Icefall

I was very productive this morning, and instead of reading for my Italian class, I read a few chapters in Icefall, a middle grade/YA novel by Matthew J. Kirby. I picked it up a few days ago because the author came to a reading series at BYU (the university that I attend) and he sounded really interesting. He read a little from Icefall, a story about a girl in an ancient Norse culture who is trapped on a fjord with some of her father's best berserkers. I'm about half-way through, and I'm enjoying it a lot.

Also, have you ever heard of a speech jammer? I tried it last night. You set up a system so that when you speak, you hear your voice about .4 seconds later. It's supposed to mess with your speech and make you stutter and stumble. I don't think I do it right because I still sounded pretty normal. My roommate sounded pretty funny, at least. After doing that for about an hour, though, it was hard to speak normal afterwards. You should try it sometime.

As a part of my internship at Cedar Fort, I need to come up with nonfiction book ideas. So, to you few who come across this, any suggestions? I have a lot more experience with fiction, but I'm trying to broaden my horizons. Any and all ideas are welcome!

One last thing--on Wednesdays I have a class called The Publishing Business. It's taught by Rick Walton, a picture book author. Every week, a different guest speaker comes. So far we've had Will Terry, Brandon Mull, and J. Scott Savage. This Wednesday, we'll have editor and author Lisa Mangum. I'll make a post on here about what I learn.

Oh, and if you're into fantasy and science fiction at all and are around Provo, the Life, The Universe, and Everything Symposium will be going on in February, but I believe that registration for students ends on January 31st. It's free if you're a student--I'm going!