Category: Uncategorized

Fireworks in the Garden…and some thoughts on Science and Art

Even though I planted them years ago, these flowers in my garden always manage to surprise me when they bloom.

Somehow, I never remember that big, bursting, blue fireworks are going to appear, and I’m always delighted.  This is a big, blue fireworks sort of post…because some ideas in life and writing show up that way, I find.

I’ve been kind of quiet about my current work-in-progress because it’s different than anything else I’ve written. It’s a new genre for me —  upper-MG dystopian — and the draft is happening faster than most.  I think that’s partly because of my excitement for the project, partly because the proposal is already with my editor, and partly because using Scrivener for planning and note-taking along the way makes things move along more quickly.

Anyway, I got to a point this weekend where the characters and the plot and the themes were all pushing me to stop for a little while and think…about science and art and where the two intersect.  Should they intersect?  And when we insist on separating the two, do we lose some of the potential for each?

Since I live with a scientist (my husband’s a meteorologist), I asked him what he thought, and his initial reaction was no…art has no place in the science of forecasting.  But what about those times when two or three meteorologists look at the exact same set of data, the exact same numbers and models, and come to different conclusions about what a storm will do?  Might some of that intuitive stuff be considered art?  (He didn’t like this idea much.)  Eventually, we got to the thought that even though there probably is an artistic element at work, scientists always feel safer discussing the numbers.

And then…I was reading a few more pages of ART AND FEAR by Bayles and Orland (thank you, all of you who recommended that recently!) and there in the middle of a paragraph about artists writing about process is a mention of Watson and Crick, the scientists who discovered the structure of DNA and kept detailed journals of their process.  Just dropped into the middle of a bunch of photographers and painters as if it were a foregone conclusion that scientists are artists, too.  Of course they are.

I am still thinking about all of this.   And have requested this book from my library….

…hoping for more fireworks.

Welcome to the Blogosphere Block Party! (and ARC giveaway!)

When Jo Knowles, Carrie Jones, and I gave our workshop about blogging at the New England SCBWI Conference last weekend, we talked a lot about community, about how one of the unexpected benefits of a blog is the very real, live-and-in-person friendships that can grow out of it. But sometimes when you’re just starting out in the blog world, it can feel like you’re posting away and the only one reading is your mom. (*waves to Mom*)  So I had this idea…

A Welcome-to-the-Blogosphere BLOCK PARTY! 

(with virtual brownies and a chance to win an ARC of SUGAR AND ICE)

Last week, I asked anyone with a newish blog to drop me a comment or email.  Look at all the new voices here!

 
Ginger Johnson
 
Kathi Appelt
Sarah Mullen Gilbert
 
 
 

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to turn up the music, pour yourself a cold drink, and visit each of these blogs some time this week. Leave a comment to introduce yourself and say hi.  After you do that, stop back here and let me know by leaving a comment, and I’ll enter you in a drawing to win a signed ARC of SUGAR AND ICE, my middle grade figure skating novel that’s due out from Walker/Bloomsbury in December.   How about we set next Saturday night at midnight EST as the deadline, okay?

(This cover, by the way, is not final-final, but it’s pretty darn close and is the cover on the ARC. Like the cover for THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. the art is by Joe Cepeda, who is pretty much a god in my book. He has captured Claire’s spirit perfectly here.)

THIS MEANS WAR by Ellen Wittlinger

In Ellen Wittlinger’s new middle grade novel THIS MEANS WAR, Juliet Klostermeyer is a typical bike-riding, roller skating, candy-bar-eating kind of kid, navigating the changes that always come with growing up. Her parents argue, her older sister keeps kicking her out of their shared bedroom to listen to music and talk about boys with her friend, and Juliet’s best guy friend is hanging out with new neighborhood boys instead of her.  Typical kid stuff.

But the year is 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis is looming large over Juliet’s Air Force base town, and she is afraid. In a voice that is equal parts funny and poignant, Wittlinger captured that feeling perfectly in passages like this one, when Juliet reacts to a news bulletin and speech from President Kennedy on TV:

Juliet had her legs tucked underneath her and her arms wrapped around her chest; she hadn’t moved through the whole speech. "I wanted to watch Mister Ed with Mom," she said, and then the tears began to trickle down her cheeks. It suddenly seemed as if President Kennedy and the Russians and the newscasters had all stolen something precious from her that she could never get back.

And this one…just a few pages later, when Juliet looks to her teacher for reassurance:

Juliet tried to look deep into Mrs. Funkhauser’s eyes to see if she was telling the truth about not being worried. But it was hard to tell with teachers.  They all looked like they had varnish on their faces — it was hard to see if there were any cracks underneath the shine.

(As a teacher, I particularly love that line!)

A contest between the boys and girls of the neighborhood serves as a great way to lighten the feeling of menace for a while, but even that challenge, which starts with things like running races and roller skating, escalates.  It ends up serving as a great allegory for the kind of one-upsmanship that punctuates international relations in this period of history.

Overall, THIS MEANS WAR is a funny and wonderful book that will really give middle grade readers a sense for what it was like to be a kid in October of 1962.  Highly recommended, and it would make a terrific class read-aloud. (Recommendation based on a review copy sent to me by Simon & Schuster)

Now I need to read Deb Wiles’ book COUNTDOWN, also about the Cuban Missile Crisis, which I’ve heard is terrific as well. Sounds like these two would be great paired together with some nonfiction about this period in history!

best tracker

New to the KidLit Blog World?

Would you do me a favor? 

If you are a children’s writer or illustrator — published or unpublished — with a relatively new blog, would you drop me a note in the comments to let me know your username (for LJ) or the URL if it’s another blogging platform?  In an upcoming post, I’d like to share a list of newer bloggers so that those of us who have been here a little longer can say a proper welcome.

For example,   is a writer who attended the blogging workshop that Carrie Jones, Jo Knowles, and I presented at NESCBWI this past weekend.  She’s just posted her first blog entry, with some gorgeous pictures of where she lives, and I know she’d love it if you dropped by her new blog to say hi.

Who else out there has a shiny new blog that some of us might not have discovered yet?  Don’t be shy… Leave a comment so we can all say hello, okay?

More Moments from #NESCBWI10

Are you awake?

That was the subject line of the email in my box early Sunday morning at the New England SCBWI Conference. It was Loree Griffin Burns, summoning me for a hike. She needed some exercise and fresh air and knew a trail nearby. Did I want to come along?  I did!  I just barely caught Loree in the parking lot, and off we went.

After a few minor wrong turns (we were exploring…we weren’t lost), we climbed to the top of some gorgeous rock ledges.

This little guy joined us to enjoy the view for a little while before his owners caught up to him.

Then it was back to the hotel for Kelly Fineman’s workshop on free verse poetry, which was as interesting and informative as I knew it would be. If you love poetry, Kelly’s blog is the place to be – she’s   here on LJ.

I had to sneak out of Kelly’s session the tiniest bit early to get ready for my last presentation of the conference, a panel on blogging with two smart, kind friends, Jo Knowles and Carrie Jones. 

The audience members had great questions about blogging, how to balance personal and professional selves online, and dealing with friend requests. (Just for the record, if you are a friendly, nice person, I am happy to be your friend just about anywhere, online or in real life!)  I’m in the process of converting our presentation for SlideShare, so it will be available on all of our blogs, along with all the links, later this week.

Overall, the conference was absolutely fantastic, thanks in large part to all the volunteers who made it happen, especially the ever-energetic co-directors, Anindita Basu Sempere and Greg Fishbone.  I’m already looking forward to next year!

best tracker


Moments from the NESCBWI Conference

I’m in Fitchburg, MA this weekend for the New England Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators Conference, and this morning, I’m up early and pretty much overwhelmed with gratitude that I get to be part of this world. It’s been an amazing conference so far. Among the highlights…

  • Hearing Allyn Johnston & Marla Frazee discuss their editor/illustrator collaboration.
  • Listening the inspirational Cynthia Leitich Smith talk about change and challenges in a writing life.
  • A long and unhurried dinner conversation with smart, funny, kind friends. Good pizza, too.
  • Seeing my awesome agent, Jennifer Laughran, in real life for the second time. We live on opposite coasts, and almost all of our conversations are via email, so getting to talk and laugh together face to face is a treat.
  • Giving my workshop on Skype author visits, having all the technology work well, and hearing people say it was helpful.
  • A late-night conversation with Harper editor Molly O’Neill about one of the projects she’s been working on. Listening to Molly tell the story of acquiring a YA novel called YOU that releases in August, I was so impressed with her passion for the book. I think as writers, we’re used to hearing other writers gush about their characters with that kind of excitement, but we don’t often get a chance to hear editors talk about their work. It was a great reminder that they care about our words and stories just as much as we do, and that these are their book-babies, too.  Also, I am now dying to read YOU.
  • Having Jo Knowles & Carrie Jones sign a couple books for my classroom library. (*waves to students*  I am bringing you presents!)  Here are a few photos from yesterday’s book signing. 


Marla Frazee signs ALL THE WORLD, with Frank Dormer & Erin Dionne as autographing neighbors.


Here’s Erin Dionne visiting with a reader/writer friend. See the stacks of Oreos?  Erin brought them to go along with her terrific tween novel MODELS DON’T EAT CHOCOLATE COOKIES.  Because the signing was many hours after lunch, this made Erin very popular.  Erin is funny and wonderful and popular anyway, but you know…Oreos always help.


Here’s Jo Knowles, signing a copy of JUMPING OFF SWINGS.


Here’s Jo, Cynthia Lord, and me at our signing table. See the blue book between Cindy and me?  It’s an ARC of her upcoming novel TOUCH BLUE, a middle grade book set on an island in Maine, and I had a chance to read it recently. It’s beautiful and full of heart, like her Newbery Honor Book RULES, but special in its own different ways, too.  Look for it in August.

The photo that I don’t have but wish I did?

Cindy crawling UNDER the table and emerging from beneath the white tablecloth so she could get over to a different table to have Matt Phelan sign a book. Our signing table was long and pushed back close to the wall, so in order to get out from behind it, you had to squeeze past the other people signing, stepping and tripping over bags and backpacks.  Cindy’s shortcut was much faster.

On the agenda today? A free verse poetry workshop with Kelly Fineman that I’ve had my eye on since the conference program was first released. Kelly is a gifted poet, and I’m looking forward to hearing her talk and taking some ideas back to my creative writing class, especially since a few of our kids are working on free verse novels as their extended projects.  Then I’m talking about blogging on a panel with Jo Knowles and Carrie Jones.

I’ll leave you with the question Linda Urban asked that got us all thinking at dinner last night…  Is there a project that you’ve always wanted to do but don’t feel ready to write yet? 

Those of you who read this blog regularly know I’m a big fan of dystopian novels.  I’ve always kind of wanted to write one, but I never felt like I had the right idea at the right time until this spring, when things came together in my head for an upper middle grade dystopian that I’ve been writing fast and furiously.  My agent recently sent a proposal to my editor, so my fingers are crossed.  And it turns out that a couple other people at our dinner table are in the same place…just beginning to work on that "someday project."

What about you?  Is there a book that you’ve been waiting for the right time, the right inspiration to write? 

Making Time

"…there is nothing you can buy, achieve, own, or rent that can fill up that hunger inside for a sense of fulfillment and wonder. But the good news is that creative expression, whether that means writing, dancing, bird-watching, or cooking, can give a person almost everything that he or she has been searching for: enlivenment, peace, meaning, and the incalculable wealth of time spent quietly in beauty."

~from Anne Lamott’s essay "Time lost and found" 

This piece is one of a million reasons I am in awe of Anne Lamott. You can read the full essay here.

Bookish Happenings in New England

It’s a big week for KidLit events in New England.  For example, did you know…

…that author Jo Knowles is speaking at the Hartland Public Library this Wednesday at 7:00pm? Jo is one of the smartest, nicest people I know, and also…she says there will be brownies.  If you’re in the Vermont/New Hampshire Upper Valley, you should go see her tomorrow night.

…that Loree Griffin Burns, the author of TRACKING TRASH, has a brand new book out in the world? She’s throwing a party to launch THE HIVE DETECTIVES: CHRONICLE OF A HONEY BEE CATASTROPHE tonight from 6-8 at the Beaman Memorial Library in West Boylston, MA. Her new book is stunning and smart and wonderful (and I gushed more about it here) and will be available to purchase and have signed. All proceeds from her launch go to benefit the library, too. How cool is that?  If you’re on Facebook, you can visit the event page here, and let Loree know if you’re coming.

…that the fabulous New England SCBWI Conference is this weekend?  Okay…so maybe you already knew that.  I’m getting ready for presentations Saturday (on Skype author visits) and Sunday (a blogging panel with Jo Knowles and Carrie Jones).  Will I see you in Fitchburg, too?

THE HIVE DETECTIVES: CHRONICLE OF A HONEY BEE CATASTROPHE

My friend and critique partner, Loree Griffin Burns, has written a book that I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting to share with you, and it’s out now.  It’s called THE HIVE DETECTIVES: CHRONICLE OF A HONEY BEE CATASTROPHE, and it’s about the mystery of honeybee colony collapse and what scientists are discovering about it.  It’s part of Houghton Mifflin’s Scientists in the Field series, and like Loree’s TRACKING TRASH, it is told in a narrative nonfiction style that is impossible to put down. The photography is amazing, too. Here’s the cover…

Isn’t that just stunning?  The inside is full of more amazing photographs and information that is so, so important to those of us who wonder about our environment, our interactions with nature, and where our food comes from, too.  This is a great book, well-written and compelling and fascinating, and it’s an important book, too.  Don’t miss it.