I haven’t written anything in this space for a year, and I apologize. My mother used to say, “Life is too short to…” any number of things. I used to think that was a weird thing to say. I’m in my 70s now, however, and I realize how true it is. This past year has just flown by.
I have been reading more books than ever. I just haven’t taken the time to actually write a review of all the great books I’ve read. I have also been busy writing-that is my main focus, right? And submitting. Ugh. That trilogy? I still haven’t found an editor or agent to bite on the first book. Friendly feedback letters, go something like this, “I found the premise interesting but it’s not right for our line right now. Just because it wasn’t right for me doesn’t mean it won’t be exactly right for someone else. Good luck on your publishing journey.” Double ugh.
On a lighter note, on the advice of my granddaughters, I’ve been reading fun middle grade and young adult novels. The soon to be thirteen-year-old granddaughter is into YA. The younger one is into chapter books and soon to be middle grades. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and The Summer I Turned Pretty, both by Jenny Han, are the first books in two separate trilogies. Perfect beach reads. No worries though, I plan to get into heavier topics this school year and even review the occasional book a grown up might like.
In the meantime, I recently read an article in Publishers Weekly that is really disturbing. Google has launched a personalized Storybook app called Gemini. It offers “personalized stories with read-aloud narration as an option.” This chatbot is spitting out picture books of dubious quality. Among the typical AI problems are characters with extra limbs and mostly defaulting to white characters. But, as Sarah baker, executive of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators points out the app “gives neither credit nor compensation to the humans who made the work it trained on, which was essentially stolen.” A link to this article follows.
See you soon!
golowd 