Cocktail Party – Author! Author!
Friday night, I went to the Author! Author! party with Carla McClafferty, my author friend. We chatted with local radio celebrity, Ann Nichols, host of KUAR’s Art Scene show.
Arkansas author, Carla McClafferty, and KUAR radio “Art Scene” host, Ann Nichols.
Of course, they had good food.
Author! Author! Cocktail party at the AR Literary Festival.
Arkansas author Erica Taylor was accompanied to the party by her husband, Middleweight boxer Jermain Taylor. Here’s his plate.
Middleweight boxer Jermain Taylor’s plate at the Author! Author! Cocktail party, AR Literary Festival.
If you read my first blog post about the Arkansas Literary Festival, you know that I featured 71-year old Catherine Coutler’s legs. Here, I am confessing that I wrote about her; Carla, Catherine and I also tried to outdo each other by telling horror stories about author visits.
Arkansas author, Darcy Patti son talking with Catherine Coulter.
Catherine also talked about the process of working with co-writer J.T. Ellison on her new Brit in the FBI series. Like James Patterson and Clive Cussler, Catherine is looking to establish several ongoing series by using cowriters. She said that she firmly believes in paying a co-writer well; of course, being an instant NY Times bestseller is also an incentive for a co-writer. Catherine is usually a panster, writing with no outline. For this series, though, she and J.T. sat down and planned out the next 90 or so scenes and the story has pretty much stayed on track. It is possible to learn a new writing strategy, even after 70 books.
Would you be interested in co-writing with a NY Time best-selling author? Why or why not?
Speed Dating for Authors
For me, the second day of the Arkansas Literary Festival kicked off on Saturday with a Treasure Hunt at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library, a gorgeous new facility dedicated to children’s literature and children.
We describe the Treasure Hunt as “speed-dating for authors.” Kids go from station to station, looking for clues, and of course, there is a treasure (snack and small gift) at the end. In the past, the speed dating has had ten minutes at each station, and then a bell rings to move kids to the next station. This time, kids were just set free to complete the treasure hunt at his/her own speed.
For authors, this didn’t work well and I hope we’ll go back to ten minute sessions next year. For example, one boy who was the right age for my ABAYOMI book breezed through, totally focused on gathering clues and getting the prize at the end. He was probably the first to finish in record time–but he saw none of the books and talked to no authors. If the setup had allowed ten minutes per station, he might have been pulled into a couple of great books that were unfamiliar to him.
Still–it was a great morning with kids, and I was so busy, I took no pictures.
Short Stories
I wanted to attend at least one session on Saturday and chose to go see David Jauss, author and writing teacher. He teaches at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Vermont College and is the author of one of the most amazing books on how-to-write: On Writing Fiction: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom About the Craft. His essay on point-of-view is unconventional, but brilliant. I used his ideas as the basis of a 3-post discussion of POV in The One and Only Ivan, winner of the 2013 Newbery. I had never met Jauss and wanted to hear him.
Jauss and author Cary Holladay were talking about short stories and both read interesting selections. Then, the moderator asked, “How do you know when a story is done?”
For Holladay, she intuitively knows when a story is done, because it wraps up something and just feels done. Jauss posed an interesting question. At first, he quipped, “A story is done when you die.”
But he went on to point out that some writers feel a published story should be archived at the moment of publication as an expression of where the writer was at that point of his/her career. However, Jauss feels its his duty to improve his stories each time it may be published. One short story has seen print about seven times in various journals or anthologies and each time, he tweaks it.
Where do you stand? After a story is published, would you tweak it again when it is republished?
Arkansas Author, David Jauss talking about his story story collection, Glossolalia
Abayomi, the Brazilian Puma
For my author session about ABAYOMI, THE BRAZILIAN PUMA: The True Story of an Orphaned Cub, I was at the Witt Stephens Nature Center. Situated right on the Arkansas River, just a block east of the Main Library for the Central Arkansas Library System and a block west of the Clinton Presidential Library, it’s a jewel of a place that is dedicated to the wildlife in the state.
Arkansas author, Darcy Pattison discussing her new book, Abayomi, the Brazilian Puma.
My last session was about self-publishing. As a hybrid author, I now have lots of sources and information for those just starting the indie process. Here’s my handout for the session. IndiePublishing-2014LitFestival.
I saw a tiny slice of the festival this year, which featured over 85 authors. Still, it was an intensive and fun two days and i am already looking forward to next year’s festival.
Carla McClafferty on C-Span 2/Book TV
“The Many Faces of George Washington”
Author Carla McClafferty talks at a Comcast/C-SPAN welcoming event in Little Rock about her book – which follows the process Mt. Vernon used to create life models of George Washington as a young man, commander of American forces in the revolution, and as our nation’s first President.
Airtimes: in central Arkansas–Central Standard Time:
- Saturday, March 31st 11am
- Saturday, March 31st 8:15pm
- Sunday, April 1st 10:15pm
Darcy Pattison on Color Your Life Happy BlogTalk Radio Show
Why Revision is Critical to Your Success.
Writers have two challenges. First, they must resist the tremendous urge to edit while creating the rough draft. Second, they must develop the patience to edit, revise, and polish the rough draft once it’s finished.
Upon recognizing the important role of revision, James Michener said, “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.”
Join host Flora Brown and guest, Darcy Pattison, author and writing teacher, when she reveals why revision of your book is a critical part of your writing success. She will share how revision allows for distance, reflection and vital feedback and eventually the discovery of your voice and the story you were meant to tell.
Monday, April 2, 2012 at 1 pm CDST.
(There’s a nifty reminder that you can set up at the site, by clicking the clock by the time.)
Call in to speak with the host at (347) 539-5700
Write Nonfiction for Kids? Break out with a High-Concept Idea
A high concept book is one that takes a universal theme and puts a fresh, original creative twist on it. It can be explained in two or three sentences, and will leave you wanting to read the book or in the case of writers it may leave you wondering, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
When the idea of high-concepts is applied to nonfiction for kids, it can create breakout titles for an author. Carla McClafferty, author of three such high-concept books, tells us how she does it.
Question: Carla, your first book,
Forgiving God, was an inspirational book dealing with the emotional crisis of the death of your child. Instead of following that with another inspirational book, you turned to trade nonfiction for kids, especially young adults. What drew you to this genre and this audience?
Carla: My path into publishing is different from most. Many writers I know wanted to be a writer since they were children. They wrote short stories and kept their musings in a journal. While I never considered the possibility of becoming a writer—and my diary was mostly empty! So I really don’t have any background that prepared me to become a writer—except for the fact that I’ve always been a voracious reader and loved books in general. My first profession is as a Radiologic Technologist.
Then my life changed forever. My fourteen-month-old son, Corey, died from a head injury after a minor fall. Losing him plunged me into such grief and despair that I had a serious crisis of Faith. I questioned everything I had ever believed. Gradually, God brought me through this dark period of my life, and restored my Faith. Then I knew I had to write about my journey through “the valley.”
I began writing the book even though I didn’t know what I was doing or what would happen to it when I was finished. Because it was emotionally difficult to write, the book took three years to write. During that time, I learned as much as possible about how book publishing works. I read writer’s magazines and books, and began attending an adult writer’s group meetings to learn as much about the way it works. I also attended local SCBWI conferences and meetings. I found so much information and help from children’s writers that it seemed to be a good fit for me.
At some point during the writing that first book, I knew I wanted to continue writing when it was finished. I realized that by reading books of all sorts throughout my life, I’d been in training to be a writer without knowing it.
By the time Forgiving God was published, I was already working on my first nonfiction book for young readers. Listening to the old adage of “write what you know,” I wrote about X-rays, my area of expertise. Farrar, Straus and Giroux published The Head Bone’s Connected to the Neck Bone: The Weird, Wacky and Wonderful X-ray in 2001. It was a great place for me to start.
Question: What do you
Create Vivid Images to Bring a Novel to Life
“Vivid imagery makes a story world come alive,” says Stacy Whitman, Associate Editor at Wizards of the Coast (Update March, 2010: Whitman is now editorial director of the Tu Books imprint at Lee & Low.) Everyone agrees that a writer’s ability to create an image in a reader’s head through their words is integral to fiction and effective novels. When writers and editors push toward imagery vivid enough to transport readers to new worlds, there are many options.
A book Whitman has edited is In the Serpent’s Coils: Hallomere (Wizards of the Coast, 2007), by Tiffany Trent, the first of a ten-book dark-fantasy novel series called Hallomere. (Update: Wizards of the Coast is no longer publishing stand alone fantasy novels and this series is out of print, only available from used book sources.) The series features six girls from around the world who are drawn together to rescue their missing schoolmates and prevent catastrophe in an epic battle between dark fey (or supernatural) worlds and the mortal world.
Vivid nature imagery sets mood. Whitman describes this short scene as having vivid nature imagery that sets a dreamy, magical tone for the novel, while emphasizing the Fey’s connection to nature:
But then she saw a dark shimmer by the hemlocks again. The tall man turned, as though he felt her gaze. He wore shadows deeper than twilight, and, as before, she couldn’t see his face. But she felt his gaze, felt it through the swift gasp of her heart, the seizure in her knees. The Captain raised his hand to her, and she saw, despite the dusk, that his hand was shiny and scarlet, as though wet with blood.
Stark, direct description sets mood. Alan Gratz creates a different sort of mood in his award winning book, The Samurai Shortshop (Dial Books, 2006), through what he describes as stark and direct description. In one of the most emotional openings of a story in young adult literature, Toyo helps his Uncle Koji perform the Japanese ritual suicide, seppuku.
Now Toyo sat in the damp grass outside the shrine as his uncle moved to the center of the mats. Uncle Koji’s face was a mask of calm. He wore a ceremonial white kimono with brilliant red wings–the wings he usually wore only into battle. He was clean-shaven and recently bathed, and he wore his hair in a tight topknot like the samurai of old. Uncle Koji knelt on the tatami mats keeping his hands on his hips and his arms akimbo.
Both Gratz and Trent are paying particular
