Sep 20 2007
About Me
Welcome to my blog.
I have been a school librarian on and off since 1982. Over the years I have worked with many brilliant teachers, librarians and students. Some students could not spell “librarian” properly and so I have called the blog “The Librain” after my favourite version! Better than “Liberian” anyway. I am also The_Librain on Twitter – I follow librarians and educators from all over the world, however, I keep my account locked as I have had some issues in the past!
I started this blog so that I could track my research, thoughts and ideas about the future of school libraries.
Dear Anne,
Just a quick thank you. I had a library job long ago, and now as a parent, living overseas, I am a school library volunteer. I am also doing a library and information Masters degree, by distance learning from Aberystwyth, in the hope of school library work when we move back to the UK.
I discovered your Dixie site some time ago, and have now begun to look at this blog. Thank you so much for the time you take to post. Your advice page and your Dixie progress reports have been particularly useful for my current assignment, as have the links you provide, here and via netvibes. I have also learnt much from reading comments posted by others.
I see that you are up to your neck in stock packing, in preparation for an exciting future at Dixie. Best wishes for the library move.
Henrietta
Hi Librain,
I love the “Save Libraries” logo merged with your profile pic on Twitter. Where’d you get it? Thanks!
Kimberly
public librarian =)
re: book review request by award-winning author
Dear Anne,
I’m an award-winning author with a new book of fiction out this fall. Ugly To Start With is a series of thirteen interrelated stories about childhood published by West Virginia University Press.
Can I interest you in reviewing it?
If you write me back at johnmcummings@aol.com, I can email you a PDF of my book. If you require a bound copy, please ask, and I will forward your reply to my publisher. Or you can write directly to Abby Freeland at:
Abby.Freeland@mail.wvu.edu
My publisher, I should add, can also offer your readers a free excerpt of my book through a link from your blog to my publisher’s website:
http://wvupressonline.com/cummings_ugly_to_start_with_9781935978084
Here’s what Jacob Appel, celebrated author of
Dyads and The Vermin Episode, says about my new collection: “In Ugly to Start With, set in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, Cummings tackles the challenges of boyhood adventure and family conflict in a taut, crystalline style that captures the triumphs and tribulations of small-town life. He has a gift for transcending the particular experiences to his characters to capture the universal truths of human affection and suffering–emotional truths that the members of his audience will recognize from their own experiences of childhood and adolescence.”
My short stories have appeared in more than seventy-five literary journals, including North American Review, The Kenyon Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and The Chattahoochee Review. Twice I have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. My short story “The Scratchboard Project” received an honorable mention in The Best American Short Stories 2007.
I am also the author of the nationally acclaimed coming-of-age novel The Night I Freed John Brown (Philomel Books, Penguin Group, 2009), winner of The Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers (Grades 7-12) and one of ten books recommended by USA TODAY.
For more information about me, please visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michael_Cummings
Thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Kindly,
John Michael Cummings