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VIA New Wave Women’s Editorial Ijmuiden

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THE ONES2WATCH

VIA New Wave Women’s Editorial the Other Side of the Thames

Words make up our daily life, some we we hate, some are never to be spoken and some are so over used we wish they would just disappear.

Every few years the body in change of maintaining the upkeep of dictionaries do a cull – it’s not yet due for a little while but I do my best to adopt a words every few months just to keep some tried and proven words afloat (that's the way I like to think of it anyhow).

While I can understand why a cull is needed as with each era, century or decade that passes some words become outdated and things need to be simplier and easier to use and unfortunately words falls into this category that need to be streamlined.
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Another factor that affects the longevity of words are new phases, new group dynamics or even new tech evolution that have an impact on our social culture like the wave of social networking craze that’s sweeping the nation at the moment, it brings about a whole new set of words that needs to be absorbed into the language database.

I am definately a pro-word ( meaning culling as little as possible) person, the more convoluted the better for me. In the big scheme of things I am probably a dinosaur – I still use words like Vitamin G, Cognisant and Vacivity. A little of that has to do with my everyday environment and a little bit of stubbornness as well as I find it hard to believe we will eventually loose some "tried and proven" words.

This weeks challenge has four parts

1 - I would like to make you all parents and send you over to Save The Word.org to look at all the words that are either not being used enough or are due for a cull probably within the next couple of years. Adopt a word.
2 – What is your pet peeve word? – the word that makes you grind your teeth with either it’s over use or being used out of context.
3 – What is a word you adore, or a word that you feel is not used enough. Irrespective of meaning or even era it’s a word that you just love
4 - Lastly what is your opinon on word culling or the rise in "text speak" that's happening now..

Please leave you links on comments and do have a great reading week this upcoming week..

I am so excited that my first official Fairy Tale Fortnight post is with returning author Jaclyn Dolamore! She was a part of FTF last year (go check it out, yes?!) and she pretty much rocks. She's has written Magic Under Glass, the (very) recently released Magic Under Stone and Between the Sea and Sky (all links to Goodreads). Misty has some totally rocking stuff on her blog today from the lovely Jaclyn (awesome guest post, review, and a giveaway) so make sure you check out Misty's blog today too! But first, here's the interview!

What do you make of the resurgence in popularity for fairy tales? (Once Upon a Time, Grimm, Mirror Mirror, Snow White and the Huntsmen) all within a very short time? Do you see it as a trend that will sort of peter out, or is it just getting started?

It seems to be one of those "collective unconscious" things that suddenly everyone started planning fairy tale entertainment at once. I don't have a crystal ball to know if it has legs, but I do think it's AWESOME and I won't complain if fairy tales are kind of "the next big thing." I think fairy tales tend to be hopeful, and I've never really taken to the dystopian trend because it gives you such a big swallow of strife with a tiny dose of hope, whereas fairy tales are my cup of tea, from the sweet Disney-ish kind to the dark, sexy kind. I love them served up any old way. (I don't know why I'm into this "eating stories" metaphor right now...)

Both of the Magic Under books and Between the Sea and Sky are very fairy tale-esque in the style and approach to the story, and in the stories themselves; any plans to ever “officially” tackle a fairy tale retelling?

I actually had this idea for a fairy tale/real world mashup like Once Upon a Time, Grimm, Fables, etc, but set in the early 1970s. I wrote the first chapter, but I don't have time to go any farther with it right now, so I probably shouldn't give any more details...

You’re known for doing little character sketches in your books — would you ever consider turning one into a graphic novel, or writing/illustrating a book or graphic novel?

I don't see that on the horizon, because graphic novels are just a crazy amount of work... like, in the time it would take me to draw a 22 page comic, I could write a quarter of a novel and you'd get way more story in the novel than in the comic. I think, for someone who is more a storyteller than an artist at heart, it's a painfully slow way to tell a story. I don't take enough pleasure in rendering the visual world to stick it out. The only way I think it would happen is if I just felt like I'd told enough stories in novel format and I wanted to stretch myself.

Magic Under Glass and Magic Under Stone are directly related, with Between the Sea and Sky being a companion novel, set in the same world — do you intend to continue setting your books in this world ala Discworld (every book set in the world, but independent) or do you have plans to tackle something new?

Alas, alas! Money dictates art more than I'd like sometimes... I do have more stories I could tell in that world, but I'm looking forward to my new series with Hyperion. I might self-publish some little novellas or something someday, if I have the time. I often think about what the characters are doing after the end.

I do have a story world I've been writing about since I was a kid. When I was a kid all the authors I liked best basically had this one "world" I knew them for, like Piers Anthony's Xanth, the Pini's World of Two Moons, Discworld is another good example... basically I had this idea that that was what fantasy authors DID. They came up with a world and wrote stories about it for their entire lives. It was practically their identity, in my mind, and the places were real. I'm sure a lot of people feel that way about Hogwarts too (I was a little old to get lost so deeply in it, but Hogwarts is definitely the kind of place that makes you believe it exists). So, whatever I might be paid to do at any given time, I still always write stories in this world. It is practically real to me. I am both excited and terrified for the day those books can go out into the world.

When you’re not putting your new house to rights (congrats on the move!), what are you working on?

The sequel to my 2013 novel, Dark Metropolis (which is supposed to get a title change), a dark fantasy inspired by 1920s Berlin and the silent film Metropolis. The sequel was inspired a bit by some stuff I was reading about magic in Russia, among other things. It was a struggle to get an idea for a sequel at first, because I'd only thought of it as a variation of Metropolis, which has no sequel and doesn't really suggest one either... And when I need a break I'm working on a middle-grade about witches and their familiars in a magical version of St. Augustine, Florida. (It isn't really much of a stretch to imagine magic in St. Augustine, Florida, anyway. Creepiest place I've ever been.)

What impact do you think fairy tales have on society (especially with the same tales popping up in various forms in every society)?

Fairy tales tend to have patterns: people who want things, people who take on great struggles to get the things they want, true love, scary things in the forest... It's easy to see why these stories resonate with people all throughout time and around the world. They speak to our desires and our fears. For most of human history they would have been spoken aloud, around cook fires, to children in their beds, as cautionary tales... I love imagining these tales traveling around the globe from voice to voice, from year to year, changing with distance and time. I love writing, no doubt about that, but sometimes I envy the storytellers of the past their ability to speak right to their audience and enjoy their reactions. Nowadays, though, we still share these stories and we still twist them in our own way, and I suspect this will always be true.

QUICKFIRE:
Favorite fairy tale:
The Seven Swans.

Most underrated fairy tale?
The Seven Swans? It's one of those stories that most people kind of know, but it never gets put in with the major canon.

Most overrated fairy tale?
Hmm. Hard to think of an overrated one because they can all be told well. Like, a year ago I might've told you I never liked Rumplestiltskin, but in Once Upon a Time he's my favorite character. Sure, it's kind of a mash-up of a few tales on the show, really, but I still think it's proven to me that it's all about execution.

Last year we asked everyone’s fairy tale hero/heroine name; this year, we want to know your fairy tale villain name:
I don't know if Disney names count, but I feel like you can't beat the way Maleficent rolls off the tongue.

Using that name, give us a line from your villainous fairy tale:
I must be desperate to ask this old crone for a favor, Maleficent thought, gathering more firmly about her neck the furs she'd had made for the journey north, and sniffing a bit at the very idea of a house held up by chicken legs.
(I think Baba Yaga is a great villainess too, so I can't help but imagine them teaming up.)

If a genie granted you 3 wishes, what would they be?
Seriously? Genie wishes tend to go awry a little too often. I'm not sure I want to mess with it! But I'll imagine I have a relatively kind genie like Ifra in Magic Under Stone... and if I truly had three wishes I'd probably think about them a lot longer, buuut...
1. I wish that I am always able to make a comfortable with writing and that the stories I love to write would also be the most financially sound.
2. I wish I enjoyed flying on airplanes, even through turbulence!
3. I wish to free the genie, because, I feel that's what you're supposed to do at the end. =)

Best way to read fairy tales? (ie location, snacks, etc)
In the woods, on a crisp cool night, around a bonfire, read aloud. At least, that sounds really romantic. In practice, it would be more likely to be curled up in bed with a cat and a chocolate bar.

If one of your books was being turned into a movie and you could cast 1 character, which character would you cast and who would play them?
I actually finished all the questions several days ago, except this one. I feel like I should be able to cast at least one person! But I can't seem to think of anyone. I really just want my books to be turned into anime. If it was a movie, I'd probably be mostly like, "yay, money, pomp, circumstance" but if it was an anime I would GO CRAZY WITH EXCITEMENT. (Or a good American animation as well, like Avatar: The Last Airbender.) I tend to see my characters that way anyway, and I usually prefer TV series to movies. Although my favorite movie is Marie Antoinette and I think it would be really awesome if Sofia Coppola took her lush, intimate, slice of life style and made a fantasy movie with a bunch of dreamy 80s new wave for the soundtrack. I feel like Erris could have fit right in to the Marie Antoinette world.

Thank you so much for participating with us again this year Jaclyn! I totally loved this interview, like, a lot!
Everyone else, if you have not yet read anything by Jaclyn, I suggest you go do that now! As of right now, I've still only read Magic Under Glass but I enjoyed it a lot (also reviewed last FTF) and Misty has read them all, and she is definitely a fan:)
And speaking of, don't forget to check out the awesome stuff Misty has going on today!

Click the button to be taken to the
Fairy Tale Fortnight Main Page & Schedule
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Smiling for the cameras as ever, Stacey showed off the style wearing a bright peach top with a white bow, taupe leggings and red bowed flipflops.
Give us a wave: The Sing If You Can presenter has had her long brunette hair cut into a wavy bob
The former X Factor star, who won last year's I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here - is famed for her non-stop talking and exclamations like 'Oh my god!'.
She came third on the X Factor in 2009, won last year’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me out Of Here and this year's Celebrity Mum Of the Year and lives in Dagenham, Essex, with her three-year-old son, Zachary.
Stacey currently co-hosts with comedy star Keith Lemon the hysterical Sing If You Can, a guilty Saturday night pleasure on ITV1 for many, but a show that also more importantly raises money for the Teenage Cancer Trust charity.

Longer locks: Stacey, left, on I'm A Celebrity at the end of last year, and right, in 2009 during her time on X Factor
The show sees celebrities attempting to sing songs while all sorts of distractions happen around them - like last week, when football legend Rodney Marsh and singer Ray Quinn attempted to sing Blur's Parklike while surrounded by dogs.
Teenage Cancer Trust aims to ensure that every young person with cancer and their family receive the best possible care so the show is well worth watching and donating - or just donate anyway.
Meanwhile, ditzy Essex star Stacey, who confirmed last month that she is wokring on her debut album, also has a book coming out on 12 May.
Her autobiography, it's called My Story So Far.
Ray Quinn on Sing if you can - 30/04/11 - Parklife

Stacey Solomon Behind the Scenes of the Photoshoot for her autobiography

source :dailymail

VIA Oh my god! Sing If You Can presenter Stacey Solomon gets the chop

A couple of week ago Ron stopped by to talk to us about what makes a good graphic novel. It seems like a lot of you out there agreed with Ron's thoughts and some of you were looking for a good place to start with graphic novels. Ron compiled a great list of some of his all time favorites. I've read about half of these and I can vouch to their greatness!

Boiling the medium down to just a few recommendations is…impossible, but I’ll do my best to provide an interesting and diverse list. Even so, superhero comics will comprise a healthy portion of the list because they are so integral to the medium. I’ll also try to mix ongoing series with singular, one-shot works. Away we go—

Watchmen/The Dark Knight Returns

These two works are closely linked despite being vastly different when it comes to content. Watchmen is the arch-comic, the comic of comics, not only because of its brilliance, but it’s also a comic about comics. This is something the movie didn’t adequately capture. Writer Alan Moore spins a “Golden Age” story out of control, warping it into a self-reflexive mirror to the superhero genre, and artist Dave Gibbons subverts classical style, yet doesn’t seem like a carbon copy of it. This is a perfect comic.

In The Dark Knight Returns, Writer/Artist Frank Miller redeems a laughable Batman by infusing him with eighties pop-culture sensibility. The story sees Bruce Wayne as an old man, forced to once again become Batman in order to stop a brutal crime wave in Gotham City. The work, while whitewashed in eighties action movie veneer (Miller’s Wayne owes more to Clint Eastwood than Adam West), also explores the enduring nature of the character and his relationship to other heroes in the DC universe. It’s a rip-roaring read, but it’s also Miller at his cleverest—there’s a density to the work that he rarely has been able to recapture.

(Further reading: [Moore] The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen I & II; From Hell; [Miller] Batman: Year One; Daredevil: Visionaries Volume 2; Sin City.)

Criminal

Ed Brubaker is one of my favorite writers, and this is the reason why. Criminal pulls on the pulp origins of early comics as well as film noir and blends it into one outstanding package: contemporary but timeless stories about the criminal underworld. The tropes may feel familiar, but a good story, especially a crime story, isn’t “predictable” so much as it is inevitable. If there’s one thing this series has in spades it’s that sinking feeling.

(Further reading: Captain America; Sleeper; The Immortal Iron Fist; Gotham Central.)

Asterios Polyp

This is one of the most formally experimental pieces that I’ve ever read. Writer/Artist David Mazzuchielli uses everything at his disposal to construct a fascinating character study of a dead-beat architect named Asterios. It’s a vibrant book, story-and-art-wise, with each character constructed in interesting colors and character-specific fonts. It’s simply a pleasure to behold.

(Further reading: City of Glass.)

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
This is an amazing work, something you’d lend to non-comics to get them hooked on the medium. It plays simply at first, but unfolds beautifully, each chapter adding a layer of complexity to the story. The art is outstanding, too, and lends to the credibility of the story itself, about a death in the family and so much more. The story will resonate with any reader, and that’s the highest praise I can give it.
(Further reading: Dykes to Watch Out For.)

Daredevil Volume 2 #16-19, 26-50, 56-81

This run of issues comprises Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev’s run on the book, a run that is simply outstanding. The most common phrase associated with the series is that, “Daredevil spends as much time out of his costume as he does in it,” which is a simple way of saying that the run is unusual within the genre. It’s more than that, though. Bendis’ characters speak in dialogue closer to David Mamet’s theater aesthetic than “word balloon banter,” and he fractures the timeline brilliantly to deal with heavy thematic concerns about the real power that a hero holds. Maleev’s art is also outstanding. He brings gritty realism to the book, and employs specifically cinematic techniques to convey the story. It’s a terrifically exciting body of work.

(Further reading: Powers; New Avengers; Ultimate Spider-Man.)

Scalped

This book is similar to Criminal (I could see them shelved together, yes), but offers a unique slant on the crime genre. Instead of portraying the underbelly of a city, Scalped digs into an Indian reservation in the Dakotas in which a sleazy FBI agent tries desperately to bring down the corrupt man who runs the rez, Lincoln Red Crow. The best part of the series is that it doesn’t pull any punches, everything writer Jason Aaron throws at the reader means something, and either pushes the plot forward dramatically or tells the reader something important about a character. The stakes in this book are incredibly high.

(Further reading: The Other Side; Wolverine: Weapon X.)

As I said, great list! Be sure to check out Ron's previous post and his blog Entertainment Etc.

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In loving memory to Dewey, a book blogger who made a HUGE impact on the blogging community, especially all book review blogs, welcome to the results for the Weekly Geeks Book Bloggers Top 10 of 2009.

For two weeks, Weekly Geekers nominated their top 10 books that were published in 2009. Then, we invited readers from all over to converge on the voting booth to cast their books for their favorite novel. There were 15 different categories with a total of 2216 votes cast. Holy cow. That was a lot close to 1000 more than last year.

So, without further ado, I give you the top 3 picks from each category:

Childrens Middle Grade / Contemporary Literature / Fantasy Science Fiction / Urban Fantasy / Graphic Novel / Historical Fiction / Memoir / Mystery / Mystery Thriller / Nonfiction / Romance / Short Story Collections / Women's Literature / Young Adult / Young Adult: Fantasy

Childrens & Middle Grade

Contemporary Literature

Total Votes Percentage Novel 14 8.00% Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult 14 8.00% Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella 13 8.00% The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Total Votes Percentage Novel 49 35.00% Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith & Jane Austen 32 23.00% Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman 23 16.00% Doubleblind by Ann Aguirre

Fantasy: Urban

Total Votes Percentage Novel 51 18.00% Road Trip of the Living Dead by Mark Henry 43 15.00% Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler 42 15.00% Destined for an Early Grave by Jeaniene Frost

Graphic Novel

Total Votes Percentage Novel 29 56.00% Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan 13 25.00% Babymouse #11: Dragonslayer by Jennifer Holm 10 19.00% The Book of Genesis by R. Crumb

Historical Fiction

Total Votes Percentage Novel 15 14.00% The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory 13 12.00% Cleopatra’s Daughter by Michelle Moran 12 11.00% Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Memoir

Total Votes Percentage Novel 32 33.00% Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton 13 13.00% A Child’s Journey out of Autism: One Family’s Story of Living in Hope and Finding a Cure by Leeann Whiffen 7 7.00% Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading by Lizzie Skurnick

Mystery

Mystery: Thriller

Nonfiction

Total Votes Percentage Novel 54 56.00% Kiss & Hell by Dakota Cassidy 12 12.00% Zombie Queen of Newbury High by Amanda Ashby 11 11.00% Ghostland by Jory Strong

Short Story Collections

Total Votes Percentage Novel 13 45.00% Love Begins in Winter by Simon Van Booy 11 38.00% The Mechanics of Falling and Other Stories by Catherine Brady 5 17.00% The Best American Essays 2009 by Mary Oliver

Women's Literature

Total Votes Percentage Novel 17 28.00% Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner 17 28.00% Still Alice by Lisa Genova 8 13.00% Aphrodite’s Workshop for Reluctant Lovers by Marika Cobbold

Young Adult

Total Votes Percentage Novel 17 13.00% Seraph of Sorrow by MaryJanice Davidson & Anthony Alonghi 12 9.00% Willow by Julia Hoban 11 8.00% Hate List by Jennifer Brown

Young Adult: Fantasy

Total Votes Percentage Novel 499 69.00% Blood Promise by Richelle Mead 72 10.00% Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins 47 7.00% Fragile Eternity by Melissa Marr

**Once again, a huge thanks to Jackie for organizing and compiling this!