See time point 2:20 on this video in his interview with John Green.
Stephen Colbert Defines Young Adult Fiction
June 24, 2014 by 2 Comments
Reading Cuckoo and Silkworm Side-by-Side: A Concurrent Reading to Discover the Cormoran Strike Story Formula
June 22, 2014 by 1 Comment
Note: this was originally a comment to John’s first Silkworm post. Per our Headmaster’s request, I am hastily re-posting as a bona fide post, posthaste. Spoilers for The Cuckoo’s Calling and the first 12 chapters of The Silkworm below the jump.
I had had the good intentions to re-read The Cuckoo’s Calling before starting The Silkworm but did not get it done. So, I decided to read them concurrently and make my notes alternating: first Chapter 1 in CC, then chapter 1 in The Silkworm, etc. Obviously the chapters won’t match up perfectly, but knowing Rowling’s tendency to build the Harry Potter books on the same sequencing formula, this seemed as good an idea as any. [Read more…]
Call for Papers
June 11, 2014 by Leave a Comment
A link I received from a friend of a friend. Anyone familiar with this volume?
Call for Chapter Proposals
From Here to Hogwarts is a proposed interdisciplinary, multi-contributer volume born of the burgeoning field of Harry Potter Studies and the community of collaborators that is developing within the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association.
This proposed volume will cover a range of topics within the works of J.K. Rowling. The Harry Potter series is such a rich text for analysis, particularly of social issues that can be extrapolated to real-world, non-fictional settings. The scholarship being produced surrounding the Harry Potter series is phenomenal.
As such, this call for chapters invites interested scholars to submit papers and/or proposals for publication consideration in this edited volume.
Contributions should use the works of JK Rowling (the Harry Potter series, or companion works such as The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Fantastic Creatures and Where to Find Them, or Quidditch Through the Ages) to address a social or political issue, such as race, class, gender, sexual orientation, societal structure, age, muggle vs. wizard relations, technology, religion, and so forth. All themes will be considered as related to the overall direction of the volume.
Proposals from any academic discipline will be considered. Emerging and early career scholars are especially encouraged to submit. Final papers should be no longer than 30 pages, including references, and should be scholarly in nature yet accessible in language and tone.
For consideration, please submit an abstract/proposal of no more than 500 words to Dr. Christopher Bell, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, at cbell3 uccs.edu. Abstracts/proposals should be sent as Word Document attachments, and should include the author(s)’s name, affiliation, title and email contact information. Abstracts/proposals should be submitted no later than September 1, 2011*. Final papers will be due January 1, 2015.
*Note, I assume this is a typo and they mean 2014, since it was just posted yesterday.
Cruise into summer with The Living
June 11, 2014 by 4 Comments
The Divergent trilogy has drawn to a close, finishing with a volume that has drawn decidedly mixed reviews from your Hogpro faculty and the most of the rest of the world as well. There is still much more to be said about that series—personally, I find myself changing my mind about Allegiant about as often as I change my socks. We need to hear more about the first movie, and the others to come–are they really going to split Allegiant into two films?. It’s Insurgent that needs more screen time! –We also have the Mockingjay movies to look ahead to, as well as more from Ms. Rowling as the Fantastic Beasts movie launches and the Cormoran Strike series continues. Having just re-read James Thomas’s Rowling Revisted, I am particularly looking forward to seeing the adventures of Newt Scamander unfold. But that’s still a long way off.
Last week, I went into the first and hopefully annual LSU Young Adult Literature Conference with a central question in mind… what’s next? What new book series do we start to discuss on this site? The female-centric dystopia trend shows no sign of abating; indeed, there was enough buzzing about Marie Lu’s Legend and Joelle Charbonneau’s The Testing series that both are on my library hold list. But I can also see the value in a change of pace.
So, here’s my suggestion….
Several books by our guest authors were recommended to the LSU instructors-in-residence for reading prior to the conference. Among them was Matt de la Pena’s latest novel, The Living, published in November 2013 and described by the conference leadership as a “future classic.” I was unfamiliar with de la Pena’s previous work, although I had read of the controversy regarding his books being pulled from the Arizona public school curriculum. But it made little difference, since according to virtually everyone I talked to who knew Mr. de la Pena’s work, The Living was a radically different type of story from his previous four novels. [Read more…]
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