Loved the new book by Clyde Edgerton. Reviewed it very favorably in the Star Tribune. Not as glowing for Jenna Blum's The Stormchasers.
What an interesting contrast in markets. Jenna Blum's book is commercial fiction written for family- and romance-loving women. Clyde Edgerton's book is literary fiction written for art- and music-loving humanists. Still—the basics of storytelling must apply. Good lesson.
Both reviews appeared on the same day, so it looked like I was dominating the books section. The reality is that's all the time I have for book reviews for the next six months. I begin teaching again soon—this year at Minnesota State University, Mankato (instead of St. Cloud State University).
It will probably be January before I review any books again.
Here's the story about Amanda Hocking I worked on with the amazing Kim Ode and my girl crush books editor Laurie Hertzel, both at the Star-Tribune.
The news that an under-employed college dropout twenty-something in Austin, Minnesota had just earned $1 million in less than a year by self-publishing her young adult fantasy novels made the Huffington Post first. I got down to Austin to interview her within a week, and within a week after that, St. Martin's Press offered her even more millions for the rights to her books. The Star-Tribune broke that story.
The St. Martin's Press deal will really make her "published author Amanda Hocking," but in my mind she will always be "folk hero Amanda Hocking." I'm in awe of her tremendous and savvy accomplishments with her work, and at such a young, fun age. I am humbled by her.
I recently reviewed this book from novelist Rae Meadows. She lives here in Minneapolis. It's a great book club pick for midwestern women, and a nice birthday gift for a mom or daughter too (though there is one character I didn't find quite convincing enough).
For those of you interested in the orphan trains from the turn of the century, this book has a wonderful child character who ends up on one. It's cool for midwestern women to read about these orphan trains, and imagine ourselves (or our sons and daughters) on them. How frightening, and how real, for many children—many of whom eventually became the second generation of working pioneers in our American midwest.
And for those of you interested in Virginia Woolf, there are a lot of allusions to To the Lighthouse in this novel.
If you didn't go, you know you wish you would have. I wrote about it for the Star-Tribune AND I got to go, too.
That's my boy in the middle of the biggest build pile in the 25,000-square-foot joint. He's the crouching one in the turquoise shirt. (Crouching is his most assumed LEGO position.)
One of the most interesting things I learned: AFOLs—Adult Fans of Lego—are an actual thing. Really, they're a thing. They have clubs and stuff, and the things they build are astounding—like working trains that require warehouse storage in Northeast Minneapolis industrial parks.
This is a very wonderful world that we live in, and an even more wonderful city (Minneapolis).
ATA World Magazine, the publication of the largest martial arts organization in the world, for which I serve as managing editor, isn't online. (*sad face*)
But the work I do there makes me too proud NOT to show it to you, so:
Here's the Spring 2011 cover feature about the upcoming ATA Grand Master and his current training for the job. It's a story I co-concepted and co-wrote with editor-in-chief Jenny O'Connor (we've done several stories together now). I love all of this package's content pieces. And art director Jill Adler definitely knocked the design out of the park.
Speaking of Poor Farms (as I'm sure you were), a few months ago I wrote a feature for the Star-Tribune about the Blue Earth County Poor Farm, which included, among other things, a fabulous photo essay by Strib photog Tom Wallace and myself that didn't get room in the printed paper. (Yet another example of creative cross-medium feature writing/presentation.)
Don't miss the sidebar on the history of Minnesota's Poor Farms. (One of the drawbacks of the Strib's online presence is that sidebars aren't literally on the "side" of the actual feature; the related sidebar content can get lost to readers.)
This photo of Amy Wurdock's is from a great feature I wrote recently for the Star-Tribune on Powderhorn 365. Wurdock heads this community-based daily photo blog.
What I love about this feature is how well it translates online—there was no room in the printed paper for the accompanying photos.
It's a lot like the online presentation of the Strib story I did on the Blue Earth County Poor Farm, which had a whole on-line portfolio of photos that also didn't appear in the printed paper.
I just noticed that mspmag.com repackaged for the web a story I wrote for the magazine's December 2008 print edition of Mpls.St.Paul Magazine. Toy Stories is a feature I wrote about toys that were made in Minnesota (Cootie!, Barrel o' Monkeys!, Tonka Trucks!) and it was one of my favorite stories EVER to write. So much fun prose, and I even interviewed the guy who invented Nerf and Twister—Reyn Guyer. (He also writes and produces Grammy-winning country music. My heart still skips a beat when I think of my good fortune.)
So glad to see this story get another life this holiday season. It was Jayne Haugen Olson's fab idea, and it deserves to get spread around so that us localvores here in Minnesota know where to give our props to our creative history with our holiday purchases.
I've been teaching fiction workshop at St. Cloud State University this semester (as well as a section of Freshman Comp). Though I initially resisted it, the students talked me into a lesson on Science Fiction (which many of them love and write). We did this last week, toward the end of the semester, and we spent a fabulous two hours hashing out what Science Fiction is (thank you, Philip K. Dick, for your edifying words on the subject), and how it differs from literary fiction (it leads with an intellectual idea), and even fantasy (that one is very subtle, it depends on your faith that the story COULD happen).
Here's who they've loved the best throughout the semester: Stuart Dybek, Ursula LeGuin, and local writers John Jodzio and Ethan Rutherford. (I am committed to using locally produced art by living, breathing writers you just might see on the street in your neighborhood. Ethan ACTUALLY CAME TO CLASS and gave a guest talk to these eager, intelligent students.)
When we asked him why he prefers to write short stories over novels he leaned back in his chair, but his hands behind his head, and said, "Hey. It's the tenderloin."
Swoon.
Alexa is a St. Paul girl with a new memoir out this week called Half-Baked: The Story of My Nerves, My Newborn, and How We Both Learned to Breathe (at Amazon here). I wrote a feature about her for the Star Tribune. Her daughter, Simone, looks exactly like daddy (Scott Wisgerhof). Alexa's popular blog—flotsamblog.com—topped one million visitors last year.
How fortunate I am that such smart mommas inhabit my world.
