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As a big birthday fast approaches, the gulf between young peoples’ experiences and mine has widened considerably. And yet I continue to write for kids. I went from teaching high school English to photojournalism to writing and photographing children’s books. Through the years my students’ dialogue about the great themes in literature, poetry, art – ergo life – lived inside my heart and echoed in my ears. My young cousins were often about, arguing over who would recite their latest poem first, practically jumping over one another to talk about some crazy adventure. Those reverberations were a vital part of my work. The students are long grown up, and my cousins are adults with adult dispositions. Have the voices of our current generation changed? Are their issues different from mine? I think they probably are. But I’m not sure.

I dodge the “voice” problem somewhat by writing from the perspective of the person I’m interviewing. It’s not in my voice but the young person’s voice. But my books are not 100% participants’ voices. Some parts, like choosing the subject, is me, and that’s what I question. So the choice of narrative and presentation begs the questions to us all, “Are we still asking interesting, relevant questions? Are we still cool?”

A perk writing for children is that we are generous with one another. I asked a few experienced writers and illustrators to contribute their thoughts to this subject. I made it a point not to ask INK contributors because I hope you will add your thoughts in the comment section.

The first person to respond was Andrea Davis Pinkney. She said, “We all know the cliché that says, ‘real life is stranger than fiction.’ Well – when writing for children ‘real’ can also be funny, ironic, sad, thought provoking, and cool. This is why I write non-fiction and historical fiction for children. ‘Real’ can let a child see the world in a whole new way. ‘Real’ can change a young reader’s thinking about people, history, scientific facts, love, laws, wars, protests, rites of passage, family. ‘Real’ can show kids what’s real about themselves.”

[Before taking on this subject, I’d like to thank Barbara Kerley. Her September 9 blog, “An Old Dog, A New Trick,” was the push I needed to go to the bright side, to go Mac.]


I recently participated at a media specialist conference in Florida, where I heard a number of interesting presentations by our fiction writing colleagues. Gayle Forman when she writes she hears the voices of her characters. We nonfiction authors do that, too, of course, but there’s an additional step. First, we must search out real characters, alive or dead, and then find ways to integrate them into our heads. At least that’s my process. Nonfiction writers’ search for characters is indeed a long, twisty road.

This subject led me to the master of all character searches, Luigi Pirandello, who I assume reads INK somewhere in the Italian grand beyond.


I ask him: Caro Senore Pirandello. Per favore. Your Six Characters in Search of an Author is great theater, but how about some help for us nonfiction writers? After all, we share much in common. Just as your characters take control of your play, people represented in nonfiction literature usually take control of the books right from the start. Primary sources are our bread and butter. For this writer, my primary sources, my people, ARE the book.


The way I work is somewhat logical and somewhat not. Before I meet anyone, I need to understand my subject – just enough to be able to ask decent questions – but not so much as to enable preconceived ideas to drive the book. That’s the characters’ domain. Meanwhile the networking in search of said characters begins.

To network, timidity has no place in the lexicon of nonfiction. We must be tough, just like your pushy six characters, Senore. I’ll call anyone I know who might know someone who might know someone. Emails go out to suggested organizations, and to the friends of friends of friends. Fingers crossed, I await the responses. In the best of all worlds, doors fly open, private intimate materials are gingerly handed over, and the most fascinating, introspective, articulate people whoever walked the planet start talking. Oh-oh, now I’m verging into fiction. Truth-be-told, this doesn’t happen quite so quickly, but hey, this is a blog, and our readers are busy people.

While the hopefully discovered most fascinating person talks, I tape, listen, and watch. Does she lean to the left? To the right? Does his upper lip curl when revealing an inner truth? Is she a blinker? When does he laugh nervously? Also: Am I pushing too hard? Not enough? Asking the right follow ups? This is a balancing act whose high wire is based on trust. It’s extraordinarily exhilarating – when it works.

Up to this point, the interviewees are people, not characters who will take over the book. To become characters, they have to go through me. First, all the tapes, every last word, need to be personally transcribed. While pushing rewind, again and again, their voices slowly begin to creep into my being. Suddenly, their speech patterns become my speech patterns, their body language and movement slowly becomes mine. They attach themselves to my bones and seep into my blood. I literally need to know how it feels to be ze [him or her]. I know, I know, this is more than a little weird, but the creative process is usually weird. [Just watch the anomalous routines baseball players go through at bat.]

Recent blogs about the author’s process have been personally helpful and reaffirming, so I’d like to continue the discussion by writing about the author’s pre-process – ways to uncover the perfect, albeit illusive, idea. Even more to the point, how does the author deal with that period of time just before the kernel of an idea breaks out? Hint: space.

Consider this: The last book has just gone through its final edit and it is out of your hands. The baby is on its own, to sink or swim, to sing or clunk. What’s next? Everyone and their mothers-in-law seem to ask the big question: “So, what are you doing next?” Gulp! Next? Is there a next? How often does this happen to you?

If you are lucky a new and exciting project awaits. But that’s not always the case. And it’s one thing to have a next project, and another to have a next project that is desirable. For example, when I finish a demanding human rights topic for young adults, I like to follow it with a colorful photo essay for very young children. Professionally, it gives me a sense of balance and breathing space. It acknowledges both the joys and the sorrows nonfiction undertakes as we realistically depict the world around us.

But there are times when I’ve experienced the absolute reality that I have no new ideas. There will never, ever be an idea as interesting, fun, saleable as my last book! “So what are you working on now?” That phrase haunts my waking hours. It creeps into dreams. It’s the 500 pound gorilla in the room – along with how old are you? and how much money do you make? – asked during school visits. Nothing. Nada. No idea. Try saying this at a party. It’s a great way to drink alone.

Over the years I’ve developed a few tricks – do’s and don’ts – to get me over the no-idea hump. Here are but a few. Please feel free to add, subtract, or challenge this list.


Don’ts

Don’t devote entire days to household projects. It only keeps you from thinking about writing. You can clean closets anytime, even when on a deadline. Don’t try to make every recipe in the Barefoot Contessa’s latest cookbook. Again, it takes away from literary thinking and you will gain about eight pounds. Trust me, I know this. If you don’t heed my advice on this one, change the quantity of butter to olive oil.

Don’t take on your craziest family members’ problems and try to reform them. It will only lead to a fight and won’t change anything. You will still have no new ideas – that are legal or printable. Don’t go shopping. It’s depressing to see all the beautiful things you can’t afford because you have no new ideas to help pay for them. On second thought, maybe this should go into the “do” section as it reaffirms that you will have a new idea eventually, hopefully before the bills arrive. You’re on your own with this one. Don’t indulge the notion that you will never have a new idea for more than 72 hours. After that, it gets old and boring to those near and dear. Of all the don’ts, if you can handle the time frame of the last don’t, feel free to indulge in the other four, but try to keep it down to as few hours as possible.

All these “don’ts” are getting me down. Let’s move on to …

Do’s

Isabel Allende, in a Q & A about writing, said, “Few people know how to be still and find a quiet place inside themselves …. From that place of silence and stillness the creative forces emerge; there we find faith, hope, strength, and wisdom.” I couldn't agree more.

Give yourself the gift of silence. Let silence, like the pause between musical movements or the white spaces around Asian poetry and art, give your creative juices time to recoup. Visit someplace beautiful: spend time with a favorite painting in a museum, walk along the river, look up at a big sky. The ocean and a white sandy beach work best for me, but that’s not a

Loreen Leedy is one of over 50 authors that will appear at the University of Central Florida’s inaugural Book Festival on Saturday, April 17 on the UCF campus. She will participate in the Adventures in Children's Books author panel at 10:30 am and will sign books immediately afterwards. For more information, please visit this web site:

http://education.ucf.edu/bookfest/


Rosalyn Schanzer, Dorothy Hinshaw Patent and Vicki Cobb are launching the videoconferencing division of INK Think Tank (INK Link: Authors on Call) with a webinar on April 21. This highly-entertaining free webinar for professional development for teachers is being Spotlighted by CILC.org, one of the most prominent marketplaces for videoconferencing in the educational arena. The title of the webinar is "Award-Winning Nonfiction Authors in Your Classroom." http://cilc.org/c/community/spotlights.aspx

Deborah Heiligman will be on a panel at the Los Angeles Festival of Books on Saturday, April 24, at 10:30: Fact vs. Fiction: Storytelling in Young Adult Nonfiction with Elizabeth Partridge and Stephanie Hemphill, moderated by Jonathan Hunt.
She will also be speaking about Charles and Emma at the Santa Monica Library on Sunday, April 25, at 3:00 with a reading by Rosalyn Landor, who performed the audio book.


From Susan Kuklin: I’m participating in PEN’s World Voices Festival of International Literature this year. The festival runs from April 26 – May 2. Here is the blurb about the panel I will be moderating.

War and the Novel

When: Saturday, May 1
Where: Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York City
What time: 12:30–2 p.m.

With Bernardo Atxaga, Filip Florian, Assaf Gavron, and Atiq Rahimi; moderated by Susan Kuklin

Free and open to the public. No reservations.

Cheryl Harness signs copies of her book, They're Off! at the Pony Express Museum in St. Joseph, MO,
on Saturday, April 3, 2010, 150th anniversary of the launching of the Pony Express. Wahoo!

From David Schwartz: Where Else In the Wild? More Camouflaged Creatures Concealed and Revealed (the sequel to Where In the Wild? Camouflaged Creatures Concealed and Revealed) has been published and has received the following "awards":


Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) Choices 2010
National Science Foundation Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12


and is already about to come out in Korean...

In keeping with this month’s theme – using our books in the classroom – I’d like to share experiences about talking up/talking down to kids in publishing and the classroom.

When the question of age appropriateness arose on our new Web site, http://www.inkthinktank.com/, I wish I had listed a broader age range. Some of you already have and hats of to ya! Material that is strong and fun and well presented is manna from heaven to a creative teacher. Kids, young and old, are savvy creatures who can handle big vocabulary and big ideas.

Step back: For years I’ve been trying to capture the voices of the participants who rule my subjects. Early on, in a book for young children called When I See My Doctor, I included the words “stethoscope,” “otoscope,” “sphygmomanometer,” and “hemoglobinmeter.” The copy editor wanted these words deleted because they were too difficult for kindergarten-age children. But four-year-old Thomas, the subject of the book, learned them from his doctor and shouted them proudly into my tape recorder.

It was a bit nerve wracking to argue with an editor because I was new to the field, didn’t have kids, and never studied early childhood education. But I trusted Thomas, my subject. Later, at school visits, children called out the words, teachers beamed, and I felt vindicated. Sophisticated language, one teacher said, encouraged the children to be students.

Jump to now: A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of doing a presentation with Marilyn Nelson, the poet whose picture book I recently illustrated. I had invited her to watch me shoot her book, using students from the Dance Theatre of Harlem as my models, but scheduling didn’t quite work out. Now that the book is published, we were asked to appear together in front of a large group of students. I was anxious. How would a classroom filled with both boys and girls react to my gals in tutus? What helped the most was the teacher. She greeted me with an enthusiastic bear hug and a huge – I mean huge – smile. That alleviated trepidations until I saw the kids. The first to arrive were the boys – big, boisterous boys who spread out in the front rows. Gulp! This is a book about ballerinas for goodness sake! Too late now to back out. Besides Marilyn had just arrived looking fabulous. There were more hugs as Marilyn whispered, “How shall we do this?” If she didn’t know we were in deep do-do land.
“You go first.”
“No, you go first.”
“No, you go first.”
Marilyn, the AUTHOR, went first. She described how and why she wrote the poem and revealed a few literary secrets, such as a riff on Yeats. [“Beautiful ballerina, you are the dance.”] She read her poem to a rapt audience and talked a little more.

My turn! Following Marilyn Nelson may have been a mistake. But I have a few secrets of my own, ones that surprisingly complimented her poetic structure. Showing photographs, I pointed out my secrets, historic balletic points of reference. There’s an homage to Swan Lake, to Degas, and to George Balanchine.

[The photograph above is a typical Balanchine shape.] There were no giggles, squirms or snickers from the audience. Instead, there were great questions and a very happy teacher. Oh, did I tell you who made up the audience for our picture book? Students at the University of Connecticut.

What experiences have you had, dear teachers, librarians, and colleagues, breaking the "age appropriate" barrier?

Jete’ to future: The next visit will be with third graders. I will not change one word in my presentation.

Are you excited about next year's YALSA award for nonfiction? I really, really am.

Here are two books that got YALSA recognition last year (first up an Alex Winner, followed by a Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers)