Jacki Kellum

Jacki Kellum

Jacki Kellum is a picture book author from the USA. Her book The Donkey's Song is ready to pre-order from Random House Children's Books: https://www.rhcbooks.com/books/669337

Location Ozark Mountains, USA

Activity

  • @DavidRothery I guess it is sort of like jumping over a fence.

  • In honor of this discussion, I have changed my Profile picture, showing one of my illustrations of the moon. In this illustration, the moon is a "U" shape. The moon's placement in my drawings is determined by the composition of the illustration. Nothing scientific
    "

  • I just looked at my most previous drawing, and the moon was in more of a U shape, with the cow passing upward and over it. The placement of the moon is determined by the composition of the science. Nothing more than that

  • I write and illustrate picture books for children, and I think of the moon as a mystical and magical place that is somewhere over the rainbow. It is the spare that creates the light by which the owl and the pussycat dance. I normally draw the moon as a "C," but I sometimes draw it as a "D," with a cow crossing through its crescent extremities.

  • From mentioning the fact that Red crawled into the bed and attempted to snuggle with grandmother, I continue to think of her as young.

  • Jacki Kellum made a comment

    I often think of a forest as a refuge, a place of spiritual healing. but I can understand how things would have been different during the time of Perrault.

  • Of course, the Three Pigs

  • Matthew 7:15-23 ESV
    “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree...

  • Well, I have fallen victim to sanitization. I could have sworn that the woodcutter swooped in--just in time.

  • I'll admit that I was confused by the choices between the Huntsman and the Woodcutter.

  • Coming to us from the Danes, The Ugly Duckling is a story about survival and about rising above one's circumstances. But on another level, it shines its light on human fickleness.

  • Hello, My name is Jacki Kellum, and I am a recently published picture book author in the USA. Well, actually my book The Donkey's Song is merely ready for pre-order from Random House Children's Books. I have a bit of an understanding of the Fairy Tale Culture, but I am eager to learn more. I have discovered that we, as writers, continue to tell the same tales...

  • In my opinion, the rubber meets the road when we define children. I was a William Blake and William Wordsworth scholar, and I believe that the child can be of any age and that some pre-teens were never allowed to be children. With that being said, I believe that a true children's film is for the young and feeling of heart. One of my favorite children's films...

  • A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness and Jim Kay reminds me of the Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean [and others]Sandman series. In my opinion, these text and image projects exceed the traditional panel by panel comics, and I can engage with them more intuitively. Again, I find the bounding boxes of traditional comics to be restrictive.

  • I love picture books, and I believe in the power of images, but I do not care for comics. I don't like the restrictive and bounding boxes. The boxes restrain my involvement. I prefer the full 2-page spread.

  • @AlisonS The song by Greg & Steve matches the book word for word. I used to be a children's librarian, and I used that selection at leaast twice per year.

  • I believe that Where the Wild Things Are is a perfect picture book

  • @AlisonS There is a song that matches the words in Brown Bear. Paired together, the two are absolute magic.

  • And I love Bantams in Pine Woods by Wallace Stevens. I really don't know why I love it so much. Totally against what I said before. Just rhythm and brilliace and subtle allusions

  • The first poetry that truly moved me was William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience. I read them in high school, and I believe that what most excited me was that childhood was the theme. I was also impressed that Blake both wrote and illustrated his work. Since that time, I have earned master's degrees in both painting and literature. I wrote a...

  • Jacki Kellum made a comment

    I am a painter, and I compare poetry to watercolor. Rather than being encyclopedic or like a long novel or essay, both distill thoughts and emotions and express them as pure essences

  • “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.”
    “You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room,” said Mr. Darcy, looking at the eldest Miss...

  • I was very happy to remember how effectively Charles Dickens used flashbacks and flash-forwards. I love that novella. I also love writers who can paint their settings with words. Barbara Kingsolver is excellent at this. Pat Conroy's Prince of Tides paints an image of the Eastern Coast of the USA. I grew up and lived almost all of my life in the South [of the...

  • Thank you

  • Yes, I agree with that, but I believe that Fox's radical religion was not radical. I believe that others had arrived at similar beliefs centuries before.

  • Does anyone know about the early Quakers on the Isle of Man? My ancestor Joshua Whitaker was killed in an uprising there in 1719. His wife Jane fled to Ireland and then immigrated to Pennsylvania and joined the Friends there. Does anyone know more about this? I am not a Quaker, but I am seeking to understand what happened at that uprising.

  • Did the Quakers use the Bible as a reference for their behavior? If so, isn't this departing from relying on the inner light?

  • John Mann, I am not sure how to respond to your comment, but you seem to know about Asian philosophies and to also know the Quaker thought. Did the Quakers use the Bible as reference for their behavior? If so, isn't this departing from relying on the inner light?

  • Jacki Kellum made a comment

    How does the Quaker journey relate to the Mormon "journey"

  • And it was said by the Taoists too. hmmm I believe that Fox was simply going back to what he knew which was not nearly all there was to know. That is the advantage/disadvantage of the Internet. Many people today [myslef included] know a little about a lot.

  • I don't want to become the class's "Devil's" advocate, but I am still wondering how Fox's concept of the internal is different from that referenced in Asian religions? If Fox is going off the reservation of his day and is denying the authenticity of traditional teachings and depending, rather, on feeling, how is this different from the sense of the Soul or the...

  • I believe that I am having similar questions.

  • How is Fox's understanding of the inward experience different from the Soul that is sought in Eastern religions?

  • The thought that all in the body are equal is like the Campbellite or American Church of Christ thought.

  • Fox's thoughts are not totally new. The Tao teaches that we should be leery of organized education or teaching and that the true "Way" is not the learned way. This stems from ancient Asian thought.

  • I grew up in the USA in a fairly strict Baptist home, and when I was a young adult, I became suspicious of what man has done in the creating of religion. It seems that Fox is expressing something about the distinctions that lie between what we do because of a man-made rule, as opposed to what we do because of our genuine beliefs--or our own spiritual...

  • I am not sure that Fox would have been cognisant of the differences between the words experientially and experimentally. I do believe that he is talking about a spiritual or soul-like experience, however.

  • Jacki Kellum made a comment

    I live in the USA and know nothing about the Quakers; yet, I grew up as a Protestant. I just discovered that my ancestor Joshua Whitaker Sr. was born in Grindleton, West Riding, Yorkshire, England abt 1675/6. I have read that he died Joshua died 1719 Isle of Man and that he died in a religious uprising. His family apparently fled to Ireland and later came to...

  • Fascinating! Thank you.

  • I know so very little that I should not even comment, but soon room for speculation does seem to exist.

  • Richard: It seems to me that the lines get fuzzy when you consider that he collected much of his work from previous sources. I may be completely wrong about this, but it would seem that that is not exactly poetic process. I still like his tunes and I appreciate his efforts, but I am not sure that everything attributed to Burns is poesie

  • Hi Everyone! I am registered for that writing course. Everyone nudge me when it starts. I want to see all of you in October.

  • I do understand. I taught many years.

  • I am in the USA on the New Jersey Shore of the Atlantic Ocean.

  • Yes. That is primarily why I took this course. I am preparing to offer a Free Event: Mine Your Memoir to Find Your Voice. I want to understand as many points of view as possible. Check this out: https://jackikellum.wordpress.com/2016/07/24/mine-your-memories-reclaim-your-voice/

    I am happy to have met you hear. I looked at your profile, and it seems that we...

  • Are you an American? I do hope that people in America are teaching about Burns to high school students.

  • Yay. We are a club!

  • I'm not sure he was actually the dejected one. After all, he was bedding at least two other women. Perhaps that is why poor Nancy left and lived to regret it.

  • I believe he was a love 'em and leave 'em, but hey, I'm the Puritanical American in the group.

  • You are in for a treat. Don't miss the Kathy Matheson version of Ae Fond Kiss. It gives me chills.

  • No, I am not very Puritanical, but I should be. I grew up as a Southern Baptist in Mississippi. Yet, I am a bit of a black sheep. My problem is that I cannot read to appreciate his words.

  • Since I knew virtually nothing about Robert Burns before I took this course, my understanding of him and his work has expanded magnanimously. In October, I'll be in Central Park and I'll sing Auld Lang Syn for Burns

  • I do not live far from Central Park in New York City, and I love where the Burns statue is placed there. I love Central Park.

  • Jacki Kellum made a comment

    Poor Primrose. What was his mother thinking when she named him?

    In my humble opinion, I feel that the exclusion of women from men's clubs was simply the code of the day. Consider the scene in Out of Africa when Karen is refused entrance to the men's club in Africa.

  • I have another speculation that is based on no scholarship at all. When I read that Burns struggled with depression and hypochondria, I began to wonder if that had something to do with his philandering. He would not be the first person who tried to drown his depression in sex.

  • When I heard the discussion of how the objects made to memorialize Burns have actually spread his fame, I thought about how people today use social media to create a fan base. Somehow, the two seem similar to me.

  • Jacki Kellum made a comment

    I am an American and I love John Steinbeck's Mice and Men. I never realized that it was in any way related to Robert Burns. I also did not know about Lincoln's relationship to Burns.

  • The songs of Joni Mitchell and Simon and Garfunkel are very meaningful to me. I write a blog and many, many times, I have said that Joni Mitchell was the greatest poet of my generation. Yet, I do not believe that she ever called herself a poet. I personally do not believe that there is a distinction in fine verse, whether it is sung or read. It is all...

  • Before I took this course, I only associated Burns with Auld Lang Syne and My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose. I am delighted to have expanded my understanding of him, but I cannot contribute to scholarship about Burns.

    I rather prefer the second melody. It seems to have more a feeling of folk music to it.

    I want to make another point entirely, however. I...

  • I don't feel qualified to make any notable comments, but I am an American who has always loved folk music--American folk music and also what I have heard from other lands. My feeling is that this song and Ae Fond Kiss are very much in keeping with the folk music tradition, and the final tune is the most folk-like to me.

  • I definitely like the last tune best.

  • I have no idea whether Burns meant what he said or not. Because of the crafted meter and because of what I have discovered about Burns's philandering, I have begun to wonder.

  • I have already said this, but I am in awe of Matheson's and Reader's singing of Ae Fond Kiss. Perhaps it is because I am an American, but I much prefer their singing the song to its textual form.

  • I'm aghast! I am not sure how I feel about it all, but I love to hear Karen Matheson and Eddi Reader sing Ae Fond Kiss

  • This may be very much off-topic, but when looking at the importance of translation and not, we might remember that at times, the words [as meaning] are not important at all, but the words as sound are. I offer the example of the Wallace Stevens poem Bantams in Pine-Woods: "Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan
    Of tan with henna hackles, halt!"

    Sometimes, we...

  • I feel sure that you know more than I. Preface everything I say with the fact that I am an artist and not a historian. We artists tend to glaze things the way we want them.

  • Perhaps at times, a little knowledge is a good thing. I live in the USA, and I knew very little about Tomas More and Henry VIII before this week. In the interim, I have done a bit of research and I have begun to believe that Thomas More may have been writing in a type of code. I have also discovered that Henry VIII was a greedy monarch and that he simply took...

  • i live in the USA, and my understanding of the Tower of England was at best limited. I found an excellent video to help me understand it better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxzq8JrsW80

  • wow! I don't know, and I don't live but a couple of hundred miles from there now. My gut feeling is that all of the people on the Mayflower were Pilgrims and that they all were radical fundamental protestants--and that their fundamentalism and fear led this same group into the behavior of the Salem Witch Trials.

  • I have good painting days and bad. That was a good day.

  • It is both me and Janis Joplin. I am a painter. I grew up loving Janis Joplin's music, and I simply painted her as I imagined her. The more I have considered the painting, I think that I actually painted myself.

    I have masters degrees in both painting and English, with an emphasis in writing; and my thesis study in English was on William Blake. I have...

  • I'll give it another shot. I don't know why I am trying to fix you up with free courses, but Harvard has several courses about the evolution of the book. Those might be of interest to you. I believe that I saw that you are a librarian

  • I researched this a bit, and I discovered that many of these estates were visited rarely. Often, they were simply hunting camps. I am originally from Mississippi, and these English country estates are not at all like the hunting camps in the Southern part of the USA. Our hunting camps tend to be shacks.

  • I have an MA degree in English literature, but I actually read very little. That is one reason for my taking this course. I did not read Wolf Hall, but I thought that the television series was terribly dull. I normally love British television and prefer it to American television, but I found Wolf Hall to be like watching paint dry. Perhaps I did not watch...

  • Thank you. I know little about history.

  • I researched it. I do that any time that I don't know much at all about something. https://jackikellum.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/a-glimpse-of-henry-viiis-hampton-court-palace/

  • Yesterday, I commented that Henry VIII had claimed Penshurst in much the same way that he claimed his extra wives. He merely took it and beheaded the competition. Since I wrote that comment, I researched and discovered that Henry VIII also took his palace at Hampton Court in the same way. Wolsey had opposed his divorce of Katherine of Aragon, and Henry VIII...

  • I do not see the threads now, but several have mentioned that the compliments of Penshurst were a bit over-the-top and perhaps even to the point of propaganda. If I am not mistaken, people in the past were not nearly as honest in their familial writings as we are today. I have my great aunt's memoir. She lived in the 1890's and when she wrote about her mother,...

  • I am also a Pride & Prejudice fan.

  • After I posted above, I discovered that Henry VIII acquired his palace at Hampton Court in much the same way. I must say that I am not a historian. My masters' degrees are in writing and art, and I am only interested in history. When I approach a new subject, I often do some research about it and write about it in a blog. My casual reading tells me that Henry...

  • But dew is a step away from nothingness - lol

  • Again, this is a wonderful series, and I am not even a cook

  • This was a glorious set of videos, and the recipes on the website are a treat

  • I have just begun a FutureLearn class that is exploring the literature of English country estates [that are like palaces to me], and the first reading "On Welbeck" is about the lavish entertaining that took place at that estate. One of the next readings was about the entertaining at Penshurst in 1616. I believe that when we explore any of the liberal arts, we...

  • I have always been fascinated by the ways that literature and history correlate. I was just searching to see if there was another course that I might like to take from FutureLearn now and I discovered a course which explores the history of royal feasting and foods. It perfectly fits this piece "On Welbeck." I thought that others of you might like to take A...

  • 1603 - Within two months, ere yet the salt of most
    Vnrighteous teares had left their flushing
    In her galled eyes : she married, O God, a beast
    Deuoyd of reason would not haue made
    Such speede: Frailtie, thy name is Woman,

    1604 & 1623- In these editions, more derisive things are said about the mother before the frailte quote.

  • 1603 - O that this too much grieu’d and sallied flesh
    Would melt to nothing

    1604 & 1623 - O that this too too sallied flesh would melt,
    Thaw and resolue it selfe into a dewe

    I cannot help but think that the moistness of dew is preferable to the nothing of 1603

  • In 1483, Penshurst was owned by Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham. In 1519, Henry VIII visited Penshurst and apparently liked it. Because he felt that Stafford might become a strong contender to the throne, Henry VIII had him beheaded and simply claimed Penshurst. In essence, Penshurst itself was at one time acquired by the powerful Henry VIII who merely...

  • While looking at the history of Penshurst, I discovered that Henry VIII procured Penshurst in much the same way that he procured new wives. In 1519, he visited the estate and apparently liked it. He felt that the owner of Penshurst was a strong contender to his throne and had him beheaded. Afterward, because the estate was the property of a "traitor," it...

  • Visceral--yes, my Robert Frost comment was visceral. Unfortunately, that is fairly typical for me.

  • It helped me to place the writing of this poem into historical context. To Penshurst was written in 1616, and the Pilgrims landed in America in 1620. With that in mind, the word use is slightly more understandable.

    At the time that "To Penshurst" was written, many of the wealthy landowners had essentially abandoned their country houses, and other country...

  • This may be completely off track, but as soon as I began to read this piece, I thought of Robert Frost's Mending Wall. "Something there is that doesn't love a wall...." In Robert Frost's poem Mending Wall, it is springtime, and the poet and his neighbor are doing what they do every spring. They have met at the stone wall that stands between their properties...

  • The poem On Welbeck refers to the wealth and extravagance of William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle and to his habit of lavishly entertaining King Charles I. William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle was a Royalist who ardently protected the crown during the English Civil War, which was a series of battles that were fought to strip the crown of its power to...

  • The poem On Welbeck refers to the wealth and extravagance of William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle and to his habit of lavishly entertaining King Charles I. William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle was a Royalist who ardently protected the crown during the English Civil War, which was a series of battles that were fought to strip the crown of its power to...

  • Preludium is the word that stood out to me as different. When I read the definition of the word, I discovered that it meant prelude. The narrator is saying that the feasts at Welbeck were merely the tip of the iceberg where cost was concerned. Afterward, the Duke provided other types of entertainment, I cannot recall the titles of them now, but I have read of...

  • I was trying to imply that I wonder if some of the public writers do so just for show. I wonder if they are trying to look more official and more professional than they really are--or if they are playing the writing game. I guess my question stems from the fact that I cannot do my best work when I am distracted by the public venues.

  • All manner of people covered in rain gear were scurrying about, jockeying for position on the crowded, city street. Only Hilary, with her gun concealed beneath her coat, paused to look into the dark and somber sky.

  • I am a visual artist, and I also write memoir. I have never written fiction before, and I am drawing a blank as to fictionalized stories. That being said, I do have a visual way of describing things, and I would like to create movie-like characters from my memoir. I am learning.