So far NaNoWriMo has been fun but moving along at an extremely slow pace for me. At this point, I'll continue writing but I don't think I'll be able to reach the 50,000 word goal. It's been good getting to a point where writing isn't as difficult once I get into it. Before, I would spend way too much time editing each sentence as it was being written.

Now I can write without having to worry about editing. That has always been the chore of writing for me, the editing. Now that I don't worry about it as much, writing is much more enjoyable. This book won't reach 50,000 words by the end of the month, but I think I'll get back into writing.

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So far anyway.  I haven't done much except watch some football and go for a walk with my wife.  I decided to not work on Monday's teaching today, instead seeking a day of rest.  

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Controversial book to stay on reading list

Antioch High School has agreed to form a committee that includes parents to review books after an assigned summer reading book drew protests because of its language and description of sexual acts.

Community High School District 117 Supt. Jay Sabatino said this afternoon that after reading the book, he and two school board members decided to keep it on the summer reading list.

“The consensus is we feel it is a valuable read, a good read… . We will continue to offer an alternative if someone wants one,” Sabatino said.

Earlier today, school board President Wayne Sobczak said he doubted the book — “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie — would be pulled from shelves as some parents wanted.

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http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/books/blog/2009/06/parents_seek_to_ban_awardwinni.html

via Read Street:

The English Department at Antioch High School, in the Chicago suburbs, assigned [The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie] for the incoming freshman class to read over the summer. The book, which follows the misadventures of a 14-year-old American Indian boy attending an all-white high school, won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, and was recognized by both the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times in the children’s book category.

The book is described as having vulgar language and describing sexual situations, and these parents want it pulled, even though there is a second option for the assignment, Down River, if parents don’t approve of Alexie’s work.

I thought one school official, John Whitehurst, described the parents’ charge of the school condoning such language and behavior most succinctly:

“That is like saying that because Romeo and Juliet committed teen suicide, we condone teen suicide,” Whitehurst said. “Kids know the difference. Like it or not, that is the way 14-year-old boys talk to each other.”

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http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/trends/sherman_alexie_will_meet_with_amazon_reps_118016.asp

from Galleycat:

Following his disparaging remarks about Amazon’s Kindle in the NY Times and his subsequent clarification on a popular literary blog, author Sherman Alexie has agreed to meet with Amazon and “and listen to their arguments for the machines.”

Yesterday the author of the National Book Award-winning book, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” said he felt unfairly vilified for taking a stand against Amazon’s popular e-reader. On his personal website, Alexie added that he finally accepted a long-standing meeting request from Amazon.

Check it out: “I have been especially humbled by those Kindle readers who, because of various physical issues, can only read with the machines. While I still have serious qualms about the technology, I have been challenged and emotionally moved enough to take a long-requested meeting with the folks at Amazon and Kindle and listen to their arguments for the machines. I’m on Amazon’s list of most-requested authors whose fiction is not available electronically, so now, thanks to the beautiful emails I received, I will do my best to enter the meeting with an open mind. And I definitely promise that I will not beat up anybody at Amazon or Kindle.” (Via MobyLives)

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When the Rain Sings is a book of poems written by young Native people from several tribal nations: Ojibwe, Lakota, Omaha, Navajo, Cochiti/Kiowa, O’odham, Yaqui, Hopi, and Ute. When the Rain Sings was first published in 1999. The story behind the book is included in this new edition, which is dedicated to Lee Francis, the founding director of Wordcraft Circle. Through the committed work of Lee Francis and others, we’ve got more Native writers than ever before.

via (American Indians in Childrens Literature)

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http://failbetter.com/31/AlexieInterview.php?sxnSrc=ltst

The collection was originally titled Thrash. Why did you change it to Face?

Because when people would pronounce it and talk about the book in interviews they’d always call it Trash. And when my poetry editor emailed me once, even he typed Trash by mistake. So I thought, okay, I’m changing it. Although now whenever I get interviewed or talk about it people are calling it Fate instead of Face. And someone pointed out yesterday that if you look at the cover—I knew this was going to be a little bit of an issue, but I just let it go because the cover is so beautiful—someone pointed out that if you look at the title a certain way it looks like it says Taco.

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http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2009/03/09/native-american-writer-details-personal-struggle

deltafoxtrot:

By Byungkwan Park

“Just so you know, I got here because of rage,” said Sherman Alexie, an award-winning Native American writer and occasional comedian, in a half-serious, half-facetious manner at the Statler Auditorium in his Friday evening lecture, “The Partially True Story of the True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.”

Alexie’s first young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian won the 2007 National Book Award in Young People’s Literature. The lecture, which was based on this novel, presented an overview of the author’s childhood and development as a writer.

Alexie frequently elicited laughter from the nearly 600-person audience as he often joked about the many tragedies of his younger years.

As a six-month-old baby, Alexie needed brain surgery due to an abnormal accumulation of water in his brain, a condition called hydrocephalus. Although he survived the surgery, he suffered seizure throughout his childhood. The sickness, however, was only one part of Alexie’s rough childhood.

“I was sick, very sick, and very poor on top of that … Even your food was constantly reminding you of how poor you were,” Alexie said.

Alexie grew up eating food provided by the government with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington. Partly as a result of the reservation’s impoverishment, Alexie developed a rather bitter outlook on life as an adolescent.

According to Alexie, he was dehumanized constantly as a poor, disabled Native American.

“I personally hate any philosophy that dehumanizes human beings,” Alexie said.

“You don’t live like that and not collect pounds and pounds of rage,” he added.

Alexie pointed to the audience to address and belittle existing Native American stereotypes.

“You thought you were the ones colonized,” Alexie said sarcastically. “I wish we were the people that you think we are, and I wish you were the people in the Declaration of Independence.”

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“Forgotten Patriots: African American and American Indian Patriots in the Revolutionary War” was edited by Eric Grundset, NSDAR librarian, with researchers Briana L. Diaz, Hollis L. Gentry and Jean D. Strahan.

There is a ton of information in the book — not only lists of names by state, but background information on Revolutionary service in the area and samples of information from documents such as pension records.

Most of the chapters include the note that the inclusion of some of the patriots “may be open to differing interpretation by other researchers as to whether or not they were of African, Indian, European or mixed descent.”

The listings include whether the patriot was African American or American Indian. If American Indian, the information often includes the tribe or nation. (via Book honors black, American Indian patriots - Bangor Daily News

)

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