Poetry by the Iguana, and Other Stories

Many people have unexpected gifts, and the Iguana surprised everyone by telling his view of the galaxy in poetry. Everyone but me, that is. I've always known he speaks in lyrics!

Hi! Zantippy Skiphop here! I tell the tales of my adventures in the galaxy with my friends! Iguana likes to stay in his Earth swamp, so his book got written while I was trapped in an extraterrestrial jail. Don't worry, I escaped, so we are all about to tell you lots more stories!
Love,
Zantippy

Saturday, December 15, 2012

26 Moments That Restored Our Faith in Humanity This Year




I bookmark things like this, for when awful things happen. You've probably been to this website before, they have lots of things like this. You can see it here: 26 Moments That Restored Our Faith in Humanity This Year


Good thoughts to all of you.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Mars Curiosity Rover May Have Found Something HUGE!

ok. Planet Earth's newest martian rover, Curiosity, may have found something "earthshaking" in a sample of martian dirt. The soil sampler in her chemistry lab is the instrument that has detected ... whatever it may be. And we're told we have to wait another month to be told. Here's my immediate, very short, article full of an awfully frustrating lack of information from Curiosity's science team!



by Active Astronomy Mars correspondent Zantippy, Florida, 20th November 2012


The Mars Curiosity rover has found something that her lead investigator, John Grotzinger, calls potentially “earthshaking”. He dangled this carrot while talking with Joe Palca of National Public Radio. 

The data is from a soil sample analyzed by ... [Read more]

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Halloween Short Stories: Contest and eBook!


Cover of the soon-to-be-available short story anthology, All Hallows Eve: Hear the Whispering Voices.



Hi, everybody! Halloween and short stories are two of my favorite things! At Sharon van Orman's blog, Always to the Unknown Friend, there are dozens of scary/creepy/otherworldly/touching stories that have been submitted to Sharon's Halloween flash fiction contest. This one is mine - Iguana at Halloween.

My story started outside of the Zantippy/Iguana universe, but it totally morphed into Iguana telling the story :D I love Iguana! He's one of the most peaceful souls I know, despite being a samurai warrior. I'm not sure how Iguana's style fits into the whole collection of stories, since most of them are horror or paranormal with pretty much NO happy endings! :D Well, maybe a couple, including one from last week, Unlucky, which became one of my favorites, about the journey of a Halloween pumpkin from pumpkin patch to jackolantern.

A lot of incredibly good writers have their stories in this contest. This is the fourth entry week, then next week the four winners will write another short story for the prize! (Oh, by the way - I'm so sorry I didn't mention this before - I know a lot of writers who would have loved to enter a story, and I did post about it on Facebook but forgot to tweet it! So I feel bad that some of you may be disappointed to not enter it this year - the next contest I find out about, I'll let you all know right away!)

Voting for this week starts tomorrow, Monday 10/22, at 9am CDT, 10am EST (those times are U.S.) and goes till midnight Wednesday night. Each entry is given a letter and number, and this week's entries are the ones beginning with "C", on the right-hand side of the page. To vote for a story, just leave a comment under that story. You can only vote one time, so please be sure to read as many of the "C" stories as you can before choosing the one you like the best!  :)

I hope you enjoy all these short stories! This has been so much fun and I've met some truly wonderful people. Again, here is the general link to the Halloween Flash Fiction contest. The list of entries are on the right. Oh, and - the person who wrote Unlucky is compiling most of the stories into a Halloween ebook anthology! I'll let you know when it's available!

Edited to say: I decided to tell you which story is mine so you don't need to go searching, like Speedy and his Mom had to do yesterday - but please read the other stories before voting, there are lots of wonderful Halloween tales in there! Thanks!!! :) Mine is #C7

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Still on the Planet!

Hi! It's been a while since I lasted posted, and I just wanted to tell you that hopefully I'll be posting again soon! I've had some trouble with migraines, and when I feel good, I've been scrambling to get stuff done around home, be with critters, write some articles, beta-read a friend's book, and work on my own fiction. Meanwhile you can see a few new articles at Active Astronomy, about the Mars rover, Curiosity, and at Astronomy Wise, which is a monthly zine. My articles at Astronomy Wise are more social-oriented than detailed science :) See you soon and thanks for dropping by!

Monday, August 27, 2012

Rover Report from Mars!

I've written an update on the rover Curiosity's third week at her new home, Gale Crater, Mars! Please be sure to visit the astronomy zine, Active Astronomy, to keep up with all that's going on at Mars, and really everywhere else in the universe!

The Data from Mars (and Bradbury Landing) Pours In...

by Active Astronomy writer Zantippy Skiphop, Florida, 27 August 2012


Curiosity has finished her prep work and is almost set for her Martian rovings! In the past week, Curiosity has analyzed rocks at two different spots, flexed her arm to get it ready for field geology in the desert, test drove her six wheels, shot neutrons into the ground, and gulped down Martian air.


 Curiosity's landing site has now been officially named Bradbury Landing by NASA after science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, who inspired so many Mars explorers...[Read more...]

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Win a Book and Help Rabbits!



Hi! The Bunny's Review, with Alchemy of Scrawl, has a Books for Bunnies event that goes through August 11, to raise money for the House Rabbit Society :) You can donate to the HRS, and if you do, they will send you a thank-you email for you to forward to Books for Bunnies to enter the drawing for a book. If you are an author of a print or ebook, you can donate a book for people to win! They already have over 100 books donated!



The Dumplins, Fawn and Grasshopper <3


Our family loves House Rabbit Society! It helps to teach people what it's like to be a house bunny, and how their humans can take care of them in the way bunnies need. Almost everything you're told in pet stores or have heard about bunny care is really wrong for rabbits and can make them sick or sad. House Rabbit Society really taught us when we adopted our first two rabbits what living with a bunny is like, so we were prepared (we thought :D !)!



April, tasting the new door mat :)


I bought a cage initially, because I thought that's what you do when you get a bunny, but the cage was pretty much left behind very quickly! We kept it around for the rabbits to hop into as a den, and after a while stored it away since the bunnies found plenty of other places in the house that were snug and safe and dark. That was 14 years ago, and since then we have had many bunnies as part of our family, almost all of whom lived to a long, happy age. Our oldest, Cricket, died at 11 years old, and we met a bunny who was 16! This is so much longer than most bunnies get, since most people are understandably naive when they get a rabbit. We sure were, and I am SO glad we had House Rabbit Society! They have a book on rabbit care which will tell you all about food, health, rabbit-trained vets, bunny-proofing the house, and also you can find out a lot on their web site.

So this is my request to please consider donating to House Rabbit Society! ALL donations go only to the HRS, and you can win a book from a variety of genres (see a partial list of books at Bea's Book Nook, link below). If I still can, I'm going to be donating my book. And if you want a bunny as part of your own family, House Rabbit Society can help you learn ways to adopt one, instead of going to a pet store - tons of bunnies need homes because like any other critter, they can be a handful!

Here are the links:





Bea's Book Nook (a good description of the House Rabbit Society and how they are so important to our bunnies!)


Thank you!!!

Love,

Zantippy  =:)

Here are a few pics of our rabbits:


Hefmeister Luvbug chewing on my textbooks.



Max being preened by Baby Duckworth.




Fawn helping herself to lettuce.




Fawn taking a nap. She earned it, chewing on the table.






Max as an old man. You can see his toy cat, Ursala, in the mirror. He always cuddled with her. Max was an unusual rabbit - he LOVED to be held and cuddled. Most rabbits love pats, but with their feet firmly on the ground! :D





Whoops not a rabbit.




April as a baby. We adopted her at 5 weeks (way too young - she was an orphan, and still nursing!).  She still loves to be kissed, as long as I don't pick her up (with April, she isn't scared, she just thinks it's undignified).


Remember to visit Books for Bunnies and House Rabbit Society! Thanks!

Monday, August 6, 2012

New Article on Our Martian Robot!

Last night was just fantastic! I'm so relieved and happy that our robot, Curiosity, is safely on Mars now. Here is my latest article on Active Astronomy, about the time right before and after the landing. :) It was a very good time :)


Photo credit: NASA/JPL
This is a picture of the deployed parachute - it was one of the first signals that let everyone know that the landing sequence of events was happening well! :)

Sunday, July 22, 2012

I'm Now Writing Space News for Active Astronomy!

Exciting news! I'm now writing Space News articles for Active Astronomy! So happy!!! My main focus will be astrobiology, the study of conditions that could allow life to exist on other planets or moons. Hopefully one day that term will include the actual study of extraterrestrial critters!



My first article is on this guy, Curiosity, the newest member of rovers exploring Mars. Curiosity will land on August 5, at 10:30pm U.S. Pacific Time. Curiosity carries the Mars Science Laboratory, and its primary mission is directed towards astrobiology. I'll be covering all the Curiosity news for Active Astronomy!

Please visit and let me know what your thoughts and feelings are about the exploration of our star system!

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Apply to be Part of the Crew on The Wanderer!

Our spaceship has been cleaned and outfitted for oxygen-breathing life forms. If you want to be part of the crew, you must pass this test:



Leave your explanation (mathematical proof) anywhere you can find me, since I may be behind the rift in dark matter where reaching Earth signals is hit-or-miss. Really, the best place to leave your answer is with the dishwasher at Ogalmorph's Shapeshifting Cafe, if you know where that is. It's in the Lagoon nebula. That's all I'm telling you.


Thursday, July 5, 2012

How to Write Your Name in Japanese!

Here's Zantippy in Kanji, the written characters used in Japan!

山帝妃

 You can find yours here at Kanji Zone

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Librarians and Teachers: Please Help!

Hello book people! I am sending a call-out to librarians, teachers, and others who are versed in what different ages of humans like to read. I would appreciate your help so much!

People are assuming Poetry by the Iguana is for an audience who actually would not appreciate it, tiny children, and so I need to know who its audience actually should be. I will gift my book to you so you can please help me with this, because it's a bit frustrating seeing it go to little persons who won't care, and ignored by those who would like it.

I'm asking because for some reason, on its Amazon page, Iguana's poetry is being bought by people who "also bought" picture books and really cute, adorable stories for very young children. While I didn't write it with any age in mind, I do understand why people assume it is for small children - I mean, usually anything from the point of view of a critter is for tiny beings, ones who normally can't read yet on their own. And I do love seeing those cute books next to my own, it just makes me smile!  :)  It just isn't...where it should be.

What concerns me is that I think aside from the first chapter, most of the poems would go completely over the heads of people so young. Plus, at this stage it isn't a picture book, because it is an ebook, although I guess people are reading it out loud to their kids.

I love to think of Poetry for the Iguana as being for tiny children, but I'm not sure that is who should read it (or have it read to them). Iguana is a character in a much larger story. The larger story, written in prose, will be more for kids than anyone else, but kids who can read on their own.

So could any book-people and kid-people help me out? I really need to know who the actual audience is for my little book! Thank you so much! You can reach me either through leaving a comment here, or go to my email zantippyskiphop@gmail.com or twitter @ZantippySkiphop, and I will gift it. Then please let me know what your recommendations are! Thank you so so so much!

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Duckus scribbulus



For the next 6 weeks, I'm doing the Clarion West shadow writing workshop! My duck seems to understand: he has made a nest out of my fuzzy boot, and yells at me to keep still, too. I figure he either thinks I am nesting or knows I'm writing, and in either case he has his job and I have mine, so I better do what he says!

My specific goals are to write several short stories and many poems (20?) in the 6 weeks. The short stories are to submit to a sci-fi/fantasy children's e-zine, Spellbound, and a grown up Baltimore e-zine, Smile Hon, You're in Baltimore. The poems are for both those e-zines, and for a couple of upcoming Iguana books, to become a series with his first book, Poetry by the Iguana. I've already written two Iguana poems, another poem that I'll submit to either Smile, Hon or a writers' zine, and have gotten a start on 2 or 3 more. I did start a short story but have changed the focus and tone of it and turned it into one of the poems.

My more general goals are to work on my chapter books unrelentingly. It is much harder for me to write prose than poems, and so I am determined to use this workshop time to become more comfortable writing in prose!

So there is a lot of exciting stuff happening for Iguana and Zantippy's other friends, getting their lives into words so that other people can share in their adventures!

The main workshop helps fledgling science fiction and fantasy writers focus, with help from more experienced sci-fi writers. Ursala le Guin has been there! They always have different sci-fi writers come to speak and teach! This costs money, and many potential students can't afford it, so Clarion West raises some of its scholarship funds through a shadow workshop.  Any of us can join online and work on writing goals, while raising money for future scholarships!

This year over 200 people are involved in the shadow workshop, which runs from June 18 - July 27. It is really interesting to go to the main page of participants and see what people have as their goals. Here is my page!

*The pic of my duck is by my friend, who I call Widders :) *

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Free Bedtime Tales for Your Reptile: Last Free Day Today! Poetry by the Iguana (esquire and lover of seaweed)






Download Poetry by the Iguana for free!

This month, the free days are:

Sunday, May 20 - Thursday, May 24, 2012

Free anywhere on Earth, on the International Space Station, and the entire Solar System as far as Neptune. Sorry Pluto   :( You always seem to get a rock :( *hug*

参 Nice to read along with the music from Peter and the Wolf. 柒

Times for the free download run from midnight (12am) May 20 through 11:59pm May 24, PDT.


Time Travel Reminder:

For Aussies, Kiwis, and other people living in the future, these times are according to Amazon's standard of Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) in the United States. This is GMT minus 8 hours.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Download either onto Kindle, or from the Amazon book site page


For the Amazon page in other countries, search for "Poetry by the Iguana", or use the book's ASIN for the search: B007Z1TG3Y

Remember - if you need to download the free reading app, to read ebooks on your computer or mobile device, you can find that at Amazon's Free Reading Apps

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm so excited for more Beings to share in Iguana's poetry! Let me know which part of the Solar System you're from!

Thanks! Can't wait to see you!

Love,

 Zantippy (and Iguana, but he is asleep right now, he doesn't even know about this yet).

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Are There Poets in District 13?

Warning: This discusses The Hunger Games trilogy. If you haven't read the entire trilogy yet, wait to read this.




I just finished Mockingjay this past weekend. I keep waiting to fully recover, but keep having dreams of naked, helpless little beings who are my friends or family in critter disguise and need protection.

At some point, maybe when Peeta attacked Katniss after being rescued, I started hoping it would not have too happy of an ending. Not because I don't like happy endings - they're my favorite! But because I just couldn't see how the Panem universe could be so hideous, ramping up to what you knew had to be even worse hideousness, then resolve itself into people living in peace with the love of their lives. Thankfully, thanks to Suzanne Collins and her conscience as a writer, the story stayed true to itself. It ended about as happily as it could, I guess, with people pursuing peaceful and free lives, but not necessarily permanently so.

This ending of charred hope was extremely unsettling to me. And that feels a bit shameful, because there are probably many people on this planet who have read THG and, unlike me, have survived war, or live in a constant state of political instability. Do they look for blissful endings, or realistic ones? I didn't grow up in a war zone. I like pretending there is this happy-ending bubble, but only if the universe of the story being told is in that bubble all along. So I loved the ending of Mockingjay. There was no bringing some people back. Others knew they had to move to a new area, hopefully to make fewer hate-filled decisions in their lives. Katniss made the choice to keep living, because that impetus that makes us risk our lives for other people is some kind of instinct that says life is meant to be lived. She wanted to live for the ones who died for her. And our favorite pair finally had the peace to be together, and to take the ultimate action of optimism for their future: to bring new children into the world. I keep reminding myself that there was that very clear hope for life, in the end.

The thing that bothers me the most, though, that keeps nagging at me and will after the post-Mockingjay nightmares stop, is the culture of District 13. People were raised from birth to be soldiers. Their lives were completely regimented, even "Reflection" time, which was only 30 minutes. Everything - the clothes, walls, food, and especially Coin, were gray. The only real color was in the red doors of the torture rooms.

You know poets were born there - people who see color everywhere, are distressed when it is purposefully left out of a space, ones who hear music in their minds and share it with others, and fit the lives they know into fantastical stories - what place did they have in District 13? You know they couldn't have all adapted. You can't take a poetic soul, and force that soul into a gray uniform, even in a relatively non-violent place like the kitchen, and expect a sane individual to result. Did they have some kind of asylum for the sensitive people?

If you are reading this, you probably have felt at some point that it's hard to live in cultures based on money, and not simply immersed in art, music, stories. We've had to learn to navigate it. And yet, our various cultures are filled with beauty and chances to compose music, tell stories, push color around. And there are beautiful souls who aren't artists themselves, but are simply happy and loving, like Peeta's friend, Delly, expecting the best from life. It distresses me very deeply to think of people like us being born into District 13 and realizing one day that there was no place for them. Just slopping gray turnip allotments onto someone's breakfast plate.

One happy thought that comes to me, though, is that Delly must have left District 13 after the war. That was not a place for her. She was sunshine, and needed sunshine back in some way from her culture and neighbors - even at least the chance to live above ground. I'm hoping she moved away from District 13 and into more vibrancy. I hope this, because even though Peeta and Katniss were healing, and choosing a hopeful future, they were very damaged people. I've seen friends of mine whose parents were Holocaust survivors. These friends had an emotional struggle approaching life that I just don't see in all the rest of us lucky to have been raised by parents who weren't threatened with extinction as children. I want Peeta and Katniss' children to have someone that understands grief, but grabs the sunshine. I hope Delly moved back to District 12.

Picture "Alone Lonely Drawing Sad Picture" from Layoutsparks.com

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Children's Book Week 2012



Look at the buildings as books, with bookmarks! I wonder who the snail is. And is that the Little Red Hen in the front? David Wiesner has mostly older classics in this poster he designed, but is that dragon Saphira? What a great parade!

My favourites are the Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2, just because I am immensely loyal to Dr. Seuss. When I was studying Child Development, my Children's Literature teacher hated Dr. Seuss. She was offended by his playful combining of syllables, claiming it would confuse children who were learning to spell, or even first learning to speak. Maybe her love of rules and structure can be explained by the fact that she was a nun, but I've known other nuns who loved altering the normal rules for an imaginary universe. Maybe my teacher saw Dr. Seuss' stories as simple, silly rhymes, maybe even forced rhymes. I've definitely seen people wanting to make a poem out of something, and the first place they head for is a rhyme in the same meter and couplets as in Green Eggs and Ham. But that isn't what Dr. Seuss was doing. He created really fun nonsense which could only be told in nonsense, the rhymes and meter just followed. Yes, it's silly! The best kind of silly.

Even though I love tons of children's books, some written in a very complicated way for "older" readers, this week is all about Dr. Seuss to me.






Saturday, May 5, 2012

Mythologist Joseph Campbell



I love Joseph Campbell! He brought mythology to people's understanding, and gave the generations after him a widespread appreciation for his beloved inner spaces of myth. It is kind of...ironic...because he used to say that as soon as you start to analyze mythology, you've lost the meaning of it. The elements in myth are something our souls feel and understand just by knowing, wherever they appear in various stories. Look at some of the most well-known science fiction and fantasy: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings. They appeal to so many people probably because our brains respond to mythic archetypes. It's a way we can explore the unseen.

He said the same thing about people who take myths literally. Taking the happenings in myth and turning them into literal actions drains the deeper meaning right out of them. Religious and legend fundamentalism may simply be about attempting to understand the world in an effort to feel safe, not as a way to explore.

I'm very inspired by this quote of his!

"Writer's block results from too much head. Cut off your head. Pegasus, poetry, was born of Medusa when her head was cut off. You have to be reckless when writing. Be as crazy as your conscience allows"

*Taken from the Facebook page of Joseph Campbell, quoting A Joseph Campbell Companion: Relections on the Art of Living.

Picture of Fenrir from :  freewebs.com

Friday, May 4, 2012

Aesop's Fables



Oh my goodness! I woke up today to Aesop's Fables as the Book of the Day! When I was little, starting around 6 or 7, this was my second favourite book, after Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio. I often kept them right on top of each other. That may seem strange, given that I said in the last post how I hate stories with lessons, and of course Aesop's Fables are nothing but lessons! On top of that, I hardly ever agreed with the point. Why should a tortoise be dashed on rocks just because he was pleased someone thought he was the King of Tortoises (The Tortoise and the Ducks)? Why should a donkey be punished for trying to lighten his load (The Ass and the Load of Salt). Why shouldn't a jackdaw dream of being an eagle (The Eagle and the Jackdaw)? It seemed to me like the message often was, "keep your place".

Then sometimes a fable of compassion and consideration jumped out (The Boys and the Frogs). I liked that message, but the lesson wasn't the point of reading these fables. I read them in spite of the lesson in each one.

Why did I love them so very much? And still do? Maybe it is how everything is filled with consciousness, like in The Oak and the Reeds, where all the characters are plant-life. Or maybe it is because all the characters are usually animals (I love critters!), with the occasional mean human critter in the guise of a boy or farmer. The complexities of human interactions are put into the lives of animals, where the petty actions of humans do not belong, and this was obvious even to me at 7. It makes the "lessons" seem ridiculous.

The Fables to me seem to put all the inane over-judging of humans into perspective. Of course we should prepare for the winter, but we should be able to also play, instead of the dichotomy in The Ants and the Grasshopper. At 7, I believed that people bent on evil could still be talked into compassion, unlike the Wolf in The Wolf in the Lamb, but now know that is often not the case. But I also now know that it does sometimes happen, that sometimes a closed heart can be open by the right person.

I guess I love the Fables because they takes this false world of this-or-that, black-and-white, with-us-or-against-us and show one of the characters in such a situation coming to a terrible end - something that doesn't have to be. It shows the whole dichotomous mindset as being ludicrous, a mindset we aren't bound to. We can choose to think and feel and act in a multilayered way.

Plus, the Fables are full of critters.

You can read Aesop's Fables here:

Aesop's Fables at the International Children's Digital Library

Thursday, May 3, 2012

The International Children's Library





The International Children's Digital Library has quickly become one of my very favourite web sites EVER. It is literally an online library for children's books, is VERY interactive and a lot of fun. You can read books by flipping through them in a web file, not pdf. It's fun even doing the search for books!

The ICDL has a "Book of the Day", which is a kids' book you can read on an active web page, like the others, instead of in pdf form. If you have Google as your home page, in the iGoogle format, you can add the ICDL as a gadget. I have that, and wake up every morning to a new children's book with my coffee! Very happy :)

Today's BotD is the 1903 picture book, Humpty Dumpty, located here:

Denslow's Humpty Dumpty

Old children's books are so curious in how they almost always seem to have the goal of teaching kids lessons, which this picture book, Humpty Dumpty does. From the summary:

" The story of Humpty Dumpty's son and how he avoids making the same mistakes his father made."

I really do not like stories-as-lessons at all, but seen in the perspective of history, it is a very interesting thing to me. It is one reason why I LOVE Mark Twain so much, because he hated that too and made a point of very much not teaching kids lessons, and maybe even encouraging them to go afield. :D

This Humpty Dumpty is very cheerful, and I really like how Humpty Dumpty's son is given life and how he chooses to have a happy life. Maybe it's inescapable in almost any story to have a lesson because our minds are geared to learn from our, or others', mistakes. I guess it is just the "Sunday School" tone that a lot of kids books had in the past that can get tiring, but I do love it from an historical perspective - and from the perspective that people today still try to move kids' lit towards that.

Please go to this site! If you love kids' books, you will love it there. You can also help translate children's books without speaking the other language. They have a mission to help connect people on the planet through children's books. Be sure to register before doing this because that is interactive also, but you can do it without registering and is a very uncomplicated process! Have fun! :) Read at the   ICDL


Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Storytelling, and a Wonderful Quote by Philip Pullman



I knew that Philip Pullman would be one of my favorite all-time writers when, after reading His Dark Materials, I saw on his website that he also writes picture books. His Dark Materials is complex and layered and disturbing, with a core of happiness in Lyra. Picture books, on the other hand, are thought of by most people as happy pages for children who haven't learned how to read, simple and vapid.

To me, picture books are profound poetry. You can see that the ones who write and illustrate them also feel this. Children get them. Grown ups who still have the imaginative part of their soul get them. So I am always surprised when the world of adult literature tends to view children's literature as not very meaty. Frankly, it makes me not want to read adult literature, because I figure that most adult lit, like most adults, have lost their imaginative core.

The way that Philip Pullman tells his stories in prose is something I admire so much. To think of his imaginative worlds told in the tighter bubbles of story-verse, where every word has a weight, felt to me like a colorful Beowulf.

I'm so glad he is on the planet! A future post will be specifically to talk about his picture books.

As said by Philip Pullman: "The meaning of a story emerges in the meeting between the words on the page and the thoughts in the reader's mind. So when people ask me what I meant by this story, or what was the message I was trying to convey in that one, I have to explain that I'm not going to explain.
Anyway, I'm not in the message business; I'm in the 'Once upon a time' business."