Book Spotlght: Defying Mars by Cidney Swanson (Saving Mars Series, Book 2)

Greetings and salutations, Beardies!

Last summer, I had the honor of being a first reader of our friend Cidney Swanson’s Saving Mars. It was one of my favorite books of the year, and the reviewers over at Kirkus agreed with me, naming it one of the best books of 2012. In early December, Cidney asked me to be a first reader again, this time for the second book in the series, Defying Mars. I immediately said, "Yes!" Though I loved the book, I wanted to wait until I had time to do it justice before featuring it in a Book Spotlight, and that, unfortunately, took months. This post has been a long time coming, so let’s get to it!

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The Skillful Quill: That Dastardly Comma

Hello Fellow Writers!

Today’s topic: the dreaded comma. I’m beginning with this as my first post because I find, as a teacher anyway, that commas seem to mystify many. Writers tend to either have comma-phobia (don’t know if there’s a real term) and avoid them almost completely—or they have a serious romantic relationship with commas, and put them, everywhere, there’s a possibility, they might, be able to go. (FYI: grammar check doesn’t think that sentence has any errors…)

Frankly, I don’t think teachers really discuss the purpose of punctuation—including the comma. We don’t use punctuation when we speak, but when we write, we can’t use inflections, pauses, emphases, drama. We’re stuck with what written language can do, thus the need for punctuation. Punctuation is our friend, there to help our text make sense and be clear.

And the comma? It has one use: to separate for clarity. That’s it. Find a sentence with a comma anywhere (well, anywhere that’s using it correctly) and you’ll see it do its work.

And there are only four kinds of texts that need separation: items in a list, complete sentences joined with a conjunction, “conventions” like city and state or name and title, and “what you can take out” (introductory phrases and appositives).

Yep, that’s it. Just four. Some examples may help make this more clear.

Curiouser & Curiouser: Twentyish Questions with the Executive Editor — Part One

Happy weekend, Beardies!

I enjoy many things about my position here at The Bearded Scribe:  Reading, writing, working with our fabulous Fellowship of Scribes...the list goes on.  Perhaps my favorite thing, though, is that in the past year, I've discovered that Joshua absolutely cannot say no to me.  No matter what harebrained scheme I come up with, he's game.  Tonight's post stems from one of my early schemes—I wanted to interview the interviewer.  Joshua always interviews new members of the Fellowship; I wanted to turn the tables on him.  It took months for him to grant this request, but eventually he did.

In doing the interview, though, I discovered anew that Joshua is a master storyteller, and as such, could write an entire post on each of the twenty(ish) questions I sent him.  And so, interviewing the interviewer evolved into a forthcoming special feature for the blog...but more on that later.  For now, the first of many parts of Twenty Questions with the Executive Editor.

Elizabeth: You are a proud son of Maine, but I met you at a small college in the middle of Michigan, where you’d never set foot before our first day. How did that happen?