18 Comments

What a great list! I love love love what you said about white space and approaching the page like a canvas - so true! Also, thanks for the shout out Sarah!

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Thank you!! Especially with the technology we have now, we are basically unlimited as to what we can do with text on the page, but I think it takes some out of the box thinking to move past what the printing press could do. We need now to take some cues from you artists!

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I love Kareem Between by Shifa Saltagi Safadi for this exact reason! I love how she lays out her verses! I read the audiobook first and when I flipped through the pages I was so excited to read it all again!

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Oooh, sounds like a good one. I'll have to add it to my list!

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I can 100% testify that writing in verse is what got me to find and embrace my MG voice. Love this post. Thank you, Sarah!

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Verse is the best!!

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I love what you're saying about the power of using the white space (and thinking of the page as a canvass)––it really can bring a voice to life in MG, and I think it can be just as effective across ALL genres (and age groups). I always encourage my students (especially the ones working in prose) to look at as much poetry as they can, and to get a feel for the power of a good line break or double-space.

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Yay!! Yes absolutely, I would LOVE to see this across all genres.

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Nice. I like thinking about how white space enhances our prose. Awhile back I read Dusti Bowling's Dust (I think it was Dust?!) and the way she used white space and voice was really incredible and original - I learned a lot!

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Ooooh yes, I love that one! Dusti's books are amazing.

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I honestly feel like more adult books should use some of these things.

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YES!!! I would love that!!!

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I love this look at the visual aspect of a book--such great food for thought and a spark for my creativity. Also, I'm pretty sure that illustration is a portrait of me in my overalls... :-)

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Hehehe yay overalls!! And thanks! I hope this gives you some fun ideas 😁

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I was also intrigued by the image at the top of the post, so I searched for a site that checks whether an image has been created by AI, and found this site: https://sightengine.com/detect-ai-generated-images

The check showed that there is a 99% chance that the image was created with MidJourney AI.

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Noooooo that’s such a bummer. Pinterest is such a wasteland of AI rubbish these days and my interneal sensors usually pick it up pretty good. But not this time apparently…thanks for pointing me to that website, I will keep it on hand for future when I’m in doubt.

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And also use your internal sensor for this website. I just found it through Google. So I can't say how reliable it is. I guess that is where we are now. Using AI to check if something was generated by AI. Oh, the irony.

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The ginger is A.I. generated my friend.

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