Recently posted by Alisa Libby

What better inspiration for a writer than spending three full days talking about books with book-minded people? Not only that, the fare was children's literature: picture book, middle grade, young adult, graphic novel, fiction, non-fiction, poetry. Here are a few of my personal highlights from the Institute:

I thanked Jack Gantos for the nice response he sent to my whiny email about writer's block. I read Jack on the Tracks last year and it renewed my faith in books and writing. And it was hilarious, as is Mr. Gantos. He also told us a story about a fantastically horrible Rotten Ralph costume that I think he should bring to the next Institute.

After being treated to a bit of Joni Mitchell by Martha Brooks (who sings in a jazz band) and wacky, murderous folk songs by JonArno Lawson, I decided that I need another talent to spice up my book talks. I chatted with JonArno about this. He suggested maracas.

Kristin Cashore did a lovely job of connecting the origins of Graceling to the Institute's theme of Crimes & Misdemeanors, but in a way that was unexpected and more personal. Blue Balliett shared photos of the art, locations, and severely messy desks that inspired the creation of Chasing Vermeer and her more recent novels. Her talk made me want to visit a town and take notes and imagine scenes of my characters scrambling around, getting mud on their sneakers and ice cream on their shirts.

Many more authors spoke, all of them severely wonderful (Marilyn Nelson has the most beautiful reading voice, and M.T. Anderson is simply stunningly brilliant) and I can't possibly write about all of them. There were also some sprightly discussions during breakout sessions on the topics of censorship, book reviews, and a seriously impassioned discussion about "bad boys" in literature and how they have changed (and not changed) since Byron.

If anyone reading this is interested in children's literature, please check out the program at Simmons - or at least check back in two years about the next Institute. Part of the fun of attending is meeting librarians, teachers, authors, editors, and reviewers - everyone with a love for this literature. That said, I'll leave you with the question that Anita Silvey poses in her new book, Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children's Book: what children's book changed the way you see the world? For my answer and more about my books and writing, visit my blog: alisamlibby.wordpress.com.

I was invited to do a guest post at The Anne Boleyn Files, which is an awesome blog that debunks all kinds of myths and heresies surrounding King Henry's second queen - a must for any Tudor history buff, or fan of The Tudors. My post attempts to debunk some rumors about Catherine Howard. There are so many rumors that it was difficult to choose just a few, but I focused on the big ones: Catherine was stupid, greedy, slutty...you get the picture. Read the full post here:

http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/catherine-howard-by-alisa-m-libby/1616/

Claire, queen of the site, also wrote a wonderful review of The King's Rose. Hooray!:

http://reviews.theanneboleynfiles.com/the-kings-rose-by-alisa-m-libby/118

I've been doing a lot of reading myself lately, in preparation for the Children's Literature Institute this weekend at Simmons College. Here are some of the books I've read, written by authors who will be speaking at the conference. I'll be posting a post-conference report early next week.

At the Museum of Modern Art this past weekend I was thinking about the nature of art. I thought about this a lot as a kid. Dad was an artist so we had art in our house but how was that different from art in museums? Why was the canvas with the single polka dot on it hanging on the wall of a museum and the miniature violins I watched Dad make were not? I was (and still am) biased, of course.

But I did find the Jackson Pollack paintings more striking and moving than I had imagined I would. One of them reminded me of beautiful Japanese calligraphy in bold black strokes on a parchment background.

Another painting was heavily layered with paint, in addition to cigarette butts and bits of other stuff. It was described as a "labyrinth," which fascinates me - I like the idea of a maze of paths connecting and criss-crossing and dead-ending without any rhyme or reason. I could get lost in a maze (or a painting) like that.

On June 24th 1509 - 500 years ago - King Henry VIII was officially crowned King of England in a glorious coronation ceremony, alongside his new bride, Catherine of Aragon. Not that the crown did her much good years later, but that's a different story.

Do I feel odd "celebrating" this day in history, considering my obvious sympathies for Catherine Howard and how Henry was really quite integral to the girl's downfall? Not really...though I remember experiencing a strange moment of pause in the gift shop of The Tower of London (an odd concept right there, if you think about it) over a teddy bear dressed like King Henry. As far as I know Catherine's ghost did not follow me and teddy henry home to haunt me for the purchase.

But was Henry was a tyrant? He certainly had plenty of tyrant-like qualities, especially in the latter (and infamous) part of his reign. He had a knack for changing the law to suit his current whims. Perhaps he confused what was best for England with what was simply best for himself (though I don't trust his judgment in his personal life, either). But what about earlier in his reign? To think of Henry as an enormous, scowling king gnawing on a turkey drumstick shows only one dimension of a very complicated creature, not to mention a reign that lasted nearly 40 years. Being king was, I think, a lonely business. Henry was surrounded by ambitious courtiers who had their own - not the King's, not England's - best interests at heart. Who was there to look out for him, or to try to tell him the truth in the midst of his mania?

In honor of the anniversary of the coronation, I choose not to think of the aging, unwieldy king that Henry became later in life, putting aside his devoted wife of many years in his single-minded quest for an heir. Instead I choose to think of the Golden Prince he was on this day, 500 years ago, with his beautiful queen at his side. When the royal crowns were set upon their heads, I'm sure they looked like England's future, and the future looked very fresh and bright, indeed.

There are some really fancy writers retreats out there, where (for a fee) you can take a little vacation at a nice place where all you have to do is write, and all your meals are brought to you. Sort of like camp...but the goal is to get a lot of writing done. For a more low-cost twist, my friends Anne and Anna and I had a writer's retreat, hosted by Anna at her house. This was my first retreat - a one-day affair. I brought molasses cinnamon cookies, which I had baked the day before instead of writing (insert: use of irony).

We each brought some ideas for writing prompts, only to find that we really weren't in the mood for writing prompts. Instead we talked about our projects and what we're struggling with at the moment, which I found very helpful. Then we ate pizza, which was also very helpful (fuel is important if you want to get any work done).

Then we actually sat and did some writing, in companiable quiet. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to concentrate with friends in the room, but I was pleased with the outcome of the day: not just the pages I produced, but with the collegial feeling of the whole experiment. Writing is a lonely business; it was nice to take it out of my office for a change, and hang out in the company of other writers, all of us doing our thing. And it's fun to think of all the various ideas floating around this table: ghosts, fanatic obsession, baby donkeys...

And every writer's retreat needs a mascot. Our mascot was the baby bunny that lives near Anna's house and eats her sunflower buds.

I'll be at the Hudson Public Library tomorrow at 2 p.m., talking about the book and about writing and publishing in general. I'm hoping I'll get some Tudor fanatics and/or some writers with questions about the whole process. I love talking to writers about my adventures in book-writing. I try to think of what I wanted to hear before I was published, what would have helped inspire me to stick with it.

In the meantime, I've been doing a lot of reading. I've said goodbye to the lovely Katsa (of Graceling) and now I've already fallen for Katniss (of The Hunger Games). I also received an embarrassment of riches thanks to Interlibrary loan: I had three books (including The Red Queen's Daughter which was NOT on my posted reading list) and the final season of Deadwood waiting for us. We haven't finished watching season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer yet (oh yes, I am a BIG Buffy fan) but we're more than halfway through. I'm enjoying it even more the second time around!

Back to books: I'm actually kind of a slow reader. If the book is really well-written then I'll go back and reread passages over and over again. Most recently I did this with Laura Amy Schlitz's A Drowned Maiden's Hair - her descriptions of Maud enjoying her first carousel ride were just so utterly vivid and beautiful. I really dwell in a book as I read it, I can't tear through them. This is troubling at times since there are so many books out there to read...but I love language so much that I can't help but dwell on it.

In the meantime, I'm having moments of feeling a little itchy, wanting to get back to writing. I've been scribbling in my "insufferable little notebook" (Tom's affectionate term for the latest in my endless array of notebooks) at odd moments during the day, or during my commute. Sometimes I put it on my bedside table and I have to sit up late at night and scribble something down. Goodness knows what all of this scribbling will come to. I will keep you posted.

I get nervous around authors. Yes, I realize the irony implicit in this statement; I love it when people talk to me about my books and I can only assume that other authors feel the same way. But I still find it nerve-wracking to be on the other side of the signing table, as it were. I don't want to come across as needy or weird or moronic or any number of other bad things. And my fears increase in proportion to just how much I loved the author's book.

Case in point: last night I went to the BPL to hear Andrei Codrescu talk about his new book, The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess. I haven't read the new book (which sounds interesting, because of/in spite of the fact that I know near to nothing about the Dada movement) but I read Codrescu's novel The Blood Countess, about the one and only Countess Bathory - a creature close to my own heart as well, for all of her bloody malevolence. So after the reading I hung around for a bit, with a whole bunch of other people who wanted to approach him and say hello and talk to him and were too shy to do so. So I wasn't the only shy one. What makes it funnier is that Codrescu couldn't have been more friendly, more funny, more willing to chat with everyone...but that doesn't erase the possibility of my own embarrassment.

So I dawdled, but finally when I saw that he and his entourage were gathering themselves to go (the man wanted his fish & chips) I walked over and said hello and told him about my book and agreed to send him a copy (let's dwell on this for a moment: sending a copy of your own book to an author you admire who has also researched and written about this particular character...yeah, I'm just trying not to think about it too much.) Before I knew it, Mr. Codrescu was inviting me to join them for the aforementioned fish & chips. At first I said I couldn't, but then I thought, good grief girlie, how often does this happen that this totally cool and fellow Bathory-inspired author invites you to join him and his crew out for dinner? So I joined them.

Mind you, I am a shy person by nature. I feel like I'm just barely bold enough to get myself into these pretty amazing situations but not quite secure enough to be chatty and charming like a normal person would be. But it was still pretty awesome. Codrescu has written about Bathory so beautifully - even writing about her horrid atrocities so beautifully, and I love it when a writer can take the horrid and make it gothically gorgeous. We chatted about Bathory, about research, a lot about New Orleans, and bit about young adult literature. He informed me that writing about Bathory for a teenage audience is really quite scary - corrupting the minds of youth and all of that. And I agree.

There is a certain pattern to my writing life: put simply, there are times when I'm writing, and times when I'm not writing. Sometimes the not-writing comes in the form of the demon writer's block that perches upon me like some hideous gargoyle. But other times, like right now, it's because I'm taking a little break from my current work-in-progress and reading as much as I possibly can. So here is my current reading list:

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
Graceling, Kristin Cashore
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
Rose Daughter, Robin McKinley
Skellig, David Almond

It's an eclectic list, including some titles I feel really guilty for not having read (you're all familiar with my book-related guilt by now, I'm sure). If there are others you feel I should move to the top of my list, please let me know. Now that I've actually written this list on my blog, I had better deliver and actually READ these books! I have a tendency to get distracted with other titles, like the pile of books I've purchased for my own collection and still have yet to read...Here's hoping I manage to tackle at least a few on this list. I'll keep you posted.