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Book request haiku: what happens when librarians start to imagine patrons’ requests in a slightly poetic vein. I think the form also lends itself nicely to the tiny amount of information a librarian is sometimes presented with when a patron is looking for a particular book.
The Horn Book printed several of my haiku in their November/December 2012 issue (you can read the clever haiku of some readers in the comments), but here are a few more. The titles are at the end of the post.
Something terrible/ Happened to every letter/Of the alphabet
An elegant mouse/Who lived in a pagoda/And her humble swain
I would have tried the/Frobscottle. But snozcumbers?/That sounds disgusting.
She was strong enough/To lift a horse. I wanted/Her for a neighbor.
The kid starts this fire/With a hammer. Or a jackknife./No–what’s that thing called?
The mom keeps singing/Her grown son to sleep. Is it/Funny, or creepy?
Thanks to the Horn Book for publishing the best of them!
Answers: The Z Was Zapped; The Rescuers; The BFG; Pippi Longstocking; Hatchet; Love You Forever
Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, Coretta Scott King winner, librarian, and writing hero, recently received the Boston Globe Horn Book award for fiction for No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller. What’s a person to do to honor someone as fantastic as Vaunda? (1)
You start by asking another fantastic person for help. Author/illustrator Jan Thomas (Let’s Sing a Lullaby with the Brave Cowboy, Rhyming Dust Bunnies, Pumpkin Trouble, and many more) did a hilarious presentation at my library for Dia de los Ninos in April, and a lovely interview right here (2). I asked Jan if she would apply her unique skills and vision to a portrait of Vaunda, who has herself been a Very Brave Cowgirl.
Here’s the do-it-yourself Read poster I made of Vaunda back in 2009, using ALA Graphics Read software (3).
And here’s Jan’s take on that poster.
Wow. All I can say is, wow. I don’t know about you, but I see another classic picture book in the making.
Thanks, Jan and Vaunda for being such good sports! And congratulations, Vaunda.
1. Read an interview with Vaunda here. No Crystal Stair has since made PW’s Best books list for 2012.
2. Read an interview with Jan here.
3. Graphic design elements of ALA Graphics Read software are (c) ALA Graphics, for nonprofit use in promoting literacy.
This is part of a series of interviews with children’s writers in New Mexico to celebrate the 2012 centennial.
Shirley Raye Redmond has written books about bunyips, mermaids, the Jersey Devil, and Richard Branson. (Quiz: Which one of these things does not belong in KidHaven’s Monsters series?) Her most recent book is Norse Mythology (Gale Cengage 2012). Here, Shirley Raye answers a few questions about her prolific output, the business of writing nonfiction for kids, and, as always, the Profesor’s question.This might sound like the question of someone prejudiced toward
fiction, but have you always wanted to write nonfiction? Your output is astounding–what keeps you going from project to project?
fiction, but have you always wanted to write nonfiction? Your output is astounding–what keeps you going from project to project?
I’ll admit that nonfiction is my first love—I started out in journalism before getting my M.A. in literature. True stories are often inspirational, frequently amazing, sometimes horrific, and even unbelievable. I’ll never live long enough to pursue all the subjects that appeal to me. I’ve written and sold more than 400 magazine and newspaper articles too, for a wide variety of publications such as Highlights for Children, Cosmopolitan, and Shotgun Sports and New Mexico Magazine. But I have to confess that my first two book titles were both fiction—Stone of the Sun, a romantic suspense for grown up readers and then Grampa and the Ghost, a humorous juvenile novel, which later became a Weekly Reader selection.
Most recently, I’ve read Fairies! (Random House) and Oak Island Treasure Pit (KidHaven). How did you approach the research for these titles? Were these topics assigned by the publisher, or are you able to suggest topics of interest to you personally?
Fairies are hot—in fact, Disney’s Tinkerbell tales are the number one reading choice (based on book sales) for girls under the age of 9 in the USA. I wanted to cash in on that trend and decided to approach it from a nonfiction angle. I pitched the idea to my Random House editor, who loved the idea. Oak Island Treasure Pit is part of the Kidhaven Press Mysterious Encounters series. I’d written (and researched) a brief article about the owners of the Pit putting it up for sale and sold the piece to ISLANDS magazine. So when the Kidhaven editor asked if I’d like to write a book on the subject, I jumped at the chance. Pirates, buried treasure, ghosts, and booby traps! Who could resist such a nonfiction topic!
Of course writers never have favorites among their books (wink),
but you probably have a favorite topic or area of research that interests you. What sort of book do you most enjoy writing?
but you probably have a favorite topic or area of research that interests you. What sort of book do you most enjoy writing?
Whatever topic I’m working on at the moment!
If readers visit my website at www.shirleyrayeredmond.comthey’ll get an idea of the sort of topics I’m interested in.
If readers visit my website at www.shirleyrayeredmond.comthey’ll get an idea of the sort of topics I’m interested in.
What do you find most challenging about working within publishers guidelines for some of these projects, given that a book might have to be at a certain reading level?
Because of my background in journalism, I know how to write tight, using simple diction. (Most newspapers are written for a 6th to 8th grade reading level.) This is a plus when writing for kids. Once an editor has approved my topic, she may provide basic guidelines, such as word count or limitations on three-syllable words, etc. Once I turn in a polished draft, the editor goes over this and may make further suggestions regarding age-appropriate diction or sentence structure. The most challenging aspect is finding NEW material that has not appeared in most kids’ book before. For instance, I was thrilled to discover that Christopher Columbus spent a winter in Iceland learning about the Nordic seafarers routes to the New World before he made his historic voyage in 1492. I included this fascinating tidbit in my recent book, Norse Mythology (Lucent Books, June 2012).
How does a typical school visit go for you?
My school visits have run the gamut from a half-hour reading to a single class of 15 kids to answering questions in a gym filled with students. I particularly like those schools with PTOs that buy copies of my books AHEAD OF TIME for all the students I will be meeting with. When the youngsters have had time to read a title in advance of my visit, their questions are much more to the point and we can have a more animated dialogue. My novel Grampa and the Ghost was actually inspired by a classroom visit with third graders at a school in Illinois.The teacher had asked me to provide a list of a dozen vocabulary words that writers may use in the course of their careers. I added the term ghostwriterto the list and certainly enjoyed the kids’ creative definitions.The Professor’s question (in honor of Vaunda Nelson’s great-uncle, who started a bookstore with 5 books): If you had to pick five books to start your bookstore, what would they be? These are not necessarily your desert island favorites, but the 5 books you would most like to share with the world.
The authors you previously interviewed on your blog have provided a list of great choices, such as Jane Eyre, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the Bible. I guess I would add the following 5 titles because of the impact they had on me as a young person, prompting me to make the decision at the age of 12 to become a writer:
(1) Little Women (I wanted to be Jo!)
(2) The Magic Garden by Gene Stratton Porter—not to be confused with the better known, The Secret Garden.
(3) I Married Adventure by Osa Johnson (autobiography)
(4) The Little House books (what I call creative nonfiction)
(5) The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (the first book that moved me to tears).
Also, I read Stone Fox when working on my M.A. and found it to be a masterful example of how elementary diction and simple sentence structure can be used to relate a complex and emotional narrative. Anyone wanting to write for kids should read it.
Any advice for writers looking to get into writing nonfiction for
kids?
kids?
Yes! The good news about nonfiction for kids is that it’s easier to sell than fiction and it stays in print much longer, earning more royalties and subsidiary sales, such as textbook rights and foreign language rights and book club rights. My Simon & Schuster and Random House nonfiction titles have generated tens of thousands of dollars in income for me over the years. Author Jennifer McKerley and I have compiled a workbook that provides all the details of how to break in—Write a Marketable Children’s Book in 7 Weeks. The key word here is marketable. We also write a blog on the topic, which your readers can visit at http://www.writechildrensbook.com/blog
Thank you, Shirley Raye!
Shirley Raye has very kindly offered to give away a copy of Fairies! and Oak Island Treasure Pit. To win one of these wonderful books, leave a comment telling me your favorite work of children’s nonfiction. Winners will be drawn randomly from all comments entered before midnight on October 26, 2012. That’s this year, folks, so don’t wait too long.
Words of wisdom from Carolyn Meyer: everyone needs a couple of flying pigs. (Or at least small flying pig figurines.)
On to the recap of her very first appearance for her latest book in the Young Royals series, The Wild Queen: The Days and Nights of Mary, Queen of Scots.
Carolyn treated us to a brief look at her early career as a writer for The New Yorker. The only trouble, she said, was that The New Yorker didn’t realize she was in fact writing for them: everything kept coming back and never seemed to end up in the magazine. Eventually she found her way to children’s books, and The Wild Queen is the seventh in her series on the turbulent early years of characters like Elizabeth I and Cleopatra.
A few brief questions from the audience:
Why historical fiction? Because research is easier than writing. Also because Carolyn is fascinated by the constricted lives these girls led, and how they managed to make their mark on history under trying circumstances.
Where does she do her research? Entirely on Google. (Another joke.) Okay, some Google. But also the local university and public libraries, and by traveling to the place she writes about. She didn’t travel to Britain for this book, but previous visits supplied plenty of scenery and facts.
How does she decide who to write about next? Often, one book will lead to another. Many of the figures in the Young Royals series are linked in some way: Queen Elizabeth and her sister (Bloody) Mary Tudor; Catherine de Medici and her mother-in-law Mary, Queen of Scots, who was also Elizabeth’s cousin. But people like Marie Antoinette and Cleopatra just beg to be written about, without any connection to other books.
All this, and homemade scones from Alamosa Books.
This is part of a series of interviews with New Mexico children’s writers to celebrate the state centennial in 2012. (1)
Carolyn Meyer has made a career of writing historical fiction for young people. Her books include the Young Royals series, The True Adventures of Charley Darwin, and the main subject of this interview, Rio Grande Stories. Written in 1994 and republished more recently with an author’s introduction, Rio Grande Stories is a composite novel written in the voices of students at Rio Grande Middle School in Albuquerque; it’s also a collection of brief essays on New Mexican history, a guide to doing local history projects, and a beautiful example of what happens when children become aware of their own particular place in the world. Welcome, Carolyn!
Your book Rio Grande Stories is like a pocket-size tour of everything that makes New Mexico unique: the cultures, the food, the settings, the traditions. How did you put it together? Did you know most of the stories before you began writing, or did you discover new elements as you wrote?
I had the germ of most of the stories when I was figuring out what to include. For instance, my husband, Tony Mares, makes an appearance in the story about Padre Martinez of Taos. When I met him, he was an actor wearing a priest’s cassock and traveling around the state giving performances as Padre Martinez. (He was also writing a play called “Death Comes for Willa Cather,” which should let you know where the author of Death Comes for the Archbishop stands in our household!) And I did meet people who claim to be descended from Padre Martinez, so that story was easy to figure out. None of the others was quite that easy.
In the introduction to the reprint, you say that you learned a lot of New Mexico history from listening to your in-laws. What other kinds of research did you do? Did you have any unusual experiences doing research for the book?
I spent a month at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, teaching writing classes in exchange for use of their wonderful little library and a chance to wander around Espanola, dropping in on a guy who painted low-riders, attending pueblo dances, watching potters, and using the bulging “vertical files” at the library. There was certainly plenty of material available; the hard part was inventing believable characters in stories that would stand up on their own.
You also mention that RGS has inspired real students to undertake family/community history projects of their own. Have you seen any of these projects? What have you heard from teachers and students who have done this?
Schools in Capitan and Loving, NM, invited me to spend several days in each, working with students and developing interviews with locals. Both schools produced books based on their interviews. And I was invited to a middle school in Virginia where the 7th grade had spent a semester creating their own book. They threw a big party for the families and the people they’d interviewed, and I was the guest of honor with my name spelled out in M&Ms on a series of cupcakes. I’ve heard of other schools with similar projects, using RGS as a model, but I’ve not been involved with them.
Your series The Young Royals doesn’t take place in New Mexico, but let’s talk about it anyway! Of all the figures you’ve studied (Marie-Antoinette, Cleopatra, Elizabeth I, Catherine de Medici, and many more), whose life was the most fascinating? Which was the most difficult to research? How do you approach the business of getting inside the head of a historical figure? Have you even wanted to write about someone but abandoned the project for lack of sympathy with them?
The most challenging, and therefore the most fascinating, was Cleopatra, because so little is actually known about her: when she was born, who her mother was, what she looked like–minor details! So I had to invent practically everything. Then there was the problem of getting Elizabeth Taylor out of my head. A real problem was deciding where to end her story–her life got really interesting when Marcus Antonius entered the picture, but by then she was much older than my usual readers. Getting inside the head of any historical figure–not just Cleopatra’s–isn’t much different than getting into the head of a contemporary teenager, because the issues are pretty much the same: absent fathers, domineering fathers, jealous sisters, petulant brothers, controlling mothers, vengeful stepmothers, inappropriate boyfriends, unloving husbands, and the fear that you’re never going to grow up, never be beautiful or happy or in control of your own life. The background changes, the clothes, the food, the customs are different, but the emotions are eternal, and that’s what I try to tap into.
The Professor’s question (in honor of Vaunda Nelson’s bookselling great-uncle, who started a bookstore with only 5 books): If you were going to start a bookstore with 5 books, which would you choose? These don’t have to be your five personal favorite,desert-island books, but the 5 that you would most want to share.
My true colors will show here:
A dictionary that includes etymology, because our language is so rich and our vocabulary so extensive and drawn from so many sources
A grammar book, one that isn’t too stuffy, because our complex language is so elegant when it’s used correctly
A contemporary translation of the Bible, because the characters, their stories, and the imagery are unequalled
A simple bilingual book (any language) with pictures to introduce a reader to the beauty of an unfamiliar language
A blank book to write down ideas and observations, but not such a pretty blank book that you’re afraid to write in it
Since this is a series in honor of the NM centennial, what are some of your favorite books set in New Mexico or by NM authors?
Río Del Corazón and Astonishing Light: Conversations I Never Had With Patrociño Barela, two collections of poetry about New Mexico and New Mexicans, by thoroughly New Mexican poet E.A. “Tony” Mares – referenced above as “my husband” and “an actor…giving performances as Padre Martinez.” I make no apologies for including books written by a spouse, because they are indeed among my favorites. (No apologies needed! I think that’s wonderful.)
What was the best piece of writing advice you received when you were starting out, and what would you pass along to other writers?
“Accept criticism.” I deal with it much better now than I did sixty years ago, and I actually welcome it and learn from it. But criticism is only useful when it comes while the work is still in progress. Once the book is published, you’re better off ignoring it.
Most importantly, have you ever actually traveled through time to research a book? Kersten Hamilton can travel forward at the rate of one second per second, but I thought perhaps you had discovered some other means in order to get all those books written.
Time travel? No–just long hours of work in the present.
Thank you, Carolyn!
Carolyn’s newest book is The Wild Queen: The Days and Nights of Mary Queen of Scots, which will be published by Harcourt in the fall of 2012.
1. Read more interviews with children’s writers in New Mexico here.
2. Carolyn Meyer’s website.
This is part of a series of interviews with New Mexico children’s writers to celebrate the 2012 centennial. (1)
Lauren Bjorkman (2)is the author of My Invented Life (Henry Holt , 2009), a YA novel that takes on sibling relationships, sexual identity, and Shakespeare, all through the voice of cynical-yet-daydreaming teen theatre geek Roz. PW called it “fun, thought-provoking reading,” and I have to agree. Welcome, Lauren!
Roz has such a strong voice, and she’s such a believable mix of self-awareness and denial. How did you develop her voice in writing My Invented Life?
I started with a picture in my mind—a big, adorable dog that wants to be loved, but doesn’t know how to behave around people. To that, I added some observations I’d made of a young woman in my hometown, a talented actress with a big heart and boundless energy. Once Roz came alive for me, everything I wrote went through the Roz-o-matic filter—would Roz do this? Would Roz say that? It was great fun to create someone so unlike myself.
The plot of My Invented Life models the play, As You Like It, that the theatre geeks are practicing. How did that come about? Were you planning from the start to use Shakespeare? If you had to introduce Shakespeare to teens using a different play, which would it be?
I started with my sisters, and the secret that divides them. Then I fleshed out my characters and designed a rudimentary plot. When I shared my thoughts with my critique group, one talented writer said, “Your plot sounds like a Shakespearean play, where everyone is pretending to be someone else. I’d seen As You Like It in high school, and re-read it. That gave me an insight—Roz had all the hallmarks of an actress. So I transformed her into one.
First off, I’m no expert on education. But I remember my own experience struggling with Shakespeare in high school. Hating it, to be honest. So here are my recommendations based on n=1.
- Read the play aloud in class, stopping to interpret the language at every turn. Switch roles, so everyone gets a turn to read.
- Let your students watch a theatrical or movie version of the play.
- Romeo and Juliet is a good choice because it has both romance and swordplay, and therefore broad appeal.
Stories like Roz’s let readers into the mind of someone who is questioning all kinds of things: sexuality, loyalty, friendship, self-worth. What do you hope readers will take away from reading My Invented Life and other books with similar themes?
For me, reading is often about taking a look at life through new eyes (while being entertained, of course!). Who in the story can I identify with most? What would I do in the main character’s shoes? I want my readers to be surprised, and, if they don’t quite fit in, to feel less alone. My story is celebration of our differences.
In my next novel, Miss Fortune Cookie, about a teen advice blooger, my characters are not LGBT. Still, when a gay hate group pickets their school, they organize an event—a sort of modern day love-in/dance party—to counter-act the hate.
I heard you speak at a bookstore event with Malinda Lo, Alexandra Diaz, Megan Frazer, and Kristin Cronn-Mills on LGTBQ youth literature (3). That was 2010; what do you think of the state of things today? What are some of your favorite recent books for teens on LGTBQ issues?
What a fun event! Sadly, the issues around bullying of LGBTQ teens haven’t diminished, but the number of teen LGBTQ novels published each year continues to grow. More schools have Gay-Straight Alliances than ever before. I adore the It Gets Better Project , and feel optimistic about the future.
I haven’t kept up with my TBR this year because of building a house, and then moving in! That said, I managed to read and fall in love with Will Grayson Will Grayson.
Kirstin Cronn-Mills has a new novel about a trans character coming out in October, Beautiful Music for Ugly Children–Love, transition, violence—mix with music, and broadcast on the radio. Not your typical teenage life.
Malinda Lo’s new YA science-fiction thriller called Adaptation will be released in September. Reese can’t remember anything from the time between the accident and the day she woke up almost a month later. She only knows one thing: She’s different now.
What is the best part about writing for teens? Have you heard anything from a teen reader that really made your day?
For me, it’s all about fame and fortune. Just kidding! The best part is making connections with teens. It’s great when someone is crazy about my book, of course, but sometimes a teen just needs someone to talk to or take an interest in his or her writing. I love that part too.
Here are a couple fave reactions: One reader wrote that she sighed and hugged my book after finishing it, like it had become a friend. Another chose my My Invented Life as the next Great American Novel for a class assignment, which cracked me up, and made my day.
The professor’s question (in honor of Vaunda Nelson’s great-uncle, who started a bookstore with fivebooks): If you had to start a bookstore with just fivebooks, which five would you choose? These aren’t necessarily your five favorite desert island books, but the five you most want to share with the world.
Hard question! I’m kind of fickle. My favorite books change all the time, depending on what I’m reading.
So I’ll recommend my favorite classics, plus one amazing graphic novel:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Emma by Jane Austen
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
Are there any excellent Shakespearean curses that didn’t make it into My Invented Life?
Go read a book, thou infectious clapper-clawed pignut!
Good advice! Thank you, Lauren, for this interview!
1. For more interviews with NM children’s writers, go here.
2. Visit Lauren’s website.
3. Malinda Lo. Alexandra Diaz. Megan Frazer. Kristin Cronn-Mills.
My article “Hitting the Ground of Joy” (Horn Book May/June 2012) (1) takes a look at what Robert Louis Stevenson in his essay “The Lantern Bearers” (2)called “recondite joys,” which are singularly beloved by a few but obscure and even ridiculous to others. Because the Horn Bookeditors know their jobs, they trimmed a little bit off the end of the essay to give it a little more strength, but I thought it might be fun (instructive? not sure) to post the last two paragraphs here:
Not just a recondite joy
“The trouble with trying to find lanterns in these books is that writers have the bad habit of trying to make things fit together in a consistent and meaningful narrative. Blame Chekhov. Just because you have a gun hanging above the mantle, do you really have to use it? Things that we might at first be tempted to consider lanterns reveal themselves, by the end of the story, as symbolic of something, or foreshadowing something else. Even Harriet’s notebook is useful for something, which a smoldering and pungent fire hazard certainly is not. I wouldn’t argue for complete narrative chaos, but to say that one might do his homework by the glow of his bulls-eye lantern seems to be beside the point.
So perhaps we have to look for our lanterns in picture books, where joy is accepted at its face value and there just aren’t enough pages to tempt the writer to assign secret or transcendent meanings to things. Why does Jan Thomas’s Fat Cat absolutely have to sit on something (or someone)? Why does the narrator of I Must Have Bobo! want Bobo, anyway, and why is the cat so determined to have Bobo, too? Because sitting on your friends is fun, and Bobo equals joy, simple as that, as any self-respecting lantern bearer will tell you.” (3)
This essay is also where I reveal my very favorite book from childhood, although I don’t say it explicitly: Two P’s in a Pod, by Susan Terris (Greenwillow, 1977). Long and sadly out of print, even at the time I first read it, it’s one of the first books I remember that allowed me to get right inside the main character’s mind. It also introduced me to Anna Karenina (although I didn’t read that one at age ten). I’m working up a longer post on Two P’s because I think it deserves not to be forgotten.
1. See what’s in the May/June issue here. The full essay isn’t available to read online, but you can read Uma Krishnaswami’s essay on humor and multicultural literature. (My interview with Uma is here.)
2. Stevenson’s essay “The Lantern Bearers.” I first read about it in William’s James’s essay “On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings,” from his Talks to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals.
3. My own interview with Jan Thomas. Look for a post soon about her visit to my library for El dia de los ninos/El dia de los libros, along with Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw.
Carolee Dean (Take Me There; Simon Pulse 2010) and Caroline Starr Rose (May B., Schwartz & Wade, 2012) gave a talk on writing novels in verse at Alamosa Books in Albuquerque on April14. 
May B. is a middle-grade historical novel in verse (1); Carolee’s newest book, Forget Me Not, is a YA paranormal verse novel and comes out in October from Simon Pulse (2).
This event was part of the monthlong celebration of National Poetry Month, and it very fittingly began with the winners of Alamosa Books’ kids’ poetry contest. I won’t reveal any kids’ names here, but two of the winning poems were read by their authors: ”The Way of the World” and “Daisy in the Wind,” and if you were hoping to see a bunch of adults tear up on a Saturday afternoon, it was the place to be. Winners were awarded books and class visits from Caroline and Carolee.
Some thoughts from Caroline on why a writer might use verse to tell a story (in extreme paraphrase):
Poetry speaks to our emotions, which makes it an ideal way to tell an
"As spare as the life it reflects"
emotional story. Caroline was reading the writings of prairie women and realized that their spare, plain language was a reflection of their spare, plain lives; it was also a perfect way to tell May’s story.
Because every word comes at a high cost, it forces a writer to cut to the marrow of a story. Poetry asks a lot of the writer in terms of rhyme schemes, effective imagery, and general ruthlessness towards one’s words. It’s not for every writer, and it’s not for every story. A good writing day might produce 300 words.
Narration of a verse novel is very close, which is why it conveys emotion so well. Verse captures images well, as if the narrator were a still camera; think of prose as a video camera. A verse novel is a series of single poems that work together to form a coherent and meaningful whole.
If you want to write a verse novel, consider the following:
Can each poem stand alone? Does each poem also contribute to the story?
Think of a quilt: each square adds to the whole. As you add squares, a picture or pattern emerges.
Vary the length of lines & poems. Match your words to your scene (good advice for all kinds of writing). For example: when May is running, the lines are short and fast.
Consider the white space: form is as important in poetry as meaning.
A high school full of ghosts
Carolee talked about the history of verse stories (not as new as you’d think!) and techniques for writing in verse.
Early stories were often told in verse: think of Homer, Virgil, Ovid, and the Beowulf poet. Groundbreaking verse novels in our own time include Virginia Euwer Wolff’s Make Lemonade trilogy and Karen Hesse’s Newbery winner, Out of the Dust.
What does a verse novelist need? Some of the same things a prose novelist needs. A good story is essential. (John Gardner would agree with that one–no hiding behind pretty words (3)).
A verse novelist might use a traditional form like terza rima but arrange the lines in such a way that the rhyme scheme isn’t obvious; this changes the way a poem appears and sounds.
Alliteration and assonace: these are some of the basic tools of verse, and prose writers can make use of them, too. Alliteration: words that start with the same letter sounds. Assonance: words with the same vowel sounds.
Thanks, Carolee and Caroline, for an informative and fun afternoon!
Other novels in verse, for research purposes and plain enjoyment:
Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate
Exposed by Kimberley Marcus
Love That Dog by Sharon Creech
Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials by Stephanie Hemphill
All the Broken Pieces by Ann Burg
T4 by Ann Clare LeZotte
Other authors:
Ellen Hopkins
Jen Bryant
Sonya Sones
Ron Koertge
Carol Lynch Williams
1. Caroline’s web site.
2. Carolee’s web site.
3. That John Gardner quote again.
Cynthia Leitich Smith (1) visited Alamosa Books in Albuquerque in early March on her tour for Diabolical (Candlewick, 2012). Cynthia is the author of the YA Tantalize series (Tantalize, Eternal, Blessed, and Diabolical), the Tantalize graphic novels, and several books for younger readers. 
She also has a story (co-authored with Joseph Bruchac) in the recent collection Girl Meets Boy: Because There Are Two Sides to Every Story (Chronicle, 2012), edited by Kelly Milner Halls.
If you’re an aspiring children’s writer and you haven’t visited Cynthia’s website or Cynsations, the blog that one might refer to as kindness itself for writers, well, you have a lot to look forward to.
I had seen Cynthia speak before, but this event was an opportunity to be part of a conversation on books and writing with a group of writers, many of whom have been part of my NM Centennial interview series (2). Here’s some of what came out of that discussion:
Early performance is not necessarily a predictor of eventual success: Cynthia mentioned getting a lot of ribbons for participation in poetry as a child.
Playing to trends is a crapshoot: she received rejection letters for early fantasy works that said children weren’t interested in reading fantasy anymore. And they still aren’t, right? What, who’s Harry Potter?
Don’t let others define you: when Cynthia wanted to write something other than contemporary fiction with Native American characters (Cynthia is a tribal member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation), she was told by an industry professional that her new fantasy writing “is not who Cynthia Leitich Smith is.” 
The Kill Draft: Cynthia has seen a lot of people cringe, gasp, and possibly burst into tears when she tells them that she throws away her first drafts and writes the entire manuscript over. No one else seems to want to do this! Cynthia says that you can do “bigger, riskier things” if you get rid of that first draft, and you can begin again writing “in a looser way.”
We are always learning our craft: Cynthia mentioned Paula Danziger as a writer who showed improvement in every book throughout her career. Through the process of writing and learning, we can “earn courage.”
You will achieve everything you want in life if you watch Star Wars 384 times in the theatre.* Sadly, this option is not available for those of us who can’t travel backward through time.
*This may not be an exact quote. I can’t promise you everything. But this is the number of times Cynthia saw Star Wars in the theatre, and things have worked out very well for her.
Thanks to Cynthia for a thought-provoking afternoon, and to the staff at Alamosa Books for being wonderful hosts!
1. Visit Cyn’s website and blog.
2. To read the series so far, go here.
This is part of a series of interviews with New Mexico children’s writers in honor of the 2012 centennial.
Kersten Hamilton writes picture books, middle grade, and YA. Her most recent book is In the Forests of the Night (Clarion, 2011), number two in her series, The Goblin Wars. A brief encapsulation: Irish mythology lands smack in the middle of the present day, and Teagan Wylltson is one of YA fantasy’s smartest heroines.
Welcome, Kersten! You can put your wings over there in the corner.
Your book Police Officers on Patrol is a great example of a picture book with rhythm, a nice balance of variation and repetition, and an economy of wording that gets the story across and gives plenty of room to let the illustrations do their work. What are your thoughts on picture book creation, and do you secretly long for the days of yore when you could write a 3000-word picture book and your friends at SCBWI meetings wouldn’t laugh?
I’m so glad you like Police Officers on Patrol! I loved writing that book. I
pitched it to my publisher as “nitty-gritty for the itty bitty”, a cop show format of three storylines all resolved in 138 words.
Writing picture books is like blazing a path through the wilderness that stretches between oral tradition and the written word. Your audience is comprised of sophisticated thinkers and story connoisseurs who lack only reading skills. Learning to track those letters across the page is one of the most difficult things they will ever do. Picture book writers have the ability to make that work worthwhile.
Whenever I sell a picture book, my novelist self sends my picture book self a box of truffles and congratulations. Hurray! (I tell myself) This book will capture wild toddlers and transform them into civilized readers!
I’ll answer the 3000 word picture book issue with your next question…
How do you whittle down the text of a picture book, knowing that it has to be a certain length? Or is it less a whittling process than a building process?
I’m a whittle–upper. When I am writing for the very young, I use repetition, rhythm and meter and that naturally limits the length of the book.
But when I picture storybooks, they sometimes bulge beyond their bounds. I had a lovely 2000 word picture book that was simply too long to sell. When I sat down to make it publishable I accidentally added 70,000 words. Since I am a whittle-upper, I couldn’t take them out again. I had to sell it as a YA novel. (So that’s the secret…)
Who are some of your favorite writers, both in the fantasy genre and in other genres?
I indulge in time travel. It says so right on the front of my business card: Kersten Hamilton, Author–Adventurer. Time Travel, Goblin Hunting and Paranormal Investigations. I can only travel into the future at one second per second, but the past is an open book. I’ve met people like Shakespeare, George MacDonald, Charles Williams…there is always someone new and exciting to discover in the past.
If you answered Tolkien or Lewis as part of your answer to the last question, you anticipated this one: Tolkien and Lewis loom over the landscape of quest fantasy, as well as that of certain domains of literary and historical scholarship. What it is about their work that still holds sway over readers today?
Well, I didn’t list them but I love them both.(Half-credit for The Chained Library. Darn.)What still holds sway over readers? They baptized imaginations. On purpose. What does that mean? Kerry L. Dearborn writes of C.S. Lewis’ own experience of having his imagination baptized by a book: “Rather than leading him into an escape from reality, it washed away blinding scales and gave him a new vision of reality. Rather than providing mere ornamentation for a life which for him held no lasting significance, it led him to sense the enduring goodness at the heart of all things. Instead of feeding his sense of being alone in the vastness of the universe, Phantastes began to draw him out of himself to feel a fundamental connection with all of creation.”
I love George MacDonald more than I love Lewis and Tolkien put together.
Lewis’s wrote: “I know nothing that gives me such a feeling of spiritual healing of being washed as to read MacDonald.”
Yeah. Me, too.
Suddenly I want to rush out and read The Princess and the Goblin. Wait a second…goblins…
When you let out your inner Inkie and attend MythCon, are you there as a reader and a writer? That may sound a little dumb, but I mean, do you go specifically thinking that you’ll get some nuggets or research for a project?
Both! I went to mingle and marvel at professors and other folk who love the same things I love—and are much, much smarter than I am. As I wandered the hotel halls, I had a certain project in mind that I am not nearly smart enough and certainly not educated enough to write. I’m going to write it anyway.
Your teen novels are based on Irish mythology. Why Irish?
Because it suits my pseudo Celtic worldview: I do not separate the natural from the supernatural.
What do you think of the myth craze in YA fiction these days?
I enjoy it…when the books are well thought out and executed. And hate it when they are tripe.
Do you wonder if readers go and read the original myths after reading a fictionalized version? How can I say this without sounding like, well, a librarian: Do you think that readers should read the originals as well?
I know that some of my readers do, and it thrills me. I am working to connect them with the flow of literature through time. I want them thinking, hmmm. Why did she choose this instead of that? Why did she change this little piece?
My end goal to inspire future writers to who go on to write wonderful books…that I then get to read.
The professor’s question (in honor of Vaunda Nelson’s bookselling great-uncle): If you had to start a bookstore with 5 books, what would they be? These aren’t necessarily your 5 favorite desert-island-style books, but the 5 books you’d most like the world to read.
Considering my answer to the last question, I think I’d better choose books that have spawned many, many stories in the past—because they would have to seed a whole bookstore of books for me to read!
1. The Bible. The single most influential book in Western literature. You won’t understand Chaucer or Spencer or Tolkien without it.
2. A collection of Fairy Tales from every tribe and nation. We gather our cultural wisdom and preserve it in fairy tales.
3. A collection Myths and Legends from every people and place. We explore our beliefs about ourselves and our environment in myth and legend.
4. The Jungle Book by Kipling. I just like Kipling. Have you ever tried it?
5. Where the Wild Things Are – what other picture book would be so at home on an imaginary island?
Since this is part of a series on NM writers, what are some of your favorite books set in NM? Favorite NM writers, children’s or adult?
I’m going to stick to dead people because we have many wonderful writers living in and writing about NM today. I don’t want to be embarrassed by forgetting anyone.
The top of my list would be Tony Hillerman. Tony was one of the greatest gentlemen I have ever had the honor to know. I want to be him when I grow up.
Jack Williamson. The Dean of Science Fiction. He came to NM on a covered wagon, and took his readers on spaceships to the stars!
Lew Wallace. Okay, Ben Hur wasn’t that great, but how many states can claim that their Governor neglected his duties in order to write a best selling novel while in office? Yep. We are the only one.
You are known for saying incredibly intelligent things in interviews. Say something incredibly intelligent about, I don’t know, Aristotle.
Gah! You are tweaking me because I accused Aristotle of dabbling his skeletal fingers in our YA literature on Uma’s blog, aren’t you? (Important note: I do not tweak my guests, virtual or otherwise.)
Plus, I have never heard anyone claim that I say intelligent things in interviews. Mostly I hear them say, “Er…you promised me that interview by 5 p.m. today. It’s 4:45. Have you started on it yet?”
Thank you for having me on your blog today, Rebecca!
Thanks for being here! Read Uma Krishnaswami’s interview with Kersten here, and another interview with Kersten at The Enchanted Inkpot (where you will see more incredibly intelligent responses).
Image of Kersten Hamilton courtesy of Rio Rancho Public Library and ALA Graphics (and, of course, Kersten Hamilton).
