…even if I did find the illustration of the quote on Buzzfeed. Check out the rest.
Category: Author News
{when i am crazed, i remember agatha}
WHY must I have Existential Crises at 10:45 on Sunday nights? We even had a long weekend this weekend, I had plenty of time to come unglued about the glacial speed at which my current revision is going — but no. When we needed to be safely asleep and storing up hours of rest against a busy week, I start fidgeting and sighing, and poor Tech Boy says, “So… should I just leave the light on?”
“No… it’s fine, we can go to bed. It’s just that…” Aaaand, we’re off.
My Tech Boy is no stranger to my cray-cray, but rather than rolling his eyes or tuning me out in favor of his book – which, not gonna lie, I might do to me – he actually listens to the words behind the hysteria. He listens until I wind down, and then says a few knowledgeable things which spark something. Somehow, within minutes, I am back on track after spewing invective and doubt all over the room. I grab my bedside pad of paper and pencil, and start scribbling notes. I nod. We discuss. And, finally, much later, I sleep, at last able to actually relax.
Much to my dismay, yes. There’s a moment like this EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
But, then, this is par for the course:
“There is always, of course, that terrible three weeks, or a month, which you have to get through when you are trying to get started on a book. There is no agony like it. You sit in a room, biting pencils, looking at a typewriter, walking about, or casting yourself down on a sofa, feeling like you want to cry your head off. Then you go out and interrupt someone who is busy – Max usually, because he is so good-natured – and you say:
“‘It’s awful, Max, do you know, I have quite forgotten how to write – I simply can’t do it any more! I shall never write another book.’”
“‘Oh yes you will,’” Max would say consolingly. He used to say it with some anxiety at first: now his eyes stray back again to his work while he talks soothingly.
“‘But I know I won’t. I can’t think of an idea. I had an idea, but now it seems no good.’”
“‘You’ll just have to get through this phase. You’ve had all this before. You said it last year. You said it the year before.’”
“‘It’s different this time,’” I say, with positive assurance.
“But it wasn’t different, of course, it was just the same. You forget every time what you felt before when it comes again: such misery and despair, such inability to do anything that seems the least creative. And yet it seems that this particular phase of misery has got to be lived through. It is rather like putting the ferrets in to bring out what you want at the end of the rabbit burrow. Until there has been a lot of subterranean disturbance, until you have spent long hours of utter boredom, you can never feel normal. You can’t think of what you want to write, and if you pick up a book you find you are not reading it properly. If you try to do a crossword your mind isn’t on the clues; you are possessed by a feeling of paralyzed hopelessness.
“Then, for some unknown reason, an inner ‘starter’ gets you off at the post. You begin to function, you know then that ‘it’ is coming, the mist is clearing up. You know suddenly, with absolute certitude, just what A wants to say to B. You can walk out of the house, down the road, talking to yourself violently, repeating the conversation that Maud, say, is going to have with Aylwin, and exactly where they will be, just where the other man will be watching through the trees, and how the little dead pheasant on the ground makes Maud think of something she had forgotten, and so on and so on. And you come home bursting with pleasure; you haven’t done anything at all yet, but you are – triumphantly – there.”
An Autobiography: Agatha Christie, pp. 571-572)
To think that the woman who crafted Marple and Poirot writhed on the point of her pen makes me smile. That she nagged her husband with her crazy makes me laugh. Some of us have to make several false starts to begin our writing; others of us struggle with slump-y middles, and still others of us are in agonies at the end. All of us are, at some point, an absolute joy to live with. I can never say enough good things about my Tech Boy – when I am pulling out hair and clinging to the side of cliffs, he just starts talking me down.
I think I’ll keep him.
{an erudite wordsmith who led the way for the rest}
Resting now, Walter Dean Myers, 1937-2014
from Harper Collins:
In a career spanning over 45 years, Walter Dean Myers wrote more than 100 books for children of all ages. His impressive body of work includes two Newbery Honor Books, three National Book Award Finalists, and six Coretta Scott King Award/Honor-winning books. He was the winner of the first-ever Michael L. Printz Award, the first recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, and a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults. In 2010, Walter was the United States nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award, and in 2012 he was appointed the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, serving a two-year tenure in the position. Also in 2012, Walter was recognized as an inaugural NYC Literary Honoree, an honor given by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for his substantial lifetime accomplishments and contribution to children’s literature.
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of erudite and beloved author Walter Dean Myers. Walter’s many award-winning books do not shy away from the sometimes gritty truth of growing up. He wrote books for the reader he once was, books he wanted to read when he was a teen. He wrote with heart and he spoke to teens in a language they understood. For these reasons, and more, his work will live on for a long, long time,” said Susan Katz, President and Publisher of HarperCollins Children’s Books.
Walter Dean Myers was born Walter Milton Myers on August 12, 1937, in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Walter’s birth mother, Mary Myers, died after the birth of his younger sister, Imogene. His father, George, sent Walter to live with his first wife, Florence Dean, and her husband, Herbert Dean, in Harlem, along with Florence and George’s two daughters. Walter would eventually adopt the middle name “Dean” to honor Florence and Herbert.
In Walter’s memoir, Bad Boy, he wrote, “Harlem is the first place called ‘home’ that I can remember.” This sentiment is reflected in Walter’s writing, whether via a love letter to the neighborhood in the picture book Harlem; a story of a boy’s trial for a crime committed in Harlem, in the novel Monster; or the tale of two friends struggling to see a future beyond the community they know in the novel Darius & Twig. Walter spent much of his childhood playing basketball on the courts of Harlem and checking books out of the George Bruce Branch of the New York Public Library. Florence Dean taught Walter to read in their kitchen, and when he began attending Public School 125, he could read at a second-grade level. Though Walter struggled through school with a speech impediment and poor grades, and he had trouble with discipline throughout his school career, he remained an avid reader. His love of reading soon progressed to a love of writing.
Walter wrote well in high school and one teacher, who recognized his talent but also knew he was going to drop out, told him to keep on writing, no matter what—“It’s what you do,” she said. Walter did drop out of Stuyvesant High School, though they now claim him as a graduate (which Walter always found funny). At the age of seventeen, he enlisted in the Army. Years later, after his safe return home and while working a construction job, Walter would remember this teacher’s advice. He started writing again…and he didn’t stop.
Walter’s body of work includes picture books, novels for teens, poetry, and non-fiction alike. In 1968, Walter’s first published book, Where Does the Day Go?, illustrated by Leo Carty, won an award from the Council on Interracial Books for Children. Walter and his son Christopher, an artist, collaborated on a number of picture books for young readers, including We Are America: A Tribute from the Heart and Harlem, which received a Caldecott Honor Award, as well as the teen novel and National Book Award Finalist Autobiography of My Dead Brother, which Christopher illustrated. Walter’s novel Scorpions won a Newbery Honor Medal and the Margaret A. Edwards Award, while gritty teen novels Lockdown and Monster were both National Book Award Finalists. Monster appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, won the first Michael L. Printz Award, and received a Coretta Scott King Honor Award. His stunning Coretta Scott King Award-winning novel, Fallen Angels (1988), about the Vietnam War, was named one of the top ten American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults of all time. Twenty years later, Myers wrote a riveting contemporary companion novel, Sunrise Over Fallujah, which was named a New York Times Notable Book in 2008.
In Invasion (2010), Myers once again explored the effects and horrors of war through young protagonists, this time set in World War II. His upcoming books include Juba!, (HarperCollins, April 2015) a novel for teens based on the life of a young African American dancer, and On a Clear Day (Crown/Random House Books for Young Readers, September 2014). A graphic novel adaptation of Monster (HarperCollins) is also forthcoming.
Walter often wrote books about the most difficult time in his own life—his teenage years—for the reader he once was; these were the books that he wished were available when he was that age. Throughout his life, Walter worked to make sure young adults had the tools necessary to become hungry readers, thirsty learners, and, therefore, successful adults. He frequently met with incarcerated teens in juvenile detention centers and received countless letters thanking him for his inspirational words. Walter also worked with and mentored teenage fan and writer Ross Workman, and they published the novel Kick together. As the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature from 2012-2013, Walter traveled around the United States promoting the slogan “Reading is not optional.” He strove to spread the message that a brighter future depends on reading proficiency and widespread literacy, not only during his two-year tenure as National Ambassador, but beyond. More than anything, Walter pushed for his stories to teach children and teenagers never to give up on life.
“Walter Dean Myers was a compassionate, wonderful, and brilliant man. He wrote about children who needed a voice and their stories told. His work will live on for generations to come. It was an honor to work with him for so many years,” said Miriam Altshuler, Walter’s literary agent.
Walter lived in Jersey City, New Jersey, with his wife Constance. He is survived by Constance, as well as his two sons, Christopher and Michael Dean. He was predeceased by his daughter, Karen.
Probably my favorite Walter Dean Myers conversation was the one he had with his son on Story Corps; that, and hundreds of interviews and articles give us just a small picture of a great man – who never stop talking about diversity in literature, and who was one of the grand old men of young adult and children’s lit. He has left some big shoes to fill.
{like a room without a roof}
Okay.
One of the things I don’t really do is pop culture.
Sometimes, it feels like the world moves too fast — there’s some new It thing every five minutes, and I just cannot keep up. Even when I was a kid, I was still stuck on the Last Cool Thing, while everybody had moved on to what was in… and, honestly? I never reconciled my nerdishness. I felt like a fool, every single time. I didn’t know who Mel Gibson was when I saw him, in person, on the street, in high school. D’oh!
I gave up. After college, I listened to less and less new music, kept up with fewer and fewer shows, watched fewer and fewer movies. I even made it a point of pride. I don’t have a TV. I don’t listen to Top 40 pop music. The last movie I saw was The Frog Princess. I read – because that’s as much as I can keep track of… at least I know all the new books. Mostly. It’s what I tell myself.
It took me awhile to figure out that I was still getting my pop culture news… north-by-northwest. It’s there. It ekes in. I saw that stupid tongue thing Miley Cyrus did (didn’t everyone?), I knew who Macklemore was because he made a thrifting cool. But, it breaks my heart that I missed Pharell Williams until six twentysomthings in Iran were arrested… for dancing to a song innocuously titled “Happy.”
You don’t need to understand the words to feel their defeat. Their backs to the camera, their bodies curved in on themselves, like the contrite on the mourner’s bench, as they’re forced to “confess.” They have shamed their nation, by producing a “vulgar” clip which offends…chastity. An “obscene video clip that offended the public morals and was released in cyberspace,” is the actual charge. Shame. Their bodies are shouting “shame.”
* * *
I watched the video, in which the girls wore wigs to cover their hair, in accordance with their cultural and religious mores, and then I looked up the original song. And then, I cried a bit. The Iranian twentysomethings showed some of scenes of them making their video, at the end, and the hysterical laughter was so… normal.. they laugh like goofy dorks in their country, just like I laugh like a goofy dork in mine. And, I’ve missed this — social phenomenon, of people around the world showing examples of their “happy,” and how it meshes with mine. I’ve missed an awfully perky, fun, infectious and upbeat song for far too long, and how dare I not dance, this very minute, this very day, this very LIFE — because I can???
What a shame, that I’ve been sitting… What a shame to choose to hyperfocus on whatever Issues, and not embrace gladness, at least some of the time.
CNN reports that a few hours ago, the dancers were released – not the director of the video, but sympathy is with those in front of the camera.
(And the one behind? Who can say? I hope he or she is okay…)
As I’ve listened to the song, over and over and over again (oh, yes, I am one of THOSE PEOPLE; poor Tech Boy was SICK of “That’s Alright” from the Laura Uvula CD Jules sent me) it’s like it’s taking over my pulse. Be happy, be happy, be happy. Life is ephemeral, hard things are coming; if you can dance NOW, dance.
I sold a book the other day. I’m happy. I’m getting to where I can run uninterrupted bursts of time on my elliptical machine. I’m darned happy. Tech Boy is funny and sweet and kind. My rent is cheap. I’m paying my bills. I’m honestly …okay.
… I’m happy. This is my new theme song.
And hey! I’m actually in time to be hip with a pop culture movement for once. Whad’dya know. ☺
Let nothing bring you down, my hearts. ♥
{we need diverse books, because…}
We need diverse books, because…
…too often, our idea of attractiveness tends to be a straight, pale line: Eurocentric, able-bodied, waif-bodied, gendernormative, conformist. Diverse books remind us that our stories are varicolored, many shaped, multi-shaded and arc in bright leaps along a non-conformist spectrum. Beauty – Adventure – and best of all, Love – is where you find it. ♥
So, diversity. Suddenly everybody’s talking about it. What’s it for? Why do we need diverse books? That, friends, is the question the crew at #WeNeedDiverseBooks wants YOU to answer.
Make Noise: TODAY at 1pm (EST), there will be a public call for action that will spread over 3 days. We’re starting with a visual social media campaign using the hashtag #WeNeedDiverseBooks. We want people to tweet, Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, blog, and post anywhere they can to help make the hashtag go viral.
For the visual part of the campaign:
♦ Take a photo holding a sign that says “We need diverse books because ___________________________.” Fill in the blank with an important, poignant, funny, and/or personal reason why this campaign is important to you.
♦ The photo – family friendly, of course – can be of you, your buds, your stuffed animals, your Barbies, your local library or fave bookstore – and should say clearly WHY you support diversity in kids’ lit. Even a photo of the sign without you will work.
♦ Make Art: There will be a Tumblr at We Need Diverse Books Dot Tumblr Dot Com that will host all of the photos and messages for the campaign. Please submit your visual component by May 1st to weneeddiversebooks@yahoo.com with the subject line “photo” or submit it right on the Tumblr page here and it will be posted throughout the first day.
♦ Starting at 1:00PM (EST) the Tumblr will start posting and it will be our job to reblog, tweet, Facebook, or share wherever we think will help get the word out. (Have you checked it yet? Some good discussion is already going.)
♦ From 1pm EST to 3pm EST, there will be a nonstop hashtag party to spread the word. It is hoped that we’ll get enough people to participate to make the hashtag trend and grab the notice of more media outlets. This could be big!
♦ The Tumblr will continue to be active throughout the length of the campaign, and for however long the discussion keeps going, so all are welcome to keep emailing or sending in submissions even after May 1st.
On May 2nd, the second part of the campaign will roll out with a Twitter chat scheduled for 2pm (EST) using the same hashtag. Please use #WeNeedDiverseBooks at 2pm on May 2nd and share your thoughts on the issues with diversity in literature and why diversity matters to you.
On May 3rd, 2pm (EST), the third portion of the campaign will begin. There will be a Diversify Your Shelves initiative to encourage people to put their money where their mouth is and buy diverse books and take photos of them. Diversify Your Shelves is all about actively seeking out diverse literature in bookstores and libraries, and there will be some fantastic giveaways for people who participate in the campaign! More details to come!
Everybody’s talking about diversity… but is there anything we can really do about it? Let’s find out. Make some noise – so that media outlets will pick it up as a news item. Raise your voice – so that the organizers of BEA and every big conference and festival out there gets the message that diversity is important – and why. We hope you will help spread the word by being a part of this movement.
So, that brings us back to the question…
Why do you need diverse books?
{west tech high, cleveland, thanks to Ms. Wheeler}
CLEVELAND ROCKS.
Also: what attractive and business-like looking students!
{wind sprints}
Some of us on earth are natural-born saunter-ers.
I can stroll six or seven miles, just casually, without really noticing much (unless it’s hot).
Given a choice, I will always walk, and not run.
It’s not that I’m not a decent runner – I can dash for twenty yards with the best of them. Just don’t ask me to do more than that. Running is one of those things which people like Fair and my friends A. and Vette can do. Running is something the Zen do, the ones who can take the incessant yakking from their brain about how hot it is, how much their quads/lungs/arches hurt, and how annoying that little bit of sweat tricking under their bra strap is – that’s not me. I can’t do it long enough for running to count.
Equally, I’ve never been a person who is good at reading How-to books. I can read essays on writing, but the minute you hand me something with covers — it’s over. Brenda Uueland was the last book I read on writing, and that was in college, thanks. A requirement. Some things, you’ve just gotta do, instead of reading about.
I watch other people prep with outlines and plot summaries. They organize and sticky note and write their three Daily Pages, and they’re awarded, when they’ve written, with their Kitten, but I can’t, can’t, can’t stick with any of that — or so I thought.
I’ve been sliding through the MORASS of finishing this novel, and I finally decided I needed to just FINISH for heaven’s sakes, any way I could. I said, “I’m just going to finish quick and dirty – it’s going to be a hot mess, but it’ll be done.
You may have noticed that I’m a leetle tightly strung. Slightly wound. I don’t write like that, though I always wish I could. I revise DAILY. I write two pages, and then change six words five chapters ago. And then I write two more pages, and change the first page to include a whole six paragraph section. It’s always two steps forward, three steps sideways, one step back. Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle, pick, pick.
It produces what my editor calls “clean copy,” but it TAKES FOREVER, and sometimes I think I put my brain in knots, but the only way I can go forward seems to be to go …sideways. It drives me crazy.
Quick and dirty, though, works, if I work in sprints.
Working in “sprints” is a term familiar to coders and Tech Boy HATES IT and thinks it’s a completely empty buzz word for any number of reasons, and he always complains that a well planned project doesn’t need some externally enforced buzz-word to make it come in on time and on budget. Be that as it may, I took my path from a combination of the Cory Doctorow 20 Minute Doctrine and from the coding practice. I first wrote a plain sticky note of what I thought would happen next. It was very general and vague, but forced the conclusion with the use of the phrase, “And then they.” And then they went to the party, and then they went home, and then they found the Bad Guy – I made it like a four-year-old telling a story in just the broadest strokes, just to get it down on paper. Next, I set a timer for twenty minutes, and wrote – no email, nothing online, no music, no phone, no nothing. I just wrote. When my timer went off I took a break – tea, lunch, mail, Lexulous. And then, I came back.
I got a ridiculous amount of work done toward my conclusion today. Some of the narrative went places unexpected, despite the “And then they” document, but I feel like that’s so promising. I know where I’m going, but there are still cul-de-sacs and shortcuts across vacant lots to be discovered along the way. If your story isn’t even predictable to you, surely you have a good thing going.
Honestly, I can’t say how long it’ll last, but this is forcing me to turn the Titanic at long last, and I’m hopeful. I just might get this done before the 24th (also known as Iceberg)…
{the longest night}
“when the night has come/and the land is dark/
and the moon is the only light you see…
“Things to do today:
1) Breathe in.
2) Breathe out.”
– Ned Vizzini, It’s Kind of a Funny Story
A few hours ago I learned of the death of author Ned Vizzini, and I couldn’t remember the user name or password for my own blog for over an hour, which gives you some insight into my state of my mind, especially considering that my user name and passwords are at least half a variation of my own name.
I remain surprised at the profound stupidity of grief.
Blogger (at the time) Alkelda from Saints & Spinners “introduced” me to Ned Vizzini, and over the years we emailed a bit back and forth, talking about books, his, and other people’s. He was a genuinely nice person, always interested in what I had to say – which, admittedly, was usually gushy – and invariably kind to me, and kind about other writers. For my own sake, I will miss that he exists. For the sake of those readers who struggle with depression and who, like me, clutched IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY like a spot-on, pitch-perfect lifeline, I feel with us and for us, an inexpressible loss.
I am gutted. Just sick.
To Know the Dark
“To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.”– Wendell Berry
from “To Know the Dark”, Farming: A Handbook, (Harcourt Brace, 1970)
We speak, this time of year, about joy, but those of us who are mental sometimes have to talk about the fact that you can only have sparkles of light against darkness. We celebrate the return of Sol Invictus against the backdrop of what feels like it could be endless, eternal night.
We found a reason to celebrate the longest night, the darkest time of the year. The birthday of the Invincible Sun. Christmas. Yule. We manufactured celebration, when we were in the dark, because human beings are nothing if not resourceful. We chose our celebration. Every day that we get out of bed, those who suffer from depression, in this small way, we choose to manufacture a tiny celebration again.
And again.
And again.
Until it becomes somewhat of a habit. Until the light returns.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Repeat.
It matters. We matter. We do. Despite what our brains might be saying.
When we feel we are most helpless, let us reach with both hands to help someone else.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
And, if you can, move.
{sing out loud: the girls of summer}
“In summer, the song sings itself.” ~ William Carlos Williams
A secret cupped like a gorgeous blossom in small, grubby hands: the first day of summer. Anything can still happen, and there is wonder and beauty around every corner, and every day is at least a week long. At least, that’s what summer seemed like, all the days of childhood. Now, it’s more people frowning about if what they’re wearing will be a wrinkled, sweaty mess by five o’clock, and if they can get away another day without shaving. Never mind. I’m here to reconnect with wonder, and do a little happy dance that I’ve been named a Summer Girl by the fabulous Girls of Summer Book Club.
The Girls of Summer are the girls of awesome. Co-founder Gigi Amateau (CLAIMING GEORGIA TATE; COME AUGUST, COME FREEDOM) is a children’s author in her own right, and as such, this is doubly wonderful that she gives back to her community in this way. Each year, she and her friend and fellow author, Meg Medina (TIA ISA WANTS A CAR; YAQUI DELGADO WANTS TO KICK YOUR ASS) pull together a list of just eighteen books – definitely difficult! – as their Summer Girls reading list. The list covers picture book to young adult fiction that are fab for summer reading and celebrate and develop that awesomeness that makes a summer girl strong. Each year, Gigi and Meg hold a live launch in Library Park (a name that just begs you to get on the lawn with a book!) – behind the Richmond Public Library (or inside, in case of rain) where readers meet Virginia authors in person, take part in book giveaways, helped along by bbgb books, and indulge in cool, sweet treats. As PR icing on the cake, Richmond Family Magazine and the Richmond Times-Dispatch covers the events and the books in their literary section. These Summer Women are, together with their community of book people, making Richmond, Virginia an awesomely more literary place.
And this, their third summer together, they picked one of my books!
I’m in such excellent company as Ian Falconer, Sharon G. Flake, Kekla Magoon, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, Atinuke, Anita Silvey, and more. Every Friday, there’s an author Q&A with one of the eighteen selected authors. I had a great time being involved – this was such a treat for me. I wish I could have been at the reading the other night – and had some of that ice cream.
Click to enlarge; photo courtesy G. Amateau
Thanks, Girls of Summer. Thank you, Gigi and Meg. Thank you, Richmond. I’m honored.
Today is still a glowing secret, cupped in your two hands – the longest day of light. What is it, that you plan to do with this one, wild precious life?
Celebrate it.
{gleeee!}
Step 1: Visit the EDGAR AWARD website.
Step 2: Input your search years.
Winners for All Categories for All Years
| Year | Award Category | Title | Author’s Name | Publisher/Producer | Notes |
| 2013 | Best Young Adult | Code Name Verity | Elizabeth Wein | Disney Publishing Worldwide – Hyperion |
Step 3: Happy Dance.
YES!!!!! It’s CODE NAME VERITY, a book I felt was definitely bound for greater things than a mere however-many-week run on the NYT bestseller list. I was slightly disappointed that it wasn’t THE ALA winner on tons of lists, but Honors are quite a happy thing as well — and enough to ensure that Liz will be still book-talking this book for library groups four years from now, when she’ll have to reread it to refresh her memory on what she’s supposed to be talking about… And now this, the one award she thought was a “long-shot, but I’m going to the award dinner anyway, because what are the chances I’ll get asked to do that again?” Yeah. She said that.
“Long shot” my foot.
CONGRATULATIONS, dear Liz!!! May your tribe increase.