Author Karuna Riazi has been a fan of Madeleine L’Engle since she was an 8-year-old reading A Wrinkle in Time. That love for Wrinkle and its protagonist, Meg Murry, brings Karuna to the first Walking on Water Conference this fall (yay!). She’s part of the stellar panel of We Need Diverse Books authors who’ll be […]
This week, we’re excited to get to know Sayantani DasGupta, a panelist on the We Need Diverse Books panel, which will be featured at the Walking on Water Conference this November. Writers associated with We Need Diverse Books will talk about “The New Generation of Meg Murrys – What Fantasy & Speculative Fiction Inspire,” and will […]
Dear Ones, We’re happy to help announce and promote BREAK OUT: a movement to (re)integrate incarcerated writers into literary community, an effort from The Poetry Project and the PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Program. Throughout the month of September, over two dozen local reading series in New York City—and across the country—will feature the […]
This November’s Madeleine L’Engle event — the inaugural Walking on Water Conference — won’t merely a retrospective and celebration of Madeleine. Instead, organizers have a vision that the conference would also look ahead, amplifying and empowering artists and writers for a new generation. Enter We Need Diverse Books, a grassroots nonprofit of children’s book lovers who […]
By Molly Cantrell-Kraig I blame Charlton Heston. When I was a little kid, the yearly screening of “The Ten Commandments” was anticipated in our household for a number of reasons. The first of which was its role as a rite of passage to, if not adulthood, at least big kid status, proved through the ability […]
Madeleine said that artists, like children, are good believers. She also denied that writing for children was any different from writing for grownups (a perspective that came up recently during Children’s Book Week). The techniques of fiction are the techniques of fiction. They hold as true for Beatrix Potter as they do for Fyodor Dostoyevsky. […]
When I saw A Wrinkle in Time on stage this spring, I was blown away by the ability of the performers and director to keep the truth of the story while staying true to their medium. I constantly wondered, though: How on earth did they adapt this book so well? We’re thrilled to have a […]
By Judith Lindbergh “Are you sure you want to know the future?” Madeleine asked in all seriousness and waited for my response. She sat up in her four-poster bed, draped in luxuriant covers, and I sat at the edge. She was remarkably generous, inviting so many of her students into her home, nurturing and guiding […]
Dear Ones, Katherine Paterson and Audrey Assad! Are! Coming! And — you’re invited! I needed to shout that news across the internet. This fall’s first Madeleine L’Engle “Walking on Water” Conference will feature these two creative minds in big ways. (!!) First, let’s talk music: Award-winning singer-songwriter Audrey Assad will be Musician-in-Residence at the conference! […]
By RuthAnn Deveney Recently, I read Anne Bogel‘s upcoming release, I’d Rather Be Reading, which is a lovely collection of bookish essays. In the piece entitled, “A Reader’s Coming of Age,” Anne talks about the transition in her early twenties, when she had to go from having books chosen for her to needing to choose her own […]