Shift Alt Story – how we tell stories online

Whether it’s ebooks, gaming or graphic novels, we’ve all encountered new forms of storytelling.

The Centre for Youth Literature’s new online course, Shift Alt Story explores how stories have changed (and stayed the same) as they’ve collided with new media in all its forms.

Shift Alt Story is a four week online course, delivered in a similar way to the Victorian Personal Learning Network (VicPLN). Each week participants explore different aspects of story and how they work and change in different online platforms. With a weekly toolkit of handy web tools, professional resources and guest speakers, Shift Alt Story connects your passion for reading to the exciting new world of digital storytelling and transmedia.

Here’s a excerpt from the first unit of the course.

Sometimes it can feel like storytelling and publishing are changing at break-neck speed: we wanted to create a safe space where we could explore these changes together, to play and discuss the challenges and possibilities of digital storytelling with teenagers and children. This course will be a shared experience. We know that young people are playing in this space, and so can we. It’s an opportunity for teachers, librarians, creators and young readers to learn from each other in a new environment.

The course starts on the 1st September. For more information or to book your place in the course, visit the Shift Alt Story page on the State Library of Victoria’s website.

Reading Matters 2013

The schedule for Reading Matters 2013 is now available, boasting an impressive line up of emerging and established authors from across Australia and the world.

One of the themes explored this year is story told through different mediums with speakers including poet Tim Sinclair, games developer Paul Callaghan and American graphic novelist Raina Telgemeier.

The conference will also explore adults and teens within the YA context and gatekeeping – who decides what teens can, can’t and should read?

International guests include:

Libba Bray (UK), author of the Gemma Doyle trilogy and Going Bovine

Gayle Forman (US), author of If I stay and sequel, Where she went

Keith Gray (UK), author of Creepers.

To find out more about the program and how to book visit the State Library of Victoria website or contact the Centre for Youth Literature on 8664 7014 or email youthlit@slv.vic.gov.au.

Slightly addicted to fiction

Judi Jagger, the current Western Australian Children’s Book Council judge, has developed her own blog. It is a must read for anyone interested in children’s and YA literature. Judi explains how her blog came to be:

Slightly Addicted to Fiction was born on a wet Saturday afternoon in mid November. It has sprung from the Fiction Focus blog that I started while working in Western Australia’s CMIS as joint editor of the print journal Fiction Focus. When I moved away from the city, the late and much-missed Jill Midolo arranged for me to maintain the blog from home; a dream job.

Although I always knew it was too good to last, the sudden loss of funding for the FF blog still came as a shock. One minute I was maintaining a blog that had secured a global readership, the next minute I wasn’t.

The blog itself hadn’t ceased, just my role. The many comments of support that flowed in were both affirming and humbling.

For a day or two, I did nothing. Then I put my toe in the Twitter water and hastily withdrew. Too ephemeral. Tweeting the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards was fine, but I longed to set them in the context of other awards on the blogging record. So an impulsive decision on that wet Saturday afternoon saw me set up my own forum. Once a blogger…

On Slightly Addicted to Fiction, I will continue what had been a successful formula: news about literature-related matters. I will continue the weekly links, expanding them into a broader context to encompass news about literary and children’s and Young Adult fiction.

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I have also ventured back on to Twitter with a new identity (@readingjay) and am loving the cleverness of paper.li that publishes a daily newspaper http://paper.li/readingjay that magically selects interesting posts from the people I follow. Each day it produces an attractive publication that regularly surprises me with its useful content. Blogging and Twitter: the ideal couple.

Readership of Slightly Addicted to Fiction is building slowly but it is something I feel compelled to do, with or without a large audience.

My former CMIS colleagues have a heavy workload and are doing a great job maintaining the first blog. I see the two as complementary and together will provide a useful resource for schools to keep their finger on the pulse of the literary world.

What was a job has become a hobby, but remains my passion. Slightly addicted to fiction – it’s an understatement.

Congratulations to Judi on her past and present contribution to Australian and global children’s and YA literature. And may we all be “slightly addicted to fiction”!

Library dragon!

St Michael’s Grammar School teacher librarian Sally Bray developed a very good fiction blog and has kindly agreed to share her blogging journey with readers of Bright Ideas.

I originally began this blog as part of a Professional Development course looking at e-learning tools and web 2.0 in education. After some playing and making inane posts that even I wasn’t interested in, and some leaving it alone to fester in the back of my mind, I decided to use the blog to track and share my reading of Children’s and Young adult fiction (with the occasional adult book thrown in, just to prove I could still read adult stuff)!

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Over my years as a Teacher Librarian, I found my focus moving more and more to research and inquiry skills and ICT, with my reading of Children’s Literature falling by the wayside. I originally became a TL because of my love of literature, and I wanted to recapture some of that love, passion and sheer enjoyment of reading. Hence the blog.

I have spent numerous hours trawling through other people’s blogs, not leaving comments but voraciously taking their recommendations, thoughts and ideas and following up on them. Now I am giving some of that back! Many of the books I have read I have found through other Blogs and Twitter (it all depends on who you follow)!

I have always been a fantasy buff and dragon fiend, so now I have turned to similar areas of Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Paranormal and urban fantasy and romance seem to hold sway on my blog – with lots of vampire and werewolf action! Even my adult reading has taken on a decidedly fanged appearance… it has all come in very useful now. I have even used my blog as an example when showing students how to (or how not to) write blog posts and when leading discussion about different books  and forms of literature.

I don’t post as often as I should, but I do post the majority of my reading, often in batches! Please visit and enjoy! Oh – and leave a comment or two – I sometimes feel I am blogging in a void (except for my cluster map which shows a healthy amount of activity – Thank Goodness)!

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Thanks for sharing your fantastic work Sally. Your blog is bright and visually attractive and is joining my list of must-read blogs!

KidLitosphere Central

KidLitosphere Central: the society of bloggers in children’s and young adult literature is a place for anyone interested in children’s and young adult literature to meet and share their enthusiasm. The website explains it all beautifully:

KidLitosphere Central strives to provide a passage to the wonderful variety of resources available from the society of bloggers in children’s and young adult literature.

Some of the best books being published today are children’s and young adult titles, well-written and engaging books that capture the imagination. Many of us can enjoy them as adults, but more importantly, can pass along our appreciation for books to the next generation by helping parents, teachers, librarians and others to find wonderful books, promote lifelong reading, and present literacy ideas.

The “KidLitosphere” is a community of reviewers, librarians, teachers, authors, illustrators, publishers, parents, and other book enthusiasts who blog about children’s and young adult literature. In writing about books for children and teens, we’ve connected with others who share our love of books. With this website, we hope to spread the wealth of our reading and writing experience more broadly.

What started as individuals blogging independently about children’s and young adult books became a collective of like-minded people. While maintaining our own sites and unique perspectives, shared activities made us a thriving community. Now — with weekly celebrations of poetry and nonfiction, an online literary journal, a shared database of book reviews, discussion groups, contests, social networks, an annual conference, and our own book awards — we’ve become a society.

This thing that Melissa Wiley dubbed the “KidLitosphere” has become a valuable resource that celebrates fiction and nonfiction, poetry and prose, authors and illustrators, writing and reading. Bloggers cover everything from picture books to young adult titles, writing process to publishing success, personal news to national events.

KidLitosphere Central strives to provide an avenue to good books and useful literary resources; to support authors and publishers by connecting them with readers and book reviewers; and to continue the growth of the society of bloggers in children’s and young adult literature.

Welcome to our world.

Some of the information hasn’t been updated in a while, but the real gem of the site is the link to members. Here you’ll find links to all of the blogs written by members and categorised into:

There is no need to register as all links are freely available. If you wish to add your blog to the KidLitosphere Central community, drop them a link at KidLitosphere@gmail.com

A really useful site for anyone interested in books for children or young adults.