Saturday, January 16, 2010

Alphabet soup: CBI and ABC

Time to give credit where credit is due. I started the blog under the (indirect) encouragement of Jon Bard, Fightin' Bookworm in Chief at the CBI Clubhouse, and under the (direct) encouragement of Maureen Crisp via the discussion forum on the CBI Clubhouse website.  It's a terrific, resource-packed web site dedicated to helping children's authors (aspiring and published) succeed.  I owe both of them my thanks, and I must recommend Maureen's writers' marketing blog, Craic-er (see the blogs I follow to the right). 

Thanks, too, to Evelyn Christensen, who creates fabulous books for kids. She has a web site with terrific (free!) math and logic puzzles, and I highly recommend that anyone with children check it out.  She was the first to respond to my post and encourage development of online materials.

And a bit of news. It is through the CBI newsletter that I learned about the ABC Children's Book Competition.  I decided it's time to submit my picture book manuscript, and my goal is to make it as a finalist in the competition.  If that happens, the story will be illustrated and posted online with the other finalists for viewers to vote upon.   At which point, I will be actively soliciting votes for my story!

4 comments:

  1. Hi Alison,
    What a great start you have made! I love your chinese quote...because it is all about the journey...especially blogging. It is taking the first step and keeping on moving when it looks like it is uphill all the way....
    I enjoyed all your posts and hope you are staying on top of the snow! Here it is summer and we need rain as the grass is very dry...thankfully not as dry as Australia where they are going into fire season.
    Best wishes on the creativity front! Yes you do have to work at it...but you find your brain expanding to help you....and my favourite words, like you are 'what if' I think they are very appropriate for a scientist/writer because after all if no one had asked Why and what if- we would still be sitting in caves.
    At the moment I am writing a story set on Mars because I love learning about it and so it feeds my science thirst and makes me work at my creativity too.
    More power to us...the teachers who love to learn...
    Best wishes
    Maureen Crisp
    New Zealand

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  2. Hi Maureen... Thanks for your continued encouragement! And it is an uphill journey, but I'm getting the hang of it.

    Summer sounds lovely. Our snow is no longer fun. It's dirty, slushy, and difficult to get around in. Turns out I wasn't kidding when I said I needed the sled to get groceries last week.

    I hope you've been able to get back to Mars over your summer break!

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  3. Hi Alison,
    I think you're doing a great job with your blog. I really enjoyed reading your next post about Delphi. Fascinating! Greece is one of the places I would love to visit.

    Thank you for your kind words and for linkiing to my site. And best wishes on your writing--especially on the ABC competition.

    Ev

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  4. Hi Ev... Thanks for the good wishes! I highly recommend visiting Greece. It is steeped in myth, beauty, and extraordinary history. One of the places you really must see.

    We do love your web site, although we haven't stopped by in a while... My oldest particularly likes the color-by-number addition/subtraction puzzles. Have to print out some new ones. :)

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