An Interview with Linda Urban

This week I welcome Linda Urban, author of the very charming novel, A Crooked Kind of Perfect. A forthcoming picture book, Mouse was Mad, will be published in 2009 by Harcourt. Linda was kind enough to take a moment from work on her second novel to talk about writing, reading and chocolate.

Lori: How has the process of writing your second novel been different from A Crooked Kind of Perfect? Do you write every day and on more than one thing at a time?

Linda: I have been so much more self-conscious while working on my second novel, and that has really gotten in the way of the work. I write best when I'm totally in the story and not thinking about structure or rules or audience. I had great good fortune to have a well-received first novel and I spent a lot of last year enjoying that, but also worrying that my second novel would not live up to expectations. I think I'm finally at the stage of clearing my head and focusing again on just the story. I sure hope I am, anyway. I work best when I write every day, but I did take large chunks of time off over the summer when we had family and friends around visiting. I have two small kids. They come first.

I work on whatever calls me. Most of the time that is a single project, but I do like when I have a short project and a long project going at the same time. It gives me the feeling that if one isn't working, I can turn to the other. Don't ask what happens when neither is working.

Lori: I won’t! And I certainly understand the challenge of trying to write while you have young children around. Everyone knows it takes time to get published. How much rejection did you collect before an acceptance?

Linda: Once I started writing seriously and submitting, I got very lucky and had many positive responses and an acceptance within a few months. That said, I've had plenty of rejection since then. I still have a lot to learn.

Lori: Now a process question: Do you listen to music as you write? If so, what inspires you?

Linda: I can't. I find it distracting.

Lori: How do you structure your writing day to be most productive?

Linda: Right now, I'm finding it helpful to get up early and write before the concerns of the day take over. If I can go from bed to teakettle to computer and just start typing, I often will have a much more productive day than if I read email first or scan the newspaper or think about packing school lunches or talk with my husband.A couple of mornings a week, my youngest is in preschool or with a sitter and I try to focus and write then, too, but I often find that I have a more critical mind then. It is usually a good time to look over and revise the early morning work. Once my boy is home for lunch, my writing day is over.

Lori: Please tell us about any upcoming appearances.

Linda: I have some school visits planned and I believe that Harcourt is working on scheduling some New England booksignings for MOUSE WAS MAD. I'll also be in Michigan in April to receive the Michigan Library Association's Mitten Award. I'm very excited about that.

Lori: Would you ever write a memoir?

Linda: My life is not so interesting as to warrant a memoir. There are little bits of memoir in every bit of fiction I write, but then I have to make a whole bunch of stuff up to make it worth reading.

Lori: What have you read lately that you'd recommend?

Linda: I love Richard Russo and just went on a fiction binge with his Mohawk, The Risk Pool, and Nobody's Fool. Reading him is to study characterization and dialogue. And humor. I'm always amazed at the way he is able to balance realism with humor. So many writers turn to surrealism or fantasy in order to be funny. Russo knows how to show us the everyday humor in regular people, and the ways so many of us turn to humor when things get tough.

I also adored The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It is perfect historical fiction - I learned so much about the occupation of Guernsey during WWII, but every bit of that was filtered logically through the characters and plot. And characters! Oh, such characters!

As for writing for young people, I haven't read as much this year as I usually do, but I did love Ingrid Law's Savvy, Emily Jenkin's Toy Dance Party, and Dannette Haworth's Violet Raines Almost Got Hit by Lightning. I've also just finished reading a manuscript for a book which will be out next year, Kate Messner's The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. I think tweens will love it.

Lori: For you, what is the most challenging aspect of telling a story well?

Linda: I think it is plot. I like character. I like the way characters talk to one another. I like finding moments that resonate with that. Making those moments all add up into a compelling plot, though, is tough. I often tell people that my drafts get wider rather than longer. Sometimes I'm just setting moments beside other moments but not one of them is leading to the next.

Lori: And now for an important question: Do you prefer dessert or hors d'oeuvres? Milk chocolate or dark?

Linda: I'll say dessert because I have tried to type the other word three times now and I keep misspelling it. Dark Chocolate. Always.

Lori: Thanks so much for dropping by, Linda!

This Year's Newbery Winner. . . .

Guess I need to read this one. :o) The Underneath, a favorite of mine, won an honor along with three others I haven't yet read. I was surprised that Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains didn't get any recognition. Perhaps the last book in the trilogy will get some love--I suspect it will be the best of the three she has planned, no cliffhangers. Very cool that she got a career achievement award though.

Also, Madapple, by Christina Meldrum didn't even get a Prince Honor, nor did Paper Towns by John Green (not that he needs to win another Prince, but. . .) Awards are interesting, and so arbitrary in one way. It ultimately depends on the taste of three or six or eight or ten people on a committee. True, they are highly qualified to judge these things, but we all know what we like, and that's the bottom line.

I'll be off to buy The Graveyard Book now.

An Interview with Kirby Larson

Welcome to the first in a series of Friday Morning Author Interviews! We kick off with the formidable Kirby Larson, whose debut novel, Hattie Big Sky, received a Newbery Honor for 2007. Her newest book, co-written with Mary Nethery and illustrated by Jean Cassels, is called Two Bobbies: A True story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship, and Survival.

Lori: Welcome Kirby! Where are you from originally?

Kirby: While I'm tempted to give a smart aleck answer (like Mars), I am from Seattle. I was born in an army hospital that's now a park; does that count as interesting?

Lori: Very. And certainly better than being born in a park that used to be an army hospital. Can you tell us anything about what you’re working on now? What about the story behind Two Bobbies?


Kirby: Since the current novel is giving me such fits, I'll opt not to talk about it except to say it's an historical novel. Of sorts. And the story behind the Two Bobbies is best described on our website, http://www.twobobbies.com/. Let me just say that it is a tremendous joy to be able to write a book with a very dear friend.

Lori: Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what inspires you?

Kirby: I don't listen to music because if I hear any words, I get totally distracted. Jennifer Holm, however, said she couldn't have written Our Only May Amelia without the Dixie Chicks -- so to each our own!

Lori: What about your own reading pile? Have you read anything lately that you’d recommend?

Kirby: I've posted some recent reviews at my blog, http://www.kirbyslane.blogspot.com/, about The Humming of Numbers, by Joni Sensel and Unwind, by Neal Shusterman. After those two fabulous but extremely intense books, I needed something lighter so I just picked up Confessions of a Serial Kisser, by Wendelin Van Draanen and so far have laughed my way to page 17. Not a kids' book, but I heartily recommend The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It's a heart-warming and heart-breaking epistolary novel which any writer should study for voice.

Lori: And of course, we’d like to know if you are doing any author appearances. Where can people meet you?

Kirby: I am doing my best to turn down appearances right now to stay home and work! Mary and I will be making a rare joint appearance at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, Washington on February 2, at 7 pm. I will be at a Young Author's Conference in Idaho, Feb. 16-21; then, March 14-17, I'll be at the Children's Literature Festival in Warrensburg, Missouri, and in April, I have the amazing opportunity to speak at international schools in Doha, Qatar and Beirut, Lebanon.


Lori: That sure sounds adventurous. How would you feel about your book(s) being made into movies? Is anything like this in the works?

Kirby: There have been nibbles now and then about Hattie Big Sky. If that happens, fun. If not, no big deal. Books are my passion and I've got lots more to write!


Lori: Where do you keep your Newbery Honor Medal?

Kirby: Uh, I hate to break it to you but there is only one medal, which went to the lovely Susan Patron the year HBS won. I do have a lovely plaque from the ALA, however, to acknowledge the Newbery Honor award, which is on the wall next to my desk. I know-- I'll take a photo of my award wall and post it on my blog!

Lori: Clearly my ignorance has no limits. Although the shiny silver medal stickers on the books themselves may have fed into this “Medal Myth” I apparently created. I’m glad we could clear that up! On a completely unrelated, but equally important topic, do you prefer desserts or hors d'oevres? Please elaborate. . . :o)

Kirby: Life is too short to choose!!! I can never say no to brie and never say no to homemade pie -- if they are both served at the same meal, well, I just walk a little longer on the treadmill the next day.

Lori: Aside from a meal of brie and pie, describe your idea of a wonderful day in the life of Kirby Larson.

Kirby: I'd start off with long phone calls from (notice I say from and not to) both my adult children, then I'd watch the hummingbirds outside my window, go for a walk with my husband around Green Lake, return to my office, tall, nonfat, extra hot latte in hand, where I'd produce many pages of work. At day's end, I'd find myself at a dinner party where I'd actually get to talk, face-to-face, with writers I admire.

Lori: Thanks so much for hanging out in my tiny corner of the blogosphere today. It’s been a pleasure getting to know you, Kirby!

Way Up and Over Everything
by Alice McGill
Illustrated by Jude Daly
Houghton Mifflin Books
In Bookstores Now
Ages: 6 and up

Way Up and Over Everything is a moving piece of African American Folklore, told in the voice of an African mother, telling you just the way it was told to her, long ago.
It’s no surprise to learn that the author of this book is a professional storyteller. The voice is colorful and rhythmic.

The narrator’s grandmama’s mama, Jane, grows up on the Georgia plantation of “Ol’ Man Deboreaux.” When the master brings five more slaves over from Charleston, Jane befriends one who says his name is “Edet.” The overseer shouts at him, reminding him that his name has been changed to Bob.

The depiction of slave life is true to life, without being too much for a young listener, and the language is rich. Slaves learn to “work by the whip. . . If a hoe rested too long, the whip popped. If cottonseeds didn’t hit the dirt fast enough, the whip popped.”

At mealtime, the five new slaves slip away from the rest. When Jane finds them they are over the hill and the owners have taken off to recapture them. As the overseer gets closer and all looks hopeless for the escapees, they merely twirl in a circle and “step up on the air.” They are flying away! And no one can believe their eyes. They float into the sky like helium balloons, ignoring the threats of those on the ground.

The folk art seems obviously appropriate here. Long furrows in the field echo long lines of the log cabin quarters, echo the rows of people sitting on the long wooden benches at mealtime. This is pleasing to my eye. The people in particular are painted so sparingly they look ready to take off before they actually do.

An author’s note explains the origins of this story come from the desire for freedom, when people believed escaped slaves had literally vanished into thin air. A mystic, poetic story that would be a great intro to a discussion of black history.

Becoming Clint Eastwood

I had been in a reading lull, focusing on writing a lot, and research and related things, but reading very little.

Since reading other people's great ideas expands my own creativity (duh), I'm attacking my book pile with gusto once again. Movies do this, too. My husband and I saw Gran Torino with Clint Eastwood last night, and it got me thinking about the complexity of motivations for a racist attitude. The movie is set in my state, and one of the supporting characters is a high schooler from my area. This was inspiring in itself.

Clint Eastwood is my new role model. He knows precisely what he does best, and proceeds to make a career out of it. You can call him one dimensional, but really the man transcends versatility. He is the master of his dimension. He owns every inch of it. He's just so very good at what he does.

Perhaps this is a problem for struggling writers. I lament that I can't turn a phrase quite like Polly Horvath, or structure a plot like Laurie Halse Anderson. I want to have the dry humor of Emily Jenkins, or the tall tale telling genius of Richard Peck. Clearly I'm no Clint either, but if I can possibly discover the thing I do best. And then do that thing really well, that will be my best shot.

So I do need to immerse, and learn, and admire, and think, and work. Then, focus inward, find the connections, discard the peripheral stuff, create, and hone hone hone that voice.

Did Cheryl Klein post this for me?

Think you might need to work harder? Check out these.

Highway Cats

Janet Taylor Lisle

Illustrated by David Frankland

Philomel Books
Sept 2008

Age: 9-12

Highway Cats is a sweet story about the healing power of miracles and making your voice heard. Feral cats, each haunted by a sordid past, live along the highway in constant conflict with each other. Then a mysterious trio of luminescent kittens arrives. After being inexplicably spared from death, they go on to inspire unity amongst this quirky community.

A parallel thread has humans, in short, scripted scenes, that are planning to develop the cat community's habitat. As the heavy equipment comes in to lay down a road, the scalawag cats, now inspired by the miracle of the kittens, come together to successfully defend their land.

Newbery honoree, Lisle, has succeeded in telling a fable that feels fresh and familiar at the same time. It manages to quite pointedly comment on the environment and government without coming off as didactic. Though the point of view sympathizes the cats' perspective, the animals are just as flawed as the humans. This juxtaposition of the human and animal points of view not only emphasizes the disconnection between these communities, but also the government's disconnection from the real world. A great intro to a discussion about building communities. A poignant read.

Birds On A Wire

By J. Patrick Lewis &
Paul B. Janeczko
Illustrated by Gary Lippincott
Wordsong
(an imprint of Boyds Mills Press)
December 2008
Ages: eight and up

Birds On A Wire calls itself A Renga ‘Round Town. I’d never heard of a renga before I picked this up, so the introduction was helpful. It does a good job explaining this Japanese mother of haiku.

From the intro:

A traditional renga is written by two or more poets. The first poet writes three lines, the second poet follow that with two lines, the first poet comes back with another three lines, then two, three, two, and so on.

The cool thing is, each new verse must link in some way to the verse before it, but not with the others. This creates a longish kind of poem where each stanza has something new to say, and yet holds hands with the lines immediately before. To complicate things more, we are told the renga does not need to tell a story, but it should have a beginning, a middle and an end.

For example, in Birds On A Wire, the poem covers an entire day, with widely varying happenings that are yet linked together in clever, if sometimes obtuse, ways. Children won’t get them all, but that’s okay since the language is beautiful enough on its own to entertain. I like this one:

Poet one:
Flood waters on the creek!
Bon voyage, grasshopper,
On this morning’s paper boat

Poet two:
Carrying news
to nowhere

This book would be wonderful in a third grade classroom where they are studying the haiku format. I love the idea of students participating in a “Classroom Renga,” or partnering with each other to create poems for two voices.

The slightly subdued, watercolor panoramas give important clues to some of the stanza connections, as in the following:

Glazed with rain
A red wheelbarrow headstands
By the hardware store

The old doctor recalls
Childhood barnyard.

The image of the reflecting doctor enhances the text particularly well here. The art throughout evokes a sense of lingering--moments frozen by poetry. Birds On A Wire has much to offer a wide age range, and language that is a joy to read again and again.

We Ski--A Moonlight Reflection

Windless. A gentle, powdery snow falling. Moonlight and cold have conjured the land into a silver, twinkling glitterscape. A camera can't capture this, I think, and try to savor the beauty.

We ski, trip, giggle, and then finally find our rhythm on the lit-with-lanterns trail, sip chocolate in the warming house, then ski some more and listen to the absent-minded river rushing rushing by.

We turn in our skis, tired, and on the way to the car my daughter says, "Do we have to go? It's so pretty!" Her eyes twinkle, silver breath circles her rosy face in the moonlight.
"Yes," I say, capturing this glitterscape that outshines the snow.

My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath

Schwartz and Wade
2008
Ages: 10-14

I discovered and fell in love with Polly Horvath's writing in Everything on a Waffle. After reading everything she's written before and since, one thing is for sure. Her work is artful writing, no matter the topic. Take a couple of sentences like these,

"I pray for a hundred adventures. And maybe, I think, if I pray all the time unceasingly as Nellie is telling us we should, as I walk to town and help my mother shuck oysters, as I make baskets from reeds and sweep the floors or weed the vegetable garden, as I sit mooning over the movement of the wind and lying on my back, lost in the thoughtlessness of doing nothing, then there might be a response."

(*pause* to fully appreciate this sentence)

This book is set by the sea, about the daughter of a poet searching for meaning in her life through the adventures she experiences one summer. The adventures range from extraordinary to quietly profound. The narrative reads like rolling waves. Still, the characteristic, quirky humor is stirred in, giving that most wonderful of make-you-laugh-and-cry-in-the-same-paragraph reading experiences.

Some have quibbled about plot structure and the all-important arc. I think the character IS the plot, and the tension between the outrageous and the poetic create an arc of self-discovery. In the end, poetry (love) wins. How do we live with the outrageousness of life without letting our egos get in the way of love? I want to read this to my children and ask them if they think Mrs. Gourd deserved what she got. Is justice merely a more dignified word for revenge?

Jane, the protagonist, says, "More often than not, when my mother sits on the porch steps now, we are totally silent. I think we are memorizing the sound of the waves."

Don't you want to read a book where people talk like this? And tell a story you recognize as your very own? And is in the form of a prose poem to boot? Polly Horvath must love our crazy world. This book is an ode to the ocean, a love song to life.

So This Blog Won't Sabotage my non-existent Career

I can't post anything until I've written at least 2000 words.
Okay then.
See you.
Later
Bye.

Brain Freeze

Perhaps 'twas not a good idea to read The Annotated Charlotte's Web while I'm in the very beginning stages of a rough draft for a new novel. Yes, perhaps not.

The problem is, I can't put it down. Charlotte's Web is one of my all time favorites. This book is like sitting at E.B. White's knee and having him tell me exactly how and why he wrote it.

I'm waffling between being completely inspired and, at certain moments, cringing while thinking of some of my own writing.

So--a vocationally themed New Year's resolution: I must be able to read The Annotated Charlotte's Web without being prompted to cringe at my current writing before I consider sending anything back to anyone who has expressed interest in my future work.

A New Year

I've just spent the evening with great people, good food, and sixteen children between us who all play together with little conflict, even though half of them only see each other once a year.

I walk home at 2:oo am, putting fresh prints in untouched snow. Time crunches under my shoes, melts away.

The Christmas tree will come down today. A new calendar is waiting on my wall. Potential decorates my thoughts.

Spring is on its way.

Happy New Year.