One of the best things about writing a book (besides the worldwide celebrity it brings) is seeing the artwork and covers for the first time. When you’re writing a book or an article or anything really, you only see it as a plain old boring word processing document. There’s no colour, no images to make your words come alive and no cover with your name emblazoned in huge flashing letters (okay, so you don’t get that anyway, but a writer can dream.)

Last week, my editor at Capstone Press sent me the covers for my upcoming books in the series The Real World of Pirates (that’s them at the top of this post.) I also had a look at all the interior art work, layout, etc and I have to say that I’m very happy with how it’s looking and I’m very excited to see the real papery version.

With a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie out this summer and recent rumours that pirates are the new wizards in kids publishing, I’m confident that these pirate books will be a big hit with readers across North America.

The books come out this fall and will be sold directly to schools, so if you’re a teacher or school librarian make sure you add them to your school’s piratey book collection!

Follow these links to see larger versions of each cover with their back page descriptions:

Pirate Gear: Cannons, Swords and the Jolly Roger
Pirate Treasure: Stolen Riches
Pirate Ships: Sailing the High Seas
The Pirate Code: Life of a Pirate

tagged: [writing] [pirates] [yarr!]

Yesterday may have been Mother’s Day, but around here it was Mississauga Marathon Day. I had the pleasure of watching Melanie achieve a very big goal in her life: running a full half marathon. For those non-running lard-butts, like me, that’s 21 km. Running. Non-stop. Yeah, the thought makes me shiver too.

For the past six months, Melanie has endured 10 km runs on cold, dark winter nights. She’s braved icy rain storms to finish hill training. And she’s never once thought of quitting, never ever tried to skip a training session or shied away from the challenge she set herself. Anyone who has ever trained for a big althetic event knows the hard work and determination it takes to get the point shown in the photo above.

Way to go Mel! I am so proud of you.

tagged: [running] [mississauga] [marathon]

Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my camera to the night, so I have no photos to show off. It was a lot of fun to see all the students with their own literacy projects, stories, pictures, comics and more, lining the gym. I presented a short talk to open the evening, which was filled with stories, music and lots of great food.

Thanks to all the students and teachers at Holy Family for inviting me to their big night and congratulations on a creating a fun evening of reading, writing and delicious baked goods!

tagged: [writing] [literacy] [appearances]

This time, it’ll be a bit different. I’m not reading from my Pet Tales books and there won’t be another performance of the Max Finder Mystery Theatre. The students of Holy Family have created literacy projects and tonight is their night to show them off to their families and friends. Before the festivities kick off, I’m giving a brief talk on literacy and I’m very excited.

And as a bonus, since the school is so close, I won’t even have to drive to get there. Yah!

I will deliver a timely report when I return. I promise.

tagged: [writing] [literacy] [talks]

My answer involves the usual tips: write everyday, always carry a notebook and pen and don’t listen to the internal editor. This morning, via Inkygirl, I found some more great writing tips for teens over at John Scalzi‘s blog Whatever.

The post, 10 Things Teenage Writers Should Know About Writing, digs deeper than I’m able to during a school visit, allowing it to explore more deeply the dilemmas faced by all teen writers (possibly all writers) at one time.

Tips 1 & 2 are my favourites:

1. The Bad News: Right Now, Your Writing Sucks.
2. The Good News: It’s Okay That Your Writing Sucks Right Now.

If you’re a teen writer or just a writer looking for some handy tips, check it out, because as Scalzi points out, we all write crap from time to time. Unlike Scalzi, I’m not brave enough to post my bad writing online. Sorry.

tagged: [writing] [advice] [tips]

From Conan to the Transformers, with Donald Duck and Bart Simpson sandwiched in between, there are plenty of great comics to choose from. I always enjoy FCBD because it’s another step toward opening up the world of comics to everyone, not just collectors who drool over 1st edtion, mint condition issues of Superman.

As someone who loves comics, but is definitely not a comic collector, I know how intimidating comic book stores can be. The new comic fan is greeted rows and rows of plastic bagged books from a myriad of publishers each sporting their own hero as the strongest, fastest and all powerful. Comic book store staff are well parodied for their distain toward the any and all who can’t tell their Kirby from their Ditko (ie. me).

Free Comic Book Day breaks down all those barriers and opens the comic shop doors to all who want to find out what’s really up with these comics.

So tomorrow, take a walk on the wild side and go into that strange comic shop you pass on your way to work. Don’t be intimidated by the muscled men and women in tights (who will hopefully only be on the covers of the books, but that I cannot guarantee.) Walk up confidently to the person behind the cash register and say in a loud clear voice: “I want my free comics!”

You’ll be glad you did.

(If you don’t know where your local comic store is, check out the comic book store locator over at: freecomicbookday.com)

tagged: [comics] [free] [literacy]

Also appearing on the night was Heather Whaley, who entertainined the younger kids with her stories and songs.

In the run up to the night, organizers warned me that for various reasons I might only have a small audience. But the kids broke all expectations and came out in force, filling the seats and leaving standing room only in the library.

It’s always fun to talk about something you really love and it was clear from the kids’ excitement that there were many comic fans in the audience. We talked about the comics we enjoyed and why we like them so much.

One of my favourite parts of my talks is the Max Finder Mystery Theatre segment, where the kids come up to the front and together we read a Max Finder Mystery episode.

The latest installment was another roaring success, with the kids reading their parts beautifully. Although the audience was stumped by the mystery, we all had a lot of fun trying to deduce whodunit.

The evening ended with the usual Q&A session. The award for Best Question of the Night goes to the young man who asked me if I had a pinball machine in my office. I wish!

Thanks again to the parents, teachers, librarians and most importantly the students of C.E. Broughton for organizing a great night of authors, literacy and comic fun.

(If you’re wondering how the heck I got around to posting about this visit so soon, it’s all thanks to Melanie, who snapped the photos with our brand new digital camera (which totally rocks and is sure to make us one of those annoying couples who upload a constant stream of funny/cute/useless photos. Watch this space for pics of birds at the birdfeeder and squirrels eating toast . . . )

tagged: [writing] [appearances] [literacy]

A few weeks ago, I posted about my appearance at the Words in Whitby Celebration of Authors and had a great time. Whitby is a great place, with an ideal mix of rural and urban and I really enjoyed my visit there.

Now, thanks to C.E. Broughton School, I’m off to Whitby one more time. The librarians and teachers at C.E.Broughton have invited me to their Author’s Night, happening tomorrow evening. Students, parents and teachers will be coming out to learn a bit about how comics are made and what it is that I do all day exactly. I’m very excited and grateful to the fine teachers at C.E. Broughton for inviting me into their school.

Author appearances and school visits are a new thing for me and I really like them. Being a writer means sitting around in front of your computer all day with only the a few plants and squirrels for company. For a natural hermit like me, it’s a great way to make a living. But it’s easy to feel isolated.

Visiting schools, libraries and author festivals is a great way for me to connect with the kids I write for. Every time I come back from an appearance or visit, I feel charged up and ready to write some more. It’s great when the students see your books and their faces light up with excitement or, in the case of Max Finder, recognition.

My favourite part of each of my talks is the Q&A session. The kids are free to ask any questions (within limits, of course!) The questions are always great, but sometimes there are real winners, like “Have you ever got mad and yelled at your editor?” These questions usually require quick thinking on my part and some witty (at least to me) remark that deflects the question – perfect training for politics, I should think.

Thanks again to C.E. Broughton for the invitation. I’m looking forward to meeting the students, talking comics and dodging those tricky questions.

tagged: [writing] [school] [visits]

tagged: [workers] [May_Day] [celebrate]

Cover Art by Remi Geoffroi
The best arrangement for any writer is to grant a licence to publisher for the right to print your writing. More and more, publishers are looking to get online rights as well as print rights. Normally, these shouldn’t just be handed away for nothing, but sometimes special deals can be arranged.

This is the situation with my short story, The Blue Fisted Paddle, originally published in Kayak magazine. I really like the story and apparently, so did the Canadian History Society, who publish Kayak. They have just put together furtradestories.ca an entire website devoted to telling, well, the stories of the Canadian fur trade, obviously. And my short story is part of that collection.

I’m usually wary of licencing my stories to 3rd party websites, but this site interested me. It’s basically a storehouse of information about a particular part of Canadian history. It’s clearly designed as a research tool for for students and teachers. That’s a good thing for students and for me as a writer. Having your work used as curriculum material is always an honour.

So, head on over to furtradestories.ca and check out the Blue Fisted Paddle. Here’s a sampler to get you going:

The large hand pulled me from my hiding spot.

“Listening to our conversation, farm boy?” Sebastian gripped my neck and pushed his pockmarked face close to mine.

For weeks, this man had tormented me, and now he had caught me sneaking around like a misbehaving child. His companions, Henri and Josef, were eager to witness another display of Sebastian’s legendary foul temper.

“Your ears are too big, Luc. Tell me what you heard.”

“Nothing,” I lied. To tell these men the truth would mean death. To tell them that I heard their plan to murder Nicolas Perrot, our expedition leader, would end my short time as a coureurs de bois, a runner of the woods.

Read the rest of The Blue Fisted Paddle at furstories.ca.

tagged: [history] [writing] [Canada]

It was a beautiful April day, with the sun shining down and the chill in the air nowhere to be felt. Melanie and I arrived to the Centennial Building in downtown Whitby to find the tables overloaded with my Pet Tales picture books, stuffed toys and all.

Many young visitors had difficult choices to make. What would it be? Adorable puppies, irresistable kittens or playful ponies?

After a bit of wrangling, the program for the afternoon was set and myself and Sharon Jennings got underway (Sharon wisely chose to read first, ensuring I had a tough act to follow.)

As the kids streamed into the theatre, we decided that having them join us on stage would work best. Both Sharon and I had picture books to read from and those overstuffed chairs looked too comfortable to resist. So, the audience clomped up the wooden steps onto the stage and we all settled down for storytime.

It was great to look out to the kids around me and see several of them clutching their own little stuffed versions of Baxter or Duncan as I read from each pet’s story (I also feel the black curtains really gave it that Charlie Rose feel I always try to capture with my readings.)

The audience was definitely a bright bunch, full of suggestions on what Baxter and his pals should do throughout the stories.

After the readings, it was time to sign some books.

I was thrilled to see so many young readers buying books and very happy to meet them all one by one.

As you can see from my smile, I was really having fun.

I was happy to see a few Max Finder fans in the crowd too.

And that is Words in Whitby in photos. Thanks to all the organizers and volunteers who made it such a great day. And thanks to the kids for coming out. It was an honour to be part of the fun.

tagged: [writing] [whitby] [appearances]

Words in Whitby, Sunday April 9th, 1 – 3 pm.
I’ll be reading from my Pet Tales picture books at the Centennial Building in Whitby as part of the festival’s Children’s Program. The event is hosted by Neil Crone, who promises an in-depth and revealing Q&A session after the reading. I’m excited, terrified and hopeful Neil won’t bring up the infamous cheese sandwich incident from ’83. We’ll just have to see . . .

John M. James Public School, Bowmanville, ON. Tuesday April 11th.
As part of their Author’s Night, I’ll be talking to students of John M James PS about comics, writing and lots of other fun stuff. There’ll be hot dogs on the BBQ and many other fine authors in attendance, so I’m very excited to meet, greet and eat!

[posted from main page]

tagged: [writing] [appearances] [spring]

The current issue of KNOW, pictured on the left, features my short piece about the sticky science of chewing gum. It’s only the second issue of KNOW and my first article for them. It was a lot of fun to write and real learning experience (who knew there was so much to know about gum?)

With all this science writing, I’m becoming a real storehouse of bite-sized science knowledge. Electricity? Food chains? Chewing gum? Go ahead, ask me anything – I bet I know the answer!

Now, if all this knowledge could only help me with my taxes . . .

tagged: [writing] [science] [magazines]

The three day celebration of authors is hosted by acclaimed journalist Ted Barris and will feature many fine Canadian authors, Wayson Choy and David Gilmour to name just two, so I am very honoured to be invited.

I’ll be appearing during the children’s program, and reading from my Pet Tales picture books. It all happens on Sunday April 9th from 1 to 3 pm. I’ll be joined by fellow children’s writer Sharon Jennings, the author of over 11 picture books including Mrs. Ming, which received a Governor General’s Award for illustration. Hosting the children’s program is actor and writer Neil Crone (whose blog is definitely worth checking out.)

This will be the first time I attend an authors festival as an author, so I’m very excited. Now, I just have to practice reading my own books for the big day!

Visit the Words in Whitby website for more information on the weekend festival.

[posted from main site]

tagged: [writing] [whitby] [authors] [festival]

Here’s the reasons as listed in this article at Canadian Bookseller:

The book, which the school board has deemed “inappropriate” for grades 4 to 6, presents children’s perspectives on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The book remains on the Ontario Library Association’s list of Silver Birch Award nominees, although the Canadian Jewish Congress has been trying to persuade other school boards to remove it from their Silver Birch lists.

Ellis is one of Canada’s best kids writers who writes about issues that others are afraid to touch. Her first novel, Looking for X, won Governor General’s Award (first novel wins the GG – get it?) She followed that up with The Breadwinner, about an Afghani girl who disguises herself as a boy, so she can fend for her family under the oppressive rule of the Taliban. In addition to being a fantastic read, The Breadwinner, was an example of perfect publishing timing as it was released in 2000, only a year before the Taliban leapt into the consciousness of the world. The Breadwinner quickly became required reading for every student in schools across Canada and it’s Ellis’ insight to the troubles in Afghanistan that marks her as one of those writers who goes beyond mere storytelling.

Already the Writer’s Union has spoken out against removing the book:

“It is both sad and ironic that during Canada’s annual Freedom to Read Week, we are once more confronted with a challenge to a controversial book,” said Ron Brown, vice chair of the Union. “Books that deal with divisive issues should be allowed to encourage discussion, not choke it off,” he added. “We urge the York board to return Three Wishes to its nomination list.”

The Toronto Star had a good piece on this story on Feb 28th and apparently they’ll be discussing it today between 4:30-5:00 pm on The Stafford Show on Radio 640 – of all places (thanks Gillian for the tip!)

I’ll be listening.

Added Thoughts: I was just talking to fellow CANSCAIPer and kids writer, Linda Granfield who remarked that, in 2005, no one complained when her book I Remember Korea was nominated for one of the “tree awards.” I Remember Korea is a series of interviews with adult veterans of the Korean war. Three Wishes is a series of interviews with children living through the conflict in Isreal and Palistine. Granfield’s nomination went forward “with no complaints whatsoever about young readers learning the realities of war via veterans’ recollections.”

Interesting point and one that challenges the argument that the topic covered by Three Wishes is “inappropriate” for grades 4 to 6.

On an partially related note, Granfield also dropped this gem about books dealing with war:

Someone once asked me why I don’t write books about peace instead of war. There is no greater view or discussion of peace than a book about war. A war book is indeed a peace book.

Brilliant.

tagged: [writing] [censorship] [ellis]

Although they’ve yet to publish their first books, I knew as soon as I found them that these folks had it going on. Not only is their site driven by a typepad blog engine, it actually updates frequently! Currently, they’re having their authors guest blog each day, which gives readers a chance to meet the creators like Lewis Trondheim , whose Dungeon series of graphic novels hilariously skewers the fantasy genre and should be read by those who think D&D would be better if it stood for Dungeons & Ducks.

In addition to effectively using blogs to market their creators, First Second knows that the web offers unique, low cost ways to get attention, like this simple animated trailer for The Lost Colony, released in spring 2006.

I’m a big fan of creating short movies to promote books, as I think books are more deserving of promotion than any of other crap that clogs our TVs, radios and more increasingly, the web. Companies like Bookshorts in Canada and Vidlit in the US understand this, and I’m hopeful more publishers will agree.

If you’re hungry for another comic trailer on the web, check out this one for Jeff Smith’s Bone, published by Scholastic and produced by KidVidLit.com.

tagged: [comics] [vidlit] [bookshorts] [first_second]

Thankfully, my time spent working in corporate offices has been very brief. But I’d barely finished my first donut when I realized I was in another world, filled with it’s own warped language, customs and demands (pizza day! Crazy Shirt Fridays! 24 hour inventory shifts!!)

These bizarre tribal customs are the basis for the latest VidLit for the new book The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit.

While mocking office culture isn’t new, it’s always been a sport close to my heart. The Dictionary of Corporate BS looks like it’ll be a hit with those trapped under the glare of fluorescents everywhere (where it’ll be passed around like a secret manifesto inspiring the workers to shake free from their yokes and take back power and – yeah, whatever.)

And to comply with my manditory “mention Max Barry in every post” rule, check out what Max has to say about how the the US is working to make mocking corporations illegal. If you want to see office culture satire at its best, then read the first chapters of Max’s trio of corp-scathing books: Syrup, Jennifer Government, and Company.

Now, get back to work!

And don’t forget, this Friday is no pants day at OD Synergenic Enterprises (ie my place.)

tagged: [books] [corporations] [vidlits]

For the last four years or so, I’ve been fulltime freelancing and rarely can I take a weekend off. Not that I’m complaining – when you make your own work, you can never complain about being busy. I’d like to take weekends off, but writing books, articles and comics isn’t like building shelves – you can’t just plug in your power tools and get to work. Sometimes there’s no juice for the tools to work. Somedays you just can’t get anything accomplished – that internal editor rules over you and you stare at a blank page/screen all day. As Monday slips into Friday, you’re suddenly faced with a weekend where everyone else has plans, is going places and your stuck inside working.

That’s what I’m facing this weekend, but I don’t mind. I’ll be revisiting two of my favourite characters: Oxford and Pearl – a ‘you-solve-it’ detective duo for the younger set. It’s for a story that will appear in the summer issue of ChickaDEE magazine, for kids age 5 to 8. Oxford and Pearl appeared in the Jan/Feb 05 issue of ChickaDEE, and I’m excited to see what trouble they can get into this time around.

I may be working this Saturday and Sunday, but at least I’ll be with old friends and that’s always a good way to spend a weekend.

tagged: [writing] [freelancing] [weekends]

They’re made by the Dutch design company Solar and have no other purpose (that I can see) other than being totally technocoolawesome. The site doesn’t explain how they work or how the heck the can sell them for only 0,39 euro, which I assume is the price of a regular stamp, but I don’t really care – I just want to see one on a letter in my mailbox soon. Only then will I believe that these suckers are real.

tagged: [stamps] [moving] [gracefully]

[thanks again to meish.org]

tagged: [mel] [rokx0rz] [hard]

As a former 10 year old stamp collector, I can appreciate how cool it would be to see Curious George or that wild thing from “Where the Wild Things Are” on my mail. It’s also a great way to boost awareness about children’s books and literacy in general.

Maybe it’s something Canada Post should think about.

tagged: [writing] [stamps] [literacy]

He’s just wrapped up a North American tour and his book is being hailed by the New York Times and doing very well on Amazon (the fifth best-selling novel at the time of this post.)

Despite being one of the sharpest writers skewering the bloated world of marketing hype and corporate mafiadom, Max is also a writer who gives back to his fans and aspiring writers. He’s built a great comunity on his site and has some great tips for emerging writers on there as well.

Another reason I like Max is because he subscribes to the “All First Drafts are Sh*t” rule. As a veteran of many first drafts, I’ve learned this little writing law the hard way. Max goes into greater detail in his essay on first drafts and editing over at Chuck Palahnuik’s slightly scary site.

Whether you love or hate your first draft of any story, there is no denying that it can always be edited and always made better. Some writers hate this and some writers love it. I’m on the fence. But Max, well Max loves editing. I would even say that maybe he loves it too much, but then he is the one with two movie deals and a new novel that’s being compared to Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. I’ll take his word for it.

Here’s what Max has to say on editing:

Maybe the idea of writing 90,000 words that bear some kind of relation to one another is daunting enough for you right now, and if so you don’t want to read any further. It’s best not to know what awaits. Better to think that once your word count (checked every ten minutes, and God damn it rises slowly some days) is high enough, it’s all over. You’ve written a novel! Yep, if that’s you, you definitely don’t want to hear this.

But if you’ve finished a first draft and have the niggling feeling that it could be better-that it should be better-then pull up a chair. I’m your man.

Read the rest of the great piece at: chuckpalahniuk.net

tagged: [writing] [editing] [love_it_or_die]

But keeping track and actually developing the ideas beyond notebook scribbles is the test of a good idea. And that’s my test over the next few days.

In addition to being swamped with regular writing work (2 mysteries, 1 feature article, 1 graphic novel script and a short story all due by the end of the month – seriously) , I have a big “ideas” meeting later this week.

For the meeting, I promised to bring a list of the ideas I’d like to pitch in 2006. Right now many of the ideas are no more than a bullet list on the back of a grocery receipt, but that has to change. So, I’m challenging myself to pick at least one idea a day and flesh it out to a one-page proposal. I’ve got one idea finished and I think I’ve got the energy to do another idea. It could be the excitement of getting organized or possibly the afternoon coffee kicking in. Better get back at it while the buzz lasts.

tagged: [writing] [practices] [ideas]

[posted from main site]

Last week, I spent two great days talking about comics with the grade 8 students at Smithfield Middle School. It was all part of Family Literacy Day and it was a great chance to show the students exactly how comics are made and the work it takes to carry an idea out from my head and onto the pages of a book.

The students were eager to listen (or just eager to be out of class) and they had some great questions, the best of which was: “Are you married?” I think by that point, they were just trying to stretch out their ‘out of class’ time, but I was happy to help. I’ve been there. Who can blame them for thinking that listening to me talk about writing for comics was better than math class?

One of the highlights of each of the five (!) presentations was the installment of Max Finder Mystery Theatre, where selected students joined me up at the front to read a Max Finder Mystery. After some mild encouragement, the kids eagerly grabbed their scripts and soon we were immersed in some serious co-operative sleuthing. The photo above captures all the exciting action. I’ll be posting more photos of the talk in the near future.

I’d like to thank all the students at Smithfield MS for welcoming me into their school and I’d also like to thank Mrs. Jackson and Mr. Smith for their hospitality over the two days. It was a great way to spend Family Literacy Day.

If you’d like me to visit your school and talk to your students about writing comics and graphic novels, you can contact me at: liamodonnell_(at)_gmail_(dot)_com.

tagged: [comics] [appearances] [writing]

As I posted earlier, I am lucky enough to be visiting Smithfield Middle School tomorrow and Friday to talk to the students about writing comics. There are a bunch of other great events too and you can find them listed here. If you’re looking for a fun day out with the family that will get them reading then check out your local library and find out what they’re doing this week.

Alternatively, you can drop by the Lee house in Calgary, who recently won the FLD’s national contest to have Robert Munsch drop by their house to hang out (and read a few stories one would think.)

Let me tell you, if ever the day comes where I’m prize in a nationwide contest, then my goal as a writer will be accomplished. Seriously though, congratulations to the Lee family. I’m sure they’ll have a great time with Robert – just don’t let him eat all the cookies.

tagged: [family_literacy_day] [writing] [literacy]

This morning, I also woke to the sobering reality that Stephen Harper and the Conservatives are now in power. Thankfully it’s only a minority government, so we’ll see how far right they try to go and how far our stronger NDP standing lets them.

So, until the next election, that is all the political postings around here – well, unless Harper does something totally crazy like repeal the same-sex marriage laws, re-open the right to choose debate or start selling all our water to the highest bidder – but that would never happen, right?

tagged: [ndp] [canadian] [election]

“When you don’t vote, you vote for me and you support the corporations and we’ll conquer the world so you can buy anything you want at anytime.“

His video message to voters on election day may be from the 2004 election, but it rings true today:

“It’s a Monday! Don’t vote. Go to work. Be good. Then maybe go shopping and watch a little TV.”

Watch the rest of his inspiring message, courtesy of the newkings.ca.

And if you must vote today, polls are open from 9:30 am until 9:30 pm and you can find your polling station at elections.ca.

Update: Due to annoying site design, I can’t link directly to the “Don’t Vote” video. To see it follow the Video link on thenewkings.ca main page, then scroll down and follow the link marked “When you don’t vote, you vote Klownenfuhrer” Frustrating, but worth it, sort of.

tagged: [vote] [for] [ndp]

Friday, January 27th is Family Literacy Day across Canada and I’m happy to announce that I’ll be spending two days promoting literacy at Smithfield Middle School here in Toronto. I’ll be there on Thursday January 26th and Friday January 27th, speaking to 10 grade 8 classes about writing for comics and showing them how a comic gets made from start to finish. Thanks to Smithfield MS for inviting me into their school. I’m looking forward to the big day.

[posted from main site]
tagged: [writing] [promotion] [author_visits]

- Tommy Douglas on the erosion of Medicare in 1979 [launches .mp3 file]

This morning I woke up to CBC radio interviewing Jack Layton and it got me fired up again. Jack mentioned that on his ipod he’s got some old speeches from Tommy Douglas that Olivia downloaded for him. In Sam Bulte’s books, I guess that makes Olivia a ‘pro-user zeolot’, but that’s another matter.

I went looking for these old speeches and, although the NDP site has a podcast page and promises of old Tommy Douglas speeches, I couldn’t find any (if I’m missing the page, please someone give me the link.)

After a quick google search, I found Ravi Joshi’s blog ravijo.net. Joshi is the podcasting brains behind NDP candidate Phil Allt‘s website and his latest post contains a great mp3 of Tommy Douglas speaking about the erosion of public healthcare.

The speech is from 1979 but it’s as relevant today as it was back then. The audio file is only a few minutes long and it is worth listening to if not for its message on healthcare, but to hear the passion in Tommy’s voice (he is the Greatest Canadian, after all.) I don’t hear this honesty in any of the Conservative or Liberal candidates. Admittedly, it’s hard to convey passion in the 5 second soundbites mainstream media allows its viewers and listeners.

Get beyond the soundbites of this election, grab a coffee and 5 minutes and listen to the message of Tommy in 1979. It’s as important today as it was back then.

Also worth listening to: Charlie Angus on why strategic voting sucks [launches .mp3 file]

Remember: Jack will be talking to Peter Mansbridge during the National tonight. Visit cbc.ca/national/ to find out when it’s on in you timezone.

tagged: [ndp] [Layton] [Tommy_Douglas]

“Duct tape works.”
- Ralph Klein, when asked about high poll numbers for Conservatives.

The Conservatives are enjoying high numbers in recent polls, but as this CBC article points out, it’s more for what they’re not saying this time around.

Remember all those scary, right-wing, homophobic Conservative candidates from 2004? They’re still around, they’re just not talking to the media.

From the CBC:

Rob Anders, the MP for Calgary West who once called Nelson Mandela a terrorist, has not been attending all-candidates forums in the riding and does not talk to the media. [Cheryl] Gallant is being similarly careful, communicating largely through press release and door-to-door campaigning. And Paula Henderson, a volunteer for Nova Scotia candidate Rakesh Khosla, told a Halifax newspaper that nobody would be commenting on Khosla’s participation in a meeting involving clergy members who are against same-sex marriage. “We’ve been told by Ottawa that we don’t talk about that,” Henderson said. “That’s a dropped subject.”

You’ll remember Cheryl Gallant as the one who compared abortion to al-Qaeda’s recent televised beheading of American Nicholas Berg.

Rob Anders calling Nelson Mandela a terrorist is only one of the terrifying things to come from his mouth.

It should be no surprise to that progressive Canadians have rallied together urging voters to Think Twice on Jan 23rd.

We all know that strategic voting sucks, but Jack has a strategy for all those fed up with the Liberals and terrified by the Conservatives:

“Lend us your vote while the party you have supported in the past cleans itself up.”
- Jack Layton

Sounds like a plan to me.

Update: Check out the NDP’s new TV ad to see former Liberals voting for Jack.

tagged: [ndp] [elections] [canada]

This morning saw Melanie and I heading down to the CNE to rall- it-up for Jack and the rest of the NDP gang. It was an early morning, but definitely worth it.

Together with a bunch of other good folks we all hopped on buses from Peggy’s campaign HQ and made the quick trip to the CNE, where the place was soon jumping to the pickin’, grinnin’ and winnin’ bluegrass twangin’ of Roses in the Snow (pickin’/grinnin’/winnin’ is theirs, not mine, but I like it.) The fact that the music of choice was bluegrass was perfect for Mel (a bluegrass freak, btw) and definitely got everyone’s feet tapping.

After a brief introduction from BNL’s Steven Page, Jack came on and gave a great speech and we all cheered and rallied – hey that’s what we were there for. I’d go into details, but you probably know them by now. If you don’t head over to ndp.ca and get reading.

One of the highlights of the day was bumping into Alex Felipe, a freelance photographer with a kickin’ flickr gallery. Turns out that Alex and I worked together at Indigo books back when we should have known better and before they started checking the bags of their staff, but that’s another story.

Alex took the great photo up there (is that a leader of a party or what?) and he has got a whole set of photos from the rally and a bunch of other cool images in his gallery over at flickr. Thanks Alex for letting me grab it. So, go check his photos out and remember, on Jan 23rd vote NDP – the kids will thank you for it.

(many apologies to the letter ‘g’ for being ruthlessly and repeatedly dropped in an attempt to jazz up this post.)

Update: Chandrasutra provides a much better write-up of the rally and apparently this up and coming news source had something to say about it too.

tagged: [Layton] [ndp] [rokx0rz]

The question of her copyright conflict was raised three times and each time she continued to see no problem with accepting money from record company and movie industry representatives while playing a key role in the Liberal government’s current committee on the definition of copyright. Follow the Bulte/copyright technorati trail to get all the info on this latest Liberal conflict of interest scandal.

It’s no secret that I’m backing Peggy Nash in this election and from the applause she received last night, I’m not alone.

(Photo: Accordion Guy)

As you can see from the photo, the meeting was packed with residents from across the area and a few top-notch bloggers like: Accordion Guy, False Positives and Chandrasutra.

If you want the full scoop of the night, check out Accordion Guy’s report and his update and False Positives take on the situation. Also not to be missed is the video of Sam Bulte getting testy at the “pro-user zeolots”.

tagged: [bulte] [copyright] [ndp]

To learn more about the man behind the Max Finder look, check out chodrawings.blogspot.com.

To kick off Mike’s new blog, below is a sample of some of his work. It’s a sketch of the Max Finder Mystery cast, which appears in the latest special edition of Max Finder Mystery (I didn’t mention the special edition? Well, I will tomorrow . . .)

tagged: [Max_Finder] [blogs] [Michael_Cho]

I’m excited for 2006 and I have been for many months now. The pace of publishing is so glacial that I’ve known that this is going to be a big year for me. It’s the time when all my work in 2005 finally sees the light of bookstores and classrooms across the country.

There are a bunch of books and articles scattered throughout the year, but I won’t go into them now. That’s because I can finally announce that a project close to my heart is finally underway.

This fall the folks at Owlkids Books, will be publishing the Max Finder Mystery Collected Casebook Volume 1, containing ten of the best Max Finder Mysteries and a bunch of great puzzles and bonus materials.

The bright sparks out there will note the ‘Volume 1′ and rightly assume that this is the first book in a series. Right now, there are three books planned collecting 30 of the mysteries that appeared in OWL magazine. I’m really excited about the project and look forward to working with OWL and the comic’s illustrator Michael Cho in promoting the book.

Like all my other work, I’ll have more details and hopefully some artwork to show off in the coming weeks.

From where I stand sit 2006 is looking pretty good. Hope yours is too.

tagged haiku: [Max_Finder] [books] [rock]

Okay, okay. I’ll get back to work. Hope everyone had a good break while it lasted. Best for 2006 to all.

Let’s see . . . email, must check email. That’s a good place to start.

tagged haiku(ish): [holidays] [over] [damn]

It’s time to sleep in, eat chocolate that tastes of oranges and relax.

Hope everyone else enjoys this year’s consumermas festivities. I might post again, but don’t hold your breath – that’s what an RSS feed is for.

Happy non-denominational celebration to all and I’ll see you in 2006.

tagged: [done] [work] [yah]

It was the weekend before Labour Day so Franklin’s Garden on the Toronto Island was pretty busy as people were squeezing in one last trip before the winter came.

The stage in set up like an amphitheatre, which is perfect for singers and performers, but not for a quiet bit of picture book reading. So, I invited everyone up on the stage, where we could all sit around and enjoy a bit of storytelling.

I started out with a personal favourite, Tracker: On the Job. As you can see from the photos, the kids were immediately hooked.

Some more than others.

The best part of the day, was definitely having the kids to help me with the story, guessing what happened next, meowing like kittens and discussing the chances of seeing a cat on a ferry (apparently not very good, although I wrote a whole story about that.)

Four Pet Tales adventures later, it was time to wrap up story time. After a quick photo session and some brisk book sales, the kids headed off to explore the rest of the island and hopped back on the ferry, keeping a keen eye out for any cats who might have hitched a ride.

Special thanks to Mel for taking photos, setting up my book display and being a great “agent for a day.”

tagged: [writing] [readings] [appearances]

I’m eagerly aniticipating the his new novel, Company, and I’m once again impressed at his sinisterly effective marketing strategies. To help promote his latest novel, Max has created Tales of Corporate Oppression, a new site that allows visitors to tell their worst stories from the corporate trenches. There are many, but as Max puts it: it’s amazing just how clear a company can make it that you’re completely unimportant.”

So, as I sit in my office just off the kitchen, overlooking the coffee maker and the fridge, I’ll read the stories of others who must toil away in corporate offices all the while knowing that they are utterly replaceable. But hey, at least they get dental.

tagged: [company] [max_barry] [writing]

The spectre of “going negative” is looming over this Canadian election, like one of Scrooge’s ghosts (sorry.)

With their latest ad, the NDP are rising above the negative and using one of advertising’s most powerful weapons: wit.

View the ad in Quicktime, Windows Media or Realplayer and find out what I’m giving Paul Martin this Christmas.

Watch all the NDP ads and learn more about the NDP.

tagged: [ndp] [politics] [canada]

I know I just posted about fellow kids writer Arthur Slade and his monstrous podcasts, but he’s done it again.

Arthur has created two short videos showcasing his writing. You can see him talk about his upcoming novel Megiddo’s Shadow and watch him tell you how he out ran Count Dracula at the end of a long interview, for his current book Monsterology.

The videos are short, fun, casual and another example of how authors can use the web to do the promotion that many publishers can’t or won’t do. Like meettheauthor.com, Arthur’s videos will make a connection with readers and do more to boost book sales than the best-written blurb ever could.

Way to go, Arthur. Can’t wait to see/hear (and read) more in the future.

tagged: [writing] [vlogs] [promotion]

It all started when my gracious hosting company decided to beef up security and start using sftp for posting. I’m all for that and happy they did it. Blogger, on the other hand, wasn’t so pleased. It didn’t like that at all and failed to recognize me and my login for about a week. Very frustrating, but solved with a quick google search that turned up the problem. But it didn’t stop my posting dilemmas. Instead it spat up a cryptic 005:sftpException error. Plug that into Google and you only get 16 entries for it. Dropping the 005 only gets you 174 entries. And Google Help was anything but. Was I the only person in the internet to have this problem? Seemed like it. So, for those of you who have come up against a sftpException error in Blogger, and have landed on this blog via a desperate search for answers, try this: Disable Post Pages. Don’t ask me why this works but it did for me. I have no idea if it’ll work for you.

And after two weeks of kicking my computer, I’m finally posting. Next step is to dump Blogger and migrate everything over to WordPress. Sorry Blogger, but in the words of the great Stephen Colbert: You’re on notice (and soon to be dumped.)

tagged: [blogger] [sftpexception] [wordpress]

It’s easy to mock culture jamming protests like BND and TV Turn Off Week, but it’s surprisingly hard to successfully participate in them. These culture jamming actions aren’t going to shake the foundations of capitalism or our society (and that’s not their goal), but they do get people thinking and hopefully talking about this stuff. And that’s a good place to start.

So, see how long you can go today without buying something. If you’ve already blown it like me, try again tomorrow. Trust me, society won’t notice, but you will.

Now, I’m off to pour some of my ill-gotten milk into my fair trade coffee – does that balance it out?

tagged: [buy_nothing_day] [consumerism] [milk]

Raincoast Books has launched a new series of podcasts featuring interviews and readings with its authors.

The literary podcast series will include material from the 2005 Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival.
Raincoast plans up to 15 podcasts in 2006.

Please note that in order to maintain the high journalistic standard of this blog, I didn’t even bother to search google when I spouted off about publishers and podcasting. As far as I know there are many publishers out there promoting their authors work through podcasts. But really, using my google toolbar is so much work, so I’d rather make sweeping generalisations. They’ve never hurt anyone before, so I figure I’m safe.

If you know of any other podcasting publishers/authors, please send me the links – googling is such hard work.

tagged: [publishing] [podcasting] [writing]

Stacked on my desk are half a dozen books on the subject, each one outlining the nefarious deeds of men like Captain Kidd, Blackbeard and the man who launched a thousand mojitos, Henry Morgan. My recent descent into the realm of buccaneers started with an assignment from Capstone Press and it’s spiralled out of control from there.

I’m just putting the finishing touches to four new books in the “Real World of Pirates” series for Capstone. The books will be out next year and they crack open the secret world of piracy, bustin’ myths and telling the truths that other landlubbers were too scared to speak. (Did you know the whole walking the plank thing is a load of pirate’s grog? Never happened. Except in movies and books. )

Soon word got out that I was the go-to guy for all thing piratical. About a month ago, I was hired by Stone Arch Books to write a historical graphic novel about the demise of Blackbeard. I’ve just finished the first draft of that and had a lot of fun writing it.

Up until that point, my interest in pirates was purely professional. But I’ve crossed a line. Two weeks ago, I became a pirate.

Every night from 7 pm until about 10 pm, I climb on board my brig and set sail across the tropical waters of the Caribbean, aiming my cannons at any unfortunate merchant who crosses my path. Just because it’s in the world of Sid Meier’s Pirates doesn’t make it any less real for me. But it is starting to scare me.

What started out as research has now spiralled into something more weird. Now I lurk around the shipping lanes just off Barbados, waiting for treasure-laden merchant ships. I lie awake at night wondering if pirate Jack Rackham will track me down and demand his treasure back. And now I can’t write unless I’m wearing my trusty eyepatch.

This is a warning to all those who are tempted to write about pirates: they’re addictive. They’ll suck you in with their charming villainry, daring deeds and sadistic tortures. (Did you know that Montbars of Languedoc cut open the stomach of a prisoner, nailed the entrails to a post and then forced the victim to dance by beating his backside with a burning log?)

I’d tell you more, but I’ve got to set sail. There’s a Spanish treasure ship out of Havana with my name on it. Those ship repairs aren’t cheap, y’know.

tagged: [writing] [pirates]

In the past, websites have been a great way for readers to learn more about their favourite author. With the arrival of podcasts, some enterprising kids writers are connecting with students in new ways.

Arthur Slade is one of those writers. He is also a writer that I fear. Arthur’s writing is so smart that I cringe each time he releases a book, or develops a new idea. With each new title, I’m like “Hey, I wanted to do that! I just hadn’t thought of it yet.”

So it is with Arthur’s new book Monsterology and his new series of podcasts for young writers.

Using his own material as a springboard and drawing on his own broadcasting roots, Arthur dishes up writing tips and tricks for aspiring writers old and new. With titles like “Rewriting Strikes Back”, “How to Be Hillarious” and “How to Write the Next Harry Potter”, Arthur’s podcasts are at their heart a series of simple writing tips. But they are also much more.

Teachers can play them to their creative writing classes, they’re great sticky content for Arthur’s website and a fresh way for fans of Arthur’s writing to connect with the writer. With a simple 5 minute audio file, Arthur has created an effective promotion tool and a new way to reach readers. As podcasts and videoblogs become easier to create, I predict more writers will add them to their sites (possibly even this writer?)

The people who should really be paying attention to these original ideas of self-promotion are the publishers and possibly booksellers. At the end of the day, these podcasts will result in greater exposure for the authors and that can only mean increased book sales. Ideas like meettheauthor.com are already doing this too.

Maybe in the future, a series of author podcasts will be lumped in with the traditional book tours and signings. Who knows? That would be cool and it would also achieve the perfect marketing balance for hermit writers: book promotion from the comfort of your pajamas. Excellent!

tagged: [podcasts] [writing] [promotion]

Thanks to some great work by the open source community, I can run open and free software on my proprietary Windows XP system. Being a writer faced with tight deadlines, I needed a word processing program on this new system right from the start. For that reason, my decision to not buy MS Office (with the almighty Word) was a bit of a risk. And that’s where Open Office comes in.

Open Office is completely free and offers all the software packages that MS Office has: word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, even math database applications (because every kids writer needs a solid mathimatical equation quantifier in his desktop of tricks.)

With a deadline looming on Monday (this morning), I downloaded Open Office early Saturday morning with the hopes of getting it running by dinner. I was expecting a relentless series of errors, mismatched file types and other cryptic computer glitches. Fortunately, I didn’t get any of that. What I got instead, was an easy install with clear instructions that had me typing my first document within minutes.

So far, I’ve only explored Open Office Writer, the open source version of Word, and I love it. It’s designed with Word users in mind, so many of the commands are the same. Creating Word formatted documents is also a snap, which avoids any embarrassing emails from editors asking: “wtf format is this document?”

For you poor unfortunate readers, I will be documenting my move to Linux, over the next few weeks. Right now, my first taste with open source software has been very pleasant and I look forward to trying out other open source programs, like GIMP and actually running one of the many Linux OSs.

If you are upgrading your computer, or just tired of living in the software shadows by running that version of Word burned for you by your brother-in-law’s IT dude at work, then I suggest you check out OpenOffice at www.openoffice.org.

Speaking of which, time to head back to my newly opened office and start meeting those deadlines.

tagged: [OpenOffice] [Open_Source] [Writing]

I’m not going dwell on why I took so long to get a new system. Right now, I’m basking in the multi-tasking joy of having a brand new computer that meets all of my needs – and then some.

So goodbye 166 and thanks for booting up each morning.

So, August ended with me doing a reading at Franklin’s Garden on Toronto Island. I read from my Pet Tales picture books and I think it went really well. Melanie came along and helped out with setting up my books, taking photos (which will be online soon) and making sure my name was spelled correctly on the announcement board at the front of the park (she’d make a great agent.)

September was spent writing a 45 page graphic novel for Rubicon Publishing about Ancient Celts. It was a lot of fun and I really learned a lot about ancient history (Julius Caesar and all that – Astrix now finally makes sense!) Rubicon is an educational publisher and they churn their stuff out fast, so the book will be out in January 2006. Which is cool.

Also for the educational market is a new series of books I’m working on for Capstone Press. It’s all still hush, hush, but I’m excited about it and will let you know more when it’s all in the bag.

AND . . . I’ve been contacted by Stone Arch Press, a new kids publisher, about doing some stuff for them. That starts next week and will keep me writing away until mid November.

Added to all that is one more super secret project that I’m really excited about but refuse to talk about until my name is on the contract and the money on it’s way to the bank. You’ll have to wait for that one.

So, I’m back. I’m busy and I vow to give updates at least once a week. I promise.

“The research project, named Teaching with Games, will begin in September 2005. It aims to explore the practical issues surrounding the use of interactive computer games in schools and the changes needed to better support learning in schools across Europe.

The study will look at what children can learn from computer games, how best to introduce games into the classroom and what changes might be required to make them relevant to the educational environment. Computer games are beginning to be introduced to schools but do they really work as a tool for education? The practicalities of using games in the classroom will be explored through trials in selected secondary schools in the UK.”

Now, I love video games and I love education. I’ve even written about how video games can help kids gain digital literacy skills. But I’m always worried when private companies get in on public education.

While the EA folks all gush about games offering kids “intellectual challenge and stimulation” and helping ensure “that gaming in education supports both the teaching and learning goals of today and tomorrow” , that inner voice tells me that EA are wetting themselves at the chance of scoring that coveted “gatekeeper approval” and getting their brand into that last bastion of commercial-free public space: schools.

I’m all for trying out video games in schools. Let’s see what kids will learn. Let’s also see how long it takes for EA to turn it into a branding campaign on a young captive audience. I’m starting my egg timer now.

tagged: [video_games] [schools] [education]

“Most states are looking at limited bans because it is unclear – and a bone of contention with the telecommunications industry – whether cell phone use while driving can be tied to more accidents.”
- Santa Cruz Sentinel

So, it’s the phone companies, who profit from the use of cell phones, who don’t want cell phones banned in cars. Very surprising. Apparently, in-car use of cell phones isn’t dangerous. How do we know? The phone company told us so, that’s how:

“The cell phone industry says studies show cell phone use was a factor in less than 1 percent of all accidents in states that require reporting – California, Florida, Michigan, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.”

Now that all this “cell phones are distracting” nonsense is settled (thank you telecommunications industry!) we can ask why teens are the ones being targeted. Let’s have Matt Sundeen, a policy researcher with the legislatures group, tackle that one:

“States are willing to take “baby steps” with younger drivers because it’s easier to get the legislation passed, Sundeen said. He said many lawmakers oppose stronger laws because they don’t want to anger their constituents.”

Translation: teenagers don’t vote, so screw them.

Well, that may be true today. But if these guys get their way (and they should) all this will change. Then poor mommy and daddy will have to stop their cell phone yakking while in the Suburban too. After that, perhaps we can all ride our bikes on the road in peace.

tagged: [cell_phones] [cars] [youth_culture]

At an April 2005 conference for physical educators, the Redwood City, California-based company introduced the idea that its Dance Dance Revolution franchise (sales of which reached 1.2 million units in North America last year) could offer an affordable and fun way to get kids up and moving in the classroom. DDR is based on dance mimicry, so players must imitate a series of moves to music in order to rack up points. The level of difficulty increases as they progress through the game’s levels.

Besides the obvious benefits of exercise and improved hand-eye coordination, Konami pointed out that DDR could be a relatively cheap addition to any phys-ed program. As opposed to shelling out a small fortune for 25 basketballs or 25 baseball gloves, schools can use their existing TV sets, and then purchase an Xbox or PlayStation console for roughly US$149 and the game software for US$60.

Let’s see . . . one game of DDR = 2 kids “exercising” at a cost of $210, or one basketball game with one ball = 10 kids exercising at a cost of $20. Hmmm . . . maybe the video games should be used to help the folks at Konami with their math.

tagged: [education] [video_games] [tech]

Toronto’s Public Space Committee says it all:

“As Queens Park turned down their lights and even Honest Eds turned their massive sign off, Toronto decided to unveil their new electric garbage cans designed with seven foot tall illuminated ads that stay on all night.

The electric garbage bins are part of a three month pilot project. If appoved by Council, the full rollout of the project will add thousands of light bulbs to the power grid, adding to the strain. But more importantly, the City is setting a bad example about conservation. After all, these lights aren’t serving any purpose except to illuminate the ads! Aren’t we supposed to be turning off non-essential devices?”

Read the TPSC press release to see why these Eucan bins really suck.

If you’ve seen the bins and don’t like them, now is your chance to let the city know. You can fill out a survey about the bins. Or you come to tonight’s TPSC meeting at City Hall at 6:30 pm.

tagged: [public_space] [environment] [toronto]

“Teenagers belong to a generation that’s more literate than any other in history, says David Booth, a children’s book author and professor emeritus of literacy and language arts at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.

But he cautions, “Don’t confuse literate with literature. One is process and the other is product. The question shouldn’t be, ‘Is my kid reading?’ but rather, ‘What is my kid reading?’”

[via Places for Writers]

It’s the usual “Is it literature?” argument asked by many adults of their kids reading material. And while it’s important for parents to know what their kids are reading (or playing for that matter), with some kids just getting them to read is an achievement. The ones who are turning to teen “literature” are already accomplished readers, comfortable with sitting down with a good book and dealing with the subtle subtext in many of the books featured in the article. The ones going for the “non-literature” material, like graphic novels and manga, are usually teens struggling to read for a variety of reasons.

Instead of limiting the “is it literature?” question to YA fiction, let’s take it to the adults. Let’s ask all those people reading Stephen King, John Grisham or that DaVinci Code guy if they care whether or not their book is considered literature. I don’t think they’d care at all. They’re reading and they’re enjoying it. That’s what matters to them. And while I’m the first to complain about the dumbing down of our culture, I believe that all forms of art serve their purpose. Some books are literature, some aren’t. Each has an audience. Each serves its purpose. One is not better than the other.

So, let’s keep producing great YA literature for the kids who want it, but let’s also give the struggling readers something to get hooked on reading. And let’s stop worrying about whether or not it’s literature.

tagged: [literacy] [reading] [books]

I was thinking about just hiding under the kitchen table with my face in front of the fan until this heatwave breaks, but it’s showing no end in sight. So, I’m back and I’m posting . . .

Chandrasutra has the full bear encounter story. I’m sorry for always deferring to her, but she has covered it so well, I’d merely be re-inventing the wheel.

Regular posting will resume very soon . . .

See you in a week!

As a children’s book reviewer and publishing industry writer, I love meeting all the publishers and seeing what’s new for the year.

As a kids book author, I’m very excited that my new picture books will be on display at the HB Fenn booth this year.

Should be a busy weekend!

[from mainsite]

tagged: [writing] [Book_Expo_Canada] [promo]

tagged: [kayak_magazine] [history] [writing]

Into the Money Pit takes readers deep into the mysterious Oak Island Money Pit in search of treasure, glory and a dog named Doubloon.

Kayak has great website and you can play Into the Money Pit online. So, before your buy your printed copy, head over to Kayakmag.ca and see if you can find the real treasure of Oak Island.

Not only were the guys at Kayak great to work with, they also succeeded in finding an illustrator with the same name as me! Besides having a great name, Liam Thruston’s art is fantastic and he managed to capture my three-eyed rodent perfectly (and that’s not an easy thing to do!)

[from mainsite]

tagged: [writing] [promo] [history]

While these perks are nice, they’re not as good as an 80% break on root canals. That’s why I’m urging all artists or friends of the arts to take the Status of the Artists Survey, from the Ontario Minister’s Advisory Council. It takes about 10 minutes and covers a wide range of issues concerning those who make their living in the arts from the creators to the distributors and beyond. The results from the survey will go towards the decision making process for grants for artists, care for ageing artists and re-thinking how the arts is seen and promoted in this sports-obsessed, corporate-theocratic culture we’re living in.

The deadline is this Friday, June 10th, so grab a coffee, put on your best pair of PJs and take the survey.

Thanks.

tagged: [arts] [culture] [writing]

In addition to gaming tournaments with kids, Jenny at the Shifted Librarian has posted notes from a presentation on how video games can be used to help ailing libraries. Among the presentation notes were these potential outcomes for libraries:

• kids looked at the library differently
• the library didn’t have to force their information on them
• the kids are using the library more
• parents are happy that the kids are not passive in the library anymore

If even a few of these come true, then I’m all for gaming at the library. Just remember to put your headphones on.

tagged: [videogames] [libraries] [literacy]

And while there is often not a lot for a non-drawing writer to do at a comic’s fest, it was great to get out from behind the computer, soak up the atmosphere and meet Max Finder fans of all ages. There were also many teachers at the festival, continuing to prove that they are tuning into the educational value of comics [as I've noted earlier].

Hopefully, I’ll soon have some photos to put up, so you can see the magic that is a comics festival.

And speaking of comics, I’ve got a new mystery to write and a deadline to meet!

tagged: [tcaf] [comics] [writing]

It’s official and it’s confirmed: I’ll be at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival this Saturday, May 28th from 1:00 until 5:00 pm. Myself and illustrator extraordinaire, Michael Cho will be repping Max Finder Mystery at the OWL table, located in the Scholastic tent.

Mike has promised to sketch any kid that comes within five feet of our table, and while the TCAF website is billing me as “a Toronto-based illustrator and children’s book artist, whose work regularly appears in Owl Magazine” (scroll down to the O’s), I promise not to unleash my secret drawing abilities just yet (they haven’t improved since grade 3 art class.)

If you’re heading to TCAF this weekend, drop by the OWL table, say hi and watch me watch Mike draw!

Also appearing on behalf of OWL is Brian McLachlin writer of the new Alex & Charlie comic and Steve Manale, the writer/illustrator of ChickaDEE’s Chick and DEE comic and resident of Ghostmilk studios.

[cross-posted from mainsite]

tagged: [writing] [comics] [toronto]

It was great to meet many fellow authors like Gillian Chan, Steve Pitt, Rina Singh, and Lynne Kositsky to name just a few.

Many of my Pet Tales books were sold with Duncan: A Brave Rescue being the clear winner out of the lot (I had predicted that the sad eyes of Baxter, who needs a home, would have won many hearts but I was wrong.)

The highlight of the night for me was being spotted by two Max Finder Mystery fans and asked for an autograph. It was great to chat to actual readers of my monthly comic strip to find out what they liked and didn’t like. Hopefully I’ll be doing more of that when I’m at TCAF at the end of the month.

Now that my ego is back to normal porportions, it’s back to the writing board for this not-so hermitish writer.

tagged: [writing] [books] [promotions]

It’s all part of the Childrens Writer’s Wine and Cheese Night with Brantford teacher/librarians, organised by fellow CANSCAIPer Marsha Skrypuch. The idea is to introduce childrens authors to local librarians and educators with the aim of encouraging future school visits and promote literacy.

I’m excited to be heading up to Brantford to meet fellow CANSCAIP members and others interested in promoting literacy in kids. I’ll give a full report when I return. In the meantime, I’m off to find something to wear! (Feel free to leave your suggestions, I’m sure they’ll be very helpful.)

tagged: [books] [writing] [promotion]

“And along with librarians, teachers also are embracing comics, both for recreational and instructional reading. They’re using the caped crusader Batman to explore mythology and Art Spiegelman’s Maus, a Holocaust memoir, as well as other titles, to teach history.”

With publishers like Scholastic getting into the graphic novel genre, with their new Graphix line of comics, it’s clear that comics are shedding the stigma of being junk and moving closer to the respect they deserve.

As the creator and writer of one popular comic and a graphic novel for reluctant readers, I couldn’t be happier.

tagged: [writing] [literacy] [comics]

Meettheauthor.com changes all that. Started by David Freeman, a book lover who used to have his own book TV show (remember them?) and believes that the best people to sell a book are the authors themselves. This article in the Times explains it all.

The concept of meettheauthor.com is simple: pick an author and watch a short video clip of them introducing their book. It’s quite effective and addictive, because readers can finally put faces to names and because it’s pretty amazing to see the head where all that good writing came from.

Meettheauthor.com already has an impressive line up of authors and plans to have them shown in the extremely under-used lookup computers in book stores.

With some companies seeking to turn the DIY lookup computers into glorified tvs by showing a loop of traditional advertising, meettheauthor.com is a positive form of promotion that I can support. It gives the viewer something more than the big sell. It gives them a glimpse at the often elusive author, while promoting something. As an writer shy of promotion, I think this is a great idea and one that I see being spread across the web onto author’s personal sites and writing group sites, like my own CANSCAIP.

Of course, the first catagory I checked out was children’s and a few of my favourite writers are there, like:

[links launch video clips]

Eoin Colfer talking about “Aremis Fowl”

Philip Pullman talking about “Lyra’s Oxford”

Kevin Crossley-Hollan talking about “Arthur: The Seeing Stone”

Anyway, visit meettheauthor.com find your favourite writer and enjoy.

tagged: [writing] [books] [promotion]

Kevin Bankston: Several schools have been implementing RFID tracking where they place a trackable chip on a badge (that kids wear). How would you and your friends react to that?

Morgan: I think that there’d be a type of black market for trafficking tags. I’ll give you $5 if you take my tag to English for me. (Audience laughs)

Boyd and EFF lawyer Kevin Bankston Q&A’d the teens about their use of blogs, mobile tech and the privacy issues raised when surveillance technology meets parental concern. The result is a peek at a wired generation that encourages adults to get knowledgeable about technology and talk to their kids about privacy.

Steve: Every kid at whatever age gets “the talk” from their parents about sex. So why don’t they have a one-on-one mature conversation with their kids about privacy on the internet as well?

Morgan: I think that if the parents did talk to their kids about it they would get a better idea about what we’re doing with technology. They don’t really (as) make much of an effort as they could to get to know us.

It’s clear, once again, that censorship and control of information being absorbed by young minds breeds resentment. Media education empowers and protects all who use technology, both old and young.

tagged: [rfid] [tech] [young_minds]

But it’s a tragedy that is corrected by the hallowed author school visit. This is a time when a kids writer is truly treated like a celebrity, even if it’s only for a few hours.

Being a kids writer terrible at self-promotion (as my four month delay in announcing my last batch of books clearly proves), I haven’t focused on getting out there and I have yet to do a *real* school visit.

I say *real* because there was one time before I was published when my little sister (then in grade 4) convinced her teacher to read my manuscript to the class over the course of a few weeks and then invite me in to talk to them. The manuscript was awful and is now buried in a drawer somewhere in my office, where it will remain. I don’t remember planning anything for the visit but I think it was a success. My sister said so anyway.

These memories have bubbled up in my mind and spilled out here because I have just finished reading a great article by fellow CANSCAIP member and school visit pro, Magriet Ruurs. The article, Optimizing Author Visits is aimed at teachers planning to have an author come to their school. It’s a fantastic resource for authors too, who may think about pointing it out to prospective host schools.

Among the great tips for teachers, is this final piece of advice definitely sets the bar of success for authors:

Have students write thank you notes. I have received wonderful letters from students that I treasure and often share in teacher presentations:

“Your presentation wasn’t even boring.”
“I like your books. You’re my third favorite author.”
“My name is Stephen. When I grow up I want to be an Arthur.”

With praise like that who wouldn’t want to hit the author visit circuit?

tagged: [writing]

You see, the annoying thing about kids is even when you hide tracking devices on them, someone still has to take the time to actually watch them. What a complete pain! Who knew that breeding would be such a big responsibility?

Thankfully, parents now have another level of high tech wizardry to remove them from contact with their icky children and save them the hassle of actually watching their little darlings: robots!

Via we make money not art:

“Japanese company Secom has released the “SECOM School Security,” a system which monitors kids using RFID tags while they are commuting to and from school but also uses robots (the good old “smoking robots”) that move around and monitor school properties. The robots can also “scare” suspicious people by fast movements, light and smoke.”

I want to know who is watching the robots watch the children? Oh wait, I know: robots watch robots watch children.

Tell me where the parents are again?

tagged: [tech] [rfid] [surveillance]

Anyway, I’m back and able to post. Let us never talk of it again.

Designed and built by Ruth Kikin-Gil, a masters student at the Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea, Italy, BuddyBeads combines two things close the heart of a modern teenage girl: peergroups and cell phones:

BuddyBeads are techno-jewelry items that facilitate non-verbal and emotional communication among group members, through codes and signals which the group decided upon together.

Each group member has a matching jewelry piece and can use it to communicate her emotional state to the other group members. Messages are decided by the group in advance and construct a secret private code among its members.

Basically a group of teens each wear a bracelet. On each bracelet is a bead that represents one of the teens’ friends. When the teen wants to communicate to her friend, she simply presses a pre-arranged morse-code of dot-dot-dash messages into the bead representing her friend. The message is beamed to her friends cell phone and then relayed to her friends’ BuddyBead bracelet, which flashes and vibrates her friends’ coded message. As Kikin-Gil points out, subtlety is the key:

The ability to send a message without looking at the bracelet is important in situations where other people are involved and the sender wants to comment about the situation but doesn’t want the others to notice that she is engaged in another communication. This can be the case when a girl is talking to a boy she likes and want her friend to know, or when few group members are talking with someone who is not part of their group and they want to comment about the situation.

Still in early prototype stage, BuddyBeads have huge potential in many areas beyond teenage girl gossip. From the analytical approach that Kukin-Gil is taking with the ways that this new technology will shape mobile non-verbal communication, it is clear that this is more than a new fad in development (although the idea of high tech, collectible beads will have teen marketers no doubt wetting themselves – get your covert buzz machines started, marketing weenies.)

Let’s hope that a new language of flashes and vibrations replaces those annoying one-sided cell phone conversations (from adults and teens) currently clogging up our public spaces.

tagged: [tech] [buddybeads] [cellphones]

Buzz marketing in teens is gaining popularity as big companies like Proctor and Gamble (via tremor.com), all scramble for a piece of the $170 billion teens will spend this year on cosmetics, clothes, DVDs, music and anything else that isn’t nailed down. By hiring influencial teens to covertly talk-up product to their friends, many say these marketing tactics take advantage of unsophisticated consumers, who often aren’t aware of that their friends are putting on the big sell:

“Some of the forms that [buzz marketing] takes have to do with recruiting kids to be marketers and encouraging them to keep their identities as marketers secret,” says David Walsh, president and founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family (NIMF) in Minneapolis. “So kids end up being junior ad people, and they’re encouraged not to share this [even] with their friends.”

Teens can also put themselves in danger by giving away too much information when the lines between marketing and community are blurred:

“NIMF points out that at one marketer-facilitated online community, kids can create their own Old Spice “Girls of the Red Zone” calendar. And that signing up for membership at Soul-Kool.com, one of a handful of buzz-marketing firms that double as online communities, requires entering an instant-messenger address.”

The party line is that WOMMA was formed to set down some guidelines to protect youth against tactics like this. But anyone who has ever hung up on a telemarketer will see that WOMMA is merely marketering types trying to legitmize a dubious practice before government catches on legislates some guidelines.

Putting marketers in charge of ethics is never a good idea. I look forward to watching the shocked indignation from WOMMA reps when the next inevitable teen buzz marketing scandal hits the news.

tagged: [consumerism] [buzz_marketing][evil][womma]

Although this book came out last year, I’ve been turning to, In Your Face: The Culture of Beauty and You a lot lately while researching my latest project and each time I flip it open, I feel I must tell everyone I know about it.

I was lucky enough to first hear about In Your Face at the 2004 Book Expo and wrote a quick review for Canadian Bookseller magazine:

From Annick Press comes In Your Face: The Culture of Beauty and You by Shari Graydon. Following up on her success with Made You Look, Graydon tackles the myths and false promises that lie at the heart of our culture obsessed with beauty. Graydon tells it like it is, revealing the truths about the double standards and constant competition we all engage in as we strive to be beautiful. In Your Face is easily the most important book for teens this year and should be read by everyone who looks in the mirror each morning.

This morning I discovered that Annick Press has built an In Your Face mini-site. Like the book, it is definitely worth checking out. The site highlights some of the darkest secrets that our culture holds as it pushes us all toward the one ideal of beauty:

Too Ethnic?

Some Asian people seek plastic surgery to make their eyes more “Western”. Around the world products like hair straighteners and skin whiteners have been flying off the shelves for decades. Why the craze to look Caucasian? Although people of colour make up 50 % of the population in many large North American cities, most mainstream magazines, movies and TV shows feature overwhelmingly white actors and models.

If you happen to know anyone, boy or girl, who is in their teens, then this book is simply an essential addition to your library. Buy it, drop it on the kitchen counter and let them discover it for themselves. I’ll bet you’ll see them flip it open, browse through quickly, ready to judge and then quietly take the book into their rooms. You’ll never see it again, but that’s a good thing. They’ll be reading it and gaining some very strong defences against the relentless beauty machine that is our modern culture.

tagged: [culture] [beauty] [consumerism] [books]

Like Max Rottersman’s Do-It-Yourself Video Blogger Plastiprompter. With a webcam, laptop and some old CD cases you can be reading your vlog posts with the style and grace of Peter Mansbridge.

I don’t know why it took a vlogger to invent this handy cheap teleprompter (it can be used for any video recording and not just over the web stuff) but I think it’s a testament to their inventiveness with technology. As for their content, they would do well to listen to this guy.

tagged: [vlogs] [TV] [blogs]

Thanks to Bigbold’s RSS Digest, anyone not geek enough to know how to hack an rss feed (ie me) can now stream any page’s feed onto their site.

It’s timing is perfect. As you may or may not have noticed, this blog can go silent for days on end when things get hectic with me. I’m not offline. I’m still stumbling upon great stuff online. It’s that I just don’t have time to sit down and type out a post about everything I’m finding. That’s where my del.icio.us bookmarks come in. I’ve been bookmarking cool stuff with plans on posting about it later. But of course that never happens and the del.icio.us bookmarks remain unnoticed, unread and unloved.

But not anymore, with the start of my “del.icio.us five” list on the right side of this blog. Now when I don’t have time to blog, but I find something worth bookmarking it will appear on this site the instant I tag it. It’s like a mini linkblog or sideblog without the hassle of maintaining another blog. Cool.

So, if my posts start to look stale, have a look at my del.iciou.us five, they’re sure to be slightly more fresh and just as tasty.

tagged: [del.icio.us] [blogging] [tech]

• An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.

“Children and teens are spending an increasing amount of time using “new media” like computers, the Internet and video games, without cutting back on the time they spend with “old” media like TV, print and music, according to a new study released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Instead, because of the amount of time they spend using more than one medium at a time (for example, going online while watching TV), they’re managing to pack increasing amounts of media content into the same amount of time each day.”

The study, Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-olds, says that kids are becoming masters of multitasking and although the KFF doesn’t know if that’s good or bad for their health, it’ll certainly help them in the hectic modern workplace.

The study focuses young people’s consumption of media and raises some interesting concerns regarding media in the bedroom and parental supervision.

In addition to these findings on their media consumption, I’d like to see more studies about how much media young people are producing via blogs, zines, podcasts, etc. Somewhere in there, I feel, we will find a healthy balance of consumption and production by those rascally Gen-Mers.

I researched the article and was ready to start writing when I got a frantic email from my editor, also a freelancer. She told me to stop all work because the entire staff of the magazine had been laid off. She didn’t know the whether the magazine was going under, but I’d be wise to not do any more work on the commissioned piece.

I called the magazine publisher to get to the bottom of the story and to enquire about my Kill Fee, which I had luckily negotiated into my contract (lesson one from this story: always ensure there is a Kill Fee with any commissioned writing!)

It turned out the magazine wasn’t going under, but was now going to be produced entirely by freelancers to cut costs. So, the magazine was alive and so, possibly, was my article.

I contacted the new editor and gave her my pitch over the phone. She was curious and asked for my original query. This was a little frustrating, but if it meant that my article would see the printed page, I was up for it. If she rejected the pitch, I planned to invoice the publisher for my Kill Fee anyway.

About a month later, the new editor accepted the article pitch and I got the go ahead once again.

So, almost a year after I submitted the original pitch and two editors later, it seems I am to write my little article after all. At the end of the day, the money vs time spent on this pitch won’t work out in my favour. But in my opinion, it’s much better than if the article idea never got printed in the first place. I will receive some compensation for my time and effort (also this is my first piece with the magazine, which could lead to more.)

Moral of the story: the obvious one is if you’ve taken the time to write a pitch and send it off, make sure that you get paid for it eventually! Less obvious moral? Writing is the easy part of a writer’s job. Selling your work is the hard part.

On that note, I’m off wrap up the year-long saga and actually write the darn article!

Inside the covers is another Max Finder Mystery, this time featuring this year’s winner of the “I Want to Be in Max” contest. Congratulations to the winner and good luck solving The Case of the Elvis Prankster.

Can’t wait to pick up a copy of Owl from your local magazine store? You can always solve a Max Finder Mystery today and see what all the fuss is about.

[Cross-posted from main site]

All I can say is that for the last month having The Way Up in my headphones has been an incredible journey. Listening to a single track, 68 minutes long at first seems like a daunting task, but after a few listens when you hear the recognizable final melody begin, you long for more. A sadness takes over as you realise that trip is almost over. Not even the thought of replaying it again can comfort the longing you have to be back somewhere in the middle of the experience that is The Way Up.

I don’t have much experience with jazz, but in the last few months I have heard a great deal of Pat Metheny and I am very happy to be discovering him at a time when he has created something so important to both music and our culture at large.

TWU is more than an album, it’s an answer to the dumbing down of our culture. It’s a response to the hyper-pace, sound-bite jingles that pass for music these days. This view comes from Pat Metheny himself and it’s refreshing to know that, as always happens in times of cultural crisis, there are artists out there creating works that openly smash the standard, refuse the norm, and challenge the audience. I encourage you all, jazz fans or not, to answer the challenge and give TWU a listen.

On a side note: Due to forces that I cannot name or hope to understand, Chandrasutra was able to arrange for us to meet Pat Metheny after the show! It was both an amazing experience and an honour to be able to personally thank him for blowing my mind. There were only a handful of other people in the room, so we had a chance to actually talk to Pat about the music, our cultural crisis and mind-blowing in general. It was an unbelievably perfect way to end a fantastic night.

I’m new to the whole PMG thing, but I like any musician who has worse hair than me. Seriously, PMG (and jazz guitar in general) can be a bit cheeseball and interstellar for me, but the latest album, The Way Up, is a refreshing response to the bite-sized, candy-coated, faux-angst crap that assaults my ears every time I make the mistake of going near a place that has the radio on (ie: every store/restaurant/cafe in town – why do restaurants/cafes/bars play the radio? And why do people sit there as they consume the food/drink they bought and listen to advertising? I don’t get it.)

Anyway, if you want the lowdown on Pat Metheny, I suggest you check out this great post by Chandrasutra and her excellent review of The Way Up.

See you on Monday, jazzyfriends.

Oh yeah, that other environment gets a boost today too. Go Team Earth!

Go. Read. Have fun.

When I arrived at his site, I found that he’d stopped blogging because it was getting in the way of his fiction writing.

That concerned me, because if this guy can’t balance blogging and fiction writing how was I going to do it? But I persevered and kept up the blog and kept up the fiction writing. I’ve made it work mostly because when the paid writing gets busy or the writer’s block too jammed, the blog goes silent. But I always return to the blog for whatever reason. And now it seems that Gibson has returned to his blog. His reasons for returning, like his best novels, crystalize the conscious of the time and point to an ominious future:

“Why?

And because, as the Spanish philospher Unamuno said, “At times, to be silent is to lie.”

From the archives, you’ll see that this is very old news, it happened back in October 04. But as with everything that’s pretty cool, I arrive fashionably late.

Now the two things that gave me nightmares as a kid, are together in one convenient package. Great.

“Before the dogmatic twaddle of Barney and Teletubbies, kids looked to Once Upon A Hamster for early-morning amusement. Unapologetically wholesome, the live-action serial followed a boot-dwelling hamster, Hammy, and his exploits with the Riverbank posse: GP the Guinea Pig, Martha Mouse, the Wise Old Frog, Turtle and Granny Rabbit. Tune in one week and you might find Hammy steering a raft or riding shotgun in GP’s car; the next, he’d be navigating a (miniature) hot-air balloon. That critter led a life of unequalled adventure.”

Ahh . . . if they only made TV shows like that these days. Wait a minute, they do.

[thanks to Anita's Other Space for this]

When Magnason recently presented a manuscript to a Canadian publisher based in Toronto, they offered to publish the book provided he remove references to grilling a seal that had been hunted for food, as well as a scene where a grateful child hugs and kisses two other children who saved his life.

I’m not a big meat-eater myself, but when kids in Canada are offered this and this and this, then I think there is room for a little chowing down on seals and the occasional hug.

- Robin Corey, Simon & Schuster Publishing

Good to see the folks at Simon & Schuster don’t have a problem using one of the worst natural disasters in history to move some product. They are cashing in on both world disasters and the booming Christian children’s book market with their new line of religious books for kids. And by religious, we’re obviously talking about Christianity because, according to this Newsweek article they are both one in the same.

The new line of books, called “Little Simon Inspirations”, won’t actually quote scripture or feature Jesus playing soccer, but they will be heavy on message and look eerily like books that a certain writer/blogger has just put out. See for yourself – jesus / no jesus. Scary stuff.

Their books don’t come with a stuffed toy, so I least I have that market cornered. For now.

He has this to say on being anti-corporate:

“My attitude toward corporations doesn’t depend on whether they’re large or small, chain or independent, foreign or local. It’s certainly true that companies that serve the general public (like McDonald’s and Apple) act nicer than companies that don’t (like Monsanto and Halliburton), but this is no anomaly: it’s just further proof that corporations are only interested in public opinion when it affects their bottom-line. Fundamentally, all public companies are cast from the same mold. They are all machines, running different programs on the same operating system.”

When you speak out against things that bother you, it immediately pins you as being “anti-” that particular thing. That’s a convenient frame for people to put on anyone who disagrees with what’s happening. Personally, when I’m accused of being anti-this, or anti-that, I try to turn it on around and stress what I’m “pro-”. And that’s tough sometimes because it’s a lot easier to define yourself by what you are not, rather than what you are.

So, being anti-anti-everything actually means being pro-something. Like
a healthy environment, triple bottom-line economics, and crackin’ orc skulls in your spare time.

To name just a few.

Thanks to a little NAFTA clause called Investor Rights, corporations can sue governments if they feel they are being treated unfairly. In 1998, Canada paid the Ethyl Corporation millions of dollars because we didn’t allow them to put the banned, toxic additive MMT into our gasoline.

As I type, Council of Canadians are in court in a battle to uphold the Canadian constitution. Lawyer for the CoC, Steven Shrybman puts it like this:

“It’s the first case to question whether or not Canada’s obligations under NAFTA actually are compatible with our own constitutional arrangements and norms. Foreign investors have been given the right to invoke international dispute processes that operate entirely behind closed doors and outside the framework of Canadian law and our court system.” – CBC.ca

You can let International Trade Minister, Jim Peterson, know how you feel about this via the Council’s website.

This case promises to be a big one. Hopefully someone will get punched in court that way it might actually make onto the TV news. After all it’s only our constitution at stake. Obviously the news has better things to talk about.

Instead of trying to get people to buy less junk, the Toronto city council is testing out the new “EcoMupis” bins, which will carry illuminated billboards selling junk and larger garbage containers for people to put all that added junk they’ll buy after seeing the new ads for the junk.

There are so many things wrong with this plan, that I decided to contact my city councillor, Bill Saundercook, and find out why he decided to opt in on this pilot project (councillors like Olivia Chow wisely passed on the whole plan.)

The conversation was as illuminating as the EcoMupis billboards promise to be. Councillor Saundercook gave the familiar wail of budget crunches, and savings etc. but failed to see how plastering our city’s streets with Raptor-sized ads, that suck electricity, block pedestrians, distract drivers and generally contribute a message of “buy more junk, we’ll take care of it!”, will cost more to the city in the long-run (through addeds strain on the powergrid, the inevitable medical costs resulting from pedestrians not seeing oncoming traffic as they cross, and more garbage going into our Michigan’s landfills.)

Basically the party line is: “It’s better to try these things out and see what the public thinks.”

In my opinion the councillor, and city hall are betting on the apathy of the residents to not say anything about the garbage cans disguised as billboards. I predict that there’ll be a counter-attack to the Monster/Raptor Bins. Toronto’s Public Space Committee will be meeting on Feb 2nd at City Hall. The bins will be high on the agenda and I’ll be there. If you live in Toronto and think we don’t need more ads littering our streets, then I invite you to come along.

Stay tuned for more on this. Today, the monsters are attacking Toronto. Tomorrow it could be your home town (cue B-movie music and sinister laugh.)

I have written many stories for kids and youth. I want to publish.

It’s a common enough question and one that busy writer/bloggers/teacher would justified in ignoring, but Crawford takes the time to offer some more great advice for anyone who is cursed with the desire to publish a book. I share his belief that being a successful writer means, unfortunately, being a good salesperson:

If writers were automatically also good salespersons, more of us would get into print. But many of us, including me, find the marketing of a novel a lot harder than the writing…and the writing is hard enough.

It’s only recently that I’m tuning into the idea that I have to actually sell myself as a writer. For many of writers who have hermit tendencies [me], selling yourself or your writing can be a painful process that enduces a feeling of slime growing on your back. But it must be done and remember: this isn’t a time-share in Flordia your trying to unload, it’s you and your babies. Presumably you like yourself and if you don’t, hopefully you at least like your writing.

So, the only answer is sell as well as you write. Who knows? If you sell enough, you’ll eventually get an agent who will do the selling for you.

“I don’t believe in it. All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don’t get plumber’s block, and doctors don’t get doctor’s block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?”

I’m bringing it up again because I’ve just recovered from a very serious case of blockage to the writerly arteries. I’m not asking for sympathy and even after a week of banging my head against my computer, I’m still not sure if writer’s block even exists.

My writing task was to come up with a very specific story idea that was fresh, smart and engaging for young readers. After passing my deadline by nearly a week, I finally came up with the idea (not even the story yet, just the idea!)

The thing is, I didn’t sit around for a week with an empty head. I had many ideas, but the internal editor rejected all of them for various reasons (bland, done-before, and just plain stupid, you know the ones.) I can’t ever see using any of my rejected ideas but I was still generating stuff, just not the right stuff. So did I have writer’s block? Or was my idea flow bunged up with too much holiday eggnog?

“Writer’s write” is the famous quote aimed at those who moan about being blocked. And I agree with it completely. First drafts are designed to be horrible messes that should never see the light of day, but unfortunately many do. I think many people take the definition of “being blocked” too literally, as if it’s an on/off kind of thing. I find it very hard to believe that someone who wants to write has absolutely no ideas coming from their brain. They must!

We are constantly generating ideas, many of which we think are unbelievably bad so they get stopped by that sensible editor within and they shrivel up and die before they hit the page/screen. But the idea is generated and that is part of the creative process. We writers are an egotistical group of people and many of us feel that writing bad stuff is not writing at all. So they don’t admit to writing the crap copy that is essential to get to the final draft. They’d rather avoid writing all togehter and complain of a complete creative block.

As Pullman says, plumbers don’t get plumber’s block, but plumbers do have their good days and their bad days. A plumber having a bad day will still show up to work and fix your pipes. She just won’t do a good job and will have to return next week to tighten the pipe that she missed and do the job right.

And that, as the last week has taught me, is what writing is all about. Leaky pipes and bad ideas are not to be ignored. Either fix them or replace them.

Now that my writing ideas are back on track, I think we should work on a new idea together: redefinig writer’s block.

I’m sure there’s no shortage of ideas out there.

A big thanks goes out to Jim Munroe over at nomediakings.org, for providing the hosting and tech support.

Everything should be up and running like the well-oiled website you’ve come to know and love (sort of.)

Thanks,

Liam

But it hasn’t always been that way. When I was a kid I loved this whole Christmas thing, solely for the presents that were waiting for me under the tree, of course.

So, no one was more surprised than me when last night my fog of holiday jeer lifted for a few moments and I was suddenly . . . excited for the 25th. I know. Weird. But somewhere in the back of that dog’s breakfast I call a brain, a synapse fired when I saw all those presents under the tree (okay, it’s not a tree but a really big-leafed plant we call the Monstrum, which captures the holiday spirit perfectly for me.) Suddenly, I was returned to my childhood with snow falling outside and Kenny and Dolly on the turn table singing “I’ll be Home for Christmas” for the gazillionth time.

What I loved about that time was the anticipation that led up to Christmas. It’s the secrets that lie within those wrapped presents. There was always a bitter taste on the 25th when all the presents were unwrapped and you realized that was all – it was all over for another year. That is why I’m a firm believer in not unwrapping any presents before Christmas day. Got to save it all up for one big present-opening feista on the big day (Jesus would have wanted it that way.)

I may despise this time of year now that I’m older, but there is one thing that religion and consumer madness cannot spoil for me: the secret thrill of not knowing what is in those presents (which is in a way very consumeristic, but I’m still shaking off my suburban, catholic upbringing.) Last night, for a fleeting moment I was filled with a bit of the holiday spirit and it felt kind of good.

Don’t worry, it’s gone now. I’m not going to start buying turkeys for everyone on my block. So, if I don’t post again here until the big day: merry-whatever-you’re-choosing-to-celebrate and remember to eat far too much chocolate.

For me watching commercial news is like eating a giant bowl of Capn’ Crunch cereal with chocolate milk: sugary, sinful and definitely not good for the heart (or brain.) So each night for the past few months, when I’m all done watching my fake news, I’ve caught the last half of Now with Bill Moyers.

After 33 years on public television, Bill Moyers will host Now for the last time tonight. And this evening’s broadcast seems tailored made for Moyers. The topic is the media and it should be a good one. From pbs.org:

Bill Moyers looks inside the right-wing media machine that the conservative NEW YORK TIMES columnist David Brooks called a “dazzlingly efficient ideology delivery system.” The program examines how a vast echo chamber that is admittedly partisan and powerfully successful delivers information — and misinformation — with more regard for propaganda than fact. Founding father to the conservative movement, Richard Viguerie tells Moyers, “That’s what journalism is, Bill. It’s all just opinion. Just opinion.”

Find your PBS station and tune in tonight to see Bill get the last word.

[re-posted from main site]

The One-Tonne Challenge is a call to all Canadians to conserve energy and cut their emissions by one tonne. That may sound like a lot but, as this handy emissions calculator shows you, it can mean simply taking public transit to work or installing a few fluorescent light bulbs. With a TV ad campaign, fronted by Canadian comedian Rick Mercer, it seems that this just might be money well spent.

My household (consisting of two, non-car-owning freelancers) weighed in at a measely 2.49 tonnes. That’s well below the average, but we’ve already got a head start with my commute to work, which is about 100 feet via the bathroom and the coffee maker, and the fact that all our consumer needs are within walking distance. Other households aren’t so lucky, so meeting the challenge might seem like, well, a challenge.

Regardless of whether people actually meet the challenge of cutting their emissions by one tonne, I think half the battle is won simply by putting the message out there.

It’s not often that messages of reducing consumption are broadcast to the public. We live in a society fueled by consumption and it’s damaging our environmental health and our mental health. December is a time of ramped up consumerism, so I think it’s fitting that this campaign is launched now. Hopefully once people start thinking about their energy consumption, the meme can spread to other areas of life ruled by out-of-control consumption.

If you live in Canada, watch out for the ads on TV (or via the internet), sign up for the challenge and spread the word.

If improving the environment isn’t enough of a motivation, think of how smug Canada can be to the American government in a few years when we meet the Kyoto goals that they said were impossible to achieve.

I started here and from there went to here to here to here. And that’s where I discovered Erika Moen‘s great comic: i like girls.

It’s a simple, poignant, smart and very funny comic. The story behind it is explained in this Sequential Tart interview:

ST: Last year you came out with the comic I Like Girls which told the story about your first girlfriend, written to your mother. I’ve always wondered, is this what you used to come out to your mom? Or did you prep her first?

After that there was lots of crying and, y’know, breakin’ her heart and all that. But things have gotten a lot better in the years since I told her. She really wants to be supportive, but homosexuality is fundamentally wrong to her. She’s made it clear from day one that she loves me no matter what and doesn’t want to lose me; however, she absolutely does not support homosexuality.

After reading Moen’s comics, I was once again reminded of the power that this genre has to convey intelligent, complex ideas beyond capes and superpowers.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling especially self-indulgent, I like to think that Max Finder might be a kid’s first introduction to comics and that they’ll be a comic fan for years to come. Well, you know, it could happen.

Since I’m almost finished reading Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant, I was very happy to see her Reclaimed Language News cartoon. If you’re concerned at all about what’s happening in the world then you must read Lakoff and check out his left wing thinktank, the Rockridge Institute (yes, left-wing-think-tank – it’s about time we did some thinking).

On your way, stop by Slowpoke and have a laugh.

With R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series still selling 4 million copies in the US every month, kids are carrying on the tradition of thumbing their noses to literary snobbish adults everywhere and devouring horror books like famished vampires at a blood donor clinic.

The latest Stephen King for kiddies is Darren Shan and his Saga of Darren Shan series (yes – the hero is the author – a step further than the Leomony Snickett, author as confidante angle.) I haven’t read any of the books and in my typically bad judgement, I passed them off and a soon-to-be flop when I first saw them appear a few years ago (I did the same with Harry Potter and Lemony Snickett). But as Kate Kellaway from the Guardian puts it, I was wrong to turn my back on Shan:

“I have tried to ignore Shan, but it has not been easy. And just recently, it has become impossible. He is at the top of the children’s paperback bestseller list with The Sons of Destiny, the 12th and final book in The Saga of Darren Shan; Warner Brothers has bought film rights for the first two books for a seven-figure sum and the series has sold more than a million copies.”

With this mega-level success comes mega-level scorn. But while many parents ban horror books and other forms of “vomitrious” reading material (comic books, Pokemon cards, etc) others see them as a way to get reluctant readers hooked on books. Researchers are looking the into the new literacy skills boys learn when they engage in these “low-literate” reading materials. Some say that even video games have literary merit.

Since the days of Enid Blyton and the Famous Five, kids have known what they want to read and parents have resisted (Blyton was banned in many libraries for being “poorly written”.) So, it continues today. As with adults, if you put a warning label on a pop culture product, its sales will increase.

Books like these can be used as springboards to other materials and that’s the role adults should be playing, instead of banning the materials and shoving tattered copies of Treasure Island into their hands (nothing against Treasure Island – I loved that book, when I read it at age 21 – today many kids find the plot slow and the language too challenging.)

Kids (especially boys) love the gore of Shan, just as adults love the gore of Stephen King. It’s getting kids reading and that’s a good thing. Soon it’ll be getting them into the movie theatres and the merits of that is the subject of another post entirely.

From the Kleercut site:

Chandrasutra’s Kleercut campaign overview gives you the poop (sorry) on the campaign and getting involved.

Too lazy to follow that link? Then get involved by sending a fax to Kimberly-Clark HQ.

Does it work? According to the campaign’s blog the answer is: YES.

So overwhelming has the response been that I got a voicemail message 4 hours into the launch day from Kimberly-Clark. Seems that they don’t like having the head office flooded with faxes. Makes the bosses upset. Could Greenpeace please change the fax number that we are sending faxes to? Perhaps we could send it to a regional office so there’s less heat? Sorry “Spokesperson from Kimberly-Clark”, (972) 281-1490 aka head office, is where we will continue to send them.

Keep jamming those phone lines and send Kleenex a fax telling them we don’t want to wipe our bums on trees!

“Steer Madness is a fully-featured 3D action-adventure game for home computer. You play as Bryce the Steer who narrowly escaped the slaughterhouse. Now liberated, you are on a mission to save your animal friends!”

Check out the trailer and pick up for the veggie gamer in your life (that’s me Mel.)

About six months ago, I sent a one page article idea to a kids magazine and was sure it was a great fit for their needs. This was about my third pitch to them in as many months. Each of my previous ideas was shot down, but I always got a very encouraging email inviting me to try again. So I did.

The pitch went off into the great email unknown and I didn’t hear anything for two weeks. Then three, then a month, two months – well you can see where this is going.

Last week, out of the blue, I received an email from a different editor at the magazine who liked the idea and wanted me to write it. Needless to say, I was very happy. A sale to a new magazine is always a good thing (well any sale is a good thing!)

There was no apology for the delay, but I wasn’t looking for one, so that didn’t matter. Obviously my idea had been knocking around the offices for six months and was probably brought up at the various editorial meetings but no one bit, until now – six months after it was submitted.

Morale of this story? An idea isn’t dead until the editor tells you so. Article/story pitches are like seeds, just plant them then forget about them. Pitch your idea and then move on to the next one. Long after you’ve forgotten about it, that pitch just may return and bring a little commission with it.

When this happens, the trick is finding your research on your computer and remembering exactly what the heck you pitched to the editor in the first place! But that’s a whole different story . . .

Max Barry, author of several successful novels, has just experienced the joy of actually selling through his advance and explains the basics of advances and royalties in his unique way.

Owing money on something you wrote then successfully sold to a publisher is just another one of those great aspects of being a writer. Now I can see why so many good authors are going the self-publishing route.

But it keeps coming back like a bad egg sandwich. Salon.com has asked some well-known Americans for their thoughts on four more years. This is shamefully lifted from their site [day pass needed] but it’s exactly how I feel:

Mark Crispin Miller is a media critic, professor of communications at New York University, and author, most recently, of “Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney’s New World Order.”

“First of all, this election was definitely rigged. I have no doubt about it. It’s a statistical impossibility that Bush got 8 million more votes than he got last time. In 2000, he got 15 million votes from right-wing Christians, and there are approximately 19 million of them in the country. They were eager to get the other 4 million. That was pretty much Karl Rove’s strategy to get Bush elected.

But given Bush’s low popularity ratings and the enormous number of new voters — who skewed Democratic — there is no way in the world that Bush got 8 million more votes this time. I think it had a lot to do with the electronic voting machines. Those machines are completely untrustworthy, and that’s why the Republicans use them. Then there’s the fact that the immediate claim of Ohio was not contested by the news media — when Andrew Card came out and claimed the state, not only were the votes in Ohio not counted, they weren’t even all cast.

I would have to hear a much stronger argument for the authenticity, or I should say the veracity, of this popular vote for Bush before I’m willing to believe it. If someone can prove to me that it happened, that Bush somehow pulled 8 million magic votes out of a hat, OK, I’ll accept it. I’m an independent, not a Democrat, and I’m not living in denial.

And that’s not even talking about Florida, which is about as Democratic a state as Guatemala used to be. The news media is obliged to make the Republicans account for all these votes, and account for the way they were counted. Simply to embrace this result as definitive is irrational. But there is every reason to question it … I find it beyond belief that the press in this formerly democratic country would not have made the integrity of the electoral system a front page, top-of-the-line story for the last three years. I worked and worked and worked to get that story into the media, and no one touched it until your guy did.

I actually got invited to a Kerry fundraiser so I could talk to him about it. I raised the issue directly with him and with Teresa. Teresa was really indignant and really concerned, but Kerry just looked down at me — he’s about 9 feet tall — and I could tell it just didn’t register. It set off all his conspiracy-theory alarms and he just wasn’t listening.

Talk to anyone from a real democracy — from Canada or any European country or India. They are staggered to discover that 80 percent of our touch-screen electronic voting machines have no paper trail and are manufactured by companies owned by Bush Republicans. But there is very little sense of outrage here. Americans for a host of reasons have become alienated from the spirit of the Bill of Rights and that should not be tolerated.”

It won’t change the results, but we need to hear more about this in the media. Somehow I don’t think these thoughts will get much play on the TV.

In the meantime, you can find me here crackin’ orc skulls for democracy.

Why do Americans have this fast food mentality with their elections? They want results right away like it’s a home pregnancy test. Other elections around the world take days to come to a final result, and it’s not just because of a lack of technology or experience, etc – it’s because elections are a big job and big jobs take time.

Waiting for the legal 10 day window for absentee ballots to be counted and other voter irregularities to be investigated might not have changed the results but at least they would have sent a message that the Democrats aren’t going to roll over again like they did in 2000 (and is what they have done again in 2004.)

This quick concession is the most shameful thing of this campaign and will not help the Democrats one bit (I mean besides officially losing the whole election thing)

Not to worry. Highest turnout in 30 years, 60% voter participation, an American people re-engaged in politics (except for the youth vote, which didn’t materialise – I guess that means they’re now gonna die. The movement has begun and we’ve got another four years to get it right. In the meantime things are going to continue to get ugly both in the US and in Iraq.

And I’ll just stay involved and keep writing books . . .

Remember, this is still a count – not a re-count.

Read more.

Read the rest of Michael Moore’s message to voters.

Now get out and vote! (If you don’t live in the USA go down to your local school/town hall/rec centre, walk into the toilet, find a cubicle, close your eyes and flush the toilet. It’s just like voting and best of all it’s free!!)

One newsletter that appeared after a very long silence is the WriterFind News. As I mentioned last week, I drop in there from time to time to sniff for leads but I completely forgot that they had a newsletter. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that their mysterious mailings actually contained something useful: a price guide for freelance writers.

Andrew brought up the cold hard fact that the pay rates on 90% of the writing jobs listed on online job boards just aren’t financially viable once you factor in the time it takes to interview, research and write. This is very true and why online job boards are a very small part of my writing marketing work.

The Writer’s Market Rate Guide brings this fact home and it should be kept handy at all times.

The rate guide is on the Writer’s Market website and it lists every conceivable writing job with the going professional rate. The list seems fairly recent and I’m assuming it’s in US dollars. I remember seeing this list in the 2004 Writer’s Market book and I’m very happy to see it online.

You can check out the Writer’s Market Freelance Rates Guide here. Bookmark it, pass it around and make sure you send it to the next editor that tries to low-ball you.

Normally, any articles I sell are through pitch letters sent out blind to editors (not really blind because I’ve researched the magazine, etc and determined that my idea will fit their needs) and not by an ad placed online. The success rate for pitch letters is pretty low, so it’s a good thing to have several making the rounds at any one time.

But theoretically job boards should solve that problem because editors are making their needs known right up front: “We need stories about _______.” So, I whip up a pitch about ________ and wait. And wait. But I never have any success or even get a reply. It’s frustrating, but I can only wonder at how many emails an article call on a writer’s job board gets (a truck load, I bet.)

The key to my recent success with a writing job board is focus. The reason I landed this latest article is because I had previously written on the topic, so in addition to having much of the research done, I have already proved that I can write on this subject. It’s becoming my focus and that paid off in this case. But, it can be a frustrating experience to see hundreds of writing jobs that don’t fall into your focused writing niche. I can’t write business articles, but everyday I see hundreds of postings looking for that sort of thing. And there’s no use faking it, because editors will know.

For that reason the secret of online writing market boards, no matter how frequently they’re updated or what the quality of the postings are, is finding that one job out of a hundred that fits your writing niche, whether it’s kids, parenting or tropical flowers in southern Texas.

Knowing your writinig niche and having more than one, is a great way make increase your chances with writing market boards. It also helps you skim through them very quickly, because there is always a lot of crap posting out there, but that’s a whole other post.

Here’s a quick list of some of the writing job boards I check out regularly. If you’ve searched for writing job boards in the past, these might be familiar to you. The quality of their postings can vary, but each has turned up a promising lead for me in the past:

writersweekly.com – By far the best source for all around writing news. They offer their market listings via rss feed, which is very handy. Drop it into bloglines and away you go. This is where I found my latest article commission.

Inkygirl – Debbie Ohi is the a one-woman-bottomless-cup of writers markets. She was the founder of the great (and sadly offline) Inkspot.com. Her current weblog for writers has a frequently updated list of writer’s jobs culled from various sources. She also offers an rss feed and the quality of her postings is always very high.

writerfind.com – Lots of international work that can be done from anywhere. In the past I’ve submitted to jobs advertised on this board and actually got a response. It was still a “no thanks” but the response alone merits a placeement in this list. Their amount of free listings has dropped dramatically lately, but they offer a paid service. I haven’t tried it out and I don’t plan to.

Freelancwriting.com – Although I’ve never met with success on this board, I always return because their postings are frequently updated and they do the courtesy of splitting their boards into paying and non-paying. The quality can vary and I’ve seen some outrageous job postings on there (ie – “I need a writing credit: will buy completed children’s novel for $50.00″ – seriously!). Check it out but skim at your own risk.

That’s just a quick list of my top writing job boards. As I said, the success rate for me and these things is pretty low. I’d like to know if anyone else has had better luck with getting writing jobs online. Where did you go and what was the key to your success? Drop me a comment and share it with the world.

Usually, if I have a question with something I’m working on, I fire off an email and wait for a reply. But this morning’s dilemma required an instant answer. So, I did something extremely radical. Something unheard of around here. I picked up the phone and called my editor.

This may not seem a big deal to you, but to me it’s a very big step. And it taught me that the a simple phone call can save you more time than a dozen emails.

I’m a writer who rarely says no. I can usually work with rewrites, comments or suggestions and often they make the work much better. But it turned out that my editor shared my concerns about a proposed changed. Right then we put a plan into motion to fix the problem.

The plan was perfect for me because it involved me not writing anything more for the day. And that saved me an afternoon of struggling with the change, trying to make it fit and waiting for an answer via email from my editor.

Instead, the good old phone provided an instant answer and gave me the afternoon off. Not bad for an old technology that I hate to use.

I’m still a hermit and I still love email, but I think I’ll try that phone call thing again soon.

Happy tofurky eating to all Canadians and see you on Tuesday.

I started this whole process about 10 months ago not sure what blogging was and definitely not sure what my blog would be. Feeding Change has grown into a small micro-micro-casting environment and I’m very proud of it, but the posts are all scattered and without a unifying reason of being. It’s time to refocus and redefine what this space is all about.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking (besides Bush has got to go):

The best blogs are ones that are focused with a particular theme. This is how micro-casting works. I visit Clickable Culture to find out what’s new and weird with video games, tech and zombies. I read Dave Pollard’s How to Save the World to learn how to, er, save the world.

One thing I’ve always struggled with in Feeding Change is “What is my theme?” I don’t seem to have one. I’m very passionate about a lot of issues like politics, the environment, technology, writing, youth culture and more. My posts seem to spray out in all these areas with no unifying theme. And that not only makes for a confusing blog, it also makes it a confusing one to write for.

I’m in the process of switching my hosting and moving from Blogger to Movable Type, thanks to Jim at No Media Kings, who will both host my main site and my blog. So, as I go through the process of switching over, this blog will switch over too. It’s going to focus on the one thing that I think ties all my interests together: writing. Specifically writing for kids. It’s what I do. It’s how I live my life. And it’s what I want to blog about.

I’m lucky enough to pay my bills through my writing, but I’m definitely stumbling my way through it. With a new series of books out, I’m now exploring how to promote them and move to the next stage of being a writer. That means book signings, school visits and finally getting an agent (do I need one? – still undecided on that.), life as a freelance writer, finding good resources and more.

These are all questions I need to answers to, and perhaps blogging about them will help. For me all my other interests (environment, technology, politics, etc) are always seen through the lens of writing for kids, so I don’t think I’ll be talking exclusively about how many pages I’ve written, or the trouble I’m having with the plot of my latest novel idea. A writing blog like that wouldn’t interest me for long and I know it wouldn’t interest you either.

So, change is in air, but in the meantime, I will continue to post here and ramble about cell phones for kids, or the need to talk about politics. But if it falls silent for a few days at a time, don’t despair – I’m not flaking out on blogging. I’m just finding my focus. And I’m getting close.

Stay tuned . . .

Now parents can finally relax and let their kids get into dangerous situations without having to worry. Their child is only a candy-colured phone call away. The colourful EMF beacons toys are perfect for giving parents a false sense of security and grooming youngsters to become cell phone chatting consumers by the time they’re ready for their first Solo plan.

The pre-teen phones can’t dial out, instead they hold 5 pre-programmed numbers and only come with a pay-as-you-go plans. So, you also don’t have to worry about little Reece and Amber racking up excessive phone bills (that nasty heart defect they develop from the radiation-emitting phone dangling around their neck, is another matter completely.)

As with all RFID security devices, the pre-teen cell phone encourages vapid consumerism in our children, fosters a ‘surveillance-beats-all’ attitude in parents, and doesn’t stop to ponder if this technology is really good for a young person to have.

Stay tuned for the next product from MYMO: the in utero pager. It’s ten o’clock, do you know where your fetus is?

It’s simple to use, you just pick your genre (mystery, sci-fi, teen, etc) give your email and start getting text only emails that take about 5 minutes to read. After getting three of these emails, which shows you about the first 10 pages of a book, you start getting a new title. Simple, enjoyable and possibly a great way to market books.

The site is run by Susan Beecher, whose eerie smiling face graces each page on the site. When Susan first approached publishers with her idea to send book chapters out via email they, in true publishing form, didn’t think it was a good idea. (Publishers are not quick to pick up on the marketing potential of the internet, as Andrew at Supernovascotian points out.)

But they soon realised that having thousands of people sample your books might not be a bad thing. Now, dearreader.com works with 80 publishers and offers books from some big name authors.

Check it out and start enjoying your email again.

Anyway, the webmonkeys at dollarhost fixed what broke and we’re broadcasting again.

Thank you to the legions of readers who warned me of my media outlet’s demise. It’s heart-warming to know that this blog is part of your morning routine. (as yours is mine, to be sure!)

That is all, more to come soon . . .

MoveOn.org has put out a series of talking points for the Left that will help concerned voters focus on what Kerry stands for and why Bush must go. [thanks Chandrasutra]

Below is a complete list of the points followed by excerpts from Kerry’s speech at New York University on Sept. 20th. These points were mailed out MoveOn.org newletter subscribers, who were encouraged to forward it on to friends. Feel free to copy and pass on these points. They’re sure to make for some great dinner conversation.

Talking Points for the Left:

The war on Iraq was a mistake — war was unnecessary because the inspections were working:

Kerry: “Today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying that if we knew there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaeda, the United States should have invaded Iraq? My answer is no — because a commander in chief’s first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe.”

Iraq distracted from the war on terror:

Kerry:”The president claims it is the centerpiece of his war on terror. In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and the battle against our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions and, if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight.”

President Bush misled us about the reasons for the war before it occurred:

Kerry: “He failed to tell the truth about the rationale for going to war. And he failed to tell the truth about the burden this war would impose on our soldiers and our citizens. By one count, the president offered 23 different rationales for this war.”

President Bush is still misleading people about Iraq, painting an optimistic picture directly contradicted by his own intelligence officials:

Kerry: “In June, the president declared, ‘The Iraqi people have their country back.’ Just last week, he told us: ‘This country is headed toward democracy. Freedom is on the march.’ But the Administration’s own official intelligence estimate, given to the president last July, tells a very different story. According to press reports, the intelligence estimate totally contradicts what the president is saying to the American people.”

Bush went to war for ideological reasons and consistently misjudged the situation on the ground:

Kerry: “This president was in denial. He hitched his wagon to the ideologues who surround him, filtering out those who disagreed, including leaders of his own party and the uniformed military. The result is a long litany of misjudgments with terrible consequences. The administration told us we’d be greeted as liberators. They were wrong. They told us not to worry about looting or the sorry state of Iraq’s infrastructure. They were wrong. They told us we had enough troops to provide security and stability, defeat the insurgents, guard the borders and secure the arms depots. They were wrong. They told us we could rely on exiles like Ahmed Chalabi to build political legitimacy. They were wrong. They told us we would quickly restore an Iraqi civil service to run the country and a police force and army to secure it. They were wrong. In Iraq, this administration has consistently over-promised and under-performed. This policy has been plagued by a lack of planning, an absence of candor, arrogance and outright incompetence. And the president has held no one accountable, including himself.”

John Kerry has a four-point plan to fix our Iraq policy:

“First, the president has to get the promised international support so our men and women in uniform don’t have to go it alone. It is late; the president must respond by moving this week to gain and regain international support. The president should convene a summit meeting of the world’s major powers and Iraq’s neighbors, this week, in New York, where many leaders will attend the U.N. General Assembly. He should insist that they make good on that U.N. resolution. He should offer potential troop contributors specific, but critical roles, in training Iraqi security personnel and securing Iraq’s borders. He should give other countries a stake in Iraq’s future by encouraging them to help develop Iraq’s oil resources and by letting them bid on contracts instead of locking them out of the reconstruction process.”

“Second, the president must get serious about training Iraqi security forces. The president should urgently expand the security forces training program inside and outside Iraq. He should strengthen the vetting of recruits, double classroom training time, and require follow-on field training. He should recruit thousands of qualified trainers from our allies, especially those who have no troops in Iraq. He should press our NATO allies to open training centers in their countries. And he should stop misleading the American people with phony, inflated numbers.”

“Third, the president must carry out a reconstruction plan that finally brings tangible benefits to the Iraqi people. One year ago, the administration asked for and received $18 billion to help the Iraqis and relieve the conditions that contribute to the insurgency. Today, less than a $1 billion of those funds have actually been spent. I said at the time that we had to rethink our policies and set standards of accountability. Now we’re paying the price. Now, the president should look at the whole reconstruction package, draw up a list of high visibility, quick impact projects, and cut through the red tape. He should use more Iraqi contractors and workers, instead of big corporations like Halliburton. He should stop paying companies under investigation for fraud or corruption. And he should fire the civilians in the Pentagon responsible for mismanaging the reconstruction effort.”

“Fourth, the president must take immediate, urgent, essential steps to guarantee the promised elections can be held next year. If the president would move in this direction, if he would bring in more help from other countries to provide resources and forces, train the Iraqis to provide their own security, develop a reconstruction plan that brings real benefits to the Iraqi people, and take the steps necessary to hold credible elections next year — we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring all our troops home within the next four years.”

You can read all of John Kerry’s speech here. Spread the word and smile – it’s not even close to being over.

Thanks Michael. I needed that.

Related: Watch these ads from MoveOnPac – it’ll balance all that mainstream crap we’re being fed.

With my picture book series Pet Tales finally in bookstores across North America, I’m shifting into ‘get my act together’ mode:

On Wednesday I met with the buyers at National Book Service, a Canadian book wholesaler for the school and library market, and convinced them to place an order for the first four books in the series (the fact that I used to work there helped too.)

Thursday saw me finally applying to join the Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers (CANSCAIP). I’ve been meaning to join for many years now (you must be a published children’s author/illustrator to join) but have always put it off. I’m not much of a joiner of anything, and I’m trying to change that. CANSCAIP provides useful resources for Canadian authors and meets every month to discuss issues like contracts and school visits. I’m looking forward to my first meeting in October, when I’ll get to meet some other Canadian children’s writers/illustrators/performers and hopefully take another step away from being a hermit writer.

Toward that end, I’ve also added a new section to my main website. The Visits & Workshops page officially broadcasts my availability to attend schools and libraries to give book talks or ‘meet-the-author’ type workshops for kids. I’m putting together some details about the presentations that I’ll offer, which I’ll post in the near future. Right now there is just the page with my content details and a Chatango window, for anyone foolish enough to want to talk to me right away.

This weekend, I’m working on another Max Finder mystery, which will have Max and Alison visiting the big city of Toronto and, of course, stumbling into a mystery (Jessica Fletcher has nothing on these kids.)

But what I’m really doing is reading this article from The Email Activist about Stealth Voting this November.

It’s a great piece that must be read by anyone who plans to vote for Kerry and wants to ensure their vote is counted. In addition to laying out the possible hurdles faced by Democratic voters (tech problems with election machines, ballots being lost, etc.), the article suggests that liberals vote by absentee ballot to guarantee that their vote is counted. And don’t stop there, WALK your ballot to the elections office and here’s why:

“Mailed ballots are more likely to be lost, not by the Post Office, but by corrupt election officials who suspect that a large number of absentee ballots this year will be coming from activists. Since activists are more likely to vote for liberal candidates, their votes might get “misplaced.” With that in mind, we recommend not only that you deliver your ballot in person but that you do so disguised as a rock-ribbed conservative. You might dress up in a business suit, for instance, with an American flag affixed to your lapel. Tuck a copy of the Wall Street Journal under your arm. And it probably wouldn’t hurt to get a haircut.”

Call it paranoia, call it conspiracy theory, or call it common sense – read the article and pass it on.

Okay, gotta go get a couple of grade seven detectives to the big city and into trouble before dinner time.

As Q*bert would say: @!#?@!

I still love public television. I’m just a little confused.

Hooray for Natalie d’Arbeloff ! After two weeks of watching corporations wet themselves and try desperately to align themselves with the Olympics (everything from happy meals to batteries), Natalie’s comments about nationalism are a refreshing read. My partner and I always wonder why there is no Olympics for art or literature? Nationalism is a dangerous thing and it’s ugly face was clearly evident during last week’s RNC, while thousands of republicans chanted U-S-A with what sounded more like anger than pride. Unchecked nationalism and pride in your nation are two very different things and they need to be talked about now, more than ever.

If Natalie was leader, I would want to be in that country – which would have no name, flag or anthem, of course.

You never know what you’ll find or who you will meet when you visit Blaugustine, Natalie’s blog or is it Augustine’s blog? As this truly unique illustrator struggles with her online alter ego, it’s never clear who is really in charge of the blog. Judging from her lively comment boxes, this is a good thing.

If you haven’t visited Blaugustine, please do. It is a house with many rooms and I recommend first time visitors check out her graphic novel in progress, her hilarious interview with god series (the best rendering of the almighty one that I’ve seen since the Holy Grail) and other political leaders (including George W and Tony Blair.)

I discovered Natalie and Augustine early into my blogging journey and she has remained a regular stop on my blogging rounds. I’ve posted about them (her?) before and I know I’ll post about them (her?) again. When you find someone this honest, unique, poignent and funny, you never get tired of telling others about them. Go on, do yourself a favour and check out her site and tell her Liam sent you.

Terranova via Slashdot Games tuned me into The Video Game Revolution, set to air this Wednesday at 9pm on PBS stations across the US and seeping across the border to Canada (one American cultural import I am happy to receive.)

The two hour program covers the history, evolution and cultural impact of video games on a generation of people raised popping quarters into machines to blast space invaders.

“Video games? That’s what spotty teen males wearing black t-shirts do in the basement, right?

Wrong. What that half of America might not know is that the other half of America is regularly playing video games. And it’s not just kids any more. The average video game player — or “gamer” — is 30 years old. That gamer isn’t feeding quarters into an arcade machine, either. He (and increasingly, she) is playing on a home computer, having adventures under a different name and identity in an eternally existing cyberworld full of danger, romance, and thousands of other people pretending to be somebody else.”

If this sounds like you (and there’s no denying that it doesn’t) then mark Wednesday at 9pm on your calendar. In the meantime check out the show’s great website here.

Related: If you want to learn about the positive effects of video games on kids, then read my Digital Literacy article in September’s Today’s Parent magazine.

Max Barry is the author of the supremely wicked and anti-corp satire Jennifer Government. His website is his blog and is loaded with lots of good stuff from Max and is an fine example in how to create a community around your work. Max builds games based on his books and offers great advice to new writers. His first book, Syrup, was snubbed by Canadians, but I’ll let Max tell you about it:

“In the last six months of 2003, Canadian Syrup sales were: 6.

Six!? I’ve bought more copies than that! If it was zero, I’d think maybe the book wasn’t available at all, but six—six! It’s enough to make me want to catch a plane to Vancouver and buy an armload full of copies, just to treble national sales.”

Writers and readers should definitely pay attention to Max’s blog and his books (and watch out for the new Jennifer Government movie.)

When veteran authors like Jane Yolen start a weblog, you know things are getting serious. Jane Yolen put wizards in schools with Wizard’s Hall long before Harry Potter got that tattoo on his forehead. She’s written more great books for young readers than I’ll ever have time to read and her blog is a treat for fans and writers alike. Yolen calls her blog a journal and doesn’t use any blogging software, so linking to specific posts isn’t possible and a shame. She’s got some great views on writing and publishing and is an advocate for writer’s rights. Check it out and scroll down to the Sept. 1, 2004 entry for a great post about the demands of publishing on writers and the commodification of children’s writing.

Also new to the land of blogs, but not new to publishing or the internet is MJ Rose. She’s the author of five novels, including the newly published Halo Effect and recently started the Buzz, Balls and Hype weblog over at PublishersMarketplace.com. Like Yolen, MJ Rose doesn’t have permalinks, so all I can say is check it out and scroll down to the Aug 31, 2004 post “They do it with Bibles!” post for some interesting ideas on what to do when a publisher decides to shred all the unsold copies of your first novel. MJ is an ebook pioneer, who made her name by publishing her first manuscript as an ebook and marketing it. Writers looking for marketing tips would do well to subscribe to Buzz, Balls and Hype.

Update: I just received an email from MJ Rose, informing me that she does have permalinks at the typepad version of Buzz, Balls and Hype, which is mirrored over at PM.com. My mistake and thanks for getting in touch, MJ.

Have a good weekend, whether it’s long or short.

As Tony Walsh points out in his latest article on Mindjack, ads in games are bringing in new revenue streams for game makers. But will ads for Tide or Mountain Dew for in your new PS2 game make it any cheaper to buy?

No way:

“Does your cable TV bill get cheaper in January when CBS is able to charge a million dollars for a 30-second Superbowl spot? Nope. That’s called growing your profit margin. There’s no way in hell that money will find its way back to the consumer.”

Another scary fact that Tony brings up: 70% of gamers like the ads and feel they add an element of realism to the game. I don’t know about you, but if I want realism, I look out the window.

Check out the article. I’m proud to say that I helped edit it, so hurl your grammatical abuse in this direction and send your kudos Tony’s way.

It’s all to promote Jim Munroe’s new book, An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil, of which I’ve spoken about previously, and other acts too devious to mention.

When: The pentagram gets drawn at 8 pm
Where: The diabolical Gladstone, here in Toronto (details)
How: Through loud music, sinister readings and cheap beer
Why: Evil has a fun face too.

Be there or be damned . . . (cue sinister laughter)

Here’s a sample of what they have to say about this humble blog:

“[Liam's] blog is for grown-ups and is, as Vicki puts it, “humourous and interesting, covering topics you don’t necessarily see all over the place.”

The grown-up bit is because they mention that I write for kids. I often have to clarify that with people when I tell that I blog – “Really? Do ten year olds read blogs?”

With Daily Dose of Imagery as one of the fellow top blogs, I know that I am in good company and proud to be on the list.

My thanks to the Blogs Canada crew.

“At Booklocker.com, we receive several book manuscripts each week from authors wanting to get their books into print . . . we publish less than 5% of incoming submissions. After another agonizing week of seeing the same mistakes by authors made time and again, I thought we’d try to help those of you who are sending your manuscripts to publishers, traditional and other. Perhaps we can help you avoid one of these common mistakes (and give you a smile at the same time!).”

That is all. Get back to your writing!

And now that I’ve found this article about book-reviewing cliches, I am armed with a map that will make my job easier. Thanks to Judith at over at The Misrule Blog, for highlighting this one and making my article stronger already.

The cliches are alphabetized for your convenience. Here’s just a sample from A to B:

achingly beautiful

bursting to get out – of novellas in vast, sprawling epics

And there’s 24 more letters of cliches over at the Telegraph, where the article originally appeared.

“Dear Sir or Madam:

We are the European & American Contact Department of The Organizing Committee of the 6th World Cartoon Conference which is considered as the summit of animation and comic industry and art of the largest scale in Asia. During 3-6 October 2004, the 6th session will be staged in Beijing, China. The theme of the exhibition is “Comic and Nationality Nature in 21st Century”, we genuinely invite your company to participate in the conference.”

China: the land of free expression and cartooning. Right.

Tony Walsh was also invited to the conference. I think his response sums it up nicely:

“Hey, Chinese government–how about you allow your citizens to draw, animate, write, or think freely? How about you get the hell out of Tibet and stop bullying Taiwan? The Olympics may be cuddling up to your iron fist, but all you’re going to get from me is a kick in the nuts.”

Well said Tony. Now, where’d I put my steel-toed boots?

With 94% of the votes counted, Chavez had 58% of the votes and retains the right to govern. Chavez is a left-wing leader to be admired. Since his first days in office, in 1998, he has been under attack by the middle and upper class who have seen their secure way of life (built on the backs of the desperately poor) threatened by Chavez’s policies that re-distribute the nation’s oil wealth to the poor and his refusual to bow to American pressures to stand down.

Unfortunately, like most news stories that don’t happen north of the Equator or involve a round ball, I’m sure this story will go under-reported in light of other competitions going on these days. Regardless of how mainstream media reports this, today is a great day for democracy around the world and like the American’s losing their first Olympic basketball game for eons, it shows that anything is possible and that democracy is alive.

So, if I’m online, drop in and talk to me. I have a deadline tomorrow – I’m desperate for distraction.

These nifty buttons will tell you if I’m online or not:

Oh yeah, the chat is courtesy Chatango, it’s free. So, pick up yours today (and somebody design a new skin, so we can do away with the lime green – yech!)

It’s from Bauer & Black and their website has some good info on the treatment of CTS.

Using the mouse and keyboard are tricky at first but you eventually get used to it.

If you’re suffering from CTS, I recommend you pick one up. Your wrists will thank you.

Here’s a sample:

“Having a button-mashing, book-bashing son is worrying for many parents. For the last six years, literacy tests have shown Canadian boys trailing girls in reading and writing skills. In 1998, for example, 15 percent of 13-year-old girls scored higher than boys on reading tests and, in more recent writing exams, girls continue to do better. Are video games and other digital distractions to blame? While many parents and teachers are quick to say yes, some educators are coming to the defence of video games. Boys aren’t becoming illiterate, they say. Boys are redefining literacy and gaining “digital literacy” skills. And in the workplaces of the future, these skills might just give them a head start on their book-reading buddies.”

The whole article is available in the September issue of Today’s Parent, which is for sale across Canada. Alternatively, you can read the piece online here.

Related: Over at Nesta Futurelab there’s been some great articles relating to digital literacy, video games and education for kids. Check out: More Than Just a Game and Digital Literacy and the I-Curriculum Project.

The novel is told through a series of blog entries, posted by a woman unsure if her roommate is a demon or just a goth gone bad. To coincide with the launch, the book is being rolled out in a series of blog posts over at roommatefromhell.net, which also features a “Is She or Isn’t She a Demon?” quiz.

Last month, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Jim and discussing his unique approach to book marketing for Canadian Bookseller Magazine. Unfortunately, and unlike Jim’s blog, that interview isn’t licenced under Creative Commons. So, unless you’re a Canadian bookstore owner and have a copy of the July/August issue lying around, you’ll have have to wait until next month to read the article when it’s posted on the CBA’s web site.

In the meantime subscribe to roommatefromhell.net and get a taste one day at a time or go old skool and buy the big papery thing wrapped in string.

Related: for more on the blurring line between blogs and books, check out this Guardian article.

Au’s post, So Very Kerry, profiles an SLer named IceRink Zamboni who set up a pro-Kerry site on her patch of virtual land (seen at right.) Dugo Jacobs, IceRink’s neighbour, was not impressed with the giant glowing pro-Kerry rainbow across the road, so he did what any good neighbour would do. He bought all the land around IceRink and plastered it with enough Kerry-bashing signs to make Vegas look like a nature reserve.

“If representatives from the Kerry-Edwards campaign ever do take the time to log into Second Life . . . they’ll no doubt be impressed by [IceRink's] enthusiasm on their behalf. That is, if they can get past the giant billboard on the other side of the highway– featuring their candidate and Jane Fonda and a title that loudly announces “Not Fonda Kerry”. Or the giant spinning cube hovering above her site, announcing “No Kerry” on every side. Or the slightly smaller cube above it, which depicts a cartoon cowboy George W. Bush, branding a donkey.”

Here’s another example of Dugo’s handiwork. Unfortunately, you need to be a member of Second Life to see the *real* thing, but every day I get closer to setting up an SL account.

Crack open the champagne!

After a six month delay, the first four titles in the Pet Tales series of picture books from Soundprints Publishing is on its way to bookstores. And I finally get to show off something that I started writing nearly three years ago.

The books look great, I’m very happy with the way they turned out. But the best part is that they each come with a read-along CD! I don’t which is cooler, hearing actors read my lines or the little “tril-a-ling” chime that tells you when to turn the page.

I remember when read-along books came with a little record that got all scratched and was eventually snapped into razor sharp shards by that doofus bully that made everyone eat his boogers.

And if getting a CD isn’t enough, you can also opt for the deluxe package and get a stuffed animal with your book. I’m still harassing the publisher for my stuffed toys and will, of course, let you know when they arrive.

In the meantime, if you’d like to read more about the series or buy the books online (go on, you know you want to) you can visit the books page of my main site.

This great article at AlterNet takes a look at the late-night corporately-funded shin-digs happening across Boston.  Dangerous multinationals Generous corporate citizens like Pfizer, Bristol Meyers and Altria (the company formerly known as Philip Morris) are ponying up to the bar and buying drinks, food and politicians one shrimp-stuffed canape at a time.

The article is written by Micah L. Sifry and Nancy Watzman, authors of the superbly titled book: Is That a Politician in Your Pocket? Washington on $2 Million a Day. The problem with corporately funded fetes, they argue, isn’t who gets to sip champagne with delegates, it’s who is not on the guest list:

What happens at these parties isn’t so much the direct exchange of cash for favors as something more subtle and invidious: the reinforcement of a common worldview. That’s because ordinary people aren’t invited to these events; nor could they afford to pay-to-play. So the politicians in the room don’t hear about the high cost of health insurance or how hard it is to find affordable housing on the minimum wage. To do that, they’d have to talk to the waiters, busboys and janitors who clean up after the revelers leave at 2:00 a.m.

When November 3rd rolls around, I’m hoping for a change in Washington, but I’m not naive enough to believe much will be different. You are who you party with. And it’s clear that many of the regulars will be sticking around the trough regardless of who takes the White House. 

It looks like someone at Bayer has picked up on my recent post about Aspirin’s misleading carpal tunnel syndrome ad.

Sitemeter reports that they stuck around for about six minutes then took off. Just long enough to read my post and  . . . .who knows? Pass my post onto their boss? Call Interpol? Only my sitemeter knows and I’ll keep checking it throughout the day. 

If I don’t post again in 24 hours, you can assume the Bayer police got me. Or my CTS is flaring up again. 

Related Link:  For a great look at how PR and marketers are fearful of the power of blogs, check out Chandrasutra’s great post on the subject.

Things were busy around here yesterday. For the first time since starting this weblog, I cracked the 100 visitors mark. It was all due to ConsumerWorld.org linking to my recent post about Aspirin’s misleading CTS commercial.

ConsumerWorld.org is run by consumer lawyer Edgar Dworsky, author of several consumer protection laws and the former Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General. The site serves as a one-stop-shop for the latest consumer warnings and sources for bargains for shoppers. It was my first time there, but from the numbers he drove to my site, it’s clear he has a large readership.

I will say that I was disappointed that out of 124 visitors, not one left a comment! I had to rely on my regular core group of readers for any kind of debate or insight. Thanks to them for their comments.

My numbers are back down to realistic levels and that’s fine with me. I’m not in this blogging thing for the fame or glory. I enjoyed my brief rise to the heights of three-digit visitors but I’m happy to be back on earth and content to be a Personal Blogger in the Fractal Blogosphere.

I’m always late to the party, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m just discovering Linda McQuaig. It should also be no surprise that I like what I read and hear from her.

The short piece quoted above first appeared in the Toronto Star, but was re-printed at Rabble.ca, last Monday. It’s a critique of the media’s pathetic mea culpa in the wake of the ‘faulty intelligence’ alibi put forth by the US government a few weeks ago.

In the run up to the Iraq war as everyone, except the United States government, pleaded for more time in the search for WMD, the big networks of US media, from CBS to CNN, acted like White House stenographers instead of investigative journalists. It was appalling and ironic to see Wolf Blitzer on the Daily Show last week claiming that the media should have “been more skeptical.” I echo McQuaig’s response: “What do you mean “we,” white man?”

Mainstream media’s late acknowledgement is just one more reason to turn off the TV and tune into other forms of less-filtered media. But that’s old news, we’ve had a few other apalling reports come out from the US to deal with.

McQuaig is a regular columnist for the Toronto Star newspaper and the authour of a new book It’s the Crude, Dude (out this September from RandomHouse Canada.) Her book discusses the US’s ever-changing reasons for the invasion of Iraq and lays out the real reasons behind the war: oil.

I had the chance to hear McQuaig speak about her book during last month’s Book Expo Canada. It was one of those stupid lunch talks, where the poor speakers (in this case David Suzuki, Michael Harcourt and McQuaig) have to struggle to be heard over clanking cultery and shouting waiters. My media pass didn’t buy me the lunch, so I hovered in the back of the room and watched.

It was a pleasure to see the book store owners, publishing executives and aspiring authours stop chewing and start listening to McQuaig as she linked the US’s thirst for oil with the current war and occupation of Iraq. To me, all this was completely obvious and old news. I (and millions of others) had been shouting this at our TVs and in rallies around the world for the last year. But the way McQuaig relentlessly brought up the facts of history and tied them to corporate connections of today made me feel like I was hearing it for the first time. It was great to hear these truths spoken outside of my regular news sources and away from the protest marches. It was even better to see Suzuki and Harcourt nod as McQuaig spoke. I bet they yelled at their TVs too.

Like her articles in the Star and in Rabble, McQuaig’s book isn’t blowing the lid of any dark secrets. She admits that her book is aimed at those people who still think Bush & Co really were looking for WMD/Liberating Iraq/Going After Saddam/Invaded Under Faulty Intelligence (or whatever the latest war excuse is currently being peddled.)

The good thing about McQuag is that she doesn’t preach to the converted. She writes to convert and is still operating below the radar of the right. Michael Moore can’t take a dump without the right accusing him of being biased (as if this is something new in the media.) McQuaig’s books and articles can be passed on to friends, relatives or colleagues who may have swallowed a few too many CNN stories. And because she hasn’t been vilified by conservatives, her work doesn’t come with the media baggage that unfortunately puts off the undecided and unthinking when they see anything with Moore’s name attached to it (“I hear he’s really biased.”, “He’s got an agenda.” and all that crap.)

If you haven’t already, check out her semi-regular articles every Monday on rabble.ca. I’d love to hear what you think.

But now even Canadians can have their say.

Georgebush.ca is an online petition that aims to get 1 million Canadian signatures telling their friends to the south to give the current president the heave-ho. Who the hell are we to stick our noses into a foreign election? They got that covered in their handy Q&A:

Q: What business do Canadians have interfering in another countries democratic election?

A: The foreign policy of any United States government directly impacts the rest of the world. US voters have the right to know how their northern neighbour, and ally, feels about the current administration’s policies.

So, head over there and vote!

If you’re having doubts, I’ve got my own handy Q&A that will ease your conscience:

Q: Will it make a difference?
A: Probably not. 

Q: Will it get us sued by a freakzo right-wing yankee ‘grassroots’ group for messing with their elections?
A: Hopefully.

Q: Does it feel good to pretend to vote against Bush?
A: Hell, yeah!

[Thanks to James McNally at GTABloggers]

- Guardian Unlimited

Disney’s flag waving, stomach-churning ode to apple pie and yankee doodle dandy, America’s Heart and Soul has been dying a quiet death for the past month and this piece in the Guardian explains why. 

Note to Disney execs: When the biggest claim that you can make about your film film is that it features a new song by John Mellencamp, you know it sucks. 

Last night, during the National on CBC, I saw a completely irresponsible commercial for Extra Strength Aspirin, which claims that their little pills are the answer for people suffering from CTS.

For those who haven’t seen the ad, it shows a woman typing in an office who must stop typing because of the pain in her wrists. To show the pain, flames shoot from the underside of her wrists. A co-worker approaches her and inquires whether or not the woman is taking a break. When the woman complains about her wrist pain, the co-worker suggests she take Aspirin and get back to work. At the end of the commercial, the woman has taken the Aspirin, no longer suffers from the burning pain and continues typing in an non-ergonomic and damaging way.

Like many computer users, I suffer from CTS and must monitor my time in front of the computer very carefully. The solution to CTS is not a drug that merely masks the pain, but prevention through ergonomic keyboards, mouse pads and a proper computer set-up. Bayer’s ad is just another example of drug companies pushing medication over prevention.

I’ve already written a letter to Bayer, complaining about the commercial and sent it to them via their corporate site. The letter is below. Feel free to copy it, alter it and send it to them as a signal that you won’t stand for their careless and irresponsible marketing. You can submit the letter to this page:
http://www.bayer.ca/display.cfm?Object_ID=66&feedbackArticle_ID=5>

Open letter of complaint to Bayer Canada:

******

Bayer Canada,

As a journalist and sufferer of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), I find your new advertising campaign for Extra Strength Aspirin offensive, insensitive and incredibly irresponsible.

The commercial I am referring to is currently being broadcast on the CBC during the National news program. It shows a woman typing in an office who must stop typing because of the pain in her wrists. To show the pain, flames shoot from the underside of her wrists. A co-worker approaches her and inquires whether or not the woman is taking a break. When the woman complains of her wrist pain, the co-worker suggests she take Aspirin and get back to work. At the end of the commercial, the woman has taken the Aspirin, no longer suffers from the burning pain and continues typing in an non-ergonomic and damaging way.

It is clear from the incorrect way the woman is typing, the non-ergonomic keyboard she is using and from the location of her pain that she is suffering from the early stages of carpal tunnel syndrome. As she continues to type she is doing serious damage to her bones and nervous system.

The advice of the co-worker (and Bayer) to take some Aspirin and keep working is incorrect, insensitive and very dangerous. It misleads those suffering from this debilitating condition into thinking that after they pop a little pill the problem is solved and they can keep on working without fear of doing more damage. This is completely wrong. The Arthritis Society of Canada has this to say about pain relieving drugs and CTS:

“Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs – pronounced en-seds) are a type of medication that helps reduce the pain and swelling of the joints and decrease stiffness. However, they do not prevent further joint damage.”
Link: http://www.arthritis.ca/types%20of%20arthritis/carpal/default.asp?s=1>

The woman typing may not feel the pain anymore, thanks to your drug, but she is still damaging her joints and will only worsen her condition. If she carries on like this for another few weeks, the CTS will further damage her ligaments and tendons and the Aspirin will no longer be enough to stop the pain. She will no longer be able to work, not to mention type. This is essential information that affects the decision of the pain sufferers to use your product and nowhere in your commercial is this information addressed. This is misleading and irresponsible and it must stop.

For these reasons, I am calling for Bayer Canada to immediately pull these dangerous commercials from all television stations. At the very least, a clear message should be inserted into the commercial telling viewers that the woman suffering from CTS needs to take a break from working, see a doctor and improve her working conditions via an ergonomic keyboard, mouse pad and suitable office furniture.

As long as that commercial appears on television I will not buy nor use any Bayer products. I will advise my friends, colleagues and readers to boycott any and all Bayer products until these commercials have been removed or adjusted with a clearer message about the dangerous of CTS.

In addition to sending this letter to you, I am also sending it to the CBC, the Arthritis Society of Canada, The College of Family Physicians of Canada, and posting it on my weblog http://www.liamodonnell.com/feed/>. With this letter and the truth circulating the Internet, a different story about Bayer and CTS can be told. A story that will change the way consumers look at the Bayer brand and hopefully change the irresponsible methods employed to sell your product.
 
I look forward to your prompt reply and response to this matter.

Sincerely,

Liam O’Donnell
http://www.liamodonnell.com
odonnellliam@hotmail.com

*******

In addition to this letter, check out what these other bloggers are saying about Bayer’s misleading commercial:
 
Mel at Chandrasutra: “Irresponsible advertising alert”
Matt at Everything is In/Flux: “Tunneling through the lies”
 
Anyone else seen this commercial, suffering from CTS or talking about this on their blogs? Comments and trackbacks welcome.

Urban sprawl is an epidemic spreading across Canada and the rest of North America and it seems that the Ontario government is finally taking the problem seriously.
 
Earlier this week, the Liberal party announced their Places to Grow initiative, which sets out guidelines on how cities will develop over the next few years. Thanks to Nature Guy for pointing this one out to me. 

I haven’t read the proposal, which is still up for public debate, but I will. From the outset it looks like the government will seek to please both the New Urbanists and the developers. This middle of the road approach could end up solving very few of the current problems facing cities and pleasing no one. Time will tell and thanks to the community meetings, we can all have our say.  

If the sight of sprawl gets you depressed, then head over to to the Sierra Club’s great Stopping Sprawl page on their site. In addition to links and tools, they have this really cool Community Transformation page that lets you see how smart urban planning and renewal can turn this:

Into this:

 
The transformation tool is a great use of the web to help educate and inspire others to see cities in new way and show that sprawl can be stopped.

Check it out and get inspired. Let’s spread the word, not sprawl. 
 

Now you’ve got another reason to stay clear of cocaine: it’s not fairly traded.

Whether it’s coffee or cheese slices, I’ve got a list of companies to avoid and after reading this article in the Guardian, I’ve got a few more. From kangaroo-killing Adidas to Castro-coup-plotting Barcardi, the list will have you thinking twice the next time you’re out shopping for shoes, rum and that weekend baggie of champagne.

I discovered this at Foe Romeo, and basically it’s a graphic representation of the keywords that I have used to build my del.icio.us profile. The larger the text the more entries I have under that keyword. Technology seems to dominate my del.icio.us thoughts, with the variants of blog, blogs and blogging following quickly behind.

The idea for this new look at data-organisation was originally created by Matt at Blackbeltjones, who built his own profile in Illustrator. Kevan saw it and liked it and knocked together a bit of code, so that tourists like me could get visual with a single click, bish bash bosh, we now have: extisp.icio.us.

But before you get too excited by this latest blip of interest, the regulars at many 2 many weighed in and dreww from aramchek, for one, was not impressed:

“yeah, that looks pretty cool. for like 10 seconds. until you realize that it’s just randomly distributing the tags across the viewpane, with no discernable clustering, and thus, hardly any value.”

Well, I wasn’t expecting much more than cool, so I’m happy.

Another step taken in the march toward total surveillance over all our precious belongings, in this case our children. According to this article at Silicon.com, one school in Japan has agreed to put RFID chips in the bags and clothing of their students.

Now even kids too young to own a cell phone can be tracked by worried parents and schools fearing costly lawsuits.

As with all tech solutions to social problems, the freaks that steal children will quickly find a way around this latest fix, like, oh I don’t know, throwing the bugged bag out the car window?

Is there any doubt where those chips are going to go next?

Owl is a great magazine because it listens to their readers and regularly drops sections when they lose popularity. I always dread seeing the survey page asking readers to pick their favourites. I’m honoured and happy that the kids are enjoying the strip as much as I enjoy writing it. You can read a recent episode of Max Finder here.

But, as per any acceptance speech, I can’t take all the credit. The illustrations by Michael Cho have brought new life into the strip and are definitely one of the main reasons why the kids enjoy it. The editorial and art departments at Owl are great and have helped make each strip the best it can be.

Writing is a solitary activity, but getting it published is definitely a team effort. A few weeks ago, we had a “Max Finder meeting” and I was blown away when I looked around the table and saw ten people all sitting there. From art department assistants to the editor of the magazine, these people talked about characters, places and plots that had all come out of my head. It was pretty weird, slightly terrifying, incredibly rewarding and totally awesome, um I mean empyreal.

I’ll try and remember that feeling the next time I’m moaning about being a lonely writer.

Like this recent post over at Holly Black’s blog: Holly Black, Queen of Caffeine. Holly is the writer of the hit book series, The Spiderwick Chronicles and her blog is a lot of fun to read.

Last Thursday, Holly did some googling and dug up some great, well-used and effective plot structures. They’re mostly designed for films, but can easily be adapted for any writing: books, TV or short stories.

Here’s a sample of what Holly found:

Holly outlines a couple of other formulas that will structure your plot, including the very effective Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler. She links back to their original web sources, so head over there and check them out.

Remember, Joseph Campbell has already established that all our stories stem from the same source. Just because you use a well established plot structure doesn’t mean your story is unoriginal or uninspired.It just means that it’ll be parceled out into workable chunks and it might actually get finished.

Jay is right about them eating mosquitoes and for Andrew, who obviously doesn’t have clue about bat boxes, here’s the 411 on giving a cute, cuddly bat a home in your backyard.

And what am I doing while the rest of the country takes the day off to go to the beach, cottage, park, mountain, forest or other great Canadian outdoor locations? Sitting at my computer messing around with del.icio.us, the not-so-new social bookmarking tool.

Do I like it? Yeah, it’s pretty cool.

Do I understand it? Not really, not yet.

What is it? Here’s how they describe it:

“del.icio.us is a social bookmarks manager. It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others.”

As far as I can tell, it’s an aggregator that not only lets you group your blogs/websites by topic, but it also shows you other blogs that cover the same topics. So far, I’ve discovered Cyberdash.com, Charlie Lowe’s writings on blogging, open source licencing and much more.

I’m going to continue toying with del.icio.us and see where it takes me and I might even post about it. I’m still not sure of its merits or why it is better than a standard aggregator, like Bloglines. If anyone has any tips or advice, feel free to let me know.

Now, I gotta get out and get some sun.

Anyone who has had the misfortune of being my girlfriend will know that one of my secret dream projects to reshape the world is getting everyone to put a wind turbine on their roof and start generating their own power. It looks like that is finally happening.

Thanks to this post on Nova Spivak’s great blog, Minding the Planet, I learned about the Swift wind turbine. This article on the Scottish goverment’s website talks about a school putting a turbine on their roof to save a little cash and teach the children about alternative energy.

The turbines, manufactured by the Renewable Devices company, cost about 1500 UK Pounds (about CDN$3651) and they’ll generate up to 4000 KW hours of electricity per year, saving the school approximately 284 UK Pounds (about CDN$691) each year. So, after 5 years of spinning on the roof the turbine should pay start paying for itself, save the school money and take a load of an already stretched power grid. It’s a small but effective step and small is where the future of our power generation should go.

We’re obsessed with centralized power plants generating massive amounts of energy, then sending it along power lines where they lose much of their charge and become more expensive the farther they go. Renewable energy technologies are challenging this paradigm of power generation. Solar panels, fuel cell cars and wind turbines all have the potential to not only take a load off the main power grid, but to turn energy consumers into producers.

It’s still early in the self-power game, but I figure we put satelittes and TV antenneas on our roofs, why not put up a small wind turbine? At the very least, on calm days it’ll give the pigeons a new place to roost.

I spent much of yesterday scrutineering, going door to door to NDP supporters and making sure they got out to vote. I’ve written about my involvement with this campaign here and here, and yesterday’s pavement pounding brought it all together.

In earlier canvassing we went around determining who was supporting the NDP and asking them to put up lawn or window signs. At first I thought this was just to tackle our embarrassing low voter turnout, get the NDP message out and gauge the support in the area. But yesterday’s scrutineering made me realise how much every vote counts and that it’s vitally important for the parties to ensure that every polite promise of support turns into a marked ballot.

One of the most troubling times for me yesterday was heading into a low-income community to get the many NDP supporters out to vote. The first of many hurdles faced by the voters in this collection of apartments and government housing projects was that they were more than a kilometre from their polling station. Many people living there had no idea where the polling staton was or any cars to take them there – and they sure as hell weren’t walking there. I and my fellow scrutineers went door to door and arranged rides for anyone willing to go, but for many it was just too much hassle and we got the run around.

But the most frustrating thing of this whole exercise wat that literally about 200 yards away from the government houses was another polling station. It was within walking distance to every person who lived in the low income houses, but it wasn’t their poll. This second station was in the basement of a higher income apartment tower, it was for the apartment dwellers only and it was where I was helping count the vote.

As I sat in the lush recreation centre of the apartment building, I counted the ballots and watched my NDP candidate lose by a wide margin. I couldn’t help but think how this part of the riding might have gone very differently if only the people from the low income community were allowed to vote at this, much closer but more exclusive polling station.

As unfair as it seemed, I realise that this polling station inequity wasn’t the result of some conspiracy to cheat the lower income people out of their vote. It just came down to a lack of awareness from Elections Canada, the voters in the neighbourhood and the party that stood to gain the most from this part of the riding – the NDP.

The polling station inside the apartment building was there because a few people that lived there cared enough and were informed enough to get it organised. They took the time to sit at that station for 12 hours and count the votes and that is a credit to them. This same knowledge and engagement needs to spread to those people who feel the most disenfranchised.

Knowledge and engagement as essential to an election victory and as the slickest TV ad. And that is where parties like the NDP can gain real ground next time we all go to the polls.

Don’t know where to go to vote? Check out the Find Your Electoral District page at Elections Canada website (thanks Chandrasutra).

What’s that? You didn’t receive a voters card?

Don’t worry, all you need is some ID with your signature and something with your current address on it (like a bank statement.)

Lost your ID and thrown out all your bank statements?

Relax, you can still vote. Grab a friend who’s on the list in your neighbourhood and head to the polls. You and your friend swear on a stack of bibles (or Peter Mansbridge’s forehead). Your friend says you are you. You say you are you. And you vote. Simple.

Stuck at work?

By law, your boss must give you time off to vote. So, tell him or her to stick a pencil up their nose and ditch work early.

What time do the polls close?

Glad you asked. Polls are open from 9:30 am to 9:30 pm.

Who do I vote for?

Well, I can’t tell you that, but if you’re still in doubt watch this.

Happy voting. Tell them Liam sent you.

With the National Post backing Harper and the Globe and Mail putting their print behind Marten, I was left wondering who would back Jack.

Without a decent mainstream printed paper in this country, those of us who feel a different Canada is possible are forced to turn to the Internet for media endorsement, specifically the great Canadian news site: rabble.ca . As their tag puts it, rabble.ca is “News for the rest of us.”

While some view internet endorsement as a bit pathetic, I see it as just another sign that many of the traditional media outlets are rudderless in a sea of technology and changing ideas. The rules of communication are changing and they are starting to counter some of the prevailing falsehoods being kicked around right now. Privatization and free market dominance of everything is not inevitable. And neither is a Conservative government.

This is an election and that means it’s time to back the candidate you want not vote against the one you don’t. Strategic voting is voluntarily silencing your voice. “Holding your nose and voting” is not voting – it’s admiting that you put more stock in privately funded polls and other people’s opinions than the feeling that is kicking in your gut.

On Tuesday, if we wake to either a Liberal or Conservative government, then I want to be damn sure that I did everything possible to get the strongest NDP voice in Ottawa as possible. At worst, by voting NDP you’ll be helping build a strong Left and it’ll be those MPs that won’t let Canada bail on Kyoto, join a missile defence program or stop people from marrying the person they love. At best, you’ll be moving Jack and Oliva (and Oliva’s mother) to 24 Sussex Drive.

As auntie.com from rabble says: “Strategic Voting Sucks” and here’s why:

“People tried it in Ontario two elections ago and Mike Harris got in anyway with a shadow of an NDP in opposition. People voted Liberal in 1993 to get rid of Mulroney, his GST and NAFTA and the Liberals came in and embraced that neo-liberal agenda with a passion that made Margaret Thatcher proud. Only by rejecting the crap about voting for the worse or the worser we will build any kind of alternative.”

Right on auntie.

From the close ties between the Bushes and the Saudis, to ratcheting up of fear across the world, Moore lays out the past four years of Bush as an orchestrated campaign to secure power and wealth for his business buddies.

I loved the film, but it is not without it’s problems. As usual with Moore, he goes for the heartstrings in a fumbling way that is not easily forgiven by those less-left than myself. As Moore takes viewers through the minutes before the Iraq invasion, shots of a smarmy Bush preparing for his televised war announcement are intercut with happy, smiling Iraqis flying kites and laughing in the streets of Baghdad. They are images definitely not seen much during the run-up to the war, and I don’t doubt their it validity, but I don’t think it paints an accurate picture of what life was like under Saddam. Like Moore’s shot of Charlton Heston walking away from the camera in Bowling for Columbine, these images show only a small portion of the facts. I would have appreciated it more if Moore at least gave a nod to the real culture of fear the Iraqi people lived under. Painting Bush as an evil bomber of innocent children playing kites is as a lazy as a Fox News report showing him as the towering liberator of an eslaved nation.

But just as I often forgive mainstream media of patriotic edits when they actually come close to reporting real news stories (like the torture of prisoners at Abu Garab or the return of US soldiers in coffins), I am willing to let Moore off with his black and white imagery of Bush and Iraq. Saddam did have to go, but Bush and the US weren’t the people to do it. As the US administration is slowly beginning to realize, that’s why we have international bodies like the UN or NATO.

Like previous Moore films, it serves as a confirmation for those of us who have long been wary of mainstream media and big business. Where I hope this movie really scores is with those people who still think that there were WMDs in Iraq and that Saddam was ready to launch attacks on the rest of the world.

Every form of media has a message and a bias. From newspaper articles to the 30 second TV ads for SUVs, they all challenge or reinforce a way of thinking. The outrage from the right against this film shows just how long it’s been since we’ve heard anything that challenges the status quo.

Celebrate it or hate it, but go see Fahrenheit 9/11.

Being political has never been easier – just go to the movies.

Okay, go to one movie – Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. You’ve heard about it, read about it and talked about it, now’s the chance to show your support for it. It opens this weekend and this is the when they’ll be counting ticket sales. So far things are looking great, but more strong numbers at the box office won’t be denied by the mainstream press and it will help show that people around the world are not satisfied with the current 9/11 spin.

Whether you’re fighting for free speech, believe that an election year is a great time to see a political film or just want some ammunition for the next time you see your right-wing brother in law, get out and see this film – this weekend.

To get you in the mood, view the trailer here.

That is all. Return to your lives.

To get the dialogue started, the David Suzuki Foundation conducted a survey of the environmental policies for each of the major parties. It’s a great summary of where each party stands on the environment and worth checking out if you’re still undecided (NDP,NDP,NDP!)

Not surprisingly, the Conservatives didn’t even respond to the survey and there is very little mention of the environment in their platform. The Greens and the NDP came out looking the best with commitments to invest in green technology and alternative energies.