e-Newsletter June 24, 2016

In This Issue
Winter Catalog 2016 Cover Debuts!
July 1 Deadline for Winter Catalog Advertisers
News from Our Bookstores
Bookworks in Albuquerque Hosts George RR Martin and Stephen King
Two "Bookworms" Offer Summer Must-Reads
Author Fernanda Santos Appears at MPIBA Bookstores
Front Street Jubilantly Sells Books from Kevin Bacon Marfa-Based Pilot
Tattered Cover Introduces "Anything Goes" Open Mic Night
13 General Book Club Questions for Any Kind of Discussion
Fall Discovery Show 2016 Preliminary Schedule










Laura Ayrey Burnett
Executive Director
MPIBA

435.649.6079 office

435.649.6105 fax  

 


Association Information
Send publisher catalogs, author information,  
ARCs, and publicity  
to Laura:

3278 Big Spruce Way  
Park City, UT 84098

 

  

 

 




Kathy Keel
Project Manager
MPIBA
970.484.3939
970.484.0037 fax
800.752.0249 toll-free


Administration/Projects
Send project-related
questions (Fall Discovery Show, Winter Catalog, Reading the West Book Awards, Website)
plus bills, invoices,
and payments to:


MPIBA Administration
c/o Kathy Keel
208 E. Lincoln Avenue

Fort Collins, CO 80524

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





Mark Your Calendar!

Fall Discovery Show (Trade Show) 2016
October 6-8, 2016
The Renaissance
Denver Hotel
Winter Catalog 2016 Cover Debuts!
 
From WordSong, an imprint of Highlights Press/Boyds Mills Press, the only children's imprint in the country dedicated to poetry.

WordSong titles capture the vibrant, unexpected, and emotional connections between text and young readers. Some of the well-known poets who publish under the WordSong imprint include Nikki Grimes, J. Patrick Lewis, Jane Yolen, Marilyn Nelson, and Marilyn Singer.

Art throughout the upcoming Winter Catalog and other MPIBA publications is used with the artist's permission: GRUMBLES FROM THE TOWN. Copyright ©2016 by Angela Matteson. All rights reserved. Used with permission from WordSong, an imprint of Highlights Press/Boyds Mills Press.

GRUMBLES FROM THE TOWN: Mother-Goose Voices with a Twist.

Poets Jane Yolen and Rebecca Kai Dotlich take fourteen Mother-Goose rhymes that have been enjoyed by generations of children and twist them in ways sure to delight modern kids. These poem pairs feature wildly different voices and perspectives, and Angela Matteson's stunning illustrations add further hilarious details.

The poems have strong rhythm and rhyme, making this a terrific read-aloud. This lavish volume includes the original Mother Goose rhymes, endnotes that briefly describe their history, and an introduction that invites readers to imagine their own poems from unusual perspectives and "create magic."

WordSong ...
Hardcover $17.95
The deadline for the online-only Advertiser Contract is July 1, so don't miss out on the opportunity to advertise in this year's Winter Catalog, reaching 307,000 consumers, 1,600 booksellers, and with 33,000 website visits and 3,838 Facebook hits.

 

News from Our Bookstores
Bookworks in Albuquerque
Hosts George RR Martin
and Stephen King

Amanda Sutton, Danielle Foster, and Wyatt Wegryzn from Bookworks introduce the celebrities! Watch the full video here.
Two "Bookworms" Offer
Must-Reads For Summer 2016 

Cathy Langer from Tattered Cover Book Store
and Nicole Magistro from The Bookworm of Edwards
MPIBA Booksellers Cathy Langer and Nicole Magistro Featured on Colorado Public Radio!

If you're looking for some good summer reading, we have some ideas. Cathy Langer, buyer for the Tattered Cover Bookstores in metro Denver, and Nicole Magistro of The Bookworm of Edwards, in the Vail Valley, give their picks for great books from Western authors or with Western themes.  

Langer and Magistro spoke with Colorado Matters host Ryan Warner. 

Tattered Cover's Cathy Langer recommends:
The Bookworm's Nicole Magistro recommends:

Spring Meeting Author
Fernanda Santos Appears
at MPIBA Bookstores 

Author Fernanda Santos
Author Fernanda Santos appeared at Collected Works Bookstore and Cafe in Santa Fe, New Mexico (pictured above) on June 16, and at Bookworks in Albuquerque on June 17.

Fernanda's book THE FIRE LINE: The Story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots and One of the Deadliest Days in American Firefighting (Macmillan/Flatiron Books), introduced at MPIBA's 2016 Spring Meeting in Boulder, Colorado, has been "catching fire" in our region!

Congratulations to these bookstores and this wonderful author.

Kevin Bacon and Kathryn Hahn
Film Pilot in Marfa, and Front Street Jubilantly Sells the Books 
            
Six degrees of Kevin Bacon is about to hit closer to home as the actor will star in a television pilot to be filmed in Marfa in the coming weeks.

Pre-production is currently underway for Emmy-winning director Jill Soloway's new TV project based on the Chris Kraus novel, I LOVE DICK (The MIT Press/Semiotext(e) ). The novel tells the story of a protagonist, also named Chris, and her obsession -- shared through letters -- with a well-known theorist named Dick. As Chris navigates through her marriage to Sylvère, her work, and Dick, the 1997 novel is what poet Eileen Myles writes in the foreword as a "remarkable study in female abjection."

The book I LOVE DICK is originally based in an East Coast university town, but Jill Soloway and writer Sarah Gubbins started to feel like they've seen a setting like this before. Instead, the show will follow the married couple to Marfa. Soloway was introduced to this part of the state by her partner Eileen Myles, who is a part-time Marfa resident, a former Lannan Foundation writer-in-residence, and New Yorker.

Soloway said she thinks Marfa is an amazing place for the show's setting. With the everyday interaction between the Border Patrol, ranchers, and artists, she said this creates something that will be funny, creative, and human with this gigantic backdrop of Texas.
 
[AND Front Street Books, in Alpine, Texas, will sell the books and reap the benefits of a pilot filming right down the road.]

 
Tattered Cover Introduces "Anything Goes" Open Mic Night 
Think you've got star potential?
Now's your moment to shine! 

Tattered Cover is having its first-ever "Anything Goes" open mic this Friday, June 24, 2016, at the Colfax store. Read poetry, sing, dance, perform a monologue! It's all okay! 

Sign-up starts at 6:30pmand the show begins at 7:00pm. We can't wait to see what you can do!

 

13 General Book Club Questions For Any Kind Of Discussion
The perfect book club is made up of three key things: a great reading selection, yummy snacks, and a lively discussion.

The first two things are easy to accomplish - just read anything by Gillian Flynn and have a good variety of cheese available - but getting a good dialogue going may be harder than you think, which is why you need a list of general book club questions that will work for any discussion. When the conversation starts to lull, these questions can bring it back to life.

Book clubs are often seen as simple social get-together, a challenging way to read more books, or an excuse to drink wine on a weeknight (as if you needed one, right?), but they're so much more than that. Sure, book clubs are a great way to meet new friends, get together with old ones, and up your monthly reading quota, but they're also a place where book-lovers can come together and discuss, dissect, and disagree over every little detail of a book. They're a space meant for lively arguments over plot twists, character flaws, and alternative endings. They're like your high school English class, only this time, you read and actually liked the book your talking about, which makes the whole thing much more fun.

While the concept of open book discussion at your book club is easy to grasp, it is a little harder to practice. Some members may be shy, others might have a hard time openly disagreeing, and you just might not know where to begin. Luckily, I do.

For the next time you get your bookish gang together, here are 13 general book club questions that will work for any book.

1. "What was your initial reaction to the book? Did it hook you immediately, or take some time to get into?"
Before diving into the heavier plot points or contesting the ending, start your book club discussion off at the beginning of the book by finding out everyone's first impression. It will give you a jumping-off point to discuss what about the selection kept you turning the pages, and what made it difficult to get through, all information that will help you pick an even better book next time around.

2. "Do you think the story was plot-based or character driven?"
Another general question that will get people thinking about the book as a whole, discussing whether the book is all about the characters or all about the plot will help frame the remainder of your conversation. From here, you can either dive into a deeper discussion of character flaws or move on to plot holes, depending on where your group lands.

3. "What was your favorite quote/passage?"
One of my favorite part of discussing books is finding out which parts of the book stuck out to other people, especially in terms of quotations. Asking each member in your club to read their favorite part out loud will not only give you a chance to hear the story again, but it also gives you an opportunity to learn more about the members of your book club, and perhaps interpret a scene from the book in a whole new way.

4. "What made the setting unique or important?
Could the story have taken place anywhere?"
In many books, the setting is a significant part of the story, even acting as a character itself. Use this question to explore what made the setting of your reading selection so important, and how it affected the events of the story.

5. "Did you pick out any themes throughout the book?"
I know what you're thinking, this sounds too much like an essay question from your high school literature class, but in reality, it's the perfect open-ended question than can generate some great conversation.

6. Any "If/then" Questions
Use the "If... then..." model when it comes to formulating book-specific questions, like "If the protagonist chose her other love interest, how might the book have been different?" or "If So-and-So had lived, do you think the ending would have changed?" Your options are limitless.

7. "How credible/believable did you find the narrator to be? Did you feel like you got the 'true' story?"
Whenever you discuss a story from a book, its important to consider who told that story. Is it a narrator who you can trust and rely on, or do they have ulterior motives in the way they tell it? Unreliable narrators are among the most intriguing characters to discuss, so use this question as a starting point to really explore them.

8. "How did the characters change throughout the story? How did your opinion of them change?"
The best king of stories feature dynamic characters who change throughout the book. Ask your group about which characters from your reading selection grew and changed throughout the book, and who stayed the same. Follow up by trying to figure out what changes you liked, which you didn't, and which changes you were left waiting for, holding your breath.

9. "How did the structure of the book affect the story?"
Another question like the ones you used to dread in English class, talking about the actual structure of a book - the timeline, the viewpoints, the syntax - can be more revealing than you think.

10. "Which character did you relate to the most, and what was it about them that you connected with?"
A fun question that is sure to get a diverse list of answers, this is a good way to not only dive into your reading selection more, but an opportunity to learn about the members of your club.

11. "How did you feel about the ending? What did you like, what did you not like, and what do you wish had been different?"
A simple opinion-based question, asking how people feel about the ending is a great way to start healthy debates within your book club. Some people will like the ending and be satisfied by the way things wrapped up, but inevitably, someone will pipe up and share there displeasure. Buckle up, because that's when the good discussion really gets going.

12. "Did the book change your opinion or perspective about anything?
Do you feel different now than you did before you read it?"
As corny as it may sound, books do have the power to change lives and influence people. Have a discussion with your book club about the ways your reading selection has changed each of you. You might be surprised to hear how inspired, empowered, enraged, or even educated your friends are from a single reading experience.

13. "If the book were being adapted into a movie, who would you want to see play what parts?"
A popular question to end the discussion off with, talking about possible adaptations is always a fun game of make-believe. By discussing possible casting choices for a movie adaption, you can learn how others saw the characters in their minds versus how you created them in your own. It's a great question that is sure to turn into a lively debate.


Thanks to Maria's Bookshop in Durango, Colorado, for posting this informative article from Bustle.com

 

Fall Discovery Show 2016 Preliminary Schedule 
Sara Pennypacker, Jon Scieszka, and Judy Schachner
at the 2015 Children's Author & Illustrator Breakfast