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The author of Openly Straight returns with an epic road trip involving family history, gay history, the girlfriend our hero can't have, the grandfather he never knew, and the veyr prickly Porcupine of Truth.
The friends: Carson Smith, Aisha Stinson
Shared traits with other books on this list: Young adult; wildlife (symbolic); road trip; mystery; Internet searches; city setting (Billings, Salt Lake, and San Francisco); family
Distinct traits: Contemplation of religion and God; improv comedy
Best friends, big fans, a mysterious webcomic, and a long-lost girl collide in this riveting mystery, perfect for fans of both Cory Doctorow and Sarah Dessen, and illustrated throughout with comic art.
The friends: May (a writer in glasses), Libby (a glamorous artist, until she drowns ... and then maybe after) Shared traits: Young adult; mystery; Internet searching; street art; chase scene; fight scene; city setting (Seattle); fairy tale elements; YA debut of an adult author; ghosts; interior art; biracial main character
The friends: Sierra has an awesome group at her back: Bennie, Izzy, Tee, and Big Jerome Shared traits: Young adult; street art; chase scene; city setting (Brooklyn); mystery; Internet searching; family; fight scenes; magic; YA debut of an adult author; ghosts; over-the-transom submission; big hair
Distinct traits: A completely heretofore-unseen form of magic in fantasy, deeply connected to its heroine's culture and imagination; a sweet and hot romance; tattoos
Thank you for checking these books out!
0 Comments on A Verbal Venn Diagram of My Summer 2015 List as of 7/3/2015 2:03:00 AM
Megan Morrison and I met in 2003, via our mutual friend Melissa Anelli of the Harry Potter fan site The Leaky Cauldron, and I read an early draft of Grounded in 2004. I liked its characters and action a lot -- Rapunzel descending from her tower against her will, and traveling across the land of Tyme with a thief named Jack -- but to my eye, it didn't have enough emotional and world-building depth to elevate it from "cute and smart" to "real and meaningful," and I thought Meg could do more with it. So I told her that, in a three-page editorial letter, and offered to look at a revision when she was ready.
I did not think at the time--and nor did Meg--that this readiness would take eight years. But when she contacted me about the ms. again in 2012, she said that she had rewritten the book, "revised the rewrite, plotted the entire series in detail from back to front, and then revised it again. . . . Though the plot sounds similar to what it was, the book is very different, with a cast of characters who are fully realized and motivated, including the peripheral characters, who don't come to the fore until later books in the series. I love it and believe in it." I had never forgotten Grounded--and in fact had been hoping for this e-mail for eight years--so I asked to see it again.
And this time, I loved it and believed in it too, as Meg was 100% right in her estimation of her revised novel. I adore fairy tales in part because the transformations they contain speak to some of our deepest human stories and relationships, and my favorite retellings round out those transformations with complex psychology and world-building, while honoring the readerly pleasures of wonder or romance or connection at their heart. The new Grounded kept all the charm of Rapunzel and Jack's banter and the cleverness of the land of Tyme, whose history, geography, and even the resulting economics and sociology have all been fully thought through. But it achieved the reality and deeper meaning I'd been hoping for, thanks to Rapunzel's complex relationship with her Witch, whom she truly loves, and who has good reason to keep her in the tower; and Rapunzel's own process of growing up, finding out hard truths, and yet moving forward into wholeness. The book made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me intensely happy as a reader; and since it came out earlier this month, both Meg and I have been delighted by its critical reception -- including two starred reviews! -- which has praised both its many pleasures and that emotional depth. (It's also an Amazon.com Best Book of the Month for May.) Publishing it has reminded me yet again: Good things come to editors who wait.
Four more notes, before I share Meg's Five Questions:
You can actually see a rare scene of the editor and author at work, sort of, in Melissa Anelli's Harry, A History. Page 79 documents a writing weekend among the three of us that took place at my apartment, where Meg was working on Grounded, Melissa was writing for the Leaky Cauldron, and I was editing A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth Bunce, another great fairy-tale retelling. (And also making pancakes.)
This entire series of five-question posts was actually inspired by Meg herself, as she's written "Five Reasons to Read _________" posts like this one on her blog for years.
Meg wrote about her side of this story at Literary Rambles and in this interview, which also reflects on her experience as a Harry Potter fan and a fanfiction author.
And Meg and her friend Kristin Brown, who's a professional geographer, talk about their collaboration in creating "plausible geography" for Tyme in this fascinating interview.
Five Questions for Megan Morrison
1. Tell us a little bit about your book.
It’s the story of Rapunzel – the hair, the tower, the witch – except that my Rapunzel loves her tower and doesn’t want to leave it. She has everything she wants and thinks she is the luckiest person in the world. Until things go wrong, and she learns otherwise.
2. If this book had a theme song and/or a spirit animal, what would it be and why?
If I were to choose just one song, it would have to be “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell). This is Witch’s promise to Rapunzel: that she will allow nothing to divide them – that she’ll rescue her from anything. It’s a very different song at the beginning of the book than it is at the end.
3. Please name and elaborate upon at least one thing you learned or discovered about writing in the course of creating this book.
Sometimes, the idea for a story will come before the writer is ready to meet it. That doesn’t mean that the writer should stop writing or give up on the idea, but it means that the story won’t mature until the writer does. I had the idea for Grounded long before I was equipped to write it well. Life experiences – in particular becoming a mother and a teacher – were necessary. Not that those particular experiences are prerequisites for writing. Far from it. They were just necessary for me. They changed me in big, important ways, and strengthened me as both a storyteller and as a professional. My work ethic and my openness to criticism are vastly improved over what they were ten years ago. I have hardened and mellowed both, in the ways that I needed to.
4. What is your favorite scene in the book?
Rapunzel’s conversation with Witch at the end.
That’s a hard question, though. Whenever Rapunzel and Jack are talking to each other, I am delighted.
5. What are you working on now?
The second book in the Tyme series! A different fairy tale, set in the same world. Many characters who appear in Grounded will show up again.
Sylvie Scruggs is the heroine of this series, and she’s a lot like her name: interesting, energetic, and a little rough around the edges. In The Best Friend Battle, Sylvie comes home from a family vacation to find that her best friend, Miranda, has made friends with the enemy, Georgie Diaz. Sylvie’s entire world is threatened by this new friendship, and she does everything she can to get things back to normal. But normal doesn’t come easily, and Sylvie seems to have a penchant for making difficult situations much, much worse!
2. If this book had a theme song and/or spirit animal, what would it be and why?
Sylvie’s theme song would probably be "Life’s a Happy Song" from the new Muppet movie. It’s all about how life is a happy thing if and only if you have someone, a best friend, to share it with. But what happens when you don’t? (Sylvie does not want to find out.)
3. Please name and elaborate upon at least one thing you learned or discovered about writing in the course of creating this book.
Writing this book was not easy. I don’t believe (or at least I don’t like very much) writers who claim writing is an easy thing whether they are writing their first book or their hundredth, but certain things can make writing go much more smoothly. When you can hear the voice of your main character — when that person is large-as-life in your head — many difficult issues take care of themselves. Your writing struggles will revolve around plot, not plot and character. As flawed as Sylvie is, she’s now a friend I could sit down with and have a conversation about anything from mushrooms to ice dancing. That familiarity makes writing (mostly) a pleasure. I don’t always know what will happen to Sylvie or even what she will do, but I usually know what she would have to say about it!
4. What is your favorite scene in the book?
The scene where Josh and Sylvie build the castle together. I love Josh (who gets a big role in Sylvie’s third book) and all of his interactions with Sylvie.
5. What are you working on now?
Sylvie’s second adventure, The Mean Girl Meltdown, is in the final stages of publication [editor's note: out this fall!], and her third book, The Spelling Bee Scuffle, is in beginning stages of the editorial process. I’m also working on a novel about a twelve-year-old girl named Rory, the middle child in a dysfunctional and eccentric family, whose mother is in Sweden for a month. As Rory, a very different character than Sylvie, attempts to save the family from their dictatorial grandmother and an impending eviction, she alienates her best friend, Owen, nearly kills her younger brother, and gets her grandmother arrested for illegal possession of a motorcycle. This book has been much harder for me to write because of what I was speaking about earlier — knowing your characters. I get into the heads of many characters in Rory’s book, and I’m finding out very quickly that I know some of them much better than I know others!
0 Comments on Five Questions for Lindsay Eyre, author of THE BEST FRIEND BATTLE as of 3/31/2015 8:27:00 AM
(The first in a new series of brief interviews with authors of forthcoming books)
1. Tell us a little bit about your book. Burning Nation is the second book in the Divided We Fall trilogy. It continues the story of seventeen-year-old Idaho Army National Guardsman PFC Danny Wright and his friends as they are stuck in the middle of a tense stand-off between the state of Idaho and the federal government of the United States. In the first book, Divided We Fall, Idaho has voted to nullify the Federal Identification Card Act. When Danny’s National Guard unit is sent to quell a protest/riot resulting from this nullification, he accidentally fires his rifle, which causes other people to shoot, leaving twelve dead and nine wounded. The president demands an investigation and prosecution. The governor of Idaho refuses to cooperate, saying that he gave a lawful order to the National Guardsmen under his command.
Burning Nation begins right where the first book left off, with the president sending the military to force Idaho to comply with federal law. Right from the beginning, Danny and his friends are caught up in the fight, but as the country descends into the chaos of the Second American Civil War, losses begin to take their toll. It becomes hard to understand what has been won, but easy to see what’s been lost. As the sacrifices mount and betrayals abound, Danny and his friends begin to think about the wounds they’ve suffered, inside and out.
It’s an action-packed book that continues to explore what happens when America’s current political divide widens into tomorrow’s nightmare, and it’s alarming how many real-life headlines seem to have been predicted by Divided We Fall and Burning Nation.
2. If this book had a theme song, what would it be and why? Ten years ago, when my fellow soldiers and I were serving in Farah Province in Afghanistan, we were struck by how much the landscape resembled that featured in the movie Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. That movie features a song by Tina Turner called "We Don’t Need Another Hero." My fellow soldiers would joke about this song, with one man saying, “We don’t need another hero” and another replying, “We don’t even know the way home.” The video is a bit dated and cheesy, but if you listen to the words, the song really fits as a commentary on the brutality and waste of war that is very appropriate for Burning Nation.
3. Please name and elaborate upon at least one thing you learned or discovered about writing in the course of creating this book.
When I began work on Burning Nation, I was under the naive assumption that writing the book would be easier because I had already finished Divided We Fall. I knew the characters, the setting, and at least the situation that led to the events in Burning Nation. I should have known that Burning Nation would be as significant if not a greater challenge than the first book. One of the challenges came from the situation the characters face. Throughout most of Burning Nation Danny and his friends must endure a federal military occupation of their small northern Idaho town. With U.S. soldiers hunting for them all the time, their movements, and thus my options for the kinds of scenes I could include, felt rather limited. I began to feel almost as claustrophobic as Danny and his fellow soldiers.
Another challenge with writing Burning Nation was that it was the second part of a story that already had its first part on the market. I was facing a situation that was new to me, that of having public feedback on characters and other aspects of the larger Divided We Fall story, while I was writing that story’s second installment. It felt like having many, sometimes too many, advisors in my office with me while I worked. Cheryl was wise, as she usually is, when she encouraged me to stop looking at reviews and reader comments as I worked on Burning Nation.
4. What is your favorite scene in the book? I’m really quite happy with a lot of the scenes in Burning Nation, so I’m going to cheat and list two. First, since Burning Nation isn’t merely an action/war book, but is a piece which, I hope, encourages the reader to think about the terrible nature of war and its effects on those who live through it, I’d like to point out a scene that happens after Danny Wright has been through terrible physical and emotional torture. He is out of his mind from sleep deprivation and other torments, and when his one-time rival TJ bursts into his cell to rescue him, Danny isn’t sure if what is happening is even real. He’s confused and kind of cries, “Travis?” Travis Jones realizes that Danny is seriously messed up and it’s going to be harder to rescue him than he and his friends supposed. It’s a small moment, but I hope there’s a lot of emotion in that simple question, that exhausted and near-breaking-point, “Travis?”
And since I love some good action, I’m also quite happy with a hand-to-hand fight scene near the end of the book. It’s a fight between Danny and a U.S. Army major, a desperate fight to the death where Danny has to make an important decision about how deep into the war he’s willing to go, and how much of himself he wants to save. In addition to the moral question the fight raises, I just think it’s a clear scene, a tense and suspenseful fight. And the conclusion of the scene is really quite chilling.
5. What are you working on now?
I am hard at work on the third book in the Divided We Fall trilogy, entitled The Last Full Measure. The story follows America’s further final decline into a terrible civil war, and the difficult consequences this has for Danny Wright and his friends. I’m having lots of fun working on it, and it’s on schedule for a 2016 release.
For more about this book, including an excerpt, reviews, and purchase information, visit the Burning Nation page on the Arthur A. Levine Books website.
0 Comments on Five Questions for Trent Reedy, author of BURNING NATION as of 2/28/2015 9:44:00 AM
I published eleven books this year -- my most ever! I did not write about those titles here so much, however, because I was spending much of my time readying my 2015 books. (Such is publishing.) But I'm very proud of them all, and as always it was a pleasure to have such a wide-ranging list . . . to be able to turn from the proofs on Divided We Fall, say -- a YA novel about the start of the second American civil war -- to figuring out what piece of classic artwork would match a particular stage of our heroine's journey in I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed A Dreidel. (You'd have to see the book to get it.) So yay for my 2014 list!
Divided We Fall
by Trent Reedy
Gold Medal Winter
by Donna Freitas
Amber House: Neverwas
by Kelly Moore, Tucker Reed, and Larkin Reed
The Good-Pie Party
by Liz Garton Scanlon
illustrated by Kady Macdonald Denton
Curses and Smoke: A Novel of Pompeii
by Vicky Alvear Shecter
The Great Greene Heist
by Varian Johnson
Zoe's Jungle
by Bethanie Murguia
What's New? The Zoo! A Zippy History of Zoos
by Kathy Krull, illustrated by Marcellus Hall
If You're Reading This
by Trent Reedy
Finding Ruby Starling
by Karen Rivers
I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Dreidel
by Caryn Yacowitz, illustrated by David Slonim
0 Comments on 2014 Editorial Year in Review as of 12/28/2014 4:14:00 AM
Guess what? Those two things in my subject line are one and the same thing! We have a new episode of the Narrative Breakdown up, which also happens to be a recording of a panel I mentioned many moons ago: me, fellow editor and publisher Stacy Whitman, and our authors Eric Gansworth and Joseph Bruchac, respectively, discussing their books If I Ever Get Out of Here and Killer of Enemies, respectively. It was a really great, meaty, interesting conversation (IMO) about how Stacy and I came to edit these books, editor-author relationships in general, writing YA, privilege, and cross-cultural publishing. And now you can see a writeup of it from Publishers Weeklyat this link, and listen to the full recording here. Thanks for checking it out!
0 Comments on A New Episode of the Narrative Breakdown & My NYPL Panel on Native American YA Literature as of 1/1/1900
News! Later this month, on June 28, I'll be appearing in a great little mini-conference in my hometown of Belton, Mo. (about half an hour south of Kansas City). I'll give a talk on the five things editors want to see in every manuscript. Then the picture book author (and my best friend) Katy Beebe and I will discuss query letters, particularly the one that led to the publication of her lovely book Brother Hugo and the Bear. And finally, we'll do a first-pages session to round out the morning. Registration is $60, to benefit the Cass County Library Foundation (one of several library systems that made Katy and me the writers and readers we are today). For more information and to register, please click here.
In sad news, last month marked the first month in the nine-year history of this blog where I did not write a single post! Not a one! Part of it can be attributed to this fine fellow:
Mr. Bob Jacob Marley Monohan, who has come to dwell in our apartment and demand my time and attention, cat treats, things to gnaw on (currently a pair of James's cargo shorts that he unwisely left on the couch), etc. Part of it is that I have Twitter to accept all of my random thoughts. Much of it was simply work and life. But I miss writing here. I'm going to try to do a post a week for the rest of the summer, and I hope it will result in good energy all around.
As this blog has often served as my running results archive: My sister and I ran the Brooklyn Half-Marathon a couple weeks ago in 2:10. It was my slowest time for a half ever, but I didn't care, because I super-enjoyed running and chatting with her.
We have a great new episode of the Narrative Breakdown up here, with Matt Bird and James and I talking character goals and philosophies. Our podcasting has fallen off a bit of late because we lost our sponsor.... If you'd be interested in donating to the cause or sponsoring an episode yourself (a great way to reach a wide audience of writers and other lovers of narrative), please contact us at narrativebreakdown at gmail dot com.
And if you'd like to buy my book SECOND SIGHT, but not through Amazon, please e-mail me at chavela_que at yahoo dot com. I'd be happy to work out alternate means of payment and delivery with you.
Happy summer!
0 Comments on A New Conference + Miscellany as of 6/6/2014 11:25:00 AM
There is all kinds of great and exciting stuff happening with diverse children's literature these days! By the time you're reading this, the #weneeddiversebooks campaign should be live on social media, May 1-3 -- follow it on Twitter and Tumblr and please share your own thoughts there. Kudos to the awesome team who put that together!
Closer to home, The Great Greene Heistby Varian Johnson -- a modern, middle-school, multicultural Ocean's 11; a book I edited and am immensely proud of -- is getting a ton of awesome attention from indie booksellers and Varian's fellow authors, who are asking everyone to take the #greatgreenechallenge and help us get a diverse book on the bestseller lists. Kate Messner threw down the initial challenge; Shannon Hale raised the bar; and some guy named John Green sweetened the pot further for bookstores. You can check out all the action at Varian's blog post here. The book has received wide praise from many authors and a starred review from Kirkus, and it was named a Publishers Weekly Best Summer Book of 2014! If you still need more convincing, you can check out this wonderful little prequel as a taster, or just join the challenge and preorder it now. (I advise the latter.) Out officially on May 27, 2014.
Finally, I'm going to post this list here for anyone who might still need diverse book recommendations -- a list of books I've edited featuring diverse protagonists. Diversity has been a priority at Arthur A. Levine Books since the imprint was founded, and it's been a particular passion of mine for years, so I'm very proud of both this list and the many great books on our publishing lists to come.
Books I've Edited Featuring Diverse Protagonists
Millicent Min, Girl Genius and Stanford Wong Flunks Big Time by Lisa Yee (MG; Asian-American)
Bobby vs. Girls (Accidentally) and Bobby the Brave (Sometimes) by Lisa Yee (chapter book; biracial, Asian-American)
Eighth-Grade Superzero by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich (MG: American of Black Jamaican descent)
If I Ever Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth (YA; Tuscarora Native American)
The Path of Names by Ari Goelman (MG fantasy; Jewish)
Marcelo in the Real World, The Last Summer of the Death Warriors, and Irises by Francisco X. Stork (YA; Latin@)
The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb (YA nonfiction; Jewish)
The Fire Horse Girl by Kay Honeyman (YA; Chinese)
Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg (YA; Gay)
Gold Medal Winter by Donna Freitas (MG; Latina)
The Savage Fortress and The City of Death by Sarwat Chadda (MG fantasy; British of Indian descent, Hindu(ish))
Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy (MG; Afghan, Muslim)
The Encyclopedia of Me by Karen Rivers (MG; biracial, of British-Caribbean descent)
Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit and Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness by Nahoko Uehashi, translated by Cathy Hirano (YA fantasy; Asian-inspired)
Above by Leah Bobet (YA fantasy; differently abled cast -- which is putting it mildly -- and biracial protagonist of French and Indian descent)
Yay diverse books!
0 Comments on We Need Diverse Books. as of 5/1/2014 1:21:00 AM
The online existence of this preview will be old news to many, but good news to more: Behold the lineup of Scholastic's Spring 2013 books! We recorded it a little bit differently this time, so you get a glimpse inside many of editors' offices, including mine*, where I talk about the books:
The Path of Names by Ari Goelman, at 13:46 in middle grade -- The ONLY Jewish summer-camp fantasy you'll ever read or need: Diana Wynne Jones meets Chaim Potok in the Poconos, with a wholly original magic and some of the smartest, most believably snarky 12-year-olds ever to appear in a novel. Out in May.
Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg, at 8:00 in YA -- This has pretty much everything I'm looking for in a novel these days: An original, provocative premise; wonderful characters; a smart, funny, relateable voice; believable consequences to its action; the courage of its convictions in following through on its ideas and story; and pleasure in reading, provoking thought long after. Also: THIS IS NOT JUST A BOOK FOR GAY PEOPLE. STRAIGHT PEOPLE SHOULD READ IT AND WILL LOVE IT TOO. (I feel the need to make that point.) Out in June.
The Fire Horse Girl by Kay Honeyman, immediately after it -- This book satisfied every single teen-girl reader part of me: the headstrong heroine, who was sometimes lonely because of her iconoclasm; the fascinating historical background of Angel Island and San Francisco in the age of the tongs; terrific adventures; a romance whose tiny gestures I could reread again and again. In stores now!
There will be more to say about all of these books in the course of the year. In the meantime, won't you please check the preview out to see them now? Librarian Preview
* Fun fact: The KID LIT Missouri license plate you can see over my shoulder belonged to my grandfather.
1 Comments on Spring 2013 Librarian Preview!, last added: 1/26/2013
Wow, all of those sound fantastic! I will mark my calendar now. (I also can't wait for Arthur's Jaclyn Moriarty book - love her.) And your shirt/dress? is lovely.
Earlier this fall, I asked my Seattle-area blog readers to go out to a signing for Stephanie Trimberger's The Ruby Heart -- a book Arthur and I worked on with her as part of the Make-a-Wish program, as chronicled in this video. I'm sorry to have to report that Stephanie passed away in November. But her memory lives on with her novel, and Make-a-Wish has now made The Ruby Heart available as a free PDF download for anyone who'd like to read it. You can check it out here.
(Thank you to reader Pamela for the heads-up.)
4 Comments on An Update: Stephanie Trimberger and THE RUBY HEART, last added: 1/7/2013
Cheryl, I'm so glad I recently signed up to be notified when you post (I looked a long time ago and somehow my eyes skipped over the widget) because I wouldn't have become aware of this.
There was no way not to cry over this and the plight of this young woman. Hearing and seeing Arthur speak about the experience was so moving, and I'm sure you both felt a deep sense of loss when she passed, but also grateful you were in a position to do what you did for her.
This such a sad, touching story. My condolences to Stephanie's family and friends. Thank you to Arthur and Cheryl for bringing such joy to her.
Katie Hunt said, on 1/2/2013 7:25:00 AM
Thank you for the free read. Thank you for all the great that you guys have done. I'm sure this post will help in ebook marketing so more people will be able to read the book and know the story.
PSA for Writers: Even if you usually skip the Q&As on this blog, you should read this one, particularly what Trent has to say about the Bechard Factor below.
Tell us the origin story and history of Stealing Air.
Stealing Air is a story I have been working with on and off for about twenty years. It began as a very short and simple story that was my response to a sixth grade English class assignment. Our challenge was to write any story we wished about "Freaky Frankie," this cartoonish Frankenstein's monster we were shown. I knew all the other kids would come up with scary or Halloween stories, so I wanted to write something different. I wrote a piece called "Flyboys," in which Frankie was just a tough guy who picked on three boys whose passion was building a tiny skateboard-mounted airplane that two of the boys hoped to fly around on. "Flyboys" was a big hit, and I was asked to read it at a sixth grade Halloween party.
I never let go of the core idea for that story, and sometime in my early twenties, I expanded "Flyboys" into a novel-length manuscript. In the novel version, I developed the skateboard-based airplane, added a neat friendship dynamic, and gave the protagonist a romantic interest. I had high hopes that this would be my first published novel.
However, when I was sent to Afghanistan with the Iowa Army National Guard in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, all of my plans changed. I became fascinated by the country I had been sent to help reconstruct, and I made a vow in my heart to one particularly inspiring Afghan girl, promising I would do all I could to tell her story. Thus, instead of Flyboys, the adventure story of three sixth-grade boys from Iowa who become friends while building a plane in a secret workshop, my first published novel was Words in the Dust, the story of a young Afghan girl who struggles to find peace and lasting meaning in post-Taliban, Afghanistan.
Writing Words in the Dust was a very serious, emotionally demanding process, and so when I set out to write my second novel, I needed something more light-hearted and adventurous. Flyboys was just the right story. However, reading that old novel-length story after all I had learned at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and after what I’d learned working with you, I realized Flyboys would need to be completely rewritten. Most of the plot and characters remained the same, but the resulting novel Stealing Air is incredibly different, a lot better than its prototype stories.
How was writing your second novel both different from and similar to writing your first?
The process of getting a novel published can be very difficult and usually requires a lot of work. In my long journey to publication, I felt ready for the extensive revisions I would have to do to prepare my first novel Words in the Dust for submission to publishers. There are many magazine articles and blog posts about this.
What the articles and blogs did not prepare me for was the awesome amount of work in revision that takes place after signing the book contract. The course of revisions and copy edits was exhausting but exhilarating. When it was over and Words in the Dust was a real book on the shelf, I was pleased with the result, knowing I had done my very best with that novel.
In life we often have the tendency to look at the past with a filter that can remove from our immediate memory a lot of the difficulties and hardships we faced in a given time. This filter enables some people to long for the “good old days” of high school which can be remembered with fondness, as long as they don’t think about all the old social pressures and tedious homework assignments.
I think to a certain extent, I was looking back on my first novel experience with a similar filter. I dove into writing and revising Stealing Air with the idea that I was a more experienced writer, thinking that the process should be smoother and easier. What I learned is that, for me at least, every new novel presents its own unique complications. It’s like starting over. And how wonderful is that? I loved the challenge of writing and revising Words in the Dust. After the initial sense of surprise and frustration in dealing with Stealing Air’s issues, I eventually embraced my chance to relive the “good old days” of preparing another novel for publication.
Who were your best friends when you were in sixth grade? What was the worst trouble you ever got up to together?
I love that quote from the old film Stand By Me: “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve...does anyone?”
I’ve been blessed in my life with many great friends, so I don’t want to say that the peak of my friendships was in the sixth grade, but it was a special kind of friendship in fifth and sixth grade. Maybe it was because hanging out with the guys in those days was so new. For the first time, we didn’t need our parents looking over our shoulders so much. Everything felt very new and full of potential.
We’d head out of town on the old abandoned railroad tracks, and find our own world away from adult influence, at the Runaway Bridge, this limestone railroad bridge that crossed a little creek. There we would mess around, trying with little success to avoid falling into the water and mud. Unfortunately, this bridge has since been destroyed, but I keep a piece of its limestone on my bookshelf as a reminder of those times.
We never found ourselves in too much trouble, but I remember sometime around sixth grade, I was staying overnight at my friend Tim’s house. We always thought it was fun to sneak out after his parents had gone to sleep. I don’t know why this seemed like such an adventure. In a little farm town with just over 1,300 people, there wasn’t much to do late at night. I know that for some reason we were terrified of being caught by Dysart’s lone police officer. On one night we had sneaked out with illegal fireworks, a few “black cats,” and planned to set them off at different places around town. It was a breezy night, so we had trouble getting the fuse to light. Our bright idea was to simply shorten the fuse. As a result, the thing went off before we had our chance to make a getaway. It was a tiny little pop, really, but we were sure everyone in town had heard it, and that the cop was on his way. We sprinted away from the scene of our crime, running through the dark and crossing a street by the elementary school.
From behind me, I heard the sound of a traffic sign rattling as if Tim had slapped it while running past. I turned and hissed at him to keep the noise down, but he was no longer following me. I went back, and found him lying in a fetal position on the pavement. As I whispered frantically, trying to get him to get up and run so that we could avoid capture, he just let out the pained, sickening groan that all boys come to understand at least once in their lives. “I racked myself,” he said. Tim had hit the sign pole at a dead sprint, the steel crushing him all the way down to where it filled his whole body with a guy’s cold dull paralyzing pain. After a while, I managed to get him back on his feet so that we could go back to his house, but for the rest of the night he kind of just stared off into space, not the same guy.
Plot, character, stakes, voice, theme, setting . . . What aspect of the novel did you struggle most with, and how was that resolved? Which one came most easily on this book?
One big advantage I had with Stealing Air is that after so many years, I was very familiar with the characters and the settings, having lived in Riverside, Iowa for nine years, and small Iowa towns like it for my whole life.
The biggest challenge was in determining what was at stake for the characters. My initial draft simply accepted that Brian and Alex would want to get their airplane flying simply because flying is so cool. That may be true, and it may be the way Brian, Alex, and Max would all really feel, but story reality is a bit different from real reality, and you helped me understand that for the reader to care about whether or not the boys could make their plane fly, there had to be serious consequences or rewards for success or failure.
We tried several different options before centering the stakes on the Plastisteel plane being the key to saving Brian’s and Max’s parents’ company. This worked out great, because it required that I keep bringing back Mrs. Douglas, a surprise character who hadn’t appeared in earlier versions of the book. I love that character, and my only regret with Mrs. Douglas is that I couldn’t figure out how to bring her into the book even more.
You and I talked a lot about what you call “the Bechard Factor” on this book. Could you describe that for me and how it played out here?
I had the honor of working under the guidance of author Margaret Bechard in my final semester at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, while I revised Words in the Dust. In that novel, a character named Meena befriends the protagonist Zulaikha, teaching the girl to read and write, introducing her to classic Persian poetry.
In early drafts, Meena had no name, was blind, and lived in a cave. Margaret asked me why she had to live in a cave. Why was she blind? Why did she not even have pencil and paper for Zulaikha to use in her lessons? I explained that the woman was old and her sight had just gone, that she lived in a cave because her house had been destroyed in the war.
Margaret Bechard patiently explained that she wasn’t asking me what fictional circumstances within the story made the nameless blind woman live in a cave, but that she wanted to know why I had chosen to make this character be this way? What did the story gain by my making the character that way? She was asking me to consider how the story would be affected if the woman was very different.
I eventually named the woman after the Afghan feminist martyr Meena, letting Meena live in the back of her own sewing shop. This improved believability and made it much easier for me to get Zulaikha away from her house for her lessons. It was, however, difficult to make those changes, to look at the plot and characters from outside the story, to break away from the way the story was first written and revise for the best effect. The difficulty of the act of looking at the story from the outside to consider radical changes from early drafts is what I have dubbed the “Bechard Factor.”
Stealing Air had been with me a lot longer than Words in the Dust. By the time I began revising it, I had been kicking around the original draft of the novel in my head for a decade. So when Cheryl asked me why Brian wants to fly this experimental plane, why Brian wanted to make friends so much, and why Brian’s family had even moved to Riverside, Iowa, I struggled to find answers. The answers had been so self evident in the story as it had been for so long that it was a challenge, once again, to step outside of the story and consider new possibilities.
Stealing Air is far richer after overcoming the Bechard Factor. In the original version, Brian moves to Riverside with his mother after his father has abandoned his family. Reasoning that such abandonment would be too emotionally heavy, I changed it so that the family moved to Riverside after Brian’s father lost his job. But then the father was too depressed. Finally, when I needed another reason for Brian needing to fly the experimental plane, it was decided that Brian’s father moved to Riverside to start a company with Max’s mother. That was a breakthrough change that really brought a lot of elements together very nicely.
If you could own any plane, what would it be? And what’s your favorite skateboard trick?
There are a lot of planes I would love to try out, but if I could own one, I think I would absolutely love the world’s smallest twin-engine airplane, the low-winged Colomban Cri-Cri:
I really admire people like Brian who can pull off amazing skateboard tricks. When I was younger, I had a cheap skateboard that I bought secondhand. I would mostly challenge myself to downhill runs where the skateboard would be zipping down a steep hill very fast. Fortunately, I lived in Iowa where the hills aren’t too extreme. There are hills and mountains where I live now in Spokane, Washington that are tricky in a car. I would never attempt them on a skateboard. There are a lot of skateboard tricks I would never attempt, but I think the people who do are kind of like superheroes.
Awesome! I love the idea of stepping outside the novel and digging deeper to make the story stronger. Very inspirational and helpful post! Thank you both.
Hmm. I have one of those first novels that I've lived with for over a decade, too. It's a great plot with great characters. But it desperately needs a rewrite and it's so hard for me to wrap my mind around what needs to go and what needs to stay.
Both these novels sound great and I loved your memories of messing around with your friends when you were 12-ish. Friendships are important at that age. I think kids are missing out on some of that stuff today. When you die playing video games you don't lose as much as you do when you run into a stop sign. There's something to be said for sneaking out after your parents are in bed.
I enjoyed this interview, especially the "Bechard Factor's" big why question. Not only is this important for novels, but other works as well from picture books to rebuses.
Great post. I love the term Berchard Factor. It's something that's new to me (picked it up in Ms. Klein's plot masterclass in Utah), and while it's cost me WAY more time than I anticipated, I'm forever grateful.
Thanks for posting this and thanks to Mr. Reedy as well. Looking forward to reading STEALING AIR - it's right up my alley.
From the comments above, I see I'm not the only one that connected with "The Bechard Factor." I still fight with the idea that just wanting something to be a certain way in my writing isn't necessarily the Best Way. Thanks for the post, Trent.
Really great interview. I'm so interested in how you worked your experience in Afghanistan into your writing. I love books that have a real sense of time and place.
One of my most memorable writer's retreat experiences was listening to Margaret Bechard talk about revising. She was amazingly enthusiastic about chaos - the messier the better. Sent me home ready to face my mess!
Two terrific books pubbed officially yesterday: The Savage Fortress, by Sarwat Chadda, and Stealing Air, by Trent Reedy. I wrote about The Savage Fortress for the CBC Diversity blog here, cheerfully (and with Sarwat's full approval) calling it a book of "no socially redeeming value" -- which is one of the many things that actually makes it awesome. But you should also read Sarwat's own wonderful blog post on the reasons why he wanted to write this book, to satisfy his ten-year-old self "who always wanted another hero like him." And when you're done with that, please hop on over to the Scholastic Savage Fortress site and play the "Master the Monsters" game. I am terrible -- TERRIBLE -- at video games, so my high score on this game is 600; my compliments to anyone who can do better than I did (e.g. the average five-year-old). There's good stuff to come on Stealing Air as well.
Speaking of diversity: In this week's Narrative Breakdown, James and I and our return guest Matt Bird discuss creating ensemble casts, including Matt's excellent theory on Heads, Hearts, and Guts, and why there are so few characters of color in ensembles like Girls or Sex and the City. Subscribe on iTunes, and do please comment, review, or tell us what you'd like to see more of!
Speaking of developing your writing muscles: If you'd like to see me give my Plot Master Class in person, registration for the November 17 edition in Salt Lake City is now open! To get a sense of the topics covered, check out the description for the online edition of the class (which is sold out, I'm sorry to say. If I'm able to balance work and my responsibilities in teaching it, we'll run it again sometime next year). I believe there are also still spaces available at both the Master Class and the SCBWI general conference in Hawaii on February 22 & 23, 2013 -- e-mail Lynne Wikoff at lwikoff at lava dot net if you're interested.
Speaking of appearances in connection with educational opportunities, did you know J. K. Rowling is doing a virtual author visit with schools, in support of the new Harry Potter Reading Clubs? You can register a class for the webcast here.
And there the chain comes to an end. Or wait -- a little delight to send you on your way:
2 Comments on A Chain of News Links, last added: 10/3/2012
Two and a half years ago, I received a few sample chapters of an unsolicited manuscript that made me laugh out loud from the very first page, so I immediately wrote to the author and asked her to send me the whole thing. It was called The Encyclopedia of Me, and it was the brilliant story of twelve-year-old Tink Aaron-Martin. When Tink gets grounded, she decides to use the time to write an encyclopedia of her life, encompassing her family, with two loving parents and two older brothers, Lex and Seb (the latter of whom is autistic); her hairless cat, Hortense; her fickle best friend, Freddie Blue Anderson; and, as the summer unfolds, a new interest in skateboarding and an equal interest in the blue-haired skateboarding boy next door, Kai (whom the much more assertive Freddie Blue just might like as well). The manuscript at that time alternated portions of the encyclopedia with straight-narrative sections. I loved the format, but what I loved even more was the voice, which was capable of hilarious observations like this one:
Seb frequently smells as bad as Lex, but different. This is mostly because he staunchly refuses to shower more than three times in a week. If you are ever not sure which twin you are dealing with, breathe deeply. If your senses are kickboxed into an eye-watering stupor by the stinging stench of cheap cologne, it’s Lex. If they curl up and die due to the overwhelmingly hideous moldy pong of sweat, combined with the antiseptic, lemony zing of hand sanitizer, it’s Seb. Easy, see?
But Tink's voice was also capable of great sensitivity and thoughtfulness, in contemplating Freddie Blue's behavior or her favorite tree. All the characters felt as rich and flawed and warm and complicated as many real people I know. Tink is biracial, but it's simply a fact of who she is, not the source of any angst (beyond an inability to get her hair to behave). And Karen fully dramatized some great set-piece scenes, like the one where Freddie Blue, Tink, and Kai try to spend the night in a department store. A terrific voice, wonderful characters, the ability to execute some great scenes, genuine emotion, and that aforementioned laugh-out-loud humor all made me fall in love with the book, and I signed it up as soon as I could.
Over the next year and a half, Karen and I worked together to absorb the narrative sections into the encyclopedia entries and turn the entire book into an encyclopedia, with the plot unfolding alphabetically from A-Z. This involved (nobody who knows me will be shocked to hear) a lot of outlines at first, as Karen cataloged all her plot events and encyclopedia entries and mapped them onto each other; and then a lot of cutting and adding, tweaking and refining right up through the proofreading stages, as we juggled entries, photos, and footnotes in within our allotted 256 pages. But the book remained both intensely emotional and very funny -- a perfect tween-girl smart read, and equally great for fans of YA writers like E. Lockhart or Jaclyn Moriarty. Recently I asked Karen some questions about herself and the book.
First things first: What would your own encyclopedia entry look like?
Rivers, Karen (June 12, 1970 - forever). (Karen prefers not to die.) Author of many wonderful novels for children, teenagers, and adults. Born in British Columbia, Canada, she went to college for ages and ages and studied a little bit of almost anything, having contemplated at various different times careers in theatre, journalism, law, and medicine. Then she worked at the phone company and some equally scary places before becoming a writer full-time. She has always loved giant sets of encyclopedias because they contain all knowledge! (As well as for their beautiful gold-edged pages, of course.) She has two splendid children who never fight or spill things, and a dog who -- if properly inspired by a squirrel -- can actually climb trees. (Only one of those statements is not 100% true.) She can usually be found walking slowly up or down the mountain behind her house, thinking things or taking photographs, or -- on a good day -- both.
Which came first with The Encyclopedia of Me, the story or the format? How did the other one follow?
I think the story came first, or rather, the character. At the time that I started to write this book, I think my kids were just babies. My older son, my stepson, is autistic. And at the time, his autism was really consuming our lives. Most of our waking hours were spent dealing with certain situations, supporting him, or talking about his autism and how we were going to deal in the longer term. One of the things we talked about was what it would be like for siblings to have an older brother for whom different rules applied. That was basically the germ of the idea of the story, simply that it would be the sibling's story and the autism would merely be on the periphery and normalized because that would be all the sibling would ever have known. It was so much in my consciousness, in a way I think it was my way of trying-on-for-size what that might be like.
When I began to write, Tink originally was going to read the entire set of encyclopedias, inspired by A.J. Jacobs's The Know-It-All. As I wrote, it seemed implausible that she would get past the first As (I started reading them again myself and was struggling by the third entry), so she started to make up her own. It evolved from there. I know people roll their eyes when author's say "It wrote itself!" But in this case, the format decided itself and it was something of an accident. Originally, it was straight narrative with the entries scattered throughout, but then we decided to take a stab at making the whole book fit the format. In addition to working well with the story (I think!), it was also fun and challenging to write. Sometimes it even felt impossible.
This is going to sound as crazy as the "It wrote itself!" comment, but I will say that it's much more satisfying to write a book that's really really hard to write, from a technical standpoint. It makes me understand, on a completely different level, why people climb Everest for fun. Having successfully done it once, I have all kinds of ideas for other novels structured like specifically formatted books, such as cook books and etiquette books and ... the possibilities are limitless!
What attracts you to encyclopedias?
The idea that a book holds all the answers. Of course, now I'm grown up, I understand that knowledge changes and evolves, and looking at old encyclopedias, you realize they are full of things that we subsequently now know more/differently/better. But as a child, they were flat-out the answer to everything. I think Wikipedia is similarly attractive now, but it isn't quite the same. You don't randomly flip through Wikipedia while lying on the hall carpet on an endlessly long summer day, discovering things about Sri Lanka or the endocrine system that you never knew. The magic of random discovery has pretty much been lost with the loss of print encyclopedias, which makes me sad. I'm ashamed to admit that I don't currently HAVE a set of encyclopedias, but I wish that I did. I'm slightly hoarder-like and collector-inclined, I think I would like to have sets from various different decades, just to play compare-and-contrast with them (I have dictionaries and etiquette books and medical books across decades, which are lots of fun). But I live in the world's smallest house! So that might not work.
What sort of challenges did you face in working the story into an alphabetical, encyclopedic form?
There was a very real risk that the plot was going to be compromised by trying to force it into a mold. Making the story flow was incredibly tricky (as you know!). The last thing we wanted was for anyone to read the book and be conscious of the manipulation of the plot to fit the alphabet, so we made a real effort to simply tell the story as a straight narrative that incidentally was displayed in alphabetical order.
Describe your favorite writing space and time.
I love to write during the day because it's a novelty. For the last seven years, most of my writing has been done at night on a laptop in bed (for warmth), after the kids are asleep. I've seen more of 3 a.m. than I'd like to have seen! Now my kids are in school full time and I can sit (!) at the dining room table and write while actually properly awake. It remains to be seen if this improves the quality of my work.
What novels were the biggest influence on you when you were a young reader? And what encyclopedia did you grow up using?
I read so voraciously as a child and a young adult that isolating books now to say they were more or less influential than any others feels like I'd be contriving an answer to fit what I feel an author should say, as opposed to the truth. The truth was I read everything, absolutely everything that I had access to, in massive volumes. We did not watch TV (or at least the TV we had had a blown picture tube, so we could only watch about 30 minutes a day before the tube gave up, and it involved using pliers and getting electrical shocks to turn it on). We read. I read between seven and ten books per week for most of my childhood/teen years.
When I say we read everything, I really mean it. My mum was briefly in a Danielle Steele phase, and I read those as eagerly as I read Little Women or A Wrinkle in Time or Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. Or Flowers in the Attic, for that matter. My dad read mostly books about war and tall ships, so I have this absurdly detailed understanding of tall ships based on reading the Horatio Hornblower series repeatedly. There was never really a distinction made between "adult" books and "kid" books in my family; nor was there any fuss made about genre fiction vs. literary fiction. They belonged to Book Of The Month club, which I don't think exists anymore, but involved getting condensed versions of popular books in a bound volume every month. We loved those. It's impossible not to be influenced by everything you read; whether it's good or bad, there is something you can take away from it. I suppose it's only a matter of time before I write a tear-jerking romance that is set on a brigantine.
As an adult looking back, I'd say if I wanted to be inspired by anyone's career, I'd pick Judy Blume. She really perfected the whole "You are going to be OK" genre of realist YA. Madeleine L'Engle I think redefined the parameters of middle-grade fiction, blurring lines of fantasy and reality, and I love her for that. I love everyone who tried something new or different and just really went for it, both back then and now.
You’ve written a number of novels about this preteen/early teen stage of life, and especially the family/friends/young romance conflicts that I think are the bread-and-butter of older middle-grade. What attracts you to writing about this time period? Was it a significant time in your own life?
I learned a while ago (after I was already writing YA) that a person's frontal lobe doesn't fully develop until they are in their early twenties. I'm paraphrasing (and possibly mis-remembering), so don't quote me on this, but I believe the gist of it was that until the frontal lobe finishes developing, people are actually biologically unable to view the world in a not-entirely-egocentric way. The idea that people (and characters) are limited by this brain development to seeing the world in this utterly up-close way at all times is fascinating to me. It explains why I can remember with 100% clarity, things that happened to me, who I had a crush on, what I wore, and how I felt when I was young, but I have only vague recall of what I said or did or wore in the intervening decades. The intensity of that stage of life is what draws me to it again and again. The first time you feel something, it's so powerful. Kids are figuring out who they are, like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, except more like a Choose-Your-Own-Character. The possibilities are endless, which makes teen and pre-teen characters so much fun (and so endlessly interesting) to write.
As a teen/pre-teen, I never felt quite comfortable in my own skin. Now, when I talk to the kids who I perceived as problem-free and popular and perfect, I find out that they struggled with similar feelings. Who knew? It seems as though everyone always feels like they are slightly on the outside, looking in. In a way, I want to send a missive to my younger self that effectively says, "Look! Everyone else feels the same way! You are going to be OK!" Except maybe now I can send the bulletin to my readers: You ARE going to be OK. I promise.
A terrific review from Little Willow: "Middle school librarians would be wise to add The Encyclopedia of Me by Karen Rivers to their shelves this fall."
Giveaway! Even though the hardcover is now in stores, I have a few ARCs of this still lurking around my office, and I'd be delighted to see them go to good homes. Your challenge: Write a brief encyclopedia entry either for yourself or for the main character of your work-in-progress, and post it either in the comments below or on your own blog/journal/Facebook. (If you do it on your own website, please leave a link here.) I'll decide a winner by the 15th. Thanks!
8 Comments on All About THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ME: Behind the Book, Q&A, and Giveaway!, last added: 10/5/2012
Jaeger, Freddy (1916 - 1996) Adventurer, life-long Cubs fan, good friend, brother, and son. Forced to go out on his own at age ten, Freddy, ever resourceful, travelled the western United States meeting a pantheon of interesting characters, facing unbelievable dangers, on a quest to resolve a family problem and find his way home again.
Watson, Jane Ellen (1968-Current) Sometimes novelist, sometimes writing teacher, usual screw-up, who is stuck in mid-writer's block, at a workshop in the mountains of Pennsylvania--a workshop she is responsible for teaching.
Bluelett (2010-Present) - This night-time explorer’s imaginative disregard for the usual rules has taken her to the moon and back. Her swift feet have tread upon falling snowflakes and floating clouds. She’s earned the distinct notoriety of being the only person to explore the depths of the sea with nothing more than a coconut full of air to sustain her. Bluelett’s off-hours exploration of a museum have set the bar for time travel, riddle solving, and reducing one’s size in order to fit into highly unlikely places. At a mere two years old, Bluelett has toddled from one adventure to the next, and what she lacks in age she more than compensates for with imagination.
Edwards, Nancy (age unknown) Children's author, teacher, and former contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (where she won $32,000 but managed to misidentify the Great Lake she has lived beside her whole life) read her Children's Encyclopedia straight through from Abacus to Geyser as a child, then moved on to her family's (sadly) non-gilt edged World Book. Her writing has been influenced by the raising of two death-defying sons (see motorcycles, rock climbing, scuba diving, Brazilian martial arts) and her marriage to a man whose life goal is to create a 365-day calendar of awful puns.
Vijaya is a beloved child of God, Catholic, wife, mother, sister, great-aunt too! She is a writer, teacher, bookworm, cat-lover, thinker, dreamer, doer, believer of impossible things, perennial optimist, and a future saint.
Over a year ago, Arthur and I were contacted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation regarding a young Seattle-area writer named Stephanie Trimberger (who was 13 at the time; she’s 15 now). Stephanie has brain cancer, and her dream was to have her novel edited by “the Harry Potter editors.” Arthur and I read it and wrote her an editorial letter, and she began working on revisions. A year went by, and we didn’t hear anything more. Then last week, we heard that she had finished her book and wanted us to take one last look.
Thanks to the terrific coordination of a lot of people at Scholastic, we not only managed to edit it quickly, but our designers typeset the manuscript and created a gorgeous cover for it. And with the help of an extraordinarily generous donation from the printer, Command Web, three hundred copies of Stephanie’s THE RUBY HEART have now been printed.
Your Mission, Seattle Area People!: Next Tuesday, September 25, at 6 p.m., Stephanie will be doing a reading and signing of her book at the Pacific Place Barnes & Noble. Will you please, please attend? It would be so very awesome to have a big audience there to applaud her accomplishment and make it a great day for her. Stephanie is a huge reader of YA and fantasy fiction; she lost her mom to brain cancer nine years ago, and it sounds like she’s been writing about that long. I’m sure ALL writers can sympathize with her dream of publishing a book, and it should be an amazing evening in seeing that dream fulfilled.
The details in full:
Tuesday, September 25
6 p.m. (it was scheduled for 5:30 earlier; the time has been moved back)
Barnes & Noble Pacific Place 600 Pine Street, Suite 107 Seattle, WA 98101 (206) 265-0156
This is lovely and I wish Stephanie all the best. I hope many people attend her reading! But when I read your blog post title, all I could think of was how much it sounded like the title of a new Sufjan Stevens song.
This is an insanely cool thing for you, everyone at Scholastic, and B&N to do. Congratulations and thank you for, if not being an amazing human being*, doing an amazing thing. I wish I was in Seattle so I could take part.
* I don't know you at all and wouldn't want to jump to conclusions :)
Wow. What a cool thing you've done. And what a brave girl, to lose her mother, to have the same cancer, and to still manage to write a book. Wow! I wish I lived in Seattle.
What an amazing young lady, and story. A shining example of how our passions, and wonderful caring and giving people, help us to not only survive a major life challenge but, come out on top.
I LOVE THIS! What an incredible story/event. I'm moved not only by Stephanie's courageous story, but by the fact a team of devoted and supporting people at Scholastic made this possible for her. I wish I was in Seattle or near there to come support Stephanie and support her in her fight against cancer. If her book ever becomes available please let us know, I would buy it in a heartbeat.
What do Cleopatra's daughter, a North Carolina delicacy called livermush, and a pickpocket who can see magic have in common? Well, I edited books about all three of them, and I talk about all three of them in the terrific Scholastic Summer/Fall 2011 Preview, now available online:
All three books are featured in the YA section, and include:
The Rites and Wrongs of Janice Wills by Joanna Pearson (out in July; in the YA preview around the 7:30 mark). This book for some time was called The Young Anthropologist's Guide to High School, as Janice Wills is, indeed, a young anthropologist who applies her love of the discipline and her sharp wits to life in Melva, North Carolina, complete with high school social groups, confusing mating habits, and the most horrible coming-of-age ritual of all: the annual Miss Livermush pageant. Janice's voice is S.O.J.A. -- Straight Outta Jane Austen -- in its piercing insights and the hilarious way they're expressed, and the Publishers Weekly review this week called it "rewarding, honest, and quite funny" -- all exactly right!
Liar's Moon by Elizabeth C. Bunce (out in November, 8:15). This sequel to StarCrossed shows our heroine, the pickpocket/forger/spy Digger, back in her beloved hometown of Gerse, navigating the cross-currents of the magical civil war she ignited, and fighting a private war of her own in her quest to prove her friend Durrel Decath innocent of the murder of his wife . . . a quest made all the more complicated by Digger's falling in love with him herself. I call it a "fantasy noir" in the video for its blend of magic, mystery, and the darker sides of human nature and the world Elizabeth has created; but it's also just plain kickass, filled with daring escapes, double-crosses, and disguises; secret poisons, old friends, and surprises -- with sometimes each of the latter two things providing the other. If you're a blog reviewer interested in getting an ARC, send me an e-mail at chavela_que at yahoo.com with your blog and postal addresses. . . . I can't fulfill all requests, sadly, but I'll gladly do the best I can.
Cleopatra's Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter (out in August, 9:20). Did you know that Queen Cleopatra of Egypt and General Marcus Antonius of Rome were not just giants of doomed romance and ancient history, but parents? Indeed they were, and this wonderful book introduces readers to the
2 Comments on Scholastic Summer/Fall 2011 Preview, last added: 5/23/2011
Posting VERY quickly to note that Trent Reedy, author of the book WORDS IN THE DUST, will be on NBC's Today Show this Friday, May 20! (Previous posts about this book here and here.) Pending breaking news, he should be on with Al Roker and his Book Club for Kids around 9:45 a.m. EST. Please tune in if you support one of the following:
Children's literature on network TV
Realistic contemporary children's literature in general
Books about other places and peoples
Afghan women and girls
The U.S. military
Books about people of color
With said people on the covers
Trent
Extremely nice guys like Trent
The Vermont College of Fine Arts or the Erin Murphy Literary Agency
Katherine Paterson, our current Children's Laureate
Me and/or my books
Scholastic and/or Arthur A. Levine Books
And if one of those does not apply to you, I really don't know why you're reading this. Thanks for your support!
0 Comments on Watch Trent on the Today Show! as of 1/1/1900
(Continuing my series of monthly posts in which I write for an hour about more or less whatever is in my brain at the time.)
This has been a very good month--"an epoch in my life," as Anne Shirley would say--thanks to Second Sight and several other events. Trent Reedy's wonderful, world-changing Words in the Dust, previously featured here, has been named as the next book in Al Roker's Book Club for Kids on "The Today Show." You can read an excerpt of the book here if you haven't already seen it. (The campaign from that blog post raised $300 for Women for Afghan Women, by the way, and Trent and I both thank you for your support.)
And then Erin McCahan's I Now Pronounce You Someone Else was named as a finalist in two categories in the Romance Writers of America Awards: Best Young Adult Romance and Best First Novel (where it's competing against big old mean grown-up books too!). This really is a terrific recognition for a totally swoonworthy romance about what happens when you realize life can't always be lived as a totally swoonworthy romance. Plus other nice recognitions for Operation Yes and Eighth Grade Superzero and Marcelo in the Real World . . .
And then, yes, Second Sight came out at last, and was greeted with an ice-cream cake from my lovely boyfriend, many kind e-mails from people who have received it, and a ginormous sigh of relief from me. (Though the typo count is now up to four--grrr, arrgh.) Also a new kind of tension, though. I was talking with a writer at the wonderful Whispering Pines conference this past weekend about what it feels like to be an author; and having gotten over my terror at the book's initial release (or perhaps it's just mutated into this), the thing that keeps giving me pause now is that I like being invisible, often, and books are the opposite of invisibility. They are a claim staked, a space claimed (even if that space is just 5.5" x 8.5" x ~.8" in volume), principles declared, a flag planted, making oneself present in rooms where one has never been.
And this scares me for a very specific reason. . . . There's a talk in the book called "Morals, Muddles, and Making It Through," where I describe what happened when my best friends in fourth grade grew up much quicker than I did in fifth grade. I felt left behind, isolated, bewildered, all alone in a social world that suddenly seemed to be full of jokes I didn't get, focused on interests I didn't share. And I responded by doing my very best turtle imitation, avoiding anywhere I'd have to engage in social interaction, hiding in the library whenever I could (or the bathroom or a back bedroom if I had to go to a party--preferably a bedroom with a bookshelf). I don't have an Invisibility Cloak, but I long ago learned all the tricks available to Muggles for the same purpose: Know where your exits are at all times; don't look at the thing you're trying to avoid, because attention draws attention; wait for a burst of laughter, a noisy conversation, something to distract everyone, or better yet, leave the room at the same time as someone else, if the someone's bound for the bathroom or some such; move quickly and quietly, head down, eyes on your destination; don't look back. And then the deep breath once you're out, the return to the safety and lack of pressure of being alone. While I'm now a much more comfortably social person, someone who doesn't mind public speaking and can navigate a cocktail party pretty decently, my years of playing ghost gave me a taste for the freedom of invisibility . . . which is its own cage as well, I suppose, freedom being just another word for nothing left to lose and all that. But I was a
7 Comments on A Ramble: Invisible Ink, last added: 4/4/2011
Cheryl, I love your honesty. Thanks so much for the nail-on details of invisibility. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of writers identify with the feelings you've expressed. I know I do. If I was a comfortable exhibitionist, I'd be an actor, but instead, I create worlds and characters with words and prefer being behind the curtain. I think it used to be easier to be a mystery author, but not in today's world of blogs and twitter. I guess authors need to buckle up and smile. Such a price!
Cheryl, this is a lovely post, but I have to tell you, you haven't been invisible for quite some time now! Perhaps you haven't noticed all the people who read your blog, and come to conferences to hear you speak, and submit their manuscripts to you with crossed fingers and hope-filled hearts. But we are thankful for your visibility! Your book is just one more view of your work.
As for me, my very favorite thing about being an author is connecting with readers. Royalty checks are nice, but so far they haven't made much of a difference in my life. What has made a difference is fan letters. Knowing that strangers have read and loved my books is what keeps me going. So I guess I like being visible!
Awesome that you raised $300 for Women for Afghan Women... and loved your invisibility longings. I am not there yet but can imagine a similar response myself.
I think your conflicted feelings of wanting people to read the thoughts you simply MUST write--combined with the desire to be invisible--are extremely normal and shared by a good many (particularly introverted) writers. So--maybe you can feel invisible among all the other writers feeling the same way? :)
I can totally relate to wanting to be invisibility. I'm shy though learned to be comfortable talking in public being an attorney. But that would be the hardest part of getting published. Share your tips as you go through the process.
I've been having this very argument with myself over my blog (not even a book!): I hate to even think about writing, because it means that I'll have said something in public, but it also makes me feel very happy once I've settled down and done it.
Earlier this month, Francisco X. Stork's much-acclaimed Marcelo in the Real World came out in paperback. Francisco and I are working on our third book together (after Marcelo and The Last Summer of the Death Warriors), but I had never actually hosted him for a Q&A here, so I asked him to answer a few questions for me, and he was kind enough to agree.
Could you tell us a little bit about how Marcelo came to be? Marcelo had a long journey before it came to be in its final form. The first version I wrote was not about Marcelo but about his mother, Aurora. In this story, Aurora enters Marcelo’s room a year after his death and discovers his journals. The journals reveal a very special young man. It was when transcribing the journals of Marcelo that his voice became very powerful. It was as if Marcelo was urging me to write his story. So I wrote about him, a book that I initially intended as an adult book. It had Marcelo traveling to Mexico in search of Ixtel, the young woman whose picture he discovers in his father’s files. Faye Bender, my agent, sent this version to adult publishers without success. I then decided to rewrite some of it and we sent it to young adult publishers and this is how the version you got came across your desk. As you know, there were major revisions after you accepted it. The trip to Mexico was canned. The story became more “local.” I think that with your help, I rewrote about sixty percent of the book. [CK note: For my own account of the editorial process, click here.]
The other thing I want to mention is that I never set out to write a book about a young man with Asperger’s syndrome. I created Marcelo, paying attention to the voice that was presented to me, and only later discovered that someone like him would probably be diagnosed with something. It was then that I connected him to Asperger’s syndrome.
Has there been a pattern to where your books begin for you? That is, do they usually begin with a philosophical idea to explore, or the characters, or the situation – or is it different with every book? Once you have the initial seed, whatever it is, where do you go from there? It is very difficult to tell just exactly how the seed for a novel is planted or where the seed comes from. It’s a combination of philosophical idea and voice. In Marcelo, for example, I asked myself what would happen if a very innocent, saintly young man discovered a file that would show him the evil and suffering of the world. Once I started playing with this idea, Marcelo’s unique voice came into being. Then the philosophical idea was put aside and the character and the story took over. In the case of Death Warriors, I asked myself what would happen if I put together two very different young men, one who was very down-to-earth, practical and consumed by revenge, and the other, idealistic, philosophical and also gravely ill. Then the voices of Pancho and D.Q. came into being and they led the way. It is very important to me to let character become the driving force of the book.
You often write beautifully on your blog about the act of writing itself. What is your personal writing process like? Do you draft longhand, or on a computer? Write a full d
4 Comments on Q&A: Francisco X. Stork, author of MARCELO IN THE REAL WORLD, last added: 2/18/2011
12:33AM - Thanks Cheryl for your late postings. And thanks to Francisco for sharing his writing process. I love to hear of multiple versions and finding voices and trusting them. But I disagree that creating characters that are better than we are is a burden. Instead lets think of them as prayers and wishes. What if? Marcelo!
Francisco is so impressively calm and modest. Someone to emulate. (I find myself thinking, "oh, I wish I could BE like that"--but that's not the right reaction!) I love what he says at the end about writing being part of the reason he came into the world, so he does it as well as he can--but it is not the only or even the most important reason. As a person who gets stressed about not being good enough, not doing well enough, I deeply admire these wise words from a stunning writer. Words to live by. Thank you Cheryl and Francisco!
Thank you, Cheryl, for the insightful interview; thank you, Francisco for writing a book that changed the way I think about the world. Marcelo in the Real World will always be on my shelf of books to reread when I'm upset or discouraged or in doubt of the world's goodness. Hearing of the work you put into creating it makes me very grateful. I am so glad it made its way into the world, so thank you both for that!
When I was in Boise, Idaho, in September for the Idaho SCBWI conference, author Trent Reedy drove over from Spokane to film a video for the Scholastic Librarian Preview Webcast, promoting his wonderful novel Words in the Dust.
During a break in our formal video shoot, Trent and I talked at a little more length and in a little more depth about the book, its backstory, how it was written and edited, his friendship with Katherine Paterson (who wrote a lovely introduction for the book), and sundry other topics. You can see that conversation in two parts here:
(Aren't those just the most attractive stills ever?) There will be more excitement with this book coming later this week; in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this glimpse of the most excellent Trent and the book, and our conversation.
2 Comments on Video: Trent Reedy & I Discuss WORDS IN THE DUST, last added: 12/14/2010
Yay! Hoorah! And all sorts of jazz! I love this book, and it was so nice to watch the videos. And so sorry I missed drinks tonight! Will you be in the office at all next week? I may have a Christmas surprise to send your way.
Thank you so much for sharing these interviews with Mr. Reedy. I read Khaled Hosseini's A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS, and it broke my heart to learn about the hardships endured by common Afghan people. As an illustrator, I burn through a LOT of audio books. Do you have an audio version planned?
Neil Connelly is the author of three published novels and a professor of creative writing at Shippensburg University in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. For ten years, he directed the graduate workshop in fiction at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. He now lives in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, with his wife and two sons.
Fun fact: He is the youngest of ten children, eight of them girls.
What's your writing process like? Do you write in computer first or longhand? Morning, noon, night? Do you perfect every sentence as you go, or pound out a draft and then go back and polish it? Do you plan out a novel first or plunge in and see where the characters take you, or both?
When I'm writing, I write every day. It's like working out then, just a natural part of the morning. If it goes well, great. If it goes poorly, you just don't save the new version. The great benefit of this is that you've always got tomorrow. In seventeen years, through five full manuscripts, I've never written for more than an hour and a half a day.
Typically I go back to what I worked on the previous day, or start at the chapter opening, and read through the draft fine-tuning, then get up a head of steam and produce some new rough text, maybe a half page or page a day. If you're familiar with comic book artists' process of pencil and inking, it strikes me a lot like that.
I never plan my books out. Doubt adds too much spice to life, so why should it be any different for my characters? Really, that's one of the compliments I like to hear--"I didn't know how it would end." Me neither. I write for the same reason I hope readers read--to follow the characters because I care.
What is your favorite part of the process (planning, drafting, revising) and why?
That's like asking what part of being a dad is my favorite, like which age I enjoyed my boys the most. Every age is special, and every part of writing has some attraction for me. The earliest part, the chaos of raw creation, is exciting but anxious. You don't know what you're dealing with. But then you feel the kernel (typically an image) and it grows--you begin to see snippets of the characters in new situations, elsewhere in time, and they are mysterious and intriguing, and you start to try and connect a few dots from what you perceive as early in the narrative. And that's your opening, you hope. On my first book I was on page 80 when I realized I was starting my opening scene. Oops.
Drafting is fun because you have the extended thrill of finding out what happens next. Right now I have a forty mile commute to where I teach. And after I write, I play with my kids, then hit the road, and I spend the whole time letting my mind roam through the characters' imaginary world, wondering what will happen tomorrow. That's just cool.
Revising and editing are essential because, once you finish a thing, you know what it is. And as strange as this sounds, you have to go back and mechanically make it all organic. That may or may not make sense, but it's my experience.
Where did The Miracle Stealer start for you?
As a proposal that I had to write to accompany my first book, St. Michael's Scales. That book was about a kid who felt doomed, and I wondered about his opposite, a boy who felt blessed. There was a news story about a tornado that tossed a crib a m
0 Comments on Q&A: Neil Connelly, author of THE MIRACLE STEALER as of 1/1/1900
The Library of Congress CIP data summarizes this book as "A little rabbit is very angry at his mother, and he tells her the reasons why," which is accurate. But what makes it terrific and real is how specific and at the same time universal those reasons are: that she sleeps late when he wants to play; that she always tells him to hurry up, but then she never hurries up herself; or, as you can see in this next picture, that she yells for no reason (when it's illustratively clear she has very good reason!).
The resolution is satisfying for mommy and child alike, and the illustrations will make you both laugh and say "Awww!" for their expressiveness. . . . I mean, really, just LOOK at that cover, or this next image, the soul of four-year-old petulance:
Publishers Weekly said in a starred review: "This honest account of a small rabbit's angry outburst and the contrast between the adorable protagonist and his simmering emotions demonstrate Sakai's (The Snow Day) uncanny ability to tap into children's feelings," and Kirkus, added, with another star, "A playful story that offers young readers—and their big feelings—a serious voice. Charming, classy and current" -- three words that we may just take as our new motto at Arthur A. Levine Books.
The story we always tell about this book around the office is that the first time Arthur's son was read the book, he finished it, closed it reverently, and said, "This is a PERFECT book, Daddy." We couldn't agree more.
4 Comments on My Fall 2010 Books: MAD AT MOMMY by Komako Sakai, last added: 10/28/2010
Hi I heard you talking about this book at your recent SCBWI talk, so it's a treat to see some of the adorable illustrations! That bunny is so sweet. I will check the book out the next time I hit my neighborhood bookstore.
Arthur A. Levine Books published Neil Connelly's first novel, St. Michael's Scales, nine years ago last spring. It was the story of a boy who was convinced he was doomed, and Neil says that writing it made him think about the opposite problem -- the burdens of being blessed, particularly with an unusual talent or gift. Thus emerged the story of the wonderfully complicated Andi Grant, who herself isn't unusually blessed, but who guards her six-year-old brother Daniel with all the fierceness of a mother lion. Daniel may not be a miracle worker, exactly, but strange things certainly happen around him; and when strange people begin to threaten him as well, Andi launches a plan to create an "Anti-Miracle" and give her brother a normal life forever after. I've previously blogged about this book (or the flap copy for it, rather) here and here, and as I said then, this is a great, twisty sort of philosophical thriller novel, where the tension reaches near-physical levels of stress as you turn the pages. . . . Perfect for fans of Francisco X. Stork (who blurbed it), Donna Freitas (likewise), or Sara Zarr. It's received a starred review from Booklist and much enthusiasm from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, the latter of whom called it "provocative and suspenseful," and concluded, "Deftly avoiding stereotypes and caricatures, Connelly creates an alternately ominous and wholesome atmosphere in which the mysteries of friendship, hope, sacrifice, love, and prayer reveal a community's spiritual complexity."
Look for a Q&A with Neil coming later this week, and I may have to post the first chapter too, as it truly does contain one of the most astonishing scenes I've ever read.
On Tuesday, Scholastic broadcast our Spring 2011 librarian preview across the web, with a number of editors, including moi, giving delicious little glimpses of some of the delights on the spring list. You can watch the preview (hosted by our intrepid School & Library Marketing Director, John Mason) here:
If you're interested in Arthur A. Levine Books books particularly, you can see our books as follows:
At 7:59, Arthur discusses his forthcoming picture book, Monday Is One Day, illustrated by Julian Hector, with his editor for the book, Andrea Davis Pinkney.
At 18:51, he introduces Sidekicks, a super-awesome graphic novel by Dan Santat, edited by my friend (and yours) Rachel Griffiths.
At 20:17, fans of Ferragamo and Susan Shreve will adore The Lovely Shoes.
At 21:40, GENIUS ALERT! See selections from Shaun Tan's new compendium, Lost and Found.
And at 23:55, Trent Reedy and I talk about his wonderful middle-grade novel set in Afghanistan, Words in the Dust. (Apparently I move around a lot when I think I'm sitting still.)
And there is lots of other Scholastic-y goodness in there as well. Hope you enjoy!
1 Comments on The Scholastic Spring 2011 Librarian Webcast, last added: 10/23/2010
What were the initial seeds of StarCrossed? How long had the book been growing for you before you started writing it? A long time! I started drafting the manuscript right after submitting A Curse Dark as Gold to you, in the fall of 2005. But I first heard Digger’s voice whispering to me more than ten years ago, when she was the main character in an adult novella that never went anywhere. And the seeds of her world and her story were much older still. Digger inhabits a fantasy world I’ve been tinkering with since I was a teenager, back when I first realized I wanted to write.
I can’t remember exactly what made me realize that my shiftless novella could be a much better young adult novel, but I do clearly remember deciding that StarCrossed would be the book to follow Curse. I was coming off three very intense years inside Charlotte Miller’s head, and I was eager to kind of shed that skin and work with a new character, a new voice—and especially work on a book that could be potentially lighter in tone. I remember telling my agent that I wanted to write A Fun Book, because as enormously proud of Curse as I am, and as rewarding as it was to write, “nobody could accuse it of being rollicking.” My agent responded, “Yeah, it’s not a romp.”
As it happened, my idea of A Fun Book apparently involved the main character’s lover being murdered by secret police on Page 1, so clearly my Fun Meter still needs some calibrating!
A Curse Dark as Gold was loosely based in the historical real world and on the fairy tale “Rumpelstiltskin.” How did it feel to create a wholly original world and storyline here? (I wonder if you even felt more free, not having to get those historical details right . . . ?) Going about creating a new world was not so different—but working without a plot net (without the framework of a fairytale to guide my storyline) was definitely a little intimidating. This is the first novel I’ve completed that is not a retelling of some sort. On the one hand, that was nerve-wracking, but at the same time it was also very freeing. Since I wasn’t constrained to a predetermined set of plot points and conclusion, I never felt like I was “forcing” my characters into position, and they were able to go about their business quite naturally. As long as I could keep up with them, we did fine!
Even though this is a made-up world, I still did my homework, familiarizing myself with everything from lunar science, to castle life, to the tools of historical espionage, to our own world’s history of religious persecution, to period firearms and the technology of warfare! There was a little more freedom here, however, for a couple of reasons. First, Llyvraneth is not so firmly grounded in real-life Earth history as was the world of Curse, so I could focus on the details that served the story best, without concern about anachronisms or inaccuracies. But more than that, Digger herself was a much more impatient character than Charlotte, and tended to pull me away from the research to tell my story, already! a lot sooner than Charlotte ever did.
What sorts of reference materials did you make up to help keep track of the world? Since I’ve been working with Llyvraneth for more than twenty years, I didn’t need much for my own reference (aside from a map), but a critique partne
9 Comments on Q&A: Elizabeth C. Bunce, author of STARCROSSED, last added: 10/12/2010
wonderful interview! the research alone sounds fascinating. and this: "I ran out of printer paper while printing out a set of your editorial notes" made me laugh. :)
It's so very nice to see that having a story that I've been working on (in many and varied incarnations) since high school doesn't make me that weird kid who just can't let go.
StarCrossed was a joy to read, and I cannot wait to see how Liar's Moon turns out in the end. And there's a third, right? I'll take a day-long leave of absence from Penguin if it means I can make (much more helpful) notes on the third!!!!
Great interview! I love hearing your process and the history of Starcrossed. I have a novel that feels like it might drag on 10 years too! however, it's currently on the shelf.... anyway - can't wait to read Starcrossed!
When we were coming to the end of the editorial process on A Curse Dark as Gold, I asked Elizabeth C. Bunce what she was working on next.She said hesitantly, "It's a novel about a girl cat burglar in the middle of a religious civil war," and I said, "Oh, I LOVE religious civil war!" At which point she made fun of me for being a dork, but it was true; and what I love about (fictional) religious civil war is that it offers the possibility of so much rich and deeply felt conflict -- between two religions or two citizens on different sides, who may have other bonds that they then have to choose between. . . . So much delicious drama!
And the book definitely pays that off. But to dwell on it too much here is to obscure the other bit of awesomeness in her description, which is "girl cat burglar"; and this is indeed primarily the story of a girl cat burglar -- one who can see forbidden magic -- caught in a snowbound castle, with several factions of that brewing magical-religious civil war circling around her. And just as that plot implies, there is lots of sneaking and spying and magic and deeply hidden secrets and grand confrontations -- reminiscent of Sherwood Smith or Tamora Pierce or George R. R. Martin, perfect for curling up with and getting lost in on a cool autumn day. As the Horn Book review said: ". . . satisfyingly stuffed with plots and subplots, towers and hidden chambers, genteel pastimes and death-defying feats. Celyn is a strong, imaginative heroine-more than the generic 'feisty girl,' and the rest of the female cast also show noteworthy fortitude and inventiveness." Hurrah!
Check out Elizabeth's marvelous book trailer for the book:
Some things I love in the book, for readers to watch for:
“Well, then, Celyn Contrare, it looks like you’re ours for keeps. . . . Give some accounting for yourself, and pray Tiboran made you a more entertaining storyteller than my son. And perhaps we won’t make you sleep in the scullery with the rats.” / “I’ve slept with rats before, milord.” Which didn’t sound at all like I’d intended
The unique chess game that Elizabeth has invented, and the clever way it's used in the scene in which it appears
How well and deeply she's worked out the seven gods and their associated powers and followers
All the excellent backstories for the human characters as well
How much this is a book-lover's book -- it involves reading and forging and secret codes and all sorts of delicious booky things like that
The descriptions -- of the castle, the clothes, the meals; and the heroine's description of her home city of Gerse in one critical scene
I paused in the threshold. “Why don�
6 Comments on My Fall 2010 Books: STARCROSSED by Elizabeth C. Bunce, last added: 9/26/2010
Can't wait to read it! Elizabeth (Stephanie) is so talented. I met her at a writing conference just after she had received your call mentioning that you'd love to see Curse Dark as Gold when she was ready to let it go. Such a talented writer, and amazingly nice and friendly. Thanks for the fun tips about what to watch for! :)
Wow, all of those sound fantastic! I will mark my calendar now. (I also can't wait for Arthur's Jaclyn Moriarty book - love her.) And your shirt/dress? is lovely.