Gaiman Collaborates with Twitter for an Audiobook First

[UPDATE 2009/12/23: View a video of Katherine Kellgren narrating the audiobook.] Continuing with the Gaiman news, beginning at noon on Tuesday, October 13, BBC Audiobooks America started an intriguing experiment: Creating a book and audiobook via twitter. It started with one tweet and 140 characters from Neil Gaiman:

@neilhimself: Sam was brushing her hair when the girl in the mirror put down the hairbrush, smiled & said, “We don’t love you anymore.”

From there, followers of the hashtag on twitter could read along and contribute their own 140 character sentences to the story. What emerged was a story about a young girl who made a deal with the dark side to save a loved one, and who is thrown into a world she doesn’t understand to try and right her mistake. The work, titled (via an online vote) Hearts, Keys, and Puppetry, was turned into an audiobook narrated by frequent Recorded Books narrator Katherine Kellgren and is now available for download.

The work is the first of its kind and definitely worth a listen. It’s very interesting to see the direction the work took. Though Gaiman’s first sentence could have led in multiple directions, the story clearly uses tropes from fantasy and fairy tale genres. It would be interesting to try this experiment again to see other directions the multiple authors could lead the story into.

This is also an experiment that you could easily do in your classroom. Though many of you may have already done group writing projects, writing in such short segments and then recording the audio afterward adds another dimension—writers would have to pay closer attention to flow, voice, tone, and how their phrasing will sound when read aloud. If anyone takes up this project in their classroom, let us know—we’d love to hear the results!

Download from BBC Audiobooks America here.
Download via iTunes podcast here.

YA Authors Team Up for read.gov

A group of best-selling teen authors, headed up by Jon Scieszka, is teaming up to create a story for read.gov. Scieszka will be joined by authors and illustrators M.T. Anderson, Natalie Babbitt, Calef Brown, Susan Cooper, Kate Di Camillo, Nikki Grimes, Shannon Hale, Daniel Handler aka Lemony Snicket, Steven Kellogg, Gregory Maguire, Megan McDonald, Patricia and Fredrick McKissack, Linda Sue Park, Katherine Paterson, James Ransome, and Chris Van Dusen—many authors whose books Recorded Books carries on audio. The team will complete The Exquisite Corpse Adventure and premiere it at the Library of Congress’ National Book Festival on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009. No word on whether or not the story will be an actual exquisite corpse, but it may be a good time to introduce the artistic method to your students anyway.

Exquisite Corpse

What is an “exquisite corpse”, you ask? Well, it’s not nearly as frightening as it sounds. An exquisite corpse is a group-effort piece of art, in this case a story. The catch is that generally only a piece of the story of passed on to the next person to see it as they create their part. We don’t know the precise method for this group’s version (there are many methods to this madness), but often the next writer in a work will only be given the last sentence or last paragraph from the previous writer, so they know nothing of the activity or characters that came before in the book. This, of course, can make for quite an interesting story or piece of art, and is a great way to get your students involved in and thinking about the creative process. Creating these works was once a popular parlor game, and the method supposedly got its name from one of the first odd results of the game.

Have your students read The Exquisite Corpse Adventure as it unfolds, and then complete their own exquisite corpse. There are many different ways your students could get creative in small groups to create one:

• Written word: story or poem (see tips here for poems)
• Music: lyrics or instrumental
• Traditional Art: drawing or painting (see instructions here)
• Photography

See lots of examples of drawing and photography versions searching for “exquisitecorpse” on flickr (of course, make sure you scan the search first to make sure images are appropriate). More examples can be found here and some very artistic ones are available here and here.

Room for Inspiration

Where does creative genius take place? What does a writer’s room look like? I stumbled across a mention of this video on the wonderful Fuse #8 blog from School Library Journal. After a bit more research I found this extension of the video from the Guardian (UK). I was then reminded of a blog I have bookmarked and check occasionally – On My Desk focuses more on artists and designers, but it’s still a great insight into the creative mind.

Here’s my desk (click for larger images)! Lots of turtles, since I graduated from the University of Maryland, and lots of plants. Also a few reminders of a place I’d almost always rather be – the beach!

And here’s the desk of Jean Stephens, also from the schools department here. I had to step back a bit to get all of her impressive plant into the frame!

So what does your desk look like? Post a pic as a comment! It might be a fun and revealing exercise to ask students to do the same for their desks or bedrooms.