But first news about Boreas It’s been quiet on the Boreas front. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything going on here. There is! By now, paperback editions of three of the Boreas titles have been published. Hurray! Children still love the series and sales are steady. And maybe, just maybe… Boreas will make the jump to America like I did. That pleases me enormously. And now about The Memory Maker Meanwhile, I have been busy writing new books. This time in English. There is a wonderful middle grade out on submission: The Memory Maker in which Georgia “Izzy” Isherwood grapples with the loss of her mother. Her only real comfort is an old, worn t-shirt that still carries the familiar scent of her…
Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing
Posts by Mina Witteman
No joy greater for a writer than receiving your author copies! In the midst of my first bout of Covid-19, a wonderful box of books arrived at my Berkeley writer’s abode. And this was a special shipment: the school edition of Boreas en de zeven zeeën! When my publisher told me that Noordhoff publishers, the acclaimed educational publishing house in the Netherlands, wanted to acquire the rights for Boreas en de zeven zeeën [Boreas and the Seven Seas] to publish a school edition in their famous Lijsters series, I didn’t have to think twice. All my writer’s life I have wanted my books to spur on as many children as possible to improve their reading and to find joy in reading. And these lijsters…
Categories: A Bit of Everything
Tagged: Boreas en de zeven zeeën, Mina Witteman
A special educational edition of Boreas en de zeven zeeën (Boreas and the Seven Seas) by Noordhoff Educational Publishers in their famous Lijster series, books by top authors especially selected by education experts for schools to help reluctant readers find joy in reading.
Categories: Books, Children's books
I did a thing. Again! This weekend the Bay Area Book Festival will celebrate its seventh anniversary and I put together a truly kickass program for our youth readers. A huge huge shoutout to my stalwart interviewers and moderators from Cinnamongirl and to Quinn! You all rock like no one else rocks. I am in awe of what you do. A big shout out to my colleagues at the festival. Come join us and get the latest about these awesome authors. Check out the Youth Program. Register for some electrifying conversations about words and books, about business and activism, about life.
Our beloved Bay Area Book Festival is back with another exciting event: Berkeley #Unbound, an all-day, free virtual mini-festival with, of course, two riveting youth programs. On Sunday, October 4 we will kick-off at 11:00 am with PROTEST + PRINT: Girls Using Words and Pictures for Activism with Girls Garage founder, builder, humanitarian design activist Emily Pilloton. Emily will be in conversation with HyeYoon Song, artist and educator and lead instructor for Girls Garage’s Protest + Print cohort, and Malaya Conui, student and visual artist. At Girls Garage in Berkeley, girls use power tools to build the world they want to see. But a different kind of world-building also takes place at Girls Garage: the kind that creates a vision for a better and…
It was a steep learning curve, this shelter-in-place pivot from an in-person book festival to an online happening. Instead of two glorious days in May in downtown Berkeley, we worked round the clock to get at least part of our line up ready for an online happening. And not just a two-day online festival. We managed to get two and a half months of just beyond incredible book programs to you via our YouTube Channel. What can I say about the children’s and YA programming? I learned new skills every single day. I am out of this world grateful to the entire technical team that made it possible for me to produce 30 just absolutely delightful and insightful programs for young audiences. This post is…
Tagged: abigail hing wen, aimee lucido, andrea zuill, anna-marie mclemore, anne nesbet, annie barrows, babfunbound, Bay Area Book Festival, Baybookfest2020, brian weisfeld, carol anderson, caroline paul, Children's Books, Cindy Derby, Cinnamongirl, colin meloy, dashka slater, deborah underwood, elizabeth rusch, Ellen Hopkins, emily pilloton, ernesto cisneros, ian lendler, innosanto nagara, jeff fleischer, Jim Averbeck, kate hosford, kate o'shaughnessy, kate schatz, keely parrack, kitty felde, mae respicio, maggie tokuda-hall, meg fleming, michael genhart, middle grade, miriam klein stahl, misa sugiura, nelly buchet, nikki shannon smith, paola zakimi, Picture Books, Priscilla Burris, rahul kanakia, randy ribay, rebecca hanover, romina garber, scott ostler, shawn harris, sophie blackall, steve metzger, susan szecsi, sydney hanson, yamile saied méndez, yasmeen ismail, Young Adults
What happens to a writer when there is a shelter-in-place edict that shrinks your physical world to proportions of times passé? Not much, I thought. I’ll be fine, I thought. I’m a writer and, by nature, a bit of a recluse. I mostly live in my head. Not that I don’t pay attention to the world around me. I do! A lot. But you won’t find me in the middle of the melee if I can help it. I feel most comfortable observing the world from the peace and quiet of my home. I prefer to take in life as it glides by: who moves where and how and, importantly, why? I look for connections and cross-connections, I analyze, I contemplate, I add perspective,…
Tagged: Berkeley, California, Children's Books, COVID-19, Drawing, Journal, Nature journaling, Shelter in place, Sketching, virus, writing
Mina Witteman 