There is so much to see, hear, do, and learn at Wordstock that you’re bound to have questions along the way. That’s why this year we’ve teamed up with Multnomah County Public Library to bring you a mobile information team.

Who are those people in red aprons with fancy tablet computers in hand?
They are Wordstock’s own roving librarians, and their tablets are more than fashion accessories, they’re information portals, for answering your copious questions.

Do they know all about the festival, like when & where to see my favorite author, & who will be on this stage next?
They sure do. They can tell you anything about what is going on at the festival. They have our mobile app loaded to help you navigate the convention center with confidence, and learn more about Wordstock’s year round work.

What other kinds of questions can they answer?
Want to know your favorite author’s age? Or in what city that book was set? How much was beaver fur worth when the character in this book was crossing the prairie? Maybe something you read rang a bell and you want to know what it was referencing? Go ahead and ask!

Can I try to stump the librarians?
You can sure try, but it’s going to be tough! These fine folks are seasoned information hunters whose research skills will astound you. And with handheld computers at the ready, you’re going to have to get creative if you really want to challenge them.

Can I take one home with me?
As nice as it would be to have a research librarian at dinner every evening, these librarians are not up for adoption. But, did you know that the Multnomah County Library can help you research anything? Their services include a 24/7 librarian by chat or text, and one on one research help by appointment. Yeah, we love Portland too.

The competition is going to be stiff. We recommend taking the next 48 hours to hone your tweeting skills.

Good Luck.

Guest post by: Jonathan Hill

Illustrator of Americus, Jonathan Hill appears at the Wordstock Festival on Saturday, October 8 at 2pm on the Oregon Cultural Trust Stage and Sunday, October 9 at 2pm on the Wordstock Community Stage.

One of the biggest challenges in working on Americus was developing a relationship with MK, the writer of the book. I had never worked with a writer before, and MK and we had never met before working on Americus, so there was a little bit of a learning curve involved.

The first couple chapters were spent getting a feel for how the other worked and how to play off their strengths while still being able to do what we do best. This was most apparent with MK’s dialogue and my pacing.

MK’s dialogue is so great. It flows really naturally and is hilarious without being over the top. My biggest thing is I try to be very deliberate with the way I like the action to be paced. At the beginning we struggled a bit to find a way to get both of these things to work out and to find a rhythm with each other.

Look at this page from the first Chapter:

In this page you can totally see those two things competing. First off, you’ll notice the weird layout of this page. It’s completely unlike anything else in the book. I’m trying to pace the scene the way I want to, while working around trying to fit in the principal’s verbose [but hilarious] speech.

Now look at this page later on in the book:

Notice that there is still a lot of dialogue, but at this point we had been working together for awhile and had worked out a lot of the kinks. MK streamlined her writing a little bit and become more conscious of giving me some breathing room to play around with pacing and rhythm, and I had figured out how I would need to break dialogue up in a way to give myself the room I needed.

When we finished the initial draft of the book and I was read through it, I was very conscious of this. I was worried that it stuck out too much and that it looked unprofessional. I totally freaked out at the thought of having to go back and redraw the first chapter. Our editor said it wasn’t a big deal, but I’m pretty OCD, and it couldn’t help noticing it every time I read it. The more I looked at it though, the less it bothered me.

I realized that it’s not about the mistakes – it’s about the process. It sounds totally corny, but if you are conscious of this when you read the book, it’s kind of like watching a video of two people learning how to dance together. They’re stumbling awkwardly in the beginning and stepping on each others feet, but eventually it’s like they’re floating on air, in sync. There’s something honest and really rad about that.

You can read more about the process of making Americus on its website http://www.saveapathea.com, or you can follow Jonathan and his other artistic endeavors on his website http://www.oneofthejohns.com.

The 100 Days of Wordstock Twitter Contest came to a close at 11:59 pm on August 1. We had almost 250 entries for this year’s contest theme Your American Story. It was quite a difficult task choosing between all the great entries.

Congratulations to the winners of the inaugural I ♥ Wordstock Buttons Twitter contest:

Oh Say Can You Read
Chester Pane

i’m bringing paperback
Earl Dizon

Tell Me A Story
Tiffany Owens

In addition to being published on a limited-edition, 1” plastic button read by 20,000 Wordstock attendees, winners will also receive:
• Free admission to the festival.
• A Wordstock shirt on which to pin their tomes.
• Their names listed on the website and at the Wordstock membership and merchandise table.

And we’d like to extend a big thank you to everyone for their submissions to the contest!

Mark your calendars for Sunday, August 28, from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and visit us at Sunday Parkways in South East. It’s part bike ride, part walk in the park, part music festival, part street fair, part friendly street take over, and part all fun. You can do a section or all of the six plus mile route that takes you through great neighborhoods, parks, and the Hawthorne Street Fair.

Wordstock will be there with prizes and information, including a chance to win a $50 Powell’s gift card. We’ll be talking about the festival on Oct 6-9, books, reading and having fun. We’ll update this post as soon as we know where we’ll be camped, so be sure and check back to find out.

eta: Our booth will be right next to Ivon Park (SE 47th Ave & Ivon St). Stop by and enter to win! We’ll see you there!

At the end of 2010, Wordstock offered to match your Willamette Week’s Give!Guide donations, dollar for dollar, in Powell’s Books gift cards for public schools participating in The Right Brain Initiative.

Check out what we were able to do with your generous contributions at The Right Brain Initiative’s blog.

On this final day of Teacher Appreciation Week, and on the eve of Mothers’ Day, I want to take a moment thank my mother, Margo Sokolow, a creative force of music and arts education who lent her talents to the West Orange School system for more than 25 years. She taught me about schools, about how important it is to be passionate about your art, and about how important it is to share that passion with young people. And she also taught me, unconsciously, about being an advocate for educators – a lesson that has permanently influenced the shape of my life and professional career.

Growing up in the New Jersey public schools as the child of a public school educator has allowed me to see myself (the student’s perspective) and my mother (the teacher’s perspective) in just about everything I read or consider in regards to the US educational system.  And I try to consider both lenses in every aspect of my job as the Education Director for Wordstock.  What is best for our teachers? Our students? Our community? Why is it that the act of learning to articulately express oneself, of finding one’s voice as a writer, is treated like a privilege and not the foundation from which every school experience is measured?

When I read this piece in the New York Times last Sunday, I thought again about my mother and her fellow educators. Having just moved to Portland after several years of work with the NYC Public Schools, I am just getting to know the particular struggles faced by Oregon’s teachers and principals, students and parents. But the one universal commonality in all schools is that teachers need better resources if they are going to challenge their students to exceed their self-imposed limits. So when we were trading ideas about how to honor teachers during this special week, our thoughts turned to the materials that we can provide to teachers. In our case, it’s books: a grand prize of $1,000 in Powell’s Books gift cards to be spent at the discretion of the five winning teachers, for the purpose of enhancing their classroom libraries.

We’ve had a terrific time giving away three of our five grand prizes so far, getting to see the obvious excitement from our prize winners and their students upon our arrival with balloons in tow.  Next time, we’ll share more details about how we spent our Teacher Appreciation Week, and you’ll get to see and hear from our winners.

Are you a writing teacher, reading teacher, or literacy coach? Do you need more funding to purchase books for your school’s program?

At Wordstock, we believe that writing has the power to affect positive change in people’s lives, and that teachers and the resources they bring to the classroom are the means by which students experience that change.

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week (May 2-6, 2011), we are giving away five, $1,000 Powell’s Books Gift Cards for teachers to use towards your classroom library!

But the giving doesn’t stop there…just for completing the contest survey, you will get a complimentary pass to the Wordstock Book Fair in October and a discount on Wordstock writing programs for teachers!

Sound good? Here’s what to do:

1) Fill out the Wordstock Teacher Appreciation Week Contest Survey by MONDAY APRIL 25

2) Forward the Entry Form to friends (please help us spread the word!)

3) Visit our website for more information about Wordstock Education Programs

4) Relax! Wordstock will contact winners by email on Friday, April 29

Thank you for your participation! We look forward to being in touch with you soon!