Archive for June, 2007

Philip Pullman Wins CILIP Carnegie Medal

Constance Ash June 23rd, 2007

If I have this correct, in the U.S. the title is The Golden Compass., the first installment of His Dark Materials.

Pulled from the Sunday London Times: 

 [ Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights has been voted the best children’s book of the past 70 years by the public, it was announced today.

The author received 40 per cent of the total votes cast in an online poll, beating Mary Norton’s The Borrowers and Alan Garner’s The Owl Service.

 The Top Ten “Carnegie of Carnegies� list was compiled by the organisers of Britain’s most prestigious prize in children’s literature, the CILIP Carnegie Medal.

The Carnegie does not offer a cash prize, but is sought after by children's writers because of its unique judging process. Unlike other literary awards, which seek submissions from publishers, the Carnegie takes its nominations from librarians.

Pullman said: “I am humbled and honoured that Northern Lights has been chosen from among so many wonderful books. Personally I feel they got the initials right but not the name. I don’t know if the result would be the same in a hundred year’s time; maybe Philippa Pearce would win then.�

The top ten list drew criticism when it was released in April for not including some of the best-known and most successful children’s writers of the era. Enid Blyton, J. K. Rowling and Jacqueline Wilson were not on the list because they have never won the prize.

“The competition was formidable,� said Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust and one of the top ten judges. “The top ten includes some of the greatest children’s writing of the 20th and 21st centuries.�

Mr Douglas said that Northern Lights was a deserving winner and that Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy had “redefined children’s literature and changed the way we think about children’s books. They are classics.�

Pullman’s books have sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 37 languages. The Golden Compass has been made into a film which is due out in December, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.  ]

Love, C.

“Clove Smoke” teaser trailer now up

Kevin Andrew Murphy June 18th, 2007

As announced last year here at Deep Genre, my short story, “Clove Smoke,” is being made into a film. Some filming still remains to be done, but enough has been done that a teaser-trailer is now up. Check it out:

http://www.jstarfilms.com/index.html

Round Robin: Four Tales

Madeleine Robins June 13th, 2007

Foreword to Four Tales

Kevin Murphy and I are in a writers’ group together, and, time permitting, we like to start the workshop with a writing exercise. It can be any number of things: write a scene from the point of view of a piece of furniture; write five opening sentences, choose the one you like best and write as much of a story as you can in the time allotted; choose three cards from a Tarot deck and see what sort of story they inspire in you. The writing exercise takes fifteen minutes–maybe twenty if we’re all really involved. And sometimes we decide to do a round robin writing exercise, which provides all sorts of good writerly nutritive benefit. Doing a round robin story makes you think about the threads of story and how they knit together; it makes you look at voice (even if you decide to ignore the voice you’ve been given); it forces you to make some decisions about someone else’s work. And when the final product is read aloud, there is often hilarity, and sometimes awe, at what has been wrought. To give you an idea of how this works, Kevin and I thought we would (with the permission of Christine Lorang and Jax Reid, who were also attending on the day this exercise was done) upload the four round robin stories that came out of the workshop this week, with the authors of each section of each story noted in brackets. See what you get from it. Continue Reading »