 Okay, welcome back everybody. It is the top of the hour. We are trying something new this year. We are doing a lightning round We have five ten minute presentations in the next fifty minutes So we are going to start here with reaching new readers through writing with Amy Marshall the director of the Craig Public Library in Alaska Amy you got ten minutes off you go Okay Island as I told the book in here on Facebook. I've had copies are on ready Craig is Very remote to give you an idea how remote we're four hours from the nearest Walmart by Perry So this is a this is a place. It's very hard to get to You may have heard of us And just not known it if you know Coatesy from Axman if you have watched Alaska's Bigfoot Island on eminent planet God help us My library is well comparatively in the state huge when you look at tribal libraries, but very small I have fourteen hundred square feet, so it's not a big place. It is a place for the entire Island we have fourteen hundred people of trade On the island the very diverse population you have fish immune that come in in the summer We have a huge native population. You have to get and we have hi to we have And The island population can grow up to about 14,000 So that kind of gives you an idea of where I'm coming from as far as Doing these programs one of the most discouraging quotes ever written for writers is this guy Joseph Epstein I'm sorry, dude. I've never heard of you until I heard this quote. I know that you're a writer I know you get 14 books, but if you're going to do anything to just squash anybody's creativity You can't be a primary because I think writing at a basic level is Encouraging creativity and libraries can have a big part of that. I mean, we're not just a place where books hang out We need to be a place where people hang out with people feel like they're going to create something So I call it fables of creativity and I think that's a that's a good deal And Ray Bradbury, that's my favorite Yeah, can we have you just speak up just a little more we're getting a little sound issues. Oh, sorry, okay There you go. Thank you. Okay, national novel writing month. It's free and nano limo or they don't know if you guys are familiar with this They do something called come right in with libraries and coffee shops. They started it in 2009 75 libraries participated that number has grown exponentially in 2012 350,000 participants in over 500 volunteers ran on rhino in 90 countries So this is a huge deal and there's a lot of support. It's a free program and that It's not going to take a lot on your part to get this running To give you an idea because somebody may come in and go wow 50,000 words in a month. What are you nuts? Well, that's 1667 words today and If you look at 50,000 word books great Gatsby bravely world catcher in the ride, you know all these right here So, you know, it's something that you set yourself up for Kids program. Now, this is not an arymo. This is a different program. They'd be partnered with an arymo I use this for my elementary school kids Student publishing comm. It's free. What we did was a you're the author at your library program I had kids from kindergarten through to grade sign up for this thing. We wrote in the library They wrote at school. I went and talked to the teachers and the parents this k1 class Kerry Bennett's K1 class wrote a book together. It's called the gingerbread kid. It's set on Prince of Wales Island It's absolutely hysterical and cute and the kids did all the illustrations What you do is you can pile these things you send them in to student publishing comm they send you a book and Once again, it's free. So it's within your it's within your budget I mean it takes a little bit of time commitment and this is my absolute favorite because you don't think preschoolers and toddlers could write They can't I found this book the real champion is staying away in this story The little girl wants to stay awake so she tells each of her stuffed animals a story and this is how she stays Wait, so the kids were just in problem and I had these very weird huge book shaped things from that somebody donated from Oriental Trading Company And I've broke these out. I said you guys think you can tell a story Well, my toddlers in preschoolers are grabbing every adult in the library and sitting down with them and telling the story of the adults are writing down the young writers program 13 and above We had five in 2010 two of them reached the 50,000 Goal this kind of gives you a breakdown of what you need of what you need to do beforehand Advertise go into the schools talk to them There's a free kit that you can get from the anorimus Chris and Gotti is the young writers program director there This is a screenshot of their young writers program website It's wonderful because the kids could go in they make their own log and look at connect with writers all over the world And there are forms that they can chat with writers all over the world And what we found at the library is if we give them space and encouragement and time It's amazing what they come up with in the summer I have a young poet society and the young writers build they come in we write poetry We write and this all happens before the library opens on a Monday morning So it's a time commitment on my part, which I'm totally into it's absolutely great and They come in and we get together and you write the manual manual classic program basically 17 and above This is the screenshot for the come right in the stuff that they will if they will send you They're an incredibly approachable group and if you have any questions you can call them on the phone You can email them they get back to me really really quickly and just like the young writers program There are forms there that folks go and they register they can talk to anybody, you know all over the world talk about writing Most important part it's a writing group not a reading group And that's something that you'll find when you get this started because people are well I write a rowing and I don't want to be I don't want to be around everybody that I'm writing and People are going to be reading my stuff and that's not necessarily what happens in these groups Resources this is great Even if you don't do a writing group if you ever have writer flock, it's called writer die You can set it to different modes If you put it to electric shock and evil if you hesitate more than five seconds It will go backwards and start taking away your words So it's in your best interest to keep writing and I've used this with the young writers and it's been a lot of fun More resources story is I write like which is a lot of fun You take something that we've written when you cut and you paste it into this screen and it tells you if you write like Robert Lewis Stevenson and I do that word or Douglas Adams The end of all things even in the young writers program There's a certificate at the end and who doesn't like a certificate with the name and the title of the book So it's just kind of something fun that you get at the end of the That you get at the end of the program at the end of November Afterwards they partner with create space if you take your book and You can go through the edits until the end of June put it on create space They will send you five copies of your book and I'll tell you something with these young writers and the older writers alike There's nothing like holding your book in your hands. So this is and this is free This is free for them once they sign up for for them right now. The book doctors are two literary agents out of New Jersey who are absolutely fabulous. They wrote a book called the essential guide to About everything you wanted to know to get your book published and they do something around the country called picture to lose And what they're doing is they realize that publishing houses need new blood need offers and that's their mission other programs offer offer through the office of letters and white that's the parent Organization of them I know is kept and I know coming up in April and then again in June It's kind of like that I know right they have a different website for it It's and it's a whole lot of fun to see this is mine because this is how do you Who I am over there? You can take it further and we did in August of 2012. We did the Alaska statewide picture can be there and the week of literary Digrat from IMLS we use money from the state and the Alaska owl project Is our broadband initiative that also got video conferencing to 104 libraries in the state and We did pitch a polluza from the Craig library with the book doctors and the principles of Lannarino The Vanarino guys did writing Workshops over this thing we had libraries all over the state look up and then the book doctors did three picture Polluses we have three winners. We've had three book contracts come out of it It is a great way to get exposure for Alaska writers because it's really hard to get exposure as a writer in Alaska Just because you're so far away from everything But if you know if you want to contact me and you want me to put you in contact with the book doctors It could to believe it is a lot of fun to have at your library There's some web resources Just kind of a break down so you would have this slide so you'd be able to get a hold of These people and if you have questions just ask this is me everywhere and I email our Library website me on Twitter the library on Twitter beyond Facebook I'm happy. I have the library gene. So I'm pathologically All right All right, thanks Amy. That was absolutely wonderful and you start right to ten minutes. So congratulations for that