Another Year, Another Review

Better late than never! (Backdating this so it gets filed under 2013.) Yes! Here it comes! Dragon's Year in Review!

From a writing standpoint, it was a mixed bag. I did not submit enough, but I did win second place in the Tucson Weekly Erotic Fiction Contest and have a flash fiction forthcoming in Cheap Pop. I convinced two agents to look at one of my novels, one of whom passed with little commentary except to say that "the voice did not jibe" with him and there was no accounting for taste; he didn't like The New Yorker's taste in fiction either. The second still hasn't made up her mind. I've spent most of the year working on a monstrous novel, which is closing in on 800 pages and will need to be completely written when I reach the end.

My biggest coup was throwing caution to the wind and giving notice at my lucrative and reasonably reliable copywriting job. The real world was crushing me, and while I may starve, at least I shall starve as an artist. More news on that front is forthcoming.

Of course, I also got married; visited Death Valley, Sedona New York, LA, San Francisco, and Santa Fe, and took my mother-in-law on a 3-day road trip from Manhattan, Kansas to Tucson, Arizona that involved spending the night on a Mennonite farm in Oklahoma, visiting the Very Large Array in New Mexico, drinking margaritas in Albuquerque, and eating Pie in Pie Town; finally bought a beautiful wooden desk where I can work like a grown-up; organized all my nonfiction books by LOC designation, all my fiction books by the author's last name, and all my office supplies in such a way that I know exactly where everything is, but no one else can find it; made a not insignificant amount of art; read some good books, but not as many as I wanted to; and wrote some decent prose, but not as much as I wanted to.

In short, life happened. And now...

Dragon's 2013 Year in Review

Picture Books: 18
YA/Middle Grade Novels: 25
Adult novels: 12
Fairy Tale Collections: 1
Graphic Novels: 20
Nonfiction: 5
Memoir/Biography: 6
Plays: 1
Not Easily Categorized: 2

Total: 90

Could be better; could be worse. The intention for 2014 is to boost my number of reviews, both here and at Best Children's Books. Among other things.

Anyway, you know, keep reading. Happy New Year!

Dragon's Year in Review

Stats! We got stats!

32 picture books
9 novels
9 nonfiction
30 YA/juvenile literature
5 memoir/biography
9 short story collections
1 reference book
3 graphic novels
3 poetry

3 books I can't easily classify

104 books total

Which is really pretty abysmal. All I can say is that I worked a lot this year. I had 2 short stories published. I finished writing 2 novels. I read a couple unpublished novels that didn't make this list. And it took me more than 2 months each to wade through The Dancing Wu Li Masters and Partner to the Poor. Theoretically, I could review another Rosemary Wells book right now, but I'd have to get out of bed to find it, so the count stands at 104. Disregarding the kids' books, I scarcely averaged 1 serious book a week.

The YA count was huge, primarily due to the 15 volume Guardians of Ga'Hoole series, plus the Hunger Games, plus my friend Nova's novel, Imaginary Girls. 

Two of my mentors, Jaimy Gordon and Bonnie Jo Campbell also made the list this year (both with award-winning novels) as did my darling friend, KJ Kabza, with his collection of previously published short speculative fiction. Wow, I know a lot of writers. 

Oh! While I'm name-dropping, I also visually interpreted a poem from one of Ofelia Zepeda's books for the kids at the elementary school where I'm a literacy volunteer, and my fiance emailed Ofelia Zepeda a photograph of the bulletin board (they're both employed at the University of Arizona) and she wrote back, telling him to thank me, and that it was beautiful. And Tom Angleberger also emailed, thanking me for my review of Origami Yoda on another site, saying that I was pretty much the only reviewer to get his book, and I interviewed him. I should publish that interview....

Also this year, my local library system purchased 2 books that I suggested! Partner to the Poor was one. I'm still waiting for the second (about octopus intelligence) but they've cataloged it, so I'm guessing it will be available pretty soon. And, if you didn't catch it above, I'm engaged, so look out for my upcoming review of Miss Manners' Guide to a Surprisingly Dignified Wedding. Anyone who knows me will be surprised that there's any element of dignity to my wedding.

Happy New Year!

 

Dragon in Real Life

If you're not already reading my microfiction at Raincoat Flashers, my short-short fiction blog, you are missing out on all kinds of insanity.

If you are reading Raincoat Flashers, perhaps you'd like a deeper draught of Dragon.

You could, for instance, order a copy of Bards and Sages Quarterly, where my first published fiction, Spin Free, appears, along with lots of other great fiction.

You could also visit inkpop.com, where you'll find an entire YA novel, which I wrote all by myself! If enough people read and enjoy my book online, it will be sent to the editorial board at HarperCollins, and I might have a shot at publishing a novel. You'll get the pleasure of reading a far-out speculative fiction novel chock full of sex, lies, betrayal, food, cheerleaders, and mad scientists coupled with the pleasure of helping a dragon spread her wings.

An entire year?

Man, another year has gone by, which means it's time for another year in review at Dragon's Library!

Although I beat my count (barely) from last year, it still felt like a lot of stuff prevented me from reading all I wanted. There are *piles* of unread books on my desk, and I'm still plowing through Jaimy Gordon's Lord of Misrule along with the massive Natural History of the Sonoran Desert and some other stuff as well. However, this was the year that I first sold a short story (available this January in Bards and Sages, which you can purchase at Barnes and Noble, I've been told. Also the year that my leveled reader, Rosalind Franklin's Beautiful Twist was made available from Reading A-Z. Also this year, I was invited to review books at Steve Barancik's Best Children's Books. And, of course, I continue to make bank as a freelance writer.

My categories here leave something to be desired, I guess. Should Confessions of an Economic Hit Man go under "memoir" or "non-fiction"? Where do I draw the line between adult novels and YA novels? Ah, it's all arbitrary. Books are books. Here's a rough accounting.

Picture books: 48
Adult novels: 7
Nonfiction: 12
YA/juvie fiction: 40
Memoir/biography: 4
Short story collections: 4
Reference: 1
Myth/fairy tale collection: 4
Graphic novel: 2
Poetry: 1

Total Books Reviewed: 123

Happy New Year

Whoops!

I'm well aware that it looks like I didn't read any books in the month of June. Clearly, this is not the case, and while I certainly spent far too much time playing with Facebook applications, they are not to blame for my lack of blogging. As a freelancer with a large family, I find these two areas of my life sometimes collide. Last month, I had to work double time in order to devote the end of the month to my adorable nephews. I did read books. I just didn't have a space in which to blog them.

Unfortunately, I don't have copies of some of the great children's books I read, and I still don't have time for real blogging at the moment. In the interest of keeping it real, I am going to add the links for a few books. With any luck, I'll get to write the reviews later.

Keep reading!

2008 recap

Admittedly, my count is down from last year and the books I did read were a little lighter. Blame it on...boys. Yeah. That's it. Boys.

Well, OK, one boy. But he's a good one.

151 total books reviewed

60 picture books
11 novels
15 nonfiction
23 YA/juvenile literature
3 plays
9 memoir/biography
6 short story collections
2 reference books
1 collection of mythology/legend
18 graphic novels
1 poetry
1 book I just can't classify

Happy New Year!

Happy Birthday, Dragon's Library

Today marks the the one-year anniversary of this blog, and, being human, I find it interesting to do a year-end review with tallies and trends.

167=total number of books reviewed

59 picture books
24 novels
23 nonfiction books
18 YA/children's lit
10 plays
9 memoirs
9 short story collections
7 reference books
4 collections of myths and legends
2 graphic novels
1 poetry collection
1 book I just can't classify

Granted, there are plenty of reference books that I consulted but did not blog, as well as some YA novels too shameful to admit reading and a handful of other books I did not write about for one reason or another, but this really is the reading year in review. Pleased with the outcome of this experiment in terms of what I learned from keeping a reading log, I feel the $6.74 in revenue generated by this site in 12 months is just icing on the cake.

Happy New Year! Thanks for reading.

Need something reviewed on an obscure (semi) literary blog?

I just received a box of free books from Simon and Schuster publicist extraordinaire, Andrea Bussell. This website is finally paying off! Please show your appreciation by checking out the excellent and well-rounded list on Simon and Schuster's website and keep visiting Dragon's library to get the short, sweet firsthand dirt on the following Simon and Schuster titles:

Beware of God
Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
Deadly Feasts
Disobedience
No More Bull
Running for the Hills

In unrelated news, why are ampersands verboten on blogspot?