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Posts
- Apr 22, 11
- Nov 22, 10
This agent wrote a whole blog to answer a question I asked last week. I am not even submitting to her. I love kid book people.
Jennifer Represents...: But What About the Second Week of April? - Nov 11, 10An entire baseball season has passed since I last posted.
Why?
There are better blogs out there.
My newest is http://suzanne-johnson.blogspot.com/Unlike my own lame blog, this site has loads of good stuff--on revising, enneagrams, and other freakazoid things that are... actually useful.
Enjoy. - Aug 11, 10
Here is another great blog about SCBWI LA 2010. These bloggers are bettern me. Thanks to them for spreading the good word!
- Aug 10, 10
- May 06, 10
- May 04, 10I am off to spend the night at the zoo with seventy-two fifth graders. That's right: zoo, night, fifth-graders, all in one sentence. Sounds like the beginning of a nightmare.
Or, the beginning of a novel.
The zookeepers have it all planned: nocturnal visits and predawn breakfasts. It could be fun or then again, it could just be a really bad night of sleep.
Word of the day: Prehensile: grasping, as in a monkey's tail.
Peace to all and to all a good night!
- Mar 26, 10
Help.
I'm having trouble writing.
Since January, I’ve been teaching fulltime and I can only find minutes a day to write. When I do, I think it sucks. Rather, it does suck. Now, I'm staring at the mouth end of another weekend and I’m fearful that the suckosity is going to crawl to a new nadir.
Then I realized I had writer friends to ask. So, what to do? - Feb 25, 10
I have been a crazy busy teacher since January 1. Teaching is such a high. But I gotta have some more of it. So, this letter is more or less a cover letter for my teaching resume. Yes, this post is a blatant expression of self-promotion. (pic from my classroom in Africa)
Dear Head of School et al.,
When a parent walks into a teacher’s classroom, anything can happen.
“Hi, I’m Pam,” she said. “Lauren’s mom.”
Was this a good thing?
The bangles clanged on her wrist as she extended her hand. “I’ve heard you’re the kids’ favorite substitute.”
Nice.
“I’m so happy to meet you,” she continued. “Lauren just loves writing, now.”
“That’s great,” I said. “She’s such a good kid… what do you expect.”
“No,” the mother said. “She loves writing because of what you said.”
“What I said?”
“You told her everybody could get on the internet, but only she had access to the stories in her head.”
Bullets and PowerPoints are not enough.
Without stories, we are lost.
In this highly distracted age, a teacher has to bring excitement to the classroom. After a writing sabbatical, I have returned to the classroom with a contagious passion for excellence in English, History, Geography, Modern Languages, and Writing. I would like to apply for any current or future open positions at the school that would best use my talents.
In West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer teacher, I planned, developed, wrote, and taught all language materials for five classes. Stateside, I have taught History, Geography, and English in DC Public Schools. I have been the Business Manager of $2.5 M Independent School and have been Director of Development, Head of a Foreign Language Department, French Teacher, ESL teacher, and an English teacher.
About eight years ago, roughly September 12th (yes, that one), I left the everyday classroom in search of a world classroom. I started writing. I wrote stories, mostly for children, in hopes of inspiring travel and openness. Now my writing portfolio consists of a middle-grade series of five manuscripts, a middle-grade novel, two picture books, a chapter book, an edgy YA novel, a collection of short stories, micro-fiction, and even ad copy and a screenplay.
None has been published and not for lack of trying, but such is the world of New York publishing. I am currently a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. I attend the annual conferences and am plugged into anything and everything going on in contemporary children’s literature. For me, progressive education means I need to know what is being published for kids, not only today, but also tomorrow. I happen to know the Tenners, personally!
The research for my own stories took me (and my family of four) to France for a year and Spain for two years. If you ask the sixth graders at Graland Country Day School, they will tell you my stories are ready to publish. But, as I wait for the editors in New York to catch up to Graland’s children, I realize I am wasting my talent by not teaching every day.
I have a B.A. in English and American Literature from Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, with a minor in French. I have an M.A. in Intercultural Management from the School for International Training (pending) in Brattleboro, Vermont.
I speak French at a U.S. Foreign Service Level of 4.0/5.0. Spanish at a 2.0 level. While in the Peace Corps, I tested in Hassanyian Arabic at 2.0 (it’s awful now). I am a dabbler. I know the greetings and other practical and fun stuff in Portuguese, Wolof, Soninke, German, and maybe a word or two in Mayan.
An English curriculum is my sweet spot, although with my background, I am prepared to jump into any of the liberal arts and/or administrative fields.
What would I do differently in an English classroom?
Writing is thinking.
I would have every child write every day. Every. Child. Every. Day. In addition to thinking and communicating, daily writing for the younger set is also a means of practicing penmanship. Writing every day in middle and upper school improves typing and computer skills. From the teacher’s perspective, writing, especially first thing in the morning, can be an insightful tool for assessing a child’s current emotional needs.
Necessary as it is, grammar can be boring. I would streamline grammar lessons and I would dramatize the teaching of vocabulary, where possible. Without drama, how else would you teach the word “anguish?” I would add more poetry to the curriculum as a means of teaching the true meaning of words, but we would have fun with the poems (and the poets, too!)
As a current parent, I offer a unique understanding of communication between home and school. As a teacher, I clearly convey what I expect from the students at the beginning—and the end—of the school year.
Recently, I gave a speech to the 700-plus student body about teaching in Africa. Every day, as the sun set over the Sahara, I knew it was my love for kids that kept me giving and giving even in the most difficult of Africa’s environments. I am always amazed at how deeply (and quickly) I care for each child, which was abundantly clear when I conducted the most recent fifth-grade parent conferences.
Anyone at Graland Country Day would give me a resounding recommendation, especially the kids. I believe in children and I think pedagogy should be child-centered.
The other day, standing outside the lockers in the hallway, McKenna Daily (fifth grader), summed it up for me.
“Mr. Aertker,” she told me, “when you’re in the class, I’m inspired.”
Sincerely,
Paul Aertker
Thanks for reading. - Jan 15, 10I gave a speech yesterday to 700 kids and 100 grownups. The head of school suggested I publish the story. And we all know how easy publishing is...
After college, I moved from the bayous of Louisiana to the Sahara.
Yes, the desert. And yes, they had camels there. I went to the West African country of Mauritania. (No, not Mauritius, which is an island off the coast of Southeast Africa.)
The northern part of Mauritania is the true desert with dunes, ergs, regs, hamadas, and of course, oases; while the southern part of the country is Sahel, which in Arabic means coast, as if it were the coast of the desert itself.
I had gone to Mauritania with the Peace Corps to teach English as a Second Language to Arabic and French speaking students. The first thing I noticed was that the schools had no books. No library. Nothing. Everyone had little notebooks and that was it.
The Peace Corps sent me on a training mission to learn how to write classroom material for kids. I took a boat, a wooden pirogue, east up the Senegal River where I lived in a thatched roof village, studying and writing. I even had my own cook who brought lunch every day in a big bowl on her head. I sat on the floor with my teachers and ate with my hands.
After training, I moved back to the Sahara to a city called Zouérate, where I was assigned to teach in a middle school. My boss was Mr. Mohammed. Imagine that! Mr. M was not exactly a teacher’s teacher. He was a number’s man like the counter guy in The Little Prince. He was paid based on the number of kids who showed up every day. A truant officer. So the only real requirement we had as teacher was to call role.
I had four classes of 36 students each and one class of… 63 students, 35 of whom were named Mohammed. No kidding.
So role call went a little like this:
Mohammed Akhmed
Here.
Mohammed Sidi.
Here.
Mohammed Ali.
Here.
There really was a Mohammed Ali. As Seuss says, there are funny things everywhere.
The head of school, Mr. Mohammed, was thrilled with my role calling because he could bank some more worthless 500-ougiyas bills.
In this oversized class there were a lot kids who were nomads. These guys watered camels and herded goats. But there had been a severe drought. Strange that the desert would be dry, right? Whole families were forced to move into the city, but they didn’t give up nomadic life, and they certainly didn’t give up the tent.
Just a little tent in the city. That’ all I want, honey!
You know how in middle school there giant kids and scrawny kids in the same class? Most of the kids I taught were between the ages of 10 and 12. Then Mr. M added the nomads. The youngest of these boys was 18.
The nomadic boys had never been to school; not only had they not been to school but they had never been inside a building. They’d never had a roof over their heads. Only a tent!
They dressed in long blue and white boubous and came to class not knowing what “class” was. They couldn’t understand why I was teaching so they sat on the floor in the back of the class and made tea and smoked. In class!
So what do you do as a teacher? What do you do with this enormous class?
In the front of the class were four girls. You know how eighth grade girls lock their arms together like Siamese quadruplets and patrol the playground at recess? There were four such girls in the front this over-packed class. Those girls worked so hard and they made me work even harder, I wrote better when I thought about them in particular. These girls worked hard not because I was a good teacher; they worked hard because they saw learning as a means to flee the country and the oppression and the sexism and start a new life in a new world.
English was their ticket out.
So what did I get out of all of this?
One the girls came up to me at the end of the year and said, “Mr. Aertker, the learning of the English makes much happiness.”
That’s good by me! - Dec 16, 09
Some of the members of my newly-formed book club haven’t even read the beer yet.
Yes, we meet at bookhalls or German bookgartens. The smell of old books. From floor to ceiling, nearly every point is crammed with literature. Stacked on the floor and scattered on tables and chairs, there are piles of hardbacks, paperbacks, and even unfinished manuscripts. Tomes of encyclopedias and neat mounds of art books next to messy heaps of fiction and nonfiction books. Series, magazines and newspapers novels, and novellas.
We like meeting at libraries because we think every book club should have some ice cold books to read.
Last week, the Cuervo ladies were giving out salt, lime wedges, and free short stories.
Now after several meetings, emails, fundraising parties, IPO’s, election of officers, and deals cut with our wives (all of whom have girls night out), we have an actual beer to read.
Seriously.
Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford
It’s about this guy.
It’s very funny.
Meetings are the second Wednesday of the month. Call before you come; we meet at a different library branch each time. - Nov 02, 09Okay. I have been off the Facebook, Twitter, and Blogspot drugs for one month now. Call it Blogblock, Facebreak, Tweadle dee... Whatever.
It's amazing how much time I have on my hands. I think I had some senility issues with all those tabs up there to click on. I would be writing something in Word. Then I would stop and click on dictionary.com, and four hours later, I would return to a blinking cursor in the middle of the document.
It was like walking into a room and forgetting why I was there.
A little more writing/thinking time and less clicking time. NaNoRevisMo. Anyone?
In other news...
1. Stocks are up and that's good for business. Yeah team! With the exception of Borders Book Group, which trades at $1.94. Can you say bankruptcy?
2. I have been teaching English at a school down the street. It's a blast being with the kids. And my English is pretty damn good! I had forgetten.
Writing blogs no one will read is weirdly fun.
More later.
- Oct 18, 09I've long argued that modern poetry is alive and well; it's just packaged as rock-n-roll.
Pope and Eliot have been replaced by Plant and Bono. Stairway to Heaven is today's Kubla Khan.
These days, poetry readings are not packed, but humans haven't lost their love of words in poetic form. Now we pack football stadiums. Instead of a reading, someone sings.
This video is from U2's Barcelona show where a Rumi poem is written in green in support of Iran's free elections. Poetry with a purpose.
Finally, here are the words/lyrics from U2's poem/song. I like the Roar line.
BREATHE
16th of June, nine 0 five, door bell rings
Man at the door says if I want to stay alive a bit longer
There's a few things I need you to know. Three
Coming from a long line of travelling sales people on my mother's side
I wasn't gonna buy just anyone's cockatoo
So why would I invite a complete stranger into my home
Would you?
These days are better than that
These days are better than that
Every day I die again, and again I'm reborn
Every day I have to find the courage
To walk out into the street
With arms out
Got a love you can't defeat
Neither down or out
There's nothing you have that I need
I can breathe
Breathe now
16th of June, Chinese stocks are going up
And I'm coming down with some new Asian virus
Ju Ju man, Ju Ju man
Doc says you're fine, or dying
Please
Nine 0 nine, St John Divine, on the line, my pulse is fine
But I'm running down the road like loose electricity
While the band in my head plays a striptease
The roar that lies on the other side of silence
The forest fire that is fear so deny it
Walk out into the street
Sing your heart out
The people we meet
Will not be drowned out
There's nothing you have that I need
I can breathe
Breathe now
Yeah, yeah
We are people borne of sound
The songs are in our eyes
Gonna wear them like a crown
Walk out, into the sunburst street
Sing your heart out, sing my heart out
I've found grace inside a sound
I found grace, it's all that I found
And I can breathe
Breathe now - Sep 08, 09It's all one. The blog. Your Facebook page. The Twitmonger. I follow. I lurk. I friend. The trifecta?
Here's another place to add to the list. A must?
An agent asked me to sign up at LinkedIn instead of Facebook. S/he was right. The business of publishing.
But how to put it all together?
In fifth grade science, the kids study animals' production cycle: Do I produce or consume?
Recently, I switched to Google Reader for consuming blogs. Reading is a boat load easier but commenting is ... uh… yeah. GR takes blogodom to a higher level of lurkosity. I blog therefore I lurk.
Here's some cream of what I've lurked on since the SCBWI LA 09 GLAMFEST last month.
At the conference Wendy Loggia (Delacorte) gave a speech about seven things that would kick you out of her request pile.
She brought out tomes, dusty binders full of data and rejections going back to the 12 Century. (BTW: The eleven hundreds mark the seminal point in rejection letters. Rejects were banned in the Dark Ages).
She noted seven things, but number four seemed to rise to the top of the foam.
Debbie Ohi has the complete list. And of course, Team Blog got it all here including these 1984ish lines: "She will google people who have submitted their work and read their blogs as part of her research to make her decision."
Waterboarding, caning, and googling…. Welcome to my nightmare!!!
There have been others to chime in on the subject. The killah agent, Janet Reid, said, "You're not invisible, no matter what the guy selling the cloak at Platform [9 ¾ ] said to you."
Shaun Hutchins (Deathday Letters coming out from Simon Pulse in the spring.) fires back with an anti-watch what you say piece. "If no one tells me I suck, I'll never get better."
President Obiwankinobi told kids to watch what they post on FB.
And even more.
Chris Richman and Michael Stearns have been Facebloging in lieu of blahbloging on the subject. If you're not a FB fan of UpStart Crow, you should be.
Got to go post this...
- Aug 11, 09
There was more than just the fun. There was real business going on.
I don't know if it was my energy or if I was "ready" or something, but the agents and editors at SCBWI LA GLAMFEST 09 were different this time.
They were not only gracious and accessible this year, but a hint of something else flashed in their eyes. In everyone's eyes. Every single person at this conference on both sides of the desk seemed hungry.
Like we were going to take over the world with good kid books!
We're in the catbird seat here, people. Children's/YA market share is increasing and that's good. The quality of submissions (our competition) is getting better and better, which only makes for better books.
Write on.
- Aug 18, 09
First, Miley Cyrus. (OMG y'all: she looks just like Hannah Montana)!!!
My eleven-year old son is with me. He rolls his eyes. Miley stares back and our eyes travel up to The Sisterhood pants, then over to Nick and Nora then La Cliquée, dead centre, and finally leaping up from the base, the support ... Twilight
The Whim woman on the third shelf winks at us, then Miley again and we light on The Calder Game by Blue Balliet, whom we think is Lemony Snicket posing as a woman. But not a bad book. But we've both already read it.
We stay and dig a little. Hidden away Prada & Prejudice. And there's Untamed, Rrrair. Warriors.
What would I like to see?
Anything that moves. The Three Musketeers, Sherman Alexie, Alex Rider, Gordon Korman, 39 Clues, Haddix, Madame Bovary, The Crime Travelers, Percy Jackson, Hemingway, The Young James Bond, Fred Tries to Kill the Moon, Whimpy Kid
- Jul 27, 09I am also a francophile. :~)
As far as writing for kids goes, I think they are starving for stories outside of their home cultures. My own stories are Jason Bourne for kids (boys, in particular). Fun. Fast. But quelque chose de different.
Mitali Perkins writes about this cultural divide. She inspired today's blog. You can check her out at http://www.mitaliblog.com/2009/07/ya-books-and-global-poverty.html
- Jul 21, 09I feel very rich in friends.
For me, we are always making new friends. Continually. I think it's the only way to feel rich is to be rich in friends.
When you meet someone new, you know pretty quickly. You know what I mean? You thin-slice.
I think I make friends pretty easily.
My newest bestest friend I've spent a total of maybe eight hours with him. Total face time, that is.I met Sarah Frances' husband, John, the other day for the first time and he reminded me how easy it is to make friends with someone brand new to you.
Don't get me wrong here. This former mock-fugative is not without issue, either. John has faux-alQaida ties. He's known to chase bears with brooms. And he has trouble finding good fishing spots. But he has an open door and cold beer behind it.
That's my new criteria for friendship. Open door. Cold beer.
What's your criteria? Do you make friends quicker than others? And for the writery question of the day: Do boys make friends more easily (quicker and not necessarily deeper) than girls?(photo credit: my oldest bestest friend) - Jul 21, 09
- Jul 21, 09A lot of guys like to work with wood.Hence the success of Home Depot.But HD is profitable because most fellers tackle jobs with more self-assuredness than actual skill.The Home Depot business model looks something like this (this is a guess and should not be taken as a indicator of future performance. See prospectus for details):Chris struts into HD wearing a pair of penny loafers and buys a new faucet set. About halfway through the job, he beams with self-confidence, rips off the pink button-down, and slaps the wrench on the wrong nut. Within seconds the bathroom is soaked. The next weekend, he and a contractor he knows from the bank re-sheetrock the room and two weekends later, a plumber installs the new faucet.
I don’t touch water or electricity; I stick with contraptions like this.The tomato plants are promising a bumper crop and they’ll need support. It might look cockamamie, but there are parts that are actually flush.
Next, I’ll knot a string over to the fence (which was built by actual fence guys). My friend Helmut taught me how to tie knots.I asked him, “Helmut? How did you learn to tie knots?”
He said, “I bought this Klutz book called How to tie knots.”
Today’s motto is: Help the economy. Hire somebody who knows.
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