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4 The Clackamas Print Wednesday, April 13, 2011 Arts^ultun ------------------ ------------------ PUDDLETOWN PUBLISHING Praises sung for ‘Home’ By Mandie Gavitt Associate Arts & Culture EditJ I Renee LaChance and Susan Landis-Steward, members of Clackamas Community College’s club, Chrysalis Women Writers, started the locally based Puddletown Publishing Company earlier this year. By Mandie Gavitt Associate Arts & Culture Editor Those wishing to publish an e-book may have a new avenue to do so thanks to members of Clackamas Community College’s Chrysalis writing chib. Renee LaChance and Susan Landis-Steward started Puddletown Publishing Company with the first set of books published on March 21 of this year. The company is local and based in Beavercreek. According to Lisa Nowak, who is involved with the Chrysalis chib, the idea to start a publishing company came out during a party the club was hosting on Jan 2. After the idea was formed those wanting to be involved hurried to get started. Landis-Steward had previous publishing experience which helped to get the company going. Nowak said that there is no initial charge for writers wishing to pub lish through Puddletown, though Puddletown does keep a percentage of royalties. The first books to be published were from four Chrysalis writers: Landis-Steward, Alice Lynn, Roxanna Mathews and Pat Lichen. Lynn’s novel, “Volunteer For Glory” is a Civil War romance story. For Lynn, it was interesting time to have her novel published as the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s beginning is on April 14. She cur rently runs a blog that is counting down to the anniversary. “It’s been a fest ride,” said Lynn. “They hit the ground running.” Lichen, who writes about nature in the Pacific Northwest, said that Puddletown opened up an opportunity for her that she may not have otherwise had. “Most of my life I’ve been told that I need to get a pub lisher in New York City, and they don’t have much interest in fee Pacific Northwest,” she said. Lichen was asked to publish through Puddletown, as she had an already finished novel (“Kidnapping fee Lorax”) feat she hadn’t pub lished. “It wasn’t hard to say yes. I wasn’t doing anything else wife fee book,” she said. Since publishing through Puddletown, Lichen has heard from read ers in Ohio and New York City. “That’s pretty exciting and vindicating,” she said. Although Lichen has heard back from readers in New York she claims she no longer has interest in traditional publishing and wants to stick to publishing through Puddletown. “Right now is such an interesting time for publishers and writers. Everything is up in fee air and changing. It is an interesting time to be in fee industry,” she said. The books publ i shed through Puddletown and fee topics and genres covered are varied. The authors have written about a number of topics including magic, nature and history. Puddletown does not stick to one genre or idea. Just like wife any other publishing company, there is a process before any novels are published through Puddletown. Novels submitted to be published through Puddletown go through various readers before they are published. Readers check for market value. Also, anything that needs to be fact-checked, such as historical information, is verified. Novels are also checked for proper grammar. For more information on Puddletown you can visit their website: puddletowngroup.com. Are you ready to graduate? Well, are ya, punk? By Joshua Baird Arts & Culture Editor College is a time for experimentation; a place to discover who you are and what, you will be when you “grow up.” It isn’t, however, a time for reinventing that per fectly shaped thing called the wheel. In this case that means that ydu should be focusing on studying for your tests and exams, not studying the school’s program trying to decide which classes you are going to take in hopes that you will end up choosing the correct areas of academia for when you transfer off to a four-year university. As a . way to determine whether you are actually ready to graduate with your associates degree or move on to a four- year degree, you can go to myClackamas and do an academic evaluation. “We always encourage students to turn in a petition for graduation two terms prior to their anticipated term of completion,” said Lori Eckhout, on© of the academic evaluators at Clackamas Community College. As far as most students are concerned, applying for graduation isn’t something that is required, in fact it isn’t even something that crosses most students’ minds. “What happens sometimes is a stu dent thinks they are close to graduating and maybe a class they thought would count is not going to count. ... So that gives them a good chance to get credits or get some substitutions if needed,” said Eckhout. Many students wonder if they are tak ing the right courses and all of the links to determine if your classes will transfer are all available on myClackamas. “We’ve put the links together so it’s easier to find,” said Jessica Walters, a CCC counselor. If you know for sure where you are going, go to that school and talk to them and see what other classes you can take here at Clackamas that will apply toward your degree. It is a good idea to check into the program at your future school. “What I encourage students to do is go to the school where they are want ing to transfer to and check with them to make sure the classes they (have) are needed for that degree,” said Eckhout. Many students also are unclear on how to transfer credits. “You can just, print it out (from myClackamas), or you can talk to one of the counselors and they can help you out Vwith) transferring it to your new college,” said Karina Dzhyga, a cur rent CCC student planning to transfer to Indiana. This is only partially accurate; if you are going to use myClackamas you need to fill out a form to request an official transcript, as simply printing out a copy of your unofficial transcript generally is not accepted by institutions of higher learning. One thing that may leave you wonder ing is the case with challenging classes. These count towards a degree but only second-year courses. “If you challenge Spanish 201 it would show up on you transcript as that class on your transcript,” said Eckhout. Most of the time students don’t know what they need to do in order to gradu ate. “Students think ... that we do it automatically. And we don’t; we encour age you two terms prior to thinking you are graduating to put in that petition for graduation. Don’t strictly rely on the academic evaluation because many times we have to make some adjustments there,” said Eckhout. You need to have at least a 2.0 GPA and a 24-credit residency to get yoùr degree from CCC. No fee is associated with petitioning to graduate and it is vital that you fill out and turn in the form for petitioning, available under “forms” in your myClackamas account. It takes eight weeks to receive the diploma t in the mail. If you are looking for information on transferring your credits and how they will appear at youi* next school, go to depts.clackamas.edu/advising/Transferto -yearSchools.aspx. Jodi Picoult is well known for ent® taining readers while dealing w ith he® ed topics through her novels. In fa® that’s exactly what her readers exp^fl from her. Picoult, never one to disa® point, wooed readers, once again w® her newest novel “Sing You I lome.”® In this new book, Picoult inti® duces Zoe and Max Baxter, a coup® desperately trying to conceive. Th® seemed to have finally gotten th® wish, but their hopes are dashed wh® Zoe miscarries. Their marriage is th® tom apart by their loss. Max finds ho® by joining an Evangelical chin wh® Zoe deals with the miscarriage a® divorce by throwing herself into 1® work as a music therapist. Zoe begins working with a I cidal teen at a local high school whi she meets Vanessa. Vanessa is a H school counselor that happens to I homosexual. Zoe is surprised to fl herself falling in love with Vanessa! discovers she can’t help herself. 1 and Vanessa wed in Massachusef After the wedding, Zoe and Vana discuss the possibility of using embryos Zoe and Max had previou stored in their attempts to have a ba) However, to use the embryos ffl must ask for Max’s permission. M responds with a lawsuit. “Sing You Home” moves mi more slowly than past Picoult novi but this is not necessarily a negafl thing. It allows for more time to] to know the characters involved I their distinct voices. The presentan of realistic characters is accomplish largely in part by Picoult’s amaa amount of research. During a recent public reading® Portland, Picoult explained that w^® researching for the book she sp® to the company Focus on the Fan®j to get a better understanding of® Christian perspective on gay marri® and later took things that were sai® the interview to create fee dialogue® some of her religious characters. ® devotion to better research shows®1 her writing as fee characters are gi® a clear voice and fee opinions of th®o represented are accurately show n. ® The story Picoult tells in “Sing®_ Home” is engaging. Many time®" found myself unable to put it do® However, one of the most interest® things about the novel is feat it co® wife a soundtrack. ®. According to Picoult, this new i® stemmed from fee fact that she wai®r to give Zoe a more tangible vo® outside of the text Because the cm® acter was a music therapist she thoi® music would be the best way to do ® Picoult enlisted Ellen Wilber to ^® her in making the soundtrack. Pic® wrote the lyrics to songs which v® then set to music and sung by Wilb® Each chapter is represented b® track on the CD. The music is sim;® tic but beautiful, with Wilber sin^H and playing guitar. Possibly my f^® ite song is “Ordinary Life” in which ® reader hears Zoe asking poignant q®, tions about what makes being a ho®1' sexual “wrong.” She describes how® life is actually simple and ordinary, t® only thing that makes it out of the n®j is people’s reactions to her se.\ualit®f The idea of a book coming w^® soundtrack is rather interesting, ara® believe Picoult did an excellent jo® utilizing this idea. As someone^® loves both books and music, I ^® having the CD along with the be® Having a character wife a voice yod® physically hear adds a special touch ■ the story and I wish more books <^® wife music accompanying it. fl® I highly recommend everyone g® a copy .of “Sing You Home.” Pic®®1 ability to tackle hard issues with® enlightening story makes the book® good read. ^®
