What's the Rumpus? has moved

Dear Constant Reader,

In an effort to better serve you, What's the Rumpus? has combined forces with our sister blog (or, perhaps better said, our "wife blog") Hip to Be Square. The new, improved, Frankenblog is entitled Gratz Industries, and will focus on the collective creative pursuits of me, my wife Wendi, and our daughter Jo.

Come over and see what we're cooking! Those of you who subscribe to this blog's feed will want to subscribe instead to Gratz Industries, and delete this blog from your reader, as it will no longer be updated.

See you on the other side!

More love from The Washington Post

That venerable bastion of journalism The Washington Post, home of Woodward and Bernstein (or Kornheiser and Wilbon, if you prefer) has just named Samurai Shortstop one of its 2006 Top Ten Novels for Children! Here's what reviewer Elizabeth Ward had to say:

Samurai Shortstop, by Alan Gratz (Dial, $15.99; ages 12-up). In an elite Tokyo boarding school at the turn of the 20th century, a samurai's son tries to square his father's warrior code with the brash new game of "beseboru." Sad, bloody, but funny, too.

Thanks Elizabeth, and thanks Washington Post! I think I need to get a subscription.

Something Rotten cover - NOT!

Well, I got ahead of myself and posted the initial artwork for the cover of Something Rotten, my Shakespeare/Raymond Chandler mash-up, but I'm not really allowed to post it until the artwork is final and I have the okay from Penguin! Watch this space for the final artwork, which I'll post again when I can!

Samurai Shortstop Audio On Sale!

The Samurai Shortstop audio book is now on sale! I listened to the whole thing (seven and a half hours!) in the car on the way to and from the Tennessee Reading Association Conference in Nashville recently, and I found myself laughing happily at hearing it read so well. It's a really great production, read marvelously well by a stage actor from LA named Arthur Morey.

Listening Library has made a clip available on their web site, which you can hear here by clicking the play button on the widget below. Enjoy!

Samurai Shortstop nominated for a Cybils Award

I just learned last week that Samurai Shortstop has been nominated for the newly minted Cybils Award. What's a Cybils Award, you ask? Here's what their own press release had to say:

Like all revolutions, this one started small, with a single post on a blog devoted to children's literature. The Newbery Medals seemed too elitist and the Quills, well, not enough so. Was there a middle ground, an annual award that would recognize both a book's merits and popularity?

The answer: invent one! Within hours, this meme had circulated among some of the biggest bloggers in the burgeoning kidlitosphere, the cozy corner of the Web where children's books are given the same regard as their grown-up counterparts.

Within days, the new awards had a name and a website: The Cybils, a loose acronym for Children's and YA Bloggers' Literary Awards, at www.cybils.com. Nominations quickly opened in eight categories, from picture books up to Young Adult fiction and even graphic novels. In keeping with the democratic and unpredictable nature of the blogosphere, anybody can nominate a book, so long as it was published in 2006 in English.

I think this is a great idea, and I'm honored to have been nominated by someone in the blogosphere. I hope the Cybils continue to become an annually recognized award!

The gift that keeps on giving until you finish reading it

My friend Greg Bunch over at The Fabricationist blog sends this picture of his nephew Taylor, getting the birthday gift every boy hopes for - Samurai Shortstop! Enjoy, Taylor. I'm sure next year you'll get the Pirates of the Caribbean playset you really wanted.

Have book, will travel

I had a student from one of my previous school visits e-mail me today to ask how many school and bookstore events I've done so far for Samurai Shortstop. I thought it was a great question. Here's the breakdown:

12 school visits
9 book store signings
6 festival appearances
5 convention and trade show appearances
1 library talk
1 minor league ballpark first pitch and book signing

Here's a list of all the places I've been so far this year, in order of appearance:

Lexington Catholic High School
Bluegrass Festival of Books
Holcomb Bridge Middle School
Carpe Librum Booksellers
Knoxville Festival of Reading
Memphis Redbirds
Square Books, Jr.
Little Shop of Stories
North Point Barnes & Noble
Cold Water Books
Haywood County Book Mania
Spellbound Children's Books
Decatur Book Festival
DragonCon
Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance
Palmer Trinity School
Books and Books
West Palm Beach Public Library
Sebastian River Middle School
Davis-Kidd Nashville
SCBWI Midsouth Annual Conference
Georgia Council of Media Organizations
West Cobb Barnes & Noble
JapanFest
Porter Ridge Middle School
Knoxville Writers Guild
Farragut Middle School
Pillow Academy
Oxford High School
Armorel High School
Blytheville High School
Gosnell High School
Southern Festival of Books
SCBWI Southern Breeze Fall Conference

I'm done for October, but I've got another two conferences and two more school visits lined up for November, and in December I'm doing a radio interview in Sandy Springs, Georgia, and speaking to the Atlanta Writers Club there later in the month. Unless I book anything more, I will have done 38 appearances for Samurai Shortstop since it hit the shelves on May 22, 2006.

And spring 2007 is already shaping up--I've got one school visit and one conference already booked, and I'm talking to another two schools about spring visits as well!

If you're looking for a published author to come and speak at your school, conference, library, ball park, rodeo, Halloween party, Woolly Worm Festival, or whatever, drop me a line. I'd love to add your event to my list!