Four industry stars with four different points of view talked to us about groundbreaking nonfiction.
- Steve Malk is a literary agent at Writers House, representing some of the biggest names in the business.
- Susan Campbell Bartoletti writes poetry, short stories, picture books, and novels and nonfiction for young readers.
- Linda Sue Park is a Newbery Award winner (for A SINGLE SHARD), and the author of a NYT bestseller called A LONG WALK TO WATER as well as WING & CLAW and YAKS YAK.
- Elizabeth Partridge has written more than a dozen books, including MARCHING FOR FREEDOM and biographies of Woody Guthrie and Dorothea Lange.
Susan Campbell Bartlett's career opened up when she started to do nonfiction. She learned everything she needed to know about nonfiction in a great 11th-grade English class: taking notes, research, writing. She's written about growing up in coal country, Hitler youth, the Irish potato famine, and the Ku Klux Klan, and Typhoid Mary.
Some of the best advice she's ever received, from Patti Lee Gauch, is to reach inside of yourself and find a personal story.
Linda Sue Park loves writing historical fiction, and she loves grounding it and basing it in fact. She writes stories like she cooks: there is no recipe. Her tinkering, especially with real life events she works into her books, makes the narratives better. She ended up writing fiction because she loves to change things.
A LONG WALK TO WATER is one of her mashups. It's historical fiction based on the true story of a friend of hers who was one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. She interviewed her friend for hours and read his own writing. But the part of his life that she was writing about happened more than 20 years ago, so to make it a dramatic narrative, she wrote in scenes and added dialogue. Even though she interviewed him and got quotes from him, she considers the reproduction fiction. It's recreated from old conversations, and she doesn't think it's truly nonfiction to work this way.
Linda Sue also makes composite characters out of multiple people. Their stories are true, but the combination makes it fiction. Readers have been moved by the book nonetheless, and have raised more than $1.5 million for a water charity in Sudan. The realness of the book is what resonates with readers.
She's working on a mashup with several authors, including Jennifer Donnelly, M.T. Anderson, Candace Fleming and others about Henry VIII. It's called FATAL THRONE and will be out sometime after next fall.
Elizabeth Partridge loves to write biographies. She likes characters who are difficult. This gives grit and multiple layers to work. MARCHING FOR FREEDOM was a challenging book to write because her main characters were all earnest, hardworking, amazing kids and young adults. It's about the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, and she wanted to choose a new POV from Martin Luther King Jr's. She found photographs of kids who'd participated in marches and tried to find names of people to interview.
A New Yorker article led her to some kids who'd taken part, and before long, she'd found six or seven kids, whom she interviewed in Selma. "If I wanted this to remain nonfiction, I would have to quote them exactly."
Steven Malk has always loved nonfiction. He was a history major in college, and when he gets to read away from work, he reads all nonfiction. Nonfiction has morphed and taken on a broader definition. There's room for more voices. "It's an interesting time." He talked about Deborah Wiles documentary novels REVOLUTION and COUNTDOWN. "She's doing something very unique."
Other writers/artists to watch are Deborah Hopkinson, Kadir Nelson, Eugene Yelchin and Matt dela Pena, Stephanie Hemphill (and more—he's an encyclopedia of books and creators).
He likes it when books open up conversations about what's fiction and nonfiction. He's a bit looser about it. As long as people are reading, that's a good thing. He grew up in his parents' bookstore, and wasn't snobby about what people were reading.
What's the line between fiction and nonfiction?
Susan Bartoletti -
a book like TERRIBLE TYPHOID MARY is nonfiction. When Mary is thinking, Susan couches it in "might have thought." -
Linda Sue Park - "Facts don't interest me very much. I'm interested in truth." Facts are one tool to getting at the truth. At a Library of Congress event she met a man who wanted to read only fiction, because all nonfiction becomes untrue with future discoveries. This fascinated her, even as she depends on nonfiction writers' work to do their own.
Elizabeth Partridge - She has a hard line between fiction and nonfiction. "I will not make up anything. I will twist myself in knots to not make up something." The weather can be particularly difficult. But she's loving the mashups that are getting more and more out there. She loves how in LOVING VS VIRGINIA the author went inside the characters' heads and told the story in poetry.
"We think of nonfiction of being dry and dates and names and places. But if you can find the emotional spine of your book, it will be
powerful."
Steve Malk - You need to own what you're doing. You can't say it's nonfiction if you're making up dialogue. If you say you're writing nonfiction but you don't have sources and you're making things up, it makes you look unprofessional. You need to be very clear to an agent or publisher what you're trying to do. Authors notes and backwater can be helpful, but you have to be able to articulate it for yourself when you are submitting. Don't leave that up to the publisher.
We're also starting to see nonfiction back matter in fiction books, Susan said. That's an interesting mashup.
You have to be honest with yourself about your research and what you're writing. You can't rely on your publisher to vet your work.
"If you're passionate for your topic, you want to get it right. You would be unsatisfied fudging it," Linda Sue said.
Here are a few key insights and habits these great writers shared:
Susan Campbell Bartoletti starts her research in libraries, and has six times as many library cards as credit cards. These libraries have databases and other sources you can't find anywhere else. But she also travels to the places she's writing about, and even spent time at a Ku Klux Klan rally.
She has a secret for knowing when to stop researching: "When the facts begin to repeat themselves, that's when I know it's time to begin writing." (Sometimes research can be a sophisticated form of procrastination.)
Deborah Heiligman: Almost all of her sources are primary. She read Darwin's autobiography and a two-volume set of letters from Emma's family. A line in one of Emma's letters made her cry. "I knew I was hooked. I got absolutely passionately attached to both Charles and Emma."
Tanya Lee Stone calls extreme research "detective work." You have to let go of not knowing what you're going to find and whether it's going to fit into the story you're going to tell. Before she started researching ALMOST ASTRONAUTS, she kept coming across obscure mentions of women who almost became astronauts and got interested; tracking down the women was a big challenge. She interviews lots of people to enhance her baseline research. You want to learn all you can before you interview people, though.
Elizabeth Partridge spoke about connecting with an editor. With nonfiction, you generally send a cover letter, a sample chapter, and an outline. Crafting that forces you to get some clarity on the research you've done (even if your book changes as it's written and polished). She's also used photographs to engage an editor's imagination.
BIG laugh in the room when Deborah Heiligman agrees with the point of checking back with your interviewees and letting them read your manuscript to check it... for Charles and Emma Darwin!
Ken Wright is asking great substantive questions, and we're all learning a ton.
Here are the website links (and some great quotes from the session) for these amazing, passionate and so articulate nonfiction authors:
Tanya Lee Stone
"Almost Astronauts started out as a picturebook!... Trust yourself and ask yourself "What is the story I need to tell." (Rather than focusing on the kind of book you think it's going to be.)
"If you don't have a point of view, why are you telling the story?"
Elizabeth Partridge
"You want to have multiple layers in your nonfiction" If it's too straightforward, it will be boring.
advice she still sticks by:
"Have emotion in every single paragraph - every paragraph should have emotional
resonance!"
Deborah Heiligman"We're all trying to do something original"
her editor told her
"Let the content dictate the form"
(Moral: stay flexible to what you discover - even if it diverges from your proposal.)
"Everything I put in the book has to be in service to the main story you want to tell" (like for Charles and Emma, even for the details of the ship voyage, the ones she included all resonated to the love story that was the story she wanted to tell!)
Susan Campbell Bartoletti -
Tells the story of how she was contracted to write a book on American involvement in World War II, and how it ended up being a book about Hitler Youth instead! Which was her Newbury Honor nonfiction book "Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow."
She also related going down to Arkansas to visit the KKK today as research for her upcoming historical nonfiction on the KKK - and how that helped bring the story to life.
And to finish, Deborah Heligman paraphrased a beautiful quote from Isaac Bashevitz Singer:
Is it a story?
Does is have a beginning, middle and end?
Is it a story that needs to be told?
Is it a story that only I can tell?
Good Morning Conference Goers and blog followers!
Ken Wright moderating, and left to right: Tanya Lee Stone, Elizabeth Partridge, Deborah Heiligman, and Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Early this Sunday Morning we have something worth getting up for... the Narrative Non Fiction is hot Hot HOT panel with multi-award winning author for her nonfiction titles Susan Campbell Bartoletti, National Book Award Finalist for "Charles and Emma: The Darwin's Leap of Faith" Deborah Heiligman, Golden Kite winning author Elizabeth Partridge, multi-award winning author (with an upcoming "The Good, The Bad, and The Barbie: A History of the Doll and her impact on Culture) Tanya Lee Stone and it's moderated by Writers House agent (with a passion for nonfiction) Ken Wright!
As Lin is saying in her introduction, it's a genre that's finally getting it's moment in the spotlight.
Ohh - the panel's about to start!
We've had 3 books nominated in the MG/YA nonfiction category that deal with Civil Rights, and they're all pretty awesome.
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice Phillip Hoose
Here's a book that deserves every drop of hype. This is how children's nonfiction should be done! A story written at level without being dumbed down (bonus points for being about a young person), beautiful book design with with great pictures, good informational sidebars, and excellent back matter. Not only are all the sources listed with a good index, but there is an excellent author's note about how the book came to be. The only thing one could want is a specific list of further reading at the same level as the book.
Claudette Colvin cuts through many myths of the Montgomery Bus Boycotts. I grew up learning that Rosa Parks was the first person to refuse to give up her seat and go to jail for it. That she did it because she was tired after a long day of work. Later I learned that it turns out that Rosa Parks wasn't an accidental hero, but a badass deliberate one. She was very involved in the civil rights movement in Montgomery and was tired not from a long day, but tired from a life of being a second class citizen. Then I learned that Rosa Parks wasn't the first, but the other two women were unsuitable. One was a pregnant teen. The other was equally as bad.
Then I read this book. Colvin wasn't pregnant until later. The real reason is because Colvin, and later, Mary Louise Smith were poor and from an famously "bad" part of town. They were young and inexperienced. Colvin's acts led her classmates and friends to shun her. Her act was also a deliberate one, a protest against what she saw going on around her. The book also goes into great detail about how the boycott worked, Colvin's personal story, and the court cases and legal actions that finally declared bus segregation illegal. (Did you know it was a lawsuit that finally did it? Yeah, me neither. I thought the city caved to economic pressure.)
I really appreciated how the text alternates between Hoose's history and Colvin's memories, with the two working as duel narrators. Overall, an inspiring story that is told very well and beautifully pacakged. An excellent example of what children's nonfiction should look like. I cannot say enough good things about this one.
Book Provided by... my local library
Marching For Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don't You Grow Weary Elizabeth Partridge
How is this for an amazing first sentence?
The first time Joanne Blackmon was arrested, she was just ten years old.The opening photograph is of a young boy being arrested for protesting the lack of voting rights for black citizens in Alabama.
The story just goes from there, telling the story of the voting rights struggle, particularly the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, through the eyes of the children. You really get the sense that this was a children's movement. The children didn't fear losing their jobs. No one was depending on them to put food on the table. They could fill the jails day after d
3 great titles for you all this week!
First up, we have the book all parents of toddlers are desperately in need of. I Can Do It Myself, written by Diane Adams and illustrated by Nancy Hayashi is a sweet little story about Emily, a very big girl that doesn't like it when her mommy tries to help her. Emily can peanut butter her own bread, fold her own clothes, and tie her own shoes and does NOT want her mom's help at all.
When it comes to bedtime, Emily can do all of the things necessary to get ready for bed, but when shadows creep on the walls in the dark, sometimes it's nice to let mommy give some comfort and read a story. After all, doing things all by herself isn't always fun!
A very sweet story with wonderful illustrations, I Can Do It Myself would make a nice one-on-one story with mommy (or daddy) and their little one...especially for those at toddler age.
I Can Do It Myself
Diane Adams
32 pages
Picture Book
Peachtree Publishers
9781561454716
March 2009
Big Cat Pepper, written by Elizabeth Partridge and illustrated by Lauren Castillo, is a great example of a book to explain the death of a pet to a young child.
Big Cat Pepper has always been a big part of the family, but lately he hasn't been acting right. He doesn't want to eat and seems to sleep all the time...and Mama says he might die.
The kitty does pass away and the boy experiences his beloved pet's death in a safe, secure environment with his parents explaining everything very nicely. I felt the illustrations were done extremely well, the subject matter was written appropriately for a young child, and the book would make a nice selection for libraries.
Big Cat Pepper
Elizabeth Partridge
32 pages
Picture Book
Bloomsbury
9781599900247
May 2009
The Little Green Pea, written by Alison Barber and illustrated by Paige Keiser is an absolutely adorable story of dreaming big (and throws in a little eco-info too)! A little green pea lives in a row of 53, but dreams of becoming a tree someday. All of the other peas know better...they know what will become of them, but the little green pea is determined to be something more than just a part of a dish.
When the little pea is plucked...and indeed headed for a dinner table he uses his quick wits to get out of the bucket. However, what happens next is very unexpected AND we get a cool visitor to the story. I don't want to give too much away!
A cute choice for libraries and a nice storytime read aloud.
The Little Green Pea
Alison Barber
32 pages
Picture Book
Sleeping Bear Press
9781585364480
May 2009
To learn more, or to purchase, click on the book cover above to link to Amazon.
.jpeg?picon=2287)
Great write up about Claudette Colvin. I heard about it a couple of weeks ago when Hoose won the National Book Award, and after reading your review it's on my "to buy" list. The other books sound like great supplemental reads too. Thanks!