft section,


K M Weiland is so brilliant that others have taken her words and examples and made them into beautiful notes cards to print out and post on your wall.  Check out this set on story structure.

In the marketing section,
Kevin Franco lets slip some more details over his Enthrill system...ebook cards in retail stores...some great innovations happening here.



It’s conference season in North America.
Bob Mayer and Jen Talty reports on Thrillerfest and the new moves ahead there.
Both of these reports are interesting for new tech but also new ways of looking at the industry.


To finish,
I have been chatting to long time industry participants about Agent Rachelle Gardner's blog on why contracts are taking longer to negotiate. Contract language is changing and there are many hidden icebergs being slipped in that writers should be wary of. Passive Guy is always a good resource so I have linked to an article he wrote a few months ago to alert you to the tip of what is a very scary iceberg, especially if you negotiate your own contracts. (As always I urge you to read the comments so you can get a fuller picture.)

NZ Authors and Illustrators take note...perpetuity rights, rights reversion, length of copywrite, ebook publication, it is all being tweaked and not for the creators benefit. 
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