Dashka Slater's Blog
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May.09.2013
Like many in the picture book world, I’ve been watching the children’s book app market with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. I’m a book person at heart – I love the smell and feel of paper and the sensation of curling up with a book in my hands and a kid on my lap. When people talk about...
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Apr.12.2013
You might not have heard of Rebecca Dudley yet, but I’m guessing you will. Her wordless picture book Hank Finds An Egg comes out next month and it’s already gotten plenty of attention, including two starred reviews and a great write-up by Elizabeth Bird of Fuse 8.Published by Peter...
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Apr.05.2013
Last week, I interviewed former student Nicole Lataif about her experience publishing with Pauline, a Catholic press. This week, I’m highlighting a pair of former students, Heather Woodard and Pam Wampol, who took my class to work on their Christmas story. Their self-published book...
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Apr.01.2013
I’ve been teaching an online Children’s Picture Book Writing class through media bistro for six years years and recently launched an advanced class for graduates of the introductory class (I call the two classes PB1and PB2). In the course of teaching these...
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Dec.18.2012
My blog posts, not to mention my Tweets and Facebook posts, have been a cavalcade of self-promotion these days. Not that I'm apologizing for it -- that's just how it is when you have a new book out. But last week, just as I was getting ready to let everyone know that I was being interviewed...
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Dec.13.2012
Sometimes people ask me if Princess Amanita, the main character in Dangerously Ever After, was inspired by anyone in real life. The answer is complicated -- she's a mixture of several little girls I've known, with a generous helping of pure imagination. But the more time I spend with my...
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Dec.05.2012
Cross posted from the Authors for Earth Day blog:
Because I’m an environmental journalist as well as the author of four books for children, people often ask me if I write “environmentalist” children’s books. I find it tough to answer. What makes a book “environmentalist?” Must an...
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Nov.30.2012
A while back, my pal Jim Averbeck and I got this idea to promote our books together. Book promotion is a lonely thing, and I was looking for company. It gets boring talking about your own book all the time, especially when you're not sure if anyone's listening. I figured, if Jim...
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Nov.26.2012
The only gift better than a book is an autographed book and the only gift better than an autographed book is an autographed book with a personal inscription from the author. But children's book authors are generally reclusive and hard to locate, particularly during the holiday season. This...
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Nov.26.2012
The only gift better than a book is an autographed book and the only gift better than an autographed book is an autographed book with a personal inscription from the author. But children's book authors are generally reclusive and hard to locate, particularly during the holiday season. This...
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Jan.14.2011
The other night a friend invited me to a dance performance at ODC in San Francisco – a competition in which audience members decide which choreographers will receive a $10,000 grant to develop new work. I went in knowing nothing about the choreographers or the pieces and left feeling electric with...
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Oct.25.2010
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I just finished recording a new video spot, promoting my school visits. Recording the spot reminded me how much I love doing school visits, and how hard it is for schools to pay for them these days. So I’m offering some amazing discounts to schools and libraries that...
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Oct.19.2010
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Odd and Creepy Children's Classics
Oct. 19th, 2010 at 2:26 PM
I was looking forward to the Independent’s round-up of bloodiest children’s bedtime stories but it turned out to be a disappointment. Nine of the ten are fairytales, but really, the observation that...
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Sep.03.2010
Phillip Nel of Kansas State University tells us that "people who don't know any better call it post-modern" and after you watch this fun little video you'll never be one of those people again. What's nice about this piece is that it ties together a lot of seemingly disparate strands in...
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Jun.03.2010
Ever since I wrote about the Rainforest Action Network report linking children's books with rainforest destruction, I've been having interesting conversations with children's book writers and children's booksellers about what to make of it. The collective feeling has simply been, "Oh no....
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Dashka Slater...has written a stunning, poetic first novel about appearances and disappearances, about family legacies, religious belief and cultural inheritances”
—The San Jose Mercury News
About Dashka
Dashka Slater is the recipient of a 2004 Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her novel, The Wishing Box (Chronicle, 2000), was named one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times, which called it “an impish novel...