The fun continues: Sean Beaudoin at Chasing Ray Neesha Meminger at The Happy Nappy Bookseller Rachel Karns at Bildungsroman

Hi there! It’s time once again for our semiannual (because we do one in winter, too, see?) smorgasbord of interviews with authors and illustrators. Every day this week, I’ll be posting links to interviews elsewhere, and then on Thursday, I’ll be sharing my very own interview with Vera Brosgol. Enjoy!

Today’s Interviews: Tara Altebrando at Chasing Ray Shirley Vernick at Bildungsroman Jack Ferraiolo at The Happy Nappy Bookseller Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen at Writing & Ruminating

PLN Challenge #3 is all about using Twitter to build your PLN.  I’ve been on Twitter for a couple of years now, and it has been the focal point of my PLN.  I feel that Twitter is an excellent tool for finding resources and connecting with others.

Many people think that Twitter is a service for broadcasting the minutiae of your day, the classic example being an announcement of the contents of your lunch. I’ve found it to be much more than that, but it can take some time to find the right people to follow. As I mentioned in my first challenge post, Darren Rowse’s excellent TwiTip blog provides a list of the top educators to follow. The Edublog Awards provide another excellent source for discovering potential colleagues.

An objection I often hear is, “Where will I find the time for this?”, followed by “How will I keep up?” The beauty of Twitter is that it requires very little commitment to be useful. My basic Twitter routine goes like this:

1. Open up the TweetDeck extension in Google Chrome.
2. Scroll back until I reach a post that says it was posted 2 hours ago.
3. Read from that point forward, clicking on interesting links as I go.

When I find something particularly moving or interesting, I retweet it so that anybody following me who may have missed it can take a look. I never read tweets that are more than an hour old. This eliminates the concern over catching up. Good stuff gets shared repeatedly, so if I’ve missed something, I trust that it will pop up again. Twitter is kind of like a party or a conference that happens all the time: when you’re there, it’s fun and enriching, but when you’re not, there’s no need to worry.

What is your Twitter routine? Do you have any limits like my 1-hour limit?

The PLN Challenge continues!  The Teacher Challenge blog asked us to answer two questions:

1. What do you hope to learn more about with respect to your PLN in the coming weeks?

In every form of professional development - in-service provided by the county, conferences, PLNs - I have a habit of getting very excited about all the new ideas to try, and then filing the ideas away for later.  Later rarely comes, of course.  I’m looking forward to finding out how other people manage all of the exciting news that comes their way with their PLNs.  There are great blog posts, lesson plans, and communities out there.  How do people organize the immense amount of information they encounter every day?  How can I do likewise, and then put these ideas into practice rather than letting them lie fallow?

2. What have you learned with creating your PLN that you wish that someone had told you before and what tips do you have to share?

Relax. This is the big tip I have for past-me and for everyone else building a PLN.  Information moves quickly.  The point of a PLN is not to be that dreaded “one more thing” teachers are always talking about having put on their plate.  It’s to energize and excite.  To improve.  But it’s your thing, which means you get to figure out how best to use your time.  I’m the kind of person who reads a magazine cover-to-cover, starts novel series with the first book, and will read six years’ worth of blog archives all at one blog.  A completist, if you will.

That’s not how PLNs work.  If I were to spend all of my time catching up on my Twitter stream, I’d get nothing else done.  So I need to relax.  You might, too.  The PLN is there when we need it.  It’s a resource, not an obligation.  Sometimes we’ll be able to help others in our PLN and sometimes we’ll need their help.  We can jump in or out as time allows.

What about you?  What do you want to learn about PLNs?  What advice can you give?

Over on The Book of Faces, I noticed that Edublogs is hosting a PLN challenge - 30 days to build and/or grow your personal learning network.  Fresh out of school, still with a bit of enthusiasm, and not yet busied by the responsibilities of a professional position, I think now is the perfect time for me to join in.

The Question Everyone (Including Myself) Asks: What does PLN really mean?

I’ve been building my PLN since fall of 2008, though I’ve torn it down and rebuilt it a couple of times now.  Essentially, PLN is a blanket way of referring to all the different methods we have of learning new things by interacting with other people.  For me, blogs have always been a big part of that.  In 2008 I added Twitter.  I’ve tried Nings but that format is not very intuitive to me, so I just dip my toes in and out.

That said, I’ve never really been able to wrap my brain around PLN as a concept.  So in my head it looks like this: People I Follow On Twitter + Authors of Blogs I Follow + Colleagues from School + My Husband + My Dad + Any Other Resource I Happen Upon = My PLN.  (In case you’re wondering why my mom isn’t on there, it’s because she’s not in libraries/education/academia.)  It’s big and messy and organic, and The Internet tells me that’s okay.  My librarian-brain disagrees but I’m working with her to move through this.

So, how did I decide who to follow on Twitter and blogs? (Because how I obtained my dad and school colleagues is pretty obvious, and how I got my husband is personal info not suited to a professional blog…)

First, over at TwiTip, Darren Rowse shared a list of the Top 10 Educators to follow on Twitter.  Then, of course, I followed the old advice of looking at who those people follow and who followed them.

Next, as part of my School Library program, I was required to follow the blogs of luminaries like Joyce Valenza, Buffy Hamilton, Doug Johnson, Will Richardson, and David Warlick (most of these folks are on Twitter, too).  These blogs post links to other resources which expand my network even further.  I don’t remember how I found 8-Bit Library, but I’m so glad I did, because JP and Justin are my heroes.

But here’s what I think is the coolest way I found people to add to my PLN…

And it’s something I haven’t seen/heard anybody else talk about yet.  At conferences, I’m in danger of being a wallflower.  Sitting in the back of the room for presentations, eating by myself, this sort of thing.  The bigger the conference, the more likely this is to happen.  So when I went to ALA’s Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. last year, this was a big risk.  Especially when my husband and my friend Katy weren’t around.

BUT! Because of my PLN, this never happened.  I was wandering between sessions, all by my lonesome, when folks like JP Porcaro and Justin Hoenke (both of 8 Bit Library) would recognize me and we’d exchange greetings.  Then I’d do things like follow JP to the exhibit hall where we’d sit and chat about video games in libraries, followed by some wandering around until he introduced me to people he knew, like Ed Garcia and Jenn Wann Walker.  Or I’d meet up with him in the Networking Uncommons and happen to find him talking to people like Evelyn Bussell, who is actually local to me and had just returned from lunch with my advisor.

Because of my PLN in virtual space, I felt more comfortable in the physical space at ALA, and met new people who I then added to my PLN.  It was amazing.  Especially the part where Buffy Hamilton and I compared shoes.

What’s next?

This year I won’t be attending the ALA Annual Conference.  But you can bet I’ll be keeping an eye on #ala11 on Twitter and soaking up everything I can from my PLN.  I trust them to let me know what new connections are worth making.

I have recently published my Master’s Paper here in my portfolio.  This paper won the Dean’s Achievement Award for Best Master’s Paper.  I will soon revise it for submission to School Library Media Research.

The Transformational Leadership Practices of National Board Certified School Librarians in North Carolina

 Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon’s new historical action novel, The Secret Journeys of Jack London: THE WILD, hits stores today.  The authors and illustrator Greg Ruth will be touring blogs every day for the next couple of weeks to share their stories.

I asked Tim to share a bit with us about his research process.  Here’s what he had to say:

For me, one of the most enjoyable aspects about writing this book was the research.

I usually don’t research that much.  The book I’m writing right now is a fantasy novel, so I get to make stuff up.  On the island of Skythe there are birds called merrows, herd creatures called hat-hat, fire-breathing creatures called lyons, stinging things called stark blights, and a god named Aeon.  That’s all made up stuff, and the world I create is inhabited by creatures and people that require no research … because none of them are real.  At least, until I’ve finished the novel and it’s published, whereupon I hope they come across as real to the readers.  That’s one of the great pleasures of writing a fantasy novel––the geography, flora, fauna, and sometimes even the rules of nature and physics are mine to do with as I will.  As I often like to say about my first fantasy novel, Dusk, I can have sentient tumbleweed without having to explain why.

That wasn’t the case with The Wild, of course.  And I discovered that I enjoyed the research process far more than I’d anticipated.

First, I had to start reading a load of Jack London material.  He’s a superb writer, so that was   a pleasure rather than a hardship.  It took me back to my teens, which was the last time I’d read The Call of the Wild. And I discovered books that I hadn’t read before, such as John Barleycorn, and enjoyed reading Jack London biographies.  But the real pleasure came from researching the period and place where the book was set––Alaska, and the Yukon, during the Gold Rush.

I knew a little about those times, but not much.  I had visions of people travelling comfortably into the wild, making huge gold strikes, and then returning home with their fortunes and futures secure, luggage loaded with gold and their skins a healthy sheen from the bracing weather.

The reality was far different, and far grimmer.  The journey itself to the site of the gold strikes was terribly harsh, taking months for most people to make their way across mountains and through forests, along rivers and across lakes, all the time struggling to survive the worst that nature could throw at them––drenching rains, snow, ice, and temperatures that would freeze your spit before it hit the ground.

Camps were set up along the trail, such as the landing place of Dyea and the inland town of Dawson, and many people only made it this far.  They were lawless places, where the law of gun and knife ruled.  Beyond, along trails like the Dead Horse Pass––so named because its treacherous slopes were littered with the bodies of hundreds of horses that had fallen and been left to die––men and women ventured into the Yukon in search of their fortunes.

Thousands of people formed the Gold Rush, but the sad truth of it is that few struck lucky.  Many died on their way to these base camps, and many more starved or froze to death in the wild.  Scurvy was rife, as during the frozen months food was scarce.

Jack London himself almost died during his time in the Yukon.  He returned with gold dust worth less than five dollars, loose teeth, a malnourished body, and memories and scars that would last him a lifetime.  His time in the wild informed the type of man he became, and although it was probably one of the harshest times of his life––in later life he would become wealthy from his writing, and live very comfortably indeed––it was also the most inspirational.  Much of his greatest work is about the land he found when he went in search of gold.  And who is to say he didn’t find more than he revealed?  Maybe he truly did bear terrible secrets about his time there, in the inhospitable, brutal landscapes of the Yukon.  The wild.

Thanks for sharing, Tim!

The Secret Journeys of Jack London Blog Tour For the next two weeks, authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon will be traveling through the blogs of YA/kidlit bloggers who are also teachers, librarians, and/or adventurers. Each tour stop will offer an exclusive piece of art from Greg Ruth, whose stunning illustrations give life to the characters, locations, and beasts throughout the book. Follow the tour:

Monday, February 28th Little Willow at Bildungsroman

Tuesday, March 1st Kiba Rika (Kimberly Hirsh) of Lectitans

Wednesday, March 2nd Kim Baccellia from Si, Se Puede! and Young Adults Book Central

Thursday, March 3rd Melissa Walker, author of Small Town Sinners

Friday, March 4th Justin from Little Shop of Stories

Monday, March 7th Rebecca’s Book Blog

Tuesday, March 8th & Wednesday, March 9th Martha Brockenbrough, author of Things That Make Us [Sic]

Help spread the word about this exciting new series. Download the electronic press kit for THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON.

The blog tour for The Secret Journeys of Jack London: The Wild kicks off today with an interview with the authors over at Bildungsroman.

The Secret Journeys of Jack London Blog Tour For the next two weeks, authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon will be traveling through the blogs of YA/kidlit bloggers who are also teachers, librarians, and/or adventurers. Each tour stop will offer an exclusive piece of art from Greg Ruth, whose stunning illustrations give life to the characters, locations, and beasts throughout the book. Follow the tour:

Monday, February 28th Little Willow at Bildungsroman

Tuesday, March 1st Kiba Rika (Kimberly Hirsh) of Lectitans

Wednesday, March 2nd Kim Baccellia from Si, Se Puede! and Young Adults Book Central

Thursday, March 3rd Melissa Walker, author of Small Town Sinners

Friday, March 4th Justin from Little Shop of Stories

Monday, March 7th Rebecca’s Book Blog

Tuesday, March 8th & Wednesday, March 9th Martha Brockenbrough, author of Things That Make Us [Sic]

Help spread the word about this exciting new series. Download the electronic press kit for THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON.

Are you ready to take a journey into the wild?

Bestselling authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon have teamed up to create THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON. Jack certainly lived a wild life, which inspired Golden & Lebbon to create this new book series based on his real-life travels. They’ve taken his true stories and his fiction and mixed in urban legends and myths of the time. While THE SECRET JOURNEYS series is fiction, not biography, the books are extremely well-researched, and spooky elements add another level of intrigue to the richly detailed stories.

The first book, THE WILD, will be released on Tuesday, March 1st. When seventeen-year-old Jack London travels to Alaska to join the Klondike Gold Rush, the path he treads is not at all what he expected. Along the way, he encounters kidnappers, traders, traitors, and a mysterious wolf. Jack must face the wild head-on in order to survive.

The buzz for THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON just keeps getting louder. 20th Century Fox has acquired the film rights to the series. Garth Nix, author of the Abhorsen Trilogy, declared: “A masterful mix of gold, cold, supernatural creatures, and dread magic makes this a great action adventure story.” Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy, calls THE WILD “A great old-school adventure novel and the best use of the Wendigo legend I’ve ever read.”

Authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon will launch a blog tour the day before the book’s release, beginning at Bildungsroman on Monday, February 28th and traveling through the blogs of YA/kidlit bloggers who are also teachers, librarians, and/or adventurers through Tuesday, March 8th. Each tour stop will offer an exclusive piece of art from Greg Ruth, whose stunning illustrations give life to the characters, locations, and beasts throughout the book.

Here’s the full schedule:

Monday, February 28th Little Willow at Bildungsroman

Tuesday, March 1st Kiba Rika (Kimberly Hirsh) of Lectitans

Wednesday, March 2nd Kim Baccellia from Si, Se Puede! and Young Adults Book Central

Thursday, March 3rd Melissa Walker, author of Small Town Sinners

Friday, March 4th Justin from Little Shop of Stories

Monday, March 7th Rebecca’s Book Blog

Tuesday, March 8th Martha Brockenbrough, author of Things That Make Us [Sic]

Download the electronic press kit for THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON.

Publishing details: THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON: THE WILD Written by Christopher Golden & Tim Lebbon Illustrated by Greg Ruth On sale: March 1st, 2011 Published by HarperCollins Childrens ISBN: 9780061863172

http://www.christophergolden.com http://www.timlebbon.net

My column in the January 2011 issue of School Library Monthly, entitled “Resolving the Quiet Crisis: Reading Apprenticeships in Middle and High Schools” and co-authored with Katelyn Browne and Elizabeth Koehler, is now available.