2011: The Summer of Carole Scott

This summer sees translations of How Picturebooks Work, co-authored by me and Maria Nikolajeva, for readers in Korea and in Brazil. It is already available in Japanese. "Frame-Making and Frame-Breaking in Picturebooks" has just appeared in translation in Spanish. And I have a chapter which explores the relationship between Roald Dahl and his most famous illustrator, Quentin Blake, coming out later this year in a collection on Dahl edited by Charlie Butler and Ann Alston (this one in English!).

I am currently working on a presentation on "Artists' Books, Altered Books and Picturebooks" for a conference in Tuebingen this September. It has been an interesting journey, and I was excited to find a wonderful Artist's Book created by Jenny Yoshida, a former graduate student in my Study of Picturebooks class in SDSU's Special Collections.

The day before the conference is a workshop for PhD students, where I will be moderating one of the sessions. Berit Westergaard Bjorlo, who attended SDSU this past year as a visiting faculty member, will be participating. After the conference, I will return with her to Norway, to help establish an on-going exchange for our students and faculty with Bergen University, and to offer a couple of presentations, on picturebooks and on Pullman.

Maria Nikolajeva, former SDSU visiting faculty, and now professor at Cambridge, will be involved in both the workshop and the conference. I will be visiting her the week before the conference to which we will travel together. I am looking forward to the opportunity of catching up with Peter Hunt and Morag Styles while I am in England, and with Perry Nodelman, Bettina Kuemmerling-Meibauer, Nina Christensen, Sandra Beckett and other old friends at the conference.

Meanwhile I am working on my ceramic sculpture and enjoying being active with the Potters' Guild here on Salt Spring Island, and as a Library volunteer. I'm returning to San Diego for two weeks in July to catch up with friends and colleagues and to organize a Friends of the Library meeting to welcome the new Library Dean.

China Children's Lit

Professor Wang Quangen,
Beijing Normal University's School of
Chinese Language and Literature and Alida Allison, SDSU, June 14, 2011; China Children's Literature edited by Prof. Wang

Ni Hao! (Hello) from the new director of our SDSU Center for the Study of Children's Literature---- that would be me above, with Professor Wang.

Wang Quangen has done remarkable things for children's literature in China.With Maria Nikolajeva and board members of IBBY (International Board of Books for Youth), I'd met Quangen ten years earlier at BNU, and the fruits of his decades' endeavors are apparent. Several of his former students now teach or work as editors in the thriving Chinese publishing world, for example as editorial staff for China Children's Press Publishing Group (CCPPG) in Beijing. Wang Mei, Dr. Wang's daughter, is now herself a professor of children's literature at Beijing's Capitol Normal University, and his latest journal edition, China Children's Literature 2010, is an eye-catching, substantial volume (above).Thus, it was a double pleasure to see him again and to also see how well his teaching and writing have evolved.
His and Dr. Wang Lei's graduate students were the audience at BNU for my talk on Fantasy and Fantasizing June 14, along with editors/students from CCPPG whom I'd met the day before at their editorial offices and soon-to-be-opened spectacular kids' bookstore in Beijing (next blog...).
I came back from China with a lot to ponder and a lot to read; problem with the latter, though, is I don't read Chinese. If you're a current SDSU student who can translate or know someone who can, get in touch with me.

2011: The Summer of Mary Galbraith

My summer is devoted to reading literature in the present tense. I have been asked to lecture next year on the stylistic and structural implications of novels being narrated in the present tense, so this summer I’m steeping myself in this style as practiced in English, supplemented with examples translated from German, Russian, and French. I’ll also be getting up to date on the relevant theoretical discussion in narratology and cognitive poetics.

Charles Dickens: Bleak House—1853

Virginia Woolf: Jacob’s Room --1922

William Faulkner: As I Lay Dying -- 1930

Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies --1951 (French), 1956 (English)

John Updike: Rabbit, Run—1960

Margaret Atwood: Surfacing--1972

Thomas Pynchon: Gravity’s Rainbow--1973

J M Coetzee: Waiting for the Barbarians –1980

Ian McEwan: Saturday--2005

Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall--2009

2011: The Summer of Virginia Loh

I plan on recovering from my unexpected gallbladder removal surgery and pontificating about the meaning of extra body parts/organs. Gastronomically, I hope to be able to pursue my love of eating hot dogs, sooner rather than later. My personal goals are to read at least 20 books, finish my manuscripts, work up to practicing piano for three hours daily (as recommended by Chopin), and master the Suzuki violin book 1. My husband and I are planning a trip to Vancouver and Victoria this July so I hope to pick up a Canadian accent and explore Canadian Chinatowns. We are also working our way through the TV series "Monk." I would also like to make a huge dent in my Netflix and Kindle queues. In a nutshell, I would like to just be.

2011: The Summer of Jerry Griswold

With a new bike, I expect to spend a great deal of the summer cycling along the coast and taking, now and then, the occasional yoga class. Mornings, there's a book revision to finish, as well as some reviews and essays to write. I don't think there will be much traveling. That's reserved for the Fall when I'll be in Ireland, teaching and lecturing.

2011: The Summer of Jill Coste

With my first year of grad school under my belt, I hope to revisit some of the literary theory that lit my fire this year and start thinking about a topic for my thesis. I will also be working with Alida Allison on the website for SDSU's National Center for the Study of Children's Literature and writing book reviews for the Center. Additionally, I will work full-time for the Coronado School of the Arts Foundation creating publicity materials for the upcoming school year. In July I'll take a break to visit my hometown in the farmland of Pennsylvania, where humidity and thunderstorms await me.

2011: The Summer of Brittany Candau

This summer, life post-grad involves entering the workforce (ahhh!). I am currently writing freelance pieces for a variety of S.D. magazines, including Riviera. I will soon begin working as a ghostwriter and editor at W.S. Publishing, where I will get to create children’s and a variety of non-fiction books. My goal is to incorporate my love of penguins in there somewhere. Also, visiting friends and family will be another highlight in the upcoming months. I already miss SDSU and the amazing professors there, but I’m excited to begin this new chapter in my life!

2011: The Summer of Philip Serrato

With Hope Sandoval CDs playing in the background, the first week of summer has been devoted to a thorough clean up of the flower gardens in the front yard. The rest of the summer will be spent finishing two essays, making progress on my book, reading stuff that I have wanted to read but haven’t yet, and watching The Munsters.

2011: The Summer of Tony Malanga

This summer, I will continue to work on my novel based on the Orpheus myth. It is a reinterpretation set in modern day Egypt and Los Angeles. I am also writing a spec script for the NBC sitcom "Community." Each fall, NBC Universal hires new staff writers for its television shows, and part of the hiring process is to present an episodic writing sample. If hired, new staff writers have the opportunity to pitch an original pilot, which I am also developing. My pilot is a half-hour apocalyptic Boccaccio's Decameron, in which seven survivors of a global pandemic unite in a Napa winery and maintain civilization by working together and by telling tales. I am also keeping my ears open for any local English teaching position. In the words of Galaxy Quest's Commander Nesmith, "Never give up!"

2011: The Summer of Kate Slater

This summer I'll be heading to ChLA in June and IRSCL in July (with a side trip to Sydney, because hey, as long as I'm in Australia, why not do a little sight-seeing?). During July and August, I'll be in Los Angeles, teaching a creative writing course to gifted junior high students that focuses primarily on poetry, short stories and drama. Thanks to fellowship funding, I'm also planning on going to Guelph, Ontario to do some archival research in the L. M. Montgomery Collection.

2011: The Summer of Sean Printz

This summer I seem to be concentrating around the intersection of technology (specifically gaming technology) and literature. I'll actually be presenting a paper at ChLA about the use and construction of myth in video games, and I'm doing a lot of reading to prepare a class about visual texts that I will be teaching in the fall. It is a class where I will be integrating a lot of different types of media, trying to demonstrate the ways in which they intersect and diverge.

Other than that, I'm hoping to get a review done of the book Fairy Tales Reimagined: Essays on New Retellings.

Hope everybody is doing well