Keep reading about the state of journalism and the book industry - are we doomed? Or is there hope?

In the past 48 hours, I have been to two panels about two industries hit extremely hard by the recession - journalism and books. Does anyone read a newspaper these days? What's a book?

Fortunately, I refuse to give in to the doom and gloom talk about the death of journalism as we know it... and the death of the book industry as we know it.

I just think we're in a tough period right now, thanks to the recession and changing technology and modes of distribution of information. Yesterday, I had four friends speak in a panel about their experiences as published writers/artists for my UCLA Extension Writers' Program class on writing for children. Today I was a panelist at the California State University, Northridge "CSUN Journalism Career Day 2009."

(Pictured above, L-R: My children's writing class panel featuring ERIN EITTER KONO, MICHAEL REISMAN, C. LEIGH PURTILL, and DAN SANTAT, and then I had to show some CSUN spirit!)

I have been teaching this course called "Writing For Children," a beginner's introduction to the world of writing in all genres for children (picture book to YA novels). I have to brag about my amazing students - they are all soooooo talented, hard working, dedicated, and very serious about the craft of writing. I have been blown away by their fantastic drafts and revisions so far. Plus, they're all very cute and pretend to laugh at my jokes.

Yesterday, my friends generously donated their time to do a panel for my class. Each friend discussed his/her journey into becoming a published children's book author, and we also talked quite a bit about the publishing industry. Afterwards, I had my class read out loud their query letters, and our panel judged them like it was American Idol, except I called it "American Author." Luckily, the judges liked everyone's letters and gave some on-the-spot critiques and agreed everyone was going to the "Hollywood Round."

The panelists were:

The lovely ERIN EITTER KONO... picture book author and illustrator ("HULA LULLABY," Little, Brown '05). Please check out her books and info at her website here: http://www.eekono.com/

The just as lovely MICHAEL REISMAN, YA novelist and author of the SIMON BLOOM GRAVITY KEEPER series (from Dutton). Below is Michael with his air-blaster thing toy that he brought to class. Check out his website here:  http://www.michaelreisman.com/

The stunning C. LEIGH PURTILL, YA novelist whose latest book is ALL ABOUT VEE (Razorbill '08). She left before I could snap her photo, so below is a photo of us at her book signing at the LA Times Festival of Books. Her website is here: http://www.leighpurtill.com/

And last but not least, the equally stunning DAN SANTAT, picture book author and illustrator plus animation series creator and graphic novelist. (His first picture book was GUILD OF GENIUSES, Arthur Levine Books '04). Below is Dan breakin' it down for the students! His website is here: http://dantat.com/

What was very inspiring was that all four panelists did not start out to become writers. They actually had other "real" jobs - flight attendant, dentist, professional dancer, and various entertainment industry jobs. They studied a variety of non-writing related classes in college - anthropology, microbiology etc. But what led everyone to writing was a passion for telling stories and being creative.

I know all my students and every aspiring children's book author/novelist/artist is a little overwhelmed and depressed by the state of the economy and the chaos happening right now in the publishing industry. Last night was a great reminder that we should all ignore the chaos and concentrate on CREATING. Just work on being the best writer or illustrator you can be, and the rest will follow. Special thanks again to Erin, Michael, Leigh, and Dan for being such wonderful panelists. I know my students learned a lot from you. And thanks to everyone for fulfilling my "American Idol" indulgence with our "query letter" competition.

Today, aside from being stuck in traffic on the 405/10 freeways for TWO HOURS thanks to the Obama motorcade, I had a wonderful time participating at a journalism panel for undergraduates at California State University, Northridge today. They had their annual "CSUN JOURNALISM CAREER DAY 2009" event. Our panel talked about the rapidly evolving world of journalism - how print newspapers are folding left and right, jobs are disappearing, online journalism doesn't pay enough to survive on, photojournalists are forced to take on jobs as wedding photograhpers to pay the bills, veteran reporters are getting laid off with no benefits, and aspiring young journalism majors are having to compete for low level jobs against these laid off veteran bitter journalists.

Wow. Depressing, huh?

But our panel, which consisted of a former photojrounalist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, a veteran staff photographer at the Los Angeles Daily News, and a prolific professional freelance writer specializing in music, DJ culture and pop culture (and of course, me), tried to be fair and optimistic in our frank discussion of today's state of journalism. We didn't want to discourage anyone from choosing journalism as their major. In fact we want more aspiring journalists! We just wanted to make sure everyone knew what they were getting into - this is certainly NOT the greatest time in the world to be looking for a full-time job as a journalist. But as John McCoy, LA Daily News staff photographer said, online journalism right now is the "Wild Wild West" and today's aspiring journalists have the amazing opportunity to take advantage of this and create new rules and shape our future. I myself was very moved by the large number of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed eager young aspiring reporters and news photographers who wanted to forge ahead in a very chaotic industry. I tried to speak more about how to diversify your writing talents in other genres because you can't afford these days to specialize in only ONE type of journalism.

Overall, I think we need more young people to get involved in both traditional print and online digital journalism to make sure that this industry does not erode into free-for-all blogging and a lack of checks and balances (editing and fact-checking and multiple primary sourcing of news). Go forth, young journalists and fight for the truth!

For more information or to enroll at this amazingly awesome journalism school, check out their website  here:

http://www.csun.edu/journalism/

Speaking of journalism and deadlines, I have a script deadline of tomorrow. So before I split for the writing batcave, a sad little story. My dwarf hamster Bobbi is not doing so well... she has a tumor on her left side. We are debating surgery to remove it. So far, she seems to be doing fine and isn't in any pain, but it's very troublesome to see her in this state. So we are on "Orange Alert" (or DefCon 2 for you "War Games" geeks) for the state of my hamster Bobbi...

Isn't she cute? Well, back to the writing batcave. Stay tuned for future hamster reports and other rambling blogs on the state of the writing industry these days...