Category: Poems about Facebook

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My Oct. 1st Bookstore Reading (via Vimeo)

Hey lovely subscribers and readers! Here is an 8-minute clip of part of the Oct. 1st reading I did for the PWAC (Professional Writers of Canada) Reads event at Paragraphe Bookstore in downtown Montreal, with writers (L-R) Beverly Akerman, Julie Barlow, Olivia Kona, and MC Kathe Lieber,( also reading but not on stage: Eve Krakow). Thanks to the organizers of PWAC Reads and to Veronica Louis for videotaping the event.

In this clip, I am reading from ‘Leap,’ (2010, Lulu.com, iBooks, Nook, Amazon) some poems from my upcoming collection Carry On Dancing (Winter Goose Publishing, March 2012) and poems from The Groovy Granny for kids, available on Blurb.com and as an epub in iBooks.

Thanks for watching! Hope to read in your city soon. Contact the League of Canadian Poets (poets.ca) to learn about their reading programs and how I may be able to visit through Poetry Canada Tours.

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Fireside Reading Part II: Three poems from ‘Leap’

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Leaping to the Top of the iBookstore Charts

Dear Readers,

Number FIVE! I thought my dream of hitting the top 10 in poetry in the iBookstore by Spring 2012 was a pipe dream. But I did set it as a goal a couple weeks ago, when I realized how well both my poetry ebooks were selling on Lulu.com  I thought, okay, now to top the charts of the iBookstore!

Today, Leap is #5 in Top Poetry Paid Books in the Canadian iBookstore! It is also being featured in the What’s Hot section of the Canadian and US iBookstores.  Where the Butterflies Go is trailing behind at #141 (I published this an a ebook a little later than ‘Leap’) but I’m thrilled it’s on the list at all.

Ebooks don’t make a lot of money. Hell, poetry doesn’t make a lot of money! So I have always felt the thing to do with proceeds from these two collections is to donate half to making a small difference in the world. Since 2008, we’ve been able to help four children go to school for a year, and provided part of the teachers’ salaries too. We’ve contributed a little to the grand expense of building desks for a small school in India, and this past Christmas, we donated pencils to an entire school.

I’m donating to Unicef again today (enough to give pencils to an entire school) as a way of thanking all of you for reading, buying and sharing my poetry links; for helping more people discover my work, and for helping me achieve my charity donation goals.

Thank you. I couldn’t have done any of this without you loyal readers.

Life is short. Keep on laughing. Keep on loving. Never stop leaping.

All my best,
Heather
PS Watch for ‘The Groovy Granny’ as an ebook on Lulu.com and in the iBookstore soon, and my new collection of poetry and photographs by Spring 2012.

#5! Top Paid Poetry Books - iBookstore August 24, 2011

Heather Grace Stewart with the epub 'Leap' for the iPad

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Leap Into The World of Epub Ebooks!

My poet pal Kellie Elmore had a question about my ebook ‘Leap’ which I thought I should answer for you all:
“Congratulations Heather! Is it available for Kobo? I’d love to read Leap!”

***
Thanks Kellie!

The answer is YES!

There are so many readers out there, I decided to go with the epub file for my ebooks, which is more universal than the mobi file (Kindle files). Kobo reads both epub files and PDF files, and if you go to Lulu.com in the ebooks section, you can download both these versions of Leap.

Epub doesn’t read on the Kindle  but look at all the others it works on:

http://connect.lulu.com/t5/Digital-Media-eBook-Downloading/What-devices-can-I-view-my-eBook-on/ta-p/31639

If you go to Lulu.com ebooks (here’s my ebook Leap:   http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/leap/16247447?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1 ) it has free software right on the page where you can buy my book and you download the free software Adobe Digital Designs. This lets you read Leap as an ebook on your Mac or PC in an ereader format and on many many mobile ereaders -bascially, whichever ones can read epubs or PDF files.

If you eventually get an ipad, which has Kobo and Kindle for ipad as well as the ibookstore, you can find it and read it on the ipad in Books, in itunes. I love my ipad because it has all three readers on it and I just switch back and forth to different readers on the ipad depending on the book I want to read.

Leap for the ipad or iphone http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/leap/id442076340?mt=11

I haven’t given up on getting both Where the Butterflies Go and Leap on the Kindle, but I just wanted to make them available almost everywhere else first. I went with the ipad and iphone first for ‘Leap’ because it’s a colour device and I wanted my photos to be presented as nicely as they are in the print edition. I also loved the innovative side of it all. Lulu has told me they are looking into making my books available for the Kindle…in time. Slow and steady wins the race.

Edit: Shortly after I wrote this blog post today, ‘Where the Butterflies Go’ became available on the ibookstore, priced at just $4.99 too! It’s going to be available as  an epub on Lulu too -hang tight if you want this version for Mac or PC and other ereaders -it will be available shortly.  If you do buy ‘Where the Butterflies Go’ for the ipad please do write me a review and give me a star rating – every bit helps. Thanks!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/where-the-butterflies-go/id450091774?mt=11

Cheers
HGS

I bet the Statue of Liberty has Leap on an ipad by now! Do you? Photo by T. Jurado (with thanks).
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Making Poetry Cool for School

I fell in love with a lot of poems when I was given the chance to look at them critically with my own eyes, perhaps even to disagree with the teacher or critics’ opinions, and to debate that point in class with my peers.

Oxford University Press has a new textbook for grade 10 English students, ‘Interface,’ by Oxford Next, which allows students the chance to do just that—on topics as diverse as Careers, Consumerism, Film and War. I’m thrilled that one of my poems, ‘Social Networking’ is featured in the Social Networking section of this modern, intelligent, and engaging textbook.

I got my copy of the texbook on Friday, and–I can’t really say it any other way–I completely flipped out when I saw that my poem is featured alongside poems by Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood, an excerpt from an Amy Tan book, a Hamlet speech by Shakespeare, and part of Barack Obama’s inauguration speech.

I’ve looked over this textbook and am so impressed with how it engages the reader with its modern, web-page-like design; how it asks open-ended questions in the margins, and offers a choice of 3-5 creative projects to help students explore themes further. To have my work featured in a textbook of this quality just blows me away. I hope my poems will ignite young readers’ minds, and stir their souls, or at least give them a chuckle, for many more years.

Interface will soon have an “online interface,” so students can listen to poets read their works, use a personal e-notebook and self assessments, and much more. If you are a Canadian principal or teacher, please check out these incredible textbooks for 21st century students at Oxford Next My poem appears in Interface v2.2, Grade 10 English.

If you’re an educator and you’re interested in this series for your school, here’s a two minute digital video about the Interface series.

I’m a member of the League of Canadian Poets and participate in their ‘Poets in the Schools’ Program for Ontario elementary and high schools (I can visit any locale across Canada as part of Canada Poetry tours). I love reading my poems about computer technology /social networking/ cyber-bullying as part of my school workshops. Please contact the League to make arrangements.