{"id":576,"date":"2009-12-30T08:10:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-30T08:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbicmsblog.reedbusiness.com\/elogic_660000266\/2009\/12\/30\/what-living-authors-and-illustrators-inspire-you\/"},"modified":"2009-12-30T08:10:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-30T08:10:00","slug":"what-living-authors-and-illustrators-inspire-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=576","title":{"rendered":"What Living Authors and Illustrators Inspire You?"},"content":{"rendered":"

An article in the January\/February 2010 issue of Poets & Writers<\/em> magazine lists its staff’s picks for "Fifty of the Most Inspiring Authors in the World<\/a>." Alison Bechdel, Billy Collins, Joan Didion, Dave Eggers, Haruki Murakami — these five authors and forty-five more made the list after meeting the following criteria: "Fearless, inventive, persistent, beautiful, or just plain badass—here are some of the living authors who shake us awake, challenge our ideas of who we are, embolden our actions, and, above all, inspire us to live life more fully and creatively."<\/p>\n

Reading Poets & Writers<\/em>‘ selections for these rather lofty criteria got me thinking about the talented (living) authors and illustrators who are "[shaking] us awake" on the children’s and young adult side of publishing. What follows is a list of five names that I came up with, to which I’m hoping you’ll add more:<\/p>\n

M. T. Anderson<\/a><\/strong>
M. T. Anderson’s startling insights about humans and humanity are clothed in such entertaining rags that you can almost forget, while reading them, that your brain is expanding.<\/p>\n

Geraldine McCaughrean<\/a>
<\/strong>Old tales breathe more deeply under Geraldine’s direction, and her original stories crackle with life. How does<\/em> she craft such perfect similes?<\/p>\n

Marilyn Nelson<\/a>
<\/strong>Raw honesty and lyrical beauty mingle in the lines of Marilyn Nelson’s poetry, painting a fuller picture of our past and of our collective conscience, too.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Partridge<\/a>
<\/strong>I always come away from Elizabeth Partridge’s books feeling both educated and inspired. Hers is compelling nonfiction with the perfect blend of content, context, and character. 

Shaun Tan<\/a>
<\/strong>It seems everything Shaun Tan turns his pen or brush to emerges as something surprising, insightful, and imaginative. I can never guess what strange and beautiful things I’ll find when I turn the pages of his books, which makes me all the more anxious to do so.<\/p>\n

Who is missing from this list? What living authors and illustrators do you think "shake us awake, challenge our ideas of who we are, embolden our actions, and, above all, inspire us to live life more fully and creatively?"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An article in the January\/February 2010 issue of Poets & Writers magazine lists its staff’s picks for “Fifty of the Most Inspiring Authors in the World.” Alison Bechdel, Billy Collins, Joan Didion, Dave Eggers, Haruki Murakami — these five authors and forty-five more made the list after meeting the following criteria: “Fearless, inventive, persistent, beautiful, or just plain badass—here are some of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}