I am happy to share the wonderful news that my middle-grade novel, A Sketch in Time, will be published in Catalan in May 2012 by Cruilla, a wonderful children's publisher in Barcelona.
I am grateful for the support of my family (whose voices and experiences helped shape the novel), my friends (many of whom read early versions of the novel and offered valuable feedback), Nuria (who requires far more thanks than I can put here in parentheses), my team of agents, and the city of Barcelona for inspiration.
I'll write more about the process and the particulars when I feel less giddy, if I ever do!
Friday, July 8, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Gratitude: A Story of Books and Friendship
This blog is about children's literature--the reading of it, the teaching of it, the writing of it, and the ways in which it intersects with other aspects of my life, professional and personal. I generally don't get personal here (I have other blogs for that), but today, I am driven to the personal by a staggering gift and my desire to express my gratitude to the dear friend behind the gift.
In January, while living an ocean away from home, I was diagnosed with a serious illness. My good friend Jordan Sonnenblick asked my husband what would help me at this difficult time, and the answer, as always in difficult times, was books, in particular kids' books. Jordan took action. He sent out a clarion call, as he put it, to many of his writer friends, and the response was an entire library of signed books.
A big box of books is always a thoughtful gift, but a big box of signed books, shipped across an ocean is especially welcome. The books themselves will entertain, comfort, invigorate, and inspire me. The time taken by the authors to respond to Jordan's call and to sign their books makes each book more special. And the stack of them--two stacks actually--sits by me now, a wall of words and creativity and warmth, lending strength.
But the story is not so simple, as none of the authors involved would expect it to be. A few short days after assuring Jordan that it would be safe to send this wonderful gift to us abroad, my husband and I made the heartbreaking decision that we needed to return to the US for me to get the best care. We abruptly abandoned friends, family, school, and really, really good food, and in the eight hours of a transatlantic flight found ourselves back in the US.
By this time, I had been told about the box of books, which perhaps passed east over the ocean as we traveled west. I left instructions with friends to receive the package and send it onward to me. There would be a delay, but the books would make there way to my side in good time. The packagage did not arrive. Time passed. Finally, we meet a form in triplicate and our antagonist: a nefarious, mustached bureacrat personifying Spanish Customs.
More forms. E-mails. All in Spanish. Time continues to pass. I have given up hope. I am grateful for the thought, which is what really counts. I tell myself that somewhere the children of Spanish Customs' officers have lucked into a great library of wonderful books. Perhaps good will come of this.
Finally, we get word that the package has been returned to the sender. I laugh. I do not imagine that the books will ever return to the US, but, miracle of miracles, Jordan calls to tell me the box has returned. He sends it onward. A few days later it arrives, intact, brimming with wonderful, wonderful books. Sr. Spanish Customs was defeated, or perhaps he wasn't so bad after all.
And now I sit with two stacks of books at my side, and I offer this post as a gesture of gratitude to Jordan and to all his writer friends for their generosity and for the resilience of their words, which have traveled the world and will guide me through my own journey of healing. Thank you.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
More Potter is Good, I think
Like many, I have been following the mysterious Pottermore site with interest. Today, JK Rowling revealed that it will be a site that provides at least 18,000 words of backstory on assorted characters, like McGonagall and the Dursleys, as well as some games and, here's the controversial part, access to e-books.
No one can argue that JKR has not done way more than any individual's (nay, any nation's!) part to boost book sales. Still, like so many in the book business, I am worried about what electronic publishing will do to books and bookstores, especially small independent stores who have to find ways to hold their own against local competition like B&N and against online competitors like Amazon.
I have a Kindle, and I love it, but I admit that I read differently on the Kindle. I'm nearing the end of the fourth George R.R. Martin book. I bought the first one, and then got the second for my Kindle. My husband bought hard copy. I had a hard time reading the book electronically. I needed the maps. I needed to know how many pages were left in the chapter and who came next. Ultimately, I felt less invested in the characters and the narrative on my Kindle, so as soon as my husband finished, I picked up the hard copy with great relief.
I have enjoyed some books on my Kindle--mostly books that don't feel important, that are just fun or informational--and I certainly enjoy having the Kindle and having so many books on hand wherever I am.
And this is where I get back to Harry Potter. I am a die hard HP fan. I love the books. I re-read them. I have multiple copies of each book, some in foreign languages. I even read Book 1 in Spanish to practice when I was learning the language. I have read all 7 books with my older child and am up to book 4 with my younger kids. I teach the HP books to my college students, and once, sometimes twice per year, I make classes of 25-35 students buy select books in the series. In other words, I have done my share of buying these books from booksellers small and large in four countries.
Now, I can hardly wait to have all seven books on my Kindle. I will always have them with me. Always. When I'm waiting at the doctor's office, and I'd really like to re-read the scene when Harry first gets snarky with Umbridge, I can. When I'm on a plane, and I crave the Battle of Hogwarts, it will be right there with me. It will be like a literary security blanket.
And carrying around my HP blanket will keep the books present for me, not that I think anything could make them less present. It will remind me to teach them and to read them with my kids and to buy the real books for other children I know.
I don't think children yet read e-books. Maybe they will some day, but we're not there yet. Adults will continue to buy the hard copy HP books for children they know. Why? Because the books are important. Because you must have the experience of their heft in your hands or the words on the page.
Nothing sends a shiver down the spine like the last phrase of the first chapter of the first book, "The Boy Who Lived." Seeing those words on paper is an experience everyone should have for the first time, and the second, and the third. But once that magic has become a part of you, it's OK to read the words on an e-reader. Their magic simply cannot be lessened. And having those words with me always will be magical indeed.
No one can argue that JKR has not done way more than any individual's (nay, any nation's!) part to boost book sales. Still, like so many in the book business, I am worried about what electronic publishing will do to books and bookstores, especially small independent stores who have to find ways to hold their own against local competition like B&N and against online competitors like Amazon.
I have a Kindle, and I love it, but I admit that I read differently on the Kindle. I'm nearing the end of the fourth George R.R. Martin book. I bought the first one, and then got the second for my Kindle. My husband bought hard copy. I had a hard time reading the book electronically. I needed the maps. I needed to know how many pages were left in the chapter and who came next. Ultimately, I felt less invested in the characters and the narrative on my Kindle, so as soon as my husband finished, I picked up the hard copy with great relief.
I have enjoyed some books on my Kindle--mostly books that don't feel important, that are just fun or informational--and I certainly enjoy having the Kindle and having so many books on hand wherever I am.
And this is where I get back to Harry Potter. I am a die hard HP fan. I love the books. I re-read them. I have multiple copies of each book, some in foreign languages. I even read Book 1 in Spanish to practice when I was learning the language. I have read all 7 books with my older child and am up to book 4 with my younger kids. I teach the HP books to my college students, and once, sometimes twice per year, I make classes of 25-35 students buy select books in the series. In other words, I have done my share of buying these books from booksellers small and large in four countries.
Now, I can hardly wait to have all seven books on my Kindle. I will always have them with me. Always. When I'm waiting at the doctor's office, and I'd really like to re-read the scene when Harry first gets snarky with Umbridge, I can. When I'm on a plane, and I crave the Battle of Hogwarts, it will be right there with me. It will be like a literary security blanket.
And carrying around my HP blanket will keep the books present for me, not that I think anything could make them less present. It will remind me to teach them and to read them with my kids and to buy the real books for other children I know.
I don't think children yet read e-books. Maybe they will some day, but we're not there yet. Adults will continue to buy the hard copy HP books for children they know. Why? Because the books are important. Because you must have the experience of their heft in your hands or the words on the page.
Nothing sends a shiver down the spine like the last phrase of the first chapter of the first book, "The Boy Who Lived." Seeing those words on paper is an experience everyone should have for the first time, and the second, and the third. But once that magic has become a part of you, it's OK to read the words on an e-reader. Their magic simply cannot be lessened. And having those words with me always will be magical indeed.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
The Tactile Muse
I am poised at a fork in my writing road: I have plotted a sequel to A Sketch in Time, which will take place mostly during the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, and I have planned a massive revision of my first novel, This Powerful Rhyme. The revision will involve getting rid of one of the protagonists and will thus really be a complete rewriting on blank pages rather than a tinkering of pages already written. I feel drawn to both of these projects, and I expect I will tackle both in good time, but for now, I am standing at that fork, trying to decide which way to go.
This decision prompts me to think about what motivates me to write. What is my muse? The answer surprises me a little. As a professor of literature, I would think words would be my muse. Other people's lovely words that brew on the page into a solution that is more than words and more than pages. And it's true that other people's words inspire me and give me strength and direction in my life, but they do not, funnily enough, stir me to write.
What stirs me to write is the mundane feel of things in my hands. This is not a metaphor. I mean the actual feel of things in my hands, which somehow prompts me to tell stories about those things. In stories, I put these things in other people's hands, but the things are real, and there is something in the reality of them, the feel of them that leads me to write.
I've been messing around with sequel ideas since November when I finished my first draft of A Sketch in Time. I've been making notes, thinking through scenarios, problems with the plot, challenges for the characters, etc., but the story didn't click. The story finally clicked the other day when I opened an antique desk imported from Barcelona. I was taking out a picture that I'd stored inside. To open the desk, I had to use a heavy iron key that struggled into place and then made a satisfying clack as it turned and allowed me to open the door. The feel of the key in my hand, the feel of the lock shifting, the feel of the heavy door falling open in my hand. All of those feelings transported me, and, like the lock, I felt the story clack into place. The desk will be in the sequel. It will be important, but it will not be the most important thing to the story. Yet, it may be the most important thing to me, the touchstone, the muse. When the story sticks and won't come out, I can literally turn the key and trigger my tactile muse.
For This Powerful Rhyme, there is a cupboard in a bedroom. It's door used to be stuck shut, and that was the beginning of that story. Now the door opens, but I can shut the cupboard and feel it's small, odd knob between my fingers, and I think I'll remember how it felt when that door wouldn't open and how the story that came out of the fastness of that cupboard presented itself.
So, I've learned tha I write inspired by the tactile muse. But I still don't know which fork to take. Perhaps I should open both doors, the one with its iron key and the other with is small knob and see which door demands a story from me.
This decision prompts me to think about what motivates me to write. What is my muse? The answer surprises me a little. As a professor of literature, I would think words would be my muse. Other people's lovely words that brew on the page into a solution that is more than words and more than pages. And it's true that other people's words inspire me and give me strength and direction in my life, but they do not, funnily enough, stir me to write.
What stirs me to write is the mundane feel of things in my hands. This is not a metaphor. I mean the actual feel of things in my hands, which somehow prompts me to tell stories about those things. In stories, I put these things in other people's hands, but the things are real, and there is something in the reality of them, the feel of them that leads me to write.
I've been messing around with sequel ideas since November when I finished my first draft of A Sketch in Time. I've been making notes, thinking through scenarios, problems with the plot, challenges for the characters, etc., but the story didn't click. The story finally clicked the other day when I opened an antique desk imported from Barcelona. I was taking out a picture that I'd stored inside. To open the desk, I had to use a heavy iron key that struggled into place and then made a satisfying clack as it turned and allowed me to open the door. The feel of the key in my hand, the feel of the lock shifting, the feel of the heavy door falling open in my hand. All of those feelings transported me, and, like the lock, I felt the story clack into place. The desk will be in the sequel. It will be important, but it will not be the most important thing to the story. Yet, it may be the most important thing to me, the touchstone, the muse. When the story sticks and won't come out, I can literally turn the key and trigger my tactile muse.
For This Powerful Rhyme, there is a cupboard in a bedroom. It's door used to be stuck shut, and that was the beginning of that story. Now the door opens, but I can shut the cupboard and feel it's small, odd knob between my fingers, and I think I'll remember how it felt when that door wouldn't open and how the story that came out of the fastness of that cupboard presented itself.
So, I've learned tha I write inspired by the tactile muse. But I still don't know which fork to take. Perhaps I should open both doors, the one with its iron key and the other with is small knob and see which door demands a story from me.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Where Characters Come From
I have recently finished a draft of a second novel, tentatively titled "Saving Nuria," in which most of the main characters are based pretty closely on members of my family; however, some are completely invented. When I read the novel (chapter by chapter as I wrote it) to my children, they recognized themselves and events and places from our life, but there are two major characters who are not based on anyone.
I had always imagined that authors either borrowed from life or didn't, but my own experience now shows me that one author in one text can take both approaches. The character Elizabeth, for instance, is loosely based on me--she's the mother in the story. The things that she experiences are (for the most part) not things I have experienced, but her general character is mine. In contrast, Nuria is someone I made up. She's not based, as far as I'm aware, on anyone at all. I invented her. Yet, I feel just as strong a sense of who she is, what she looks like, what she would do in different situations, as I feel about the other characters who have at least distant roots in real people.
As an example, I was in a shop the other day, and a young woman came in. I was sure I knew her or had seen her before, but I couldn't place her. Finally, I realized she looked like Nuria, but Nuria is fictional! Still, she is real enough in my head that I was able to recognize someone like her in the real world.
So, where do characters come from? The protagonist children in the novel--Micah, Jamie and Celia--are versions of my own children. They are fictionalized, certainly, but I can clearly trace their origins. Nuria is a different matter. Is she based on someone I know but I haven't myself made the connection? This is possible, but I don't think so. Is she based on a fictional character? Not that I'm aware of.
To be honest, when it came time for Nuria to enter the story, I had to stop writing for a few days because I wasn't sure how to craft her. I had a sense of her, but it was vague, abstract. Finally, I envisioned a pretty face with a crinkle of worry between bright eyes, and then Nuria came to life for me. I knew Nuria before I used the crinkle to develop her character, but I don't think I could have put her on the page without the vision of the crinkle.
I don't think I've answered my question. I guess I still don't know where Nuria came from, but I do know that characters are strange creatures that come from life and from imagination and grow into people who seem truly, deeply real. I don't flatter myself that my characters are as vibrant as some of the great characters we all know and love, but they are real, at least to me.
I had always imagined that authors either borrowed from life or didn't, but my own experience now shows me that one author in one text can take both approaches. The character Elizabeth, for instance, is loosely based on me--she's the mother in the story. The things that she experiences are (for the most part) not things I have experienced, but her general character is mine. In contrast, Nuria is someone I made up. She's not based, as far as I'm aware, on anyone at all. I invented her. Yet, I feel just as strong a sense of who she is, what she looks like, what she would do in different situations, as I feel about the other characters who have at least distant roots in real people.
As an example, I was in a shop the other day, and a young woman came in. I was sure I knew her or had seen her before, but I couldn't place her. Finally, I realized she looked like Nuria, but Nuria is fictional! Still, she is real enough in my head that I was able to recognize someone like her in the real world.
So, where do characters come from? The protagonist children in the novel--Micah, Jamie and Celia--are versions of my own children. They are fictionalized, certainly, but I can clearly trace their origins. Nuria is a different matter. Is she based on someone I know but I haven't myself made the connection? This is possible, but I don't think so. Is she based on a fictional character? Not that I'm aware of.
To be honest, when it came time for Nuria to enter the story, I had to stop writing for a few days because I wasn't sure how to craft her. I had a sense of her, but it was vague, abstract. Finally, I envisioned a pretty face with a crinkle of worry between bright eyes, and then Nuria came to life for me. I knew Nuria before I used the crinkle to develop her character, but I don't think I could have put her on the page without the vision of the crinkle.
I don't think I've answered my question. I guess I still don't know where Nuria came from, but I do know that characters are strange creatures that come from life and from imagination and grow into people who seem truly, deeply real. I don't flatter myself that my characters are as vibrant as some of the great characters we all know and love, but they are real, at least to me.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Save the Humanities -- I
Stanley Fish, writing in The New York Times, exhorts college presidents to fight for the humanities. He is prompted by the recent cutting of programs in the humanities at SUNY Albany (programs like French, for goodness sake), and he points out what all of us who work in the Humanities already know: that this tragic assault on knowledge in NY is not new.
Since I began teaching English literature in the mid-90s, I have had to explain to students why they should major in English, and/or what arguments they can use to persuade their parents that majoring in English is not a waste of time, money and intellect. Frankly, despite the alarming frequency of this conversation, I am always somewhat flummoxed by the question: Why WOULDN'T a person study the humanities?
I don't have a magic answer, certainly not one that can save what has been lost at SUNY Albany and other universities like it, but I will fumble through an answer here and try to fumble toward a better one in time.
So, why should a person study the humanities? Because we live in a world with other people, and to do our jobs and to have relationships and to live in this world, we must be able to communicate with these other people. Communicating does not mean forming nice sentences with subjects and verbs, though this is important and is a skill those who study the humanities generally perform quite easily; communicating means having a common vocabulary with which we observe, understand, and discuss what happens in our lives and in the world. That common vocabulary includes words well put together, but it also includes images, metaphors, allusions, what is known, in short, as cultural literacy. A person who studies the humanities is culturally literate.
I want to stress, however, that I am not talking about the version of cultural literacy best demonstrated at cocktail parties where a person might drop a line from a classic work of literature and thus appear erudite. No, we can all say "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" in a knowing way. What matters is knowing where the sentence comes from, what it's original context was and what it's relevance is to a particular moment. To go farther, it's knowing how Dickens's representation of the French Revolution, almost a hundred years after it happened, has a certain nostalgia to it, and when quoting the opening phrase of A Tale of Two Cities, meaning to evoke that nostalgia along with complex meanings of "best" and "worst." And when a person evokes all that meaning, she communicates more profoundly about her own moment, whether a private, personal moment or a public, national moment.
And, of course, I'm just using here the example of quoting a sentence. A person who studies the humanities can do so much more, can communicate with such richness, can understand depths of personal and cultural experience, and can articulate with such nuance and clarity what she understands that whether she's a banker or a baker, her life will be richer and her job better done.
Stay tuned for how the humanities don't offer only a common vocabulary, but how they also give us the tools to value difference.
Since I began teaching English literature in the mid-90s, I have had to explain to students why they should major in English, and/or what arguments they can use to persuade their parents that majoring in English is not a waste of time, money and intellect. Frankly, despite the alarming frequency of this conversation, I am always somewhat flummoxed by the question: Why WOULDN'T a person study the humanities?
I don't have a magic answer, certainly not one that can save what has been lost at SUNY Albany and other universities like it, but I will fumble through an answer here and try to fumble toward a better one in time.
So, why should a person study the humanities? Because we live in a world with other people, and to do our jobs and to have relationships and to live in this world, we must be able to communicate with these other people. Communicating does not mean forming nice sentences with subjects and verbs, though this is important and is a skill those who study the humanities generally perform quite easily; communicating means having a common vocabulary with which we observe, understand, and discuss what happens in our lives and in the world. That common vocabulary includes words well put together, but it also includes images, metaphors, allusions, what is known, in short, as cultural literacy. A person who studies the humanities is culturally literate.
I want to stress, however, that I am not talking about the version of cultural literacy best demonstrated at cocktail parties where a person might drop a line from a classic work of literature and thus appear erudite. No, we can all say "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" in a knowing way. What matters is knowing where the sentence comes from, what it's original context was and what it's relevance is to a particular moment. To go farther, it's knowing how Dickens's representation of the French Revolution, almost a hundred years after it happened, has a certain nostalgia to it, and when quoting the opening phrase of A Tale of Two Cities, meaning to evoke that nostalgia along with complex meanings of "best" and "worst." And when a person evokes all that meaning, she communicates more profoundly about her own moment, whether a private, personal moment or a public, national moment.
And, of course, I'm just using here the example of quoting a sentence. A person who studies the humanities can do so much more, can communicate with such richness, can understand depths of personal and cultural experience, and can articulate with such nuance and clarity what she understands that whether she's a banker or a baker, her life will be richer and her job better done.
Stay tuned for how the humanities don't offer only a common vocabulary, but how they also give us the tools to value difference.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The Jane Austen Workout
I haven't posted to this blog in a long time. I've spent the summer traveling and am now settled in Barcelona for my sabbatical. I spend my days working on some scholarly articles and thinking about my second novel. It's a good life!
Along with reading and writing (and the occasional delectable meal out--who can live in Barcelona and not make eating a high priority?), I am also getting into a regular gym routine. And I think I have finally stumbled into a workout that may actually work for me. I'm calling it the Jane Austen Workout.
While most people are motivated by Lady Gaga or Cyndi Lauper while they bounce to the beat on the stair stepper, I have always gotten bored with my techno playlists after one or two workouts. I don't like to watch TV at the gym, especially when the only channel is BarcaTV, a channel entirely devoted to the Barcelona futbol team (I'm a fan, but really?), and I can't read without my glasses, don't like to wear my glasses while I exercise, blah blah blah. So all this aural and visual finickiness leaves me bored and uninspired at the gym.
I've also tried listening to assorted podcasts, and this has been somewhat more successful. However, I need to be listening to something that really holds my attention or else my mind wanders and then I'm wondering why Melvyn Brag is chortling about Boadicea (In Our Time) or which Middle Eastern pottery shard (History of the World in 100 Objects) we're learning about now.
So, what really holds my attention? A good book! If it's a book I haven't read before, then I don't have the patience for an audiobook because I want to tear through it quickly. If it's a book I know really well, then I have the mind wandering problem again. Taking all of this into consideration, I settled on the Jane Austen novels that I don't know very well.
Of course, English PhD that I am, I have read all of Austen's novels, but Pride and Prejudice and Emma are the ones I teach and thus read over and over again. I haven't read the others more than once and not for a long time. I know what happens, so I don't need to hurry through the books like I do with first reads, but I don't remember the details, so I enjoy savoring them in the slow format of the audiobook. Plus, these books are in the public domain, so I have found free audio versions through Booksshouldbefree.com. I'm listening to Persuasion first and finding myself, for the first time in a long time, quite happy to go to the gym.
I could go on about an aging heroine and an aging exerciser, but that would be unflattering to both Anne Elliot and myself, so I'll just say that I'm thrilled and surprised to have discovered that after all these years of resisting exercise, it was Jane Austen who would help me get in shape!
Along with reading and writing (and the occasional delectable meal out--who can live in Barcelona and not make eating a high priority?), I am also getting into a regular gym routine. And I think I have finally stumbled into a workout that may actually work for me. I'm calling it the Jane Austen Workout.
While most people are motivated by Lady Gaga or Cyndi Lauper while they bounce to the beat on the stair stepper, I have always gotten bored with my techno playlists after one or two workouts. I don't like to watch TV at the gym, especially when the only channel is BarcaTV, a channel entirely devoted to the Barcelona futbol team (I'm a fan, but really?), and I can't read without my glasses, don't like to wear my glasses while I exercise, blah blah blah. So all this aural and visual finickiness leaves me bored and uninspired at the gym.
I've also tried listening to assorted podcasts, and this has been somewhat more successful. However, I need to be listening to something that really holds my attention or else my mind wanders and then I'm wondering why Melvyn Brag is chortling about Boadicea (In Our Time) or which Middle Eastern pottery shard (History of the World in 100 Objects) we're learning about now.
So, what really holds my attention? A good book! If it's a book I haven't read before, then I don't have the patience for an audiobook because I want to tear through it quickly. If it's a book I know really well, then I have the mind wandering problem again. Taking all of this into consideration, I settled on the Jane Austen novels that I don't know very well.
Of course, English PhD that I am, I have read all of Austen's novels, but Pride and Prejudice and Emma are the ones I teach and thus read over and over again. I haven't read the others more than once and not for a long time. I know what happens, so I don't need to hurry through the books like I do with first reads, but I don't remember the details, so I enjoy savoring them in the slow format of the audiobook. Plus, these books are in the public domain, so I have found free audio versions through Booksshouldbefree.com. I'm listening to Persuasion first and finding myself, for the first time in a long time, quite happy to go to the gym.
I could go on about an aging heroine and an aging exerciser, but that would be unflattering to both Anne Elliot and myself, so I'll just say that I'm thrilled and surprised to have discovered that after all these years of resisting exercise, it was Jane Austen who would help me get in shape!
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