The art of blogging
- Rhiannon Lassiter, Mary Hoffman and your chairperson for the evening, Helena Pielichaty
I was in London again yesterday for a CWIG meeting (CWIG stands for Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group). After the committee meeting there is a talk for members and yesterday’s was about blogging. I chaired the meeting and introduced the two speakers, Rhiannon Lassiter and Mary Hoffman. Rhiannon writes mainly for young adults and has a growing army of fans. Her titles include the chilling Bad Blood and Borderland. Mary (Rhiannon’s mum) is a well- established writer who covers all age ranges from picture books (Amazing Grace) to the popular Stravaganza series.
Both are clued up about blogging, Facebook, Twitter and all the other forms of social networking sites out there. Check out their websites and variety of blogs if you don’t believe me. They were the perfect choice of speakers, beginning with a short clip that spewed out statistics about the growth and effectiveness of such sites. They then took us through the pros and cons of blogging and so on. One of the main points they made was that if a reader discovers your website, what is going to keep them there? It has to be fresh and varied. I came away thinking I was half way there - since opening my blog for comments I’ve enabled readers and children I meet on school visits to write to me. I am in the process of having an events page and more downloads. Watch out for wallpaper of the Girls FC team and voting buttons - coming soon.
- Celia Rees was at the meeting too
