The Cantarella Poison Poetry Contest

Go! Comi is holding a poetry contest through June of 2007. To enter, write a poem dedicated to your favorite character from the manga "Cantarella." Reach into the depths of your heart and tell the world what makes him/her so utterly irresistible. The grand prize winner will receive an original drawing of the character your poem is dedicated to, and your poem and the drawing will be published in a volume of the English-edition "Cantarella" manga! For more information about the contest, check out the Poison Poetry Contest website. And check out the beautiful new Read poster featuring Cesare Borgia that You Higuri created for the American Library Association.

Mystery Writing Contest!

Okay, so you don't write fantasy fiction. How about mysteries? MWA Reads, a section of the Mystery Writers of America, is holding its second annual Joan Lowery Nixon Award mystery writing contest. The contest has two Categories: Grades 2-5 and Grades 6-10. There will be two $250 cash prizes awarded, one for the Winner in each Category. Submissions for the Joan Lowery Nixon Award mystery writing contest will be accepted via email beginning February 3, 2007 and ending February 28, 2007. Beginning February 3, 2007, participants can determine the contest entry email address by visiting www.mysterywriters.org/MWAreads. Only submissions sent to the contest entry email address will be considered. Students in Grades 6-10 are to submit stories of at least 250 words and no more than 1,000 words. For more details, check with the Mystery Writers of America website.

Holly Black's Flash Fiction Contest

Attention Holly Black fans! Want a chance to win an Advanced Reader's Copy of her upcoming book Ironside (and get to read it before anyone else)? Holly is having a writing contest and three winners will receive ARCS of Ironside. Just write a piece of flash fiction (a short story of more than 100 and fewer than 2000 words) on the subject Holly has specified and submit to the comment thread on Holly Black's blog. Check out the details at her blog, Holly Black, No Longer Dry Like a Martini. There's also an excerpt from Ironside on an earlier page in the blog. Enjoy!

December Teen Advisory Board Meeting

The HQ Teen Advisory Board met on Tuesday, December 5, and here's what they discussed:

The TAB agreed that the Halo tournament should be changed to a “Game Madness” program, due to complications in getting enough equipment together for Halo. We will still have Halo 1, but in addition, the DDR dancepads and game will be set up to run on the wide screen in the meeting room, and people will bring in other games such as Karaoke Revolution, American Idol, and various board games to have available on the side. Kathleen will revise the flier.

TAB decided to wait to vote on the final four titles for the literary magazine – finalists are Elemental Nocturne, Insane Flame, Feuer und Wasser, and Teen Zine. Amber brought some sample lettering for the cover. TAB felt that the best way to gather contributions would be for them to be emailed to the YA librarian so that they could be more easily put into Publisher format. For the next Tab meeting, Amber will do a sample flier soliciting contributions to the magazine.

Anime titles suggested for the Valentine’s Day program included Ah My Goddess, Supergals, Gankutsuou, Full Metal Panic Fumoku, Chobits, Gravitation, Princess Pretear and Hamtaro.

More suggestions for the lockin in August included serving Italian sodas and deviled ham and cheese sandwiches (thank you, Amy!). Activities could include showing High School Musical and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, as well as a dance contest (non-DDR), karaoke, Twister and SceneIt.

Future programs were suggested including a Tekken tournament later in the year, a Sims party, and a mother/daughter spa program for Mother’s Day.

TAB members felt we should have another meeting before the Game Madness program to finalize arrangements. The next meeting is therefore scheduled for January 9 at 6:30 pm (instead of 7:00).