There’s Whit…on a commuter train platform.

The Chicago network of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) emailed me late last year to see if I’d do a program for their January 11, 2014 meeting on how to build a platform. “Your name came up as a possible speaker on this topic,” the message said, “because you are someone who, as a writer, has built a name for yourself across multiple platforms.”

Confession: unless you’re talking about the thing I stand on when I’m waiting for a train, or the kind of shoes Elton John wore at those concerts I went to in the 70s, I really don’t know what a platform is. I didn’t tell them that, though. I was so flattered by their invitation that I said yes.

The program is this Saturday morning. My friend Ellen Sandmeyer of Sandmeyer’s Bookstore is coming along and bringing books (I sign them in print and in Braille, too, of course, and if the weather warms up by then I hope some of you Chicagoland blog readers might come on out and see what I come up with to talk about! The program is free, and you don’t have to be a member of SCBWI to attend. You do need to RSVP, though, so I’ll leave you here with the invitation they sent out:

January 11, Saturday, 10 A.M. – 11:30 A.M.
BUILDING YOUR PLATFORM

Where: 920 W. Wilson, Chicago, IL 60640, Garden Room, off lobby

Parking is available on the street (paybox). Also accessible by CTA Redline, bus #78 and bus #151.

RSVP to janehertenstein@gmail.comIn today’s publishing environment a writer has to do MORE than write. Marketing and promotion requires an author to perform on many platforms. Often an agent or editor will ask: Does he/she have a platform?

Beth Finke is an award-winning author, NPR commentator, blogger, and participates in numerous school visits. As a journalist she has used many different mediums and media to deliver a message. Come hear Beth speak and get your 2014 writing career off to a good start. (She might even tell us about how her part-time job modeling nude for university art students led to an essay on NPR’s Morning Edition and an appearance on Oprah!)

Hey folks, Mike’s filling in for me today:

Happy New Year from The Row.

Well, the holidays. They’re just about over. And as much as I’ve enjoyed them this year (a whole lot), I’m ready to move on. We’re feeling a little splintered down here on the Row in Breezy (these are from Marcus, from Printers Row Wine Shop, his new nicknames for Printers Row and Chicago, respectively). So splintered, that a splintered blog post seemed in order. So I give you … bits and pieces:

• We’ll inevitably see lots of health-oriented news items associated with New Year resolutions, replete with video footage of folks in gyms on treadmills. And you may be tempted to try to turn over a new leaf. By all means, go forth and exercise, and do bad things only in moderation, but before you go out and load up on vitamins and supplements, heed the advice in this article: The best way to live longest may be to do … nothing. I’m on board!
• So about this social media stuff. Like just about everybody I know, I do it without knowing what I’m doing, or why, exactly. One thing I’ve finally sworn off: Attempting to make a political statement or have political discourse via Facebook or any other SM (or should that actually be S & M?) platform. I’ve found it impossible to do so constructively. Social media and other Internet technologies are termed “interactive,” but they are so in only the crudest of terms. They’re essentially I say what I want and I’m absolutely right and you’re absolutely wrong and then you say you’re absolutely right and I’m absolutely wrong.For the record, I’m not against the technology. It’s always easy to blame ills on technology –- been that way since the printing press was invented. The telephone, too, was thought a threat to family life when it came on the scene. It’s the bad behavior that’s the problem (although I grant, social media technology makes bad behavior easier and more tempting than ever. Don’t Ask Me How I Know). It has always been thus — it’s the behavior, stupid. Before there was social media there were listservs and flame wars. Before (and still now) listservs and flame wars there were bumper stickers.

  But there are some collective bad behaviors that are somewhat unique to social media. The instant righteousness and condemnation by what are essentially e-mobs is one of them. And I think this opinion piece at Big Think, about that PR executive’s very troublesome tweet that made the news, is worth reading.

• In the “Hell Freezes over” department, George F. Will, conservative columnist (and Urbana, Ill., native and University of Illinois Laboratory High School graduate), took on the subject of mandatory sentencing and how it has damaged countless lives and our society. It’s really good, I hope you’ll read it, and Mr. Will, thank you.
• In the shameless plug department, Beth has already written about our friend Audrey Petty’s High Rise Stories,  collection of residents’ accounts of life in Chicago’s bygone housing projects. Well, Audrey was one of the Chicago Tribune’s Chicagoans of the Year in 2013. And George Saunders (a great fiction writer), appearing on Meet the Press (see it here, at minute 2:24) last week, praised the book and urged President Obama to read it. (Thanks to Audrey’s loving husband Maurice Rabb — a computer scientist and no slouch in his own right — for that little clip).
• Still in the plugging friends mode: Our friends from The Row — Seth and Bess — moved to New Orleans a few years back. They both worked up the courage to pursue their dreams. Bess has built a successful private practice in counseling. Seth opened a specialty butcher shop that’s a big hit. And you can read all about the shop — Cleaver & Co.  Oh, one other thing, Seth and Bess just had a their first child, Tally, a girl born with fullest head of hair I’ve ever seen on a newborn. Congrats kids.
• And in the dreaming of sunshine, summer and the crack of the bat department, there is bad news and good news. The bad: Paul Blair, one of my favorite all-time players, who simply glided around center field for championship  Baltimore Orioles teams, died last week. I don’t recall ever seeing a better centerfielder.The good news: The White Sox are having a terrific off-season (and boy, did they need one).

Here’s to a new baseball season, a brand new year. Frankly, I won’t miss ’13 — this one has been tough for us and a lot of people, but hope springs eternal. And I’m reminded of the last paragraph from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” by Robert M. Pirsig:

Trials never end, of course. Unhappiness and misfortune are bound to occur as long as people live, but there is a feeling now, that was not here before, and is not just on the surface of things, but penetrates all the way through. We’ve won it. It’s going to get better now. You can sort of tell these things.

Happy New Year to you all.

I always make a point of sitting next to Flo so we can help each other in the holiday hubbub. She can’t hear well, I can’t see–we make a great team.

All six of my brothers and sisters are grandparents. My oldest sister, Bobbie, has three great-grandchildren. As my husband Mike likes to say, “It’s not a family, it’s a nation!” Buying Christmas presents for the entire Nation of Flo is out of the question. So we pick names, and you have to make a gift for the person you choose.

New babies press handprints into clay wall hangings, cousins stuff homemade pillows for gifts, pinecones collected in backyards magically transform into Christmas ornaments -and back-scratchers! Every gift is a treasure, and this year’s were so thoughtful I thought I’d share some highlights:

• My sister Bev and her husband Lon live right next to a forest preserve in Michigan . Lon made a shepherd’s crook from a long stick he found in the woods and gave it to our nephew Mark, who is a Hobbit fan
• Five-year-old Bryce spends a lot of time in that forest preserve too. He made colorful rubbings of leaves he’d found in the woods and framed the rubbings for Schminke (his name for his Great-grandma, Flo
• Our Minnesota niece Caren picked Mike’s name. She’s treating him to two tickets to a White Sox game at Target Field this year, and she made him something he’d need for the game: a long, woolen black-and-white scarf to keep him warm.
• My Florida brother-in-law Rick made a poster for our 9-year-old great-niece Audrey, who absolutely loves going to the Art Institute when visiting Chicago. He had a poster made with super heroes depicted the way Gauguin, Picasso and Van Gogh might have painted them. Audrey was on the poster, too: She was Wonder Woman

The kids seemed especially tickled with the gifts they made for each other this year. One of my favorites was the one 11-year-old Lydia made for her 4-year-old cousin Jack. She started with a “Guess Who?” game
— one where kids examine animals on cards and figure out the differences and similarities between them — and replaced the animal pictures with photos of family members. Jack happened to be right behind me when he opened his gift, and Lydia ran right over to explain what it was. “That’s Addie, she’s one, she lives in Florida,” I heard her carefully explaining to her little cousin. “I don’t think you met her yet, but that’s her, in the picture.”

With three more great-grandchildren on the way in 2014, the Nation of Flo is growing. So the “Guess Who” game will only get more difficult.

My great-niece Floey turns eight years old tomorrow, and gee whiz, what a coincidence that this extremely flattering

The irrepressible Annmarie.

email arrived in my in box just when I was thinking about what to get for her for her birthday – she wrote it as a report for her second grade class:

Beth Finke unfortunaly is my aunt. She is also a great athor, but I like her better as my aunt. She’s actually my GREAT anunt (I’m not just saying that) and she has always been. She’s 54 and is married to my Uncle Mike (Who is coo-coo). He has an aquarium. Aunt Beth is VERY kind.

Thank you Floey. You’re very kind, too! See (okay, hear) you tomorrow….

Plenty of people who use guide dogs take the subway safely back and forth to work every day. I am not one of those courageous people.

Whitney and I walk long distances in the Chicago Loop, jump into cabs, ride CTA buses…but we NEVER take the el by ourselves. Here’s why: during the 1990’s, when I was working with my first Seeing Eye dog Dora, a number of blind people using guide dogs died after falling into subway tracks in Boston and new York City. They fell in, but couldn’t see to find the ladder to get out. This 1993 NY Times story explains how one woman perished:

A blind woman led by a guide dog was killed yesterday when she fell from a midtown subway platform and was struck by a train as she frantically tried to climb back over the platform edge, the transit police said.

“We don’t know how or why, but she apparently slipped over the edge, leaving her dog on the platform,” said Albert W. O’Leary, a transit police spokesman… Ms. Schneider was killed at 9:18 A.M. after she fell onto the southbound express tracks along the Broadway line. Witnesses said Ms. Schneider got up and tried to find the edge of the platform with her hands as a southbound No. 3 express train roared into the station with its horn blasting.

A story in yesterday’s news has a happier ending: a guide dog named Orlando saved his blind companion after the man fell from a New York subway platform onto the tracks. The man and dog survived unhurt, but that’s not enough to convince me to ride the el with Whitney. We’re staying above ground, on terra firma.

There’s one thing confusing me about all the national news stories about yesterday’s near-miss: they all say that the man has to put Orlando up for adoption now because his “medical benefits will cover a new guide dog but won’t pay for a non-working dog.”

I have never heard of any health insurance plans that cover the cost of feeding and caring for a guide dog. Maybe the man was talking about veterinary pet insurance? Guide dog users can choose to pay for the same pet insurance that is available to average people with companion dogs, and it doesn’t really matter if the dog is working or not.

None of the news stories I read gave the name of the health insurance plan the blind man used to cover Orlando., If any of you blog readers know of a health insurance plan that covers the ongoing cost of using a guide dog, please leave the name of that insurance plan here in the comment section. I want to sign up!