Sometimes, the smallest thing makes the biggest impact.

See this?

of course you do! 😊 I’ve mentioned this book on the blog before. I’m not expecting you to remember when. Even I don’t exactly remember when (and have not searched to find it). But it is one of my favorite books of all time. And it is only 112 pages. (Well, minus front matter.) Very different from my other favorites (The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Little Dorrit just to name two) that have hundreds of pages.

  

M. M. Kaye wrote this story during a spring holiday with a friend. She was inspired by Andrew Lang’s color volumes of compiled fairy tales. I have one of those.

She also illustrated it, having studied illustration in school.

Illustrations by M. M. Kaye

I have read this book countless times. Every time I read it, I’m sad when I reach the end. This is not a book with a ripped-from-today’s-headlines message. It is a story told for the pleasure of telling it. I love that.

I used to believe that big things (being handed a check for a huge amount of money; getting a contract or a promotion at work) have the biggest impact on my life. Yet those don’t happen every day. And hoping for/praying for/looking out for those things often distracts me from noticing the small things that have an impact on my life on a day-to-day basis! Like this for example:

I love this coffee. But lately it has been $11.99 at the grocery store. That might not seem like much. But if you only have $20 to last until you get paid next, it might as well be a million dollars. Consequently, I don’t often buy it. But to my surprise one day recently, I found it on sale at the grocery store for $7.99! That thing made my day.

Or this pen a friend suddenly handed to me as a thinking-of-you gesture.

Maybe everyone won’t be discussing this on TikTok or Instagram (especially since I am not on these platforms). Yet it made me smile that day and every day I see it on my desk.

Or the cashier at the grocery store who remembered my name on a day when I felt invisible.

Small things have the biggest impact because they often shift the trajectory of my day. Someone remembering my name causes me to want to remember to text friends I haven’t talked to in a while who might feel the same way. Someone handing me a surprise gift makes me want to surprise someone in some way. Something I saw on sale gives me room to maybe get that yarn to crochet a gift for someone. Small things can have a huge ripple effect in a life.

What little things have made a big impact on your day recently?

Lord of the Rings cover from Goodreads. All other photos by L. Marie. Illustrations by M. M. Kaye.

Check This Out: The Stupendous Switcheroo

I’m thrilled to have on the blog once again the marvelous Mary Winn Heider, who is here to discuss book 1 of her new middle grade series, The Stupendous Switcheroo, which was developed with and illustrated by Chad Sell. It was published by Penguin Random House on September 12, 2023. Mary Winn is represented by Jennifer Joel and Kristyn Keene Benton.

Illustrations by Chad Sell

El Space: First of all, The Stupendous Switcheroo is brilliant, madcap, and addictive. I absolutely loved the adventures that occurred each day. I read in your creators’ note how the idea was born, but please share how it came to be.
Mary Winn: Oh yay!! I’m so happy you enjoyed it! And I’m always happy to retell our personal origin story as the creators of Switcheroo, just because it’s essentially all about community. Chad Sell and I met at the Illinois Reads Festival about two hours outside of Chicago. Our first books were being recognized, which meant our names were called and we sat at a table, and it was all very exciting, especially for first-time authors. And in between activities, we would go back to the author greenroom to grab some water or something, and we wound up meeting. And as we chatted awkwardly, we realized that we both lived in Chicago, in the same neighborhood, almost on the same street.

So then after the festival, we started going on walks and talking about whatever projects we were working on, or about our cats, or about books we’d read. We went to movies and introduced our husbands, who also enjoyed hanging out. We played croquet in the park down the street.

And eventually, Chad mentioned a story idea he’d been hatching, about a kid who woke up every day with a different super power. I loved the premise and was excited for him to get to work on it. But of course, he was working on Cardboard Kingdom 2 and 3, and also Doodleville 2</em>—he had a lot of irons in the fire.

 

And a few months later, we were on a walk, and he said, hey, what if we worked on it together? Just as a little side project? I was all in, and excited about the prospect. And that was March of 2020, so suddenly we were working on it via Zoom, even though we lived just down the block from each other. But it became a really great friend-and-creativity lifeline during that time period, and it quickly stopped being a side project and became something that we were both fully throwing ourselves into. It’s been just a blast, and a very cool experience collaborating like this.

El Space: What was the process with Chad in the writing and illustrating? Did you work by outline or chapter by chapter? How long did it take you both to produce this first book?
Mary Winn: It’s evolved a little over the years. We moved more slowly in the beginning when we were still getting a handle on the voice and what all the characters looked like (and how that influenced what they would do). We’d plan out a lot of the story on walks. Once we had a whole outline, I’d write a chapter, send it to Chad, and we’d talk about it. Then he’d draw the chapter, and send it to me, and we’d talk about it. So the first book took maybe a year? These days we’re more synced up, so we’ll send each other the whole book at a time, do a pass on each other’s notes, and then send it in to our editor.

El Space: Switcheroo is a wonderful character. This is one of those books that felt like I wasn’t just reading it—I was watching someone who felt very real. And Al is one of my favorite characters. 😊 The interactions with Switcheroo are hilarious and at times poignant. How did you develop these characters?
Mary Winn: Oh, that’s so cool to hear! And I love that you love Al! I have to say, I adore this whole cast so much. The relationship between Switcheroo and Al in particular is a blast to write, and you’re going to see some reeeallly fun stuff with them in upcoming books. At a lot of moments, they only have each other, and that sort of intimacy has been very fertile ground for both those hilarious moments and the poignant ones. I definitely feel like they’re the heart of the story.

Page with Al

El Space: Without giving any spoilers, what superheroes or series (if any) inspired you both?
Mary Winn: Chad grew up loving superhero comics, but I really didn’t get into them as much until I was an adult. (My mom wouldn’t let us read them because she thought they were too violent, which is hilarious, because we moved right along to Stephen King.) So for Chad, he’s definitely always been a big fan of superheroes who struggle with their powers and aren’t extremely powered up—he was more of a Spider-Man kid than a Superman kid, for example. As for me, one of the superhero comics I loved when I finally started getting into them was Top 10, which was definitely inspirational for the Switcheroo world, just because the powers are so wild and strange in that comic.

By “Top 10 #1”. Grand Comics Database Project. Retrieved 2008-10-11., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19736913

El Space: Mary Winn, I heard rave reviews from a number of people who went to the Kennedy Center in March to see the musical you co-wrote, The Mortification of Fovea Munson, which is an adaptation of your novel of the same name. This emoji sums up how I feel when I think of that and also this book. 🤯 My mind is totally blown away by your breadth of creativity. Did you write this book first and then the play? Vice versa? Simultaneously?
Mary Winn: Ha! It has definitely been a bonkers year! In a lot of ways, those two projects—Switcheroo and the musical version of Fovea—were actually perfect to work on at the same time. Since I had collaborators with both projects and there was a lot of back and forth on each of them, I could work on one while the other one was in my collaborator’s court. It was easier to not feel like the pressure was just mounting on me to do it all, and it definitely would have been impossible to do them in the same time frame if I’d been solely responsible for both.

  

And in a possibly surprising way, there’s a structural similarity between them. As I was adapting Fovea, I’d pull out the emotionally heightened moments to be songs; likewise with Switcheroo, I aim to have the more charged beats be the ones I set aside to be illustrated. And the way I write out those illustrated moments resembles a screenplay, detailing the action and the dialogue, so that Chad knows exactly what I’m envisioning. So there was some very cool overlap between the two that I hadn’t expected!

El Space: What will you work on next? When will the next Switcheroo book debut?
Mary Winn: Right now, I’m actually working on Book 4! Book 2 (The Stupendous Switcheroo Volume 2: Born to be Bad) will come out May 7, so mark your calendars! And I’m about to go into copyedits for the standalone graphic novel I have coming out in 2025 (that hasn’t even been announced yet! It’s so funny how all of this works). But I’m also really excited about that one—it’s my absolutely ridiculous theater novel.

El Space: Thank you for being my guest!
Mary Winn: Thank you so much for having me on the blog! It’s always such an honor and a treat to talk books with you!!

Looking for The Stupendous Switcheroo? Look here: Target, Barnes and Noble, Indiebound, Amazon, Walmart

Looking for Mary Winn? Then head to her website  and Twitter.

One of you will look up one day to discover a free copy of The Stupendous Switcheroo handed right to you. Comment below to be entered in the drawing. Winner to be announced some time next week!

Switcheroo llustrations by Chad Sell. Book cover photo by L. Marie. Switcheroo 2 book cover from the Penguin Random House website. Author photo courtesy of Mary Winn Heider. Other covers from Goodreads and Wikipedia.

Check This Out: Queen Elizabeth II

I’m thrilled to have on the blog today one of my grad school advisors, the amazing Mary Quattlebaum, who is here to discuss her latest book, Queen Elizabeth II, which was published by National Geographic Kids/Penguin Random House on April 4.

Mary: Linda, thank you so much for including me on your blog. I always love the opportunity to catch up with you and to see what you’re working on—your many editing and writing projects!
El Space: My pleasure! The door is always open for you, Mary. 😊 You’ve written many books for National Geographic, including Brother, Sister, Me and You [picture book]; Hero Dogs and Together Forever: True Stories of Amazing Animals [chapter books]; and Adorable Animals and Hedgehogs [early readers].

 

Now you’ve written this early reader biography on Queen Elizabeth II. How was the project presented to you? How long was the writing process?
Mary: I love writing nonfiction for kids. There is always the chance to learn something new and the intriguing challenge of sharing information with kids in a way that hopefully both educates and entertains them. As you know, especially with books for emerging readers—early readers and chapter books—this involves considering angle on a topic, sentence structure, vocabulary, a presentation and details that connect with kids, possible visuals, word count, and often sidebars and back matter. For me, researching and writing nonfiction is much like solving a delightful puzzle.

I especially enjoy writing about animals and the natural world, but I was thrilled when my editor asked if I might be interested in doing a biography of Queen Elizabeth II. Right off, I knew that the biggest challenge would be trying to share the story of her long, full life in the narrow confines of the early reader format. This book involved reams of research, careful selection and distilling of key information, and trying to provide glimpses of the person behind the monarch. In other words, striving for a balance between, for example, the queen’s duties as head of state and interaction with Parliament and the Prime Minister and her love of her many dogs and horses and delight as a child in a two-story playhouse with running water.

The book was largely researched/written/revised during a two-year period (while I also worked on other projects) but was halted for several months during the Covid shutdown. My editors were extremely knowledgeable and helpful throughout, and I am grateful for their expertise and that of the historian who vetted it.

El Space: What, if anything, did you discover about the queen that was surprising?
Mary: So much! Some of my favorite facts: Princess Elizabeth (she was not yet queen) took her favorite corgi, Susan, with her on her honeymoon; and at their wedding, her husband, Prince Philip, cut their 9-foot-tall wedding cake with his sword. The queen also helped modernize the monarchy in many ways, including supporting a change to a centuries-old law that made boys first in line to the British throne. Today, the oldest child of the ruling monarch, male or female, is the heir.

Princess Elizabeth in 1943. Photograph by Yousuf Karsh

El Space: How have kids and teachers responded to or used your books in their classroom learning?
Mary: Visiting schools is probably my best chance to see how kids respond. For example, for Adorable Animals, I focus on how what makes an animal cute is also what helps it to survive, find food, and avoid predators. In other words, its cuteness can also be its superpower. In this way, kids’ fascination with superpowers leads to greater awareness of biology and ecosystems. And for Hedgehogs, kids are often intrigued to learn that the creature’s sharp spines are made of the same stuff as their hair and fingernails. They become more attuned to how humans and animals are connected and often similar.

 

Mary’s dog, Lucy, looks a bit like the fruit bat in Adorable Animals.

El Space: What advice would you give to kids who might someday want to write about animals or famous people?
Mary: Kids have such passion! Many are already writing their own reports and stories about animals in their lives or that they’re curious about or people they admire. My only suggestion to them would be to keep following that curiosity as it may lead them to embrace work someday as a science writer, animal scientist or trainer, humane shelter advocate, or a writer of nonfiction for kids.

El Space: What will you work on next?
Mary: An editor at a company that is expanding their nonfiction line has asked for a few proposals, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that one or two may lead to actual books!

Thank you, Mary, for being my guest!

Looking for Mary? Look no farther than her website! If you subscribe to The Washington Post or Washington Parent, look for her book reviews.

Looking for Queen Elizabeth II or any of Mary’s other books? Check your local bookstore, Amazon, Indiebound, or Barnes and Noble or at your home, since one of you will be given a copy of Queen Elizabeth II AND one of Mary’s books mentioned on this page (your choice) simply because you commented below.

Princess Elizabeth photo found at British Heritage Travel. Author photo and some book covers courtesy of Mary Quattlebaum and her website. Other photos by L. Marie.

Check This Out: Do I Need to Use a Dragon?

With me on the blog today is none other than Charles E. Yallowitz, whom you know from his blog, Legends of Windemere, and the many books he has published, including the series, Legends of Windemere, War of Nytefall, and others. Today, he’s here to discuss his fantasy writer craft book, Do I Need to Use a Dragon? which was published on July 2.

Cover art by Alison Hunt

El Space: What made you decide to write a craft book on fantasy writing?
Charles: Partially insanity and self-doubt not showing up until I was already well into the project. Well, that’s the funny reason. The truth is that I was texting with a friend about writing and various topics that I discussed on my blog. She suggested that I write a how-to-write-fantasy book, and then her husband chimed in. It was pointed out that I was already giving good advice to authors who asked me questions, so I might as well attempt a craft book. It took me about a year to come up with the presentation style, topics, and titles. After that, I used the first Covid summer to finish writing the last two War of Nytefall books and dove into Do I Need to Use a Dragon? before I could think myself out of it.

Interior art by Alison Hunt

El Space: During an interview, an author of fairy tale retellings gave this advice that I am paraphrasing: “Take a fairy tale you hate and retell it the way you want it told.” Did you have a similar desire—to write a craft book with the kind of advice you would want to be given, rather than advice people often give that you don’t find helpful? Why or why not?
Charles: I’ve had a rough history with craft books, but I had to read a few in college. They definitely felt like they were talking to someone else most of the time. So, I can see how a person can look at them and feel like it isn’t helpful. Another person might read the book as gospel because it’s exactly what they want to hear. For example, I had to read Stephen King’s book on writing in college and most of my classmates thought it sang to them. I sat there feeling like the advice wouldn’t work for my genre, style, and aspirations.

For myself, the problem with most craft books is that they speak with the jargon that one would only know from experience as an author. If that isn’t a big hurdle, then it might be the depth and deviations, which can make a new author feel overwhelmed and quit. This is why I focused on the delivery more than the specific advice. I wrote every section as if it was a long blog post, so there’s a minimal use of jargon and a casual voice. This is how I would have liked to learn about writing instead of it being so clinical. Make me think we’re having a conversation or that you’re talking to me like a person instead of a face in the crowd. This won’t work for everyone, but I hope it helps those who are nervous about their path.

Also, probably helps that I flat out say that my advice won’t work for everyone. That’s a big thing that many people forget.

El Space: What advice on fantasy writing or writing in general has been really helpful to you?
Charles: Thinking back, I can’t remember any solid writing advice that I received. The closest one is probably when a high school teacher told me to pick a tense and stick to it. I had been switching from past to present all the time, including in the same sentences. She explained how it worked and I went with present tense, which is where I am now. Everything else that I could call advice really came from discussions with other authors. You learn a lot from talking to those in the same situation and the casual conversation can reveal nuggets of advice even though the speaker doesn’t intend for it to happen. Situations like this is when I realized characters and plot feed off each other, pantser/plotter hybrids might be the best method, and other aspects of my author identity that have sunk into my core.

El Space: What fantasy series (book, TV, anime) really inspires you? Why?
Charles: I have this voice in my head telling me to say Tolkien or Saberhagen. That’s the safe answer that most authors go for. The truth is that I’ve been inspired by so much over the last 28 years of writing that I can’t pick one thing. Dungeons & Dragons can take the top spot only because many of my stories are based around the campaigns I played. I used those to test out characters and get a sense of story. Even so, I’ve added pieces of various comic books, video games, shows, and novels that triggered an idea. My inspiration really has become this amalgam of sources that I can no longer put a finger on unless we’re talking about a specific series. Probably not the answer people like to hear from authors, but it’s what I realized while pondering this question for an hour.

 

El Space: What, if anything, about the current state of fantasy writing would you want to see changed or explored more?
Charles: Admittedly, I haven’t really checked out a lot of recent fantasy books. It felt like everything was either Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones again. So, the genre appeared to be stale and spinning its wheels. That’s mostly due to streaming shows, which must be overshadowing the books of newer authors. At least, I hope so. If not, then I would love to see more fresh faces and worlds be lifted to the spotlight. I feel like audiences, publishers, and authors themselves are just stuck on the established franchises. It doesn’t leave any air for a new story to be discovered, especially since the indie author trend seems to have become a shadow of its glory days. Too cynical? Probably, but I decided to be honest in Do I Need to Use a Dragon? and I’ll be honest here too.

El Space: What will you work on next?
Charles: My current project is a new fantasy series that I’m hoping to start publishing next year. I’ve actually been writing volumes since 2021 just to maintain my skills. It’s going to be called The Slumberlord Chronicles and will take place in Windemere after the events of Legends of Windemere. The main character is a halfling named Darwin Slepsnor who is seen as a town nuisance because his attempts to help tend to create incidents. He means well, but he isn’t good at social queues and panics very easily. The series follows him after he gains magic and decides that he can be a hero like those in his childhood stories. Of course, Darwin creates messes as well and is simply a friendly, happy force of chaos that is unknowingly disrupting the very fabric of destiny. I’m having a lot of fun writing this character and I hope people enjoy his adventures when I get them ready for publishing.

Thank you, Charles for being my guest.

Looking for Charles E. Yallowitz? You can find him at his blog, website, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Looking for Do I Need to Use a Dragon? You can find it on Amazon or in your very own Kindle just by commenting below on good advice you were given about writing or life or both. Winner to be announced sometime next week. But the winner of Andy’s book will be announced later this week.

Check out these books by Charles:

Cover, interior art, series book covers, and author photo courtesy of Charles Yallowitz. Cover and interior art by Alison Hunt. Other book covers from Goodreads.

Check This Out: My Checkered Life: A Marriage Memoir

I’m always pleased to welcome the marvelous Marian Beaman on the blog. She’s here to talk about her latest memoir, My Checkered Life: A Marriage Memoir, which released on April 5.

Note from Marian about the cover: The cupid on the cover is a cutout from an actual Valentine card Cliff sent me long ago. The quilt border is an image from an actual quilt I still have on a closet shelf. I’m not sure whether it came from my mother’s or my father’s side of the family. My best guess is that it’s made by Grandma Fannie Longenecker.

El Space: Why a marriage memoir as a follow-up to your first book?
Marian: I never intended to write a marriage memoir. Who in their right mind would do that—revealing our secrets, admitting struggles?

Writing this memoir has been a process which began more than a year ago and has evolved in three stages. In January 2022, I remembered that I had five of my Aunt Ruthie’s diaries, which I found in a painted chest when we cleared out her house before she died in 2017. Why not find out what she was thinking as a teenager and then as a young teacher? However, I discovered that the diaries, written in pencil, were hard to read. Deciphering the lines required me to make a transcription line by line, a tedious process. I spent three months in early 2022 with this project. Then I lost interest.

Next, I thought that it would be a good idea to explore stories in my ten years of blog posting. What if the pixels on WordPress disintegrate, and I lose all of my carefully wrought stories? I began blogging ten years ago and reasoned that I could organize many of the posts by themes—maybe collect pieces about my early life as a Mennonite girl in Pennsylvania, or posts that relate to our travels, or ones about the writing process. My faithful blog followers totally nixed the idea.

“That would be boring,” they said.
“I wouldn’t want to read stuff I’ve read before.”
“Why not write about your marriage? I’d read a book about your husband Cliff and you.”

Finally, I was convinced to go with the marriage memoir concept because of blog friends’ enthusiasm. What author doesn’t want a book that will sell?

El Space: What was the most challenging aspect of writing a marriage memoir? How did Cliff react when you told him you were writing it?
Marian: Readers will soon find that Cliff, as an artist and storyteller himself, doesn’t mind revealing the truth about our lives together, even if it results in showing vulnerability. Early on, though, he was worried that I wouldn’t include enough about his life before we met. Even though he knew his art work would figure large in the content, he wasn’t sure that he would be equally represented in the book.

As it turned out, he wrote a few pieces for the “Heritage” section in the book and added detail to other chapters, sometimes with his own journal entries. He also volunteered to take on the arduous task of organizing text, photos, and artwork with InDesign, a highly sophisticated software program.

Thus, from October 2022 through March 2023, we worked toward the common goal of birthing our book baby, My Checkered Life: A Marriage Memoir, a sequel to my first book. This mission has obviously been accomplished but not without some meltdowns and marital spats over creative differences. In fact, while writing the book, we seemed to re-enact some of the clashes we survived early in our marriage: provincial Mennonite girl from the East clashing with risk-taking pioneer-type from the West coast.

Cliff and Marian

El Space: In a blog post about writing a marriage memoir, memoir coach and author, Marion Roach Smith, stated: “There are two questions a husband should never ask his wife. Both begin with the words, ‘how many?’” One of the questions was, “How many pairs of shoes are in [your closet]?” Would you agree that there are questions that should not be asked of a spouse? Why or why not?
Marian: I come from a German-Swiss culture that has practiced thrift and frugality. My husband never has to worry about my busting our budget. My buying too many shoes is the least of his worries! We’d phrase your question differently though. When I showed Cliff this question, he responded with a query to me: “How is it that when you put dirty dishes in the dishwasher you never seem to get the plates and saucers lined up right? Your haphazard stacking makes it harder for me to fit other items into the racks.”

My counter to his question: “How is it that you can’t keep your vanity sink in the bathroom as clean as mine?”
Do I see an addendum to our story—a chapter about another flare-up?

El Space: What books about marriage, if any, helped inspire you to start writing your memoir or complete the writing? What other books (or people) inspired you?
Marian: Quilts and quilting serve as a metaphor for my storytelling. I found Whitney Otto’s book, How to Make an American Quilt, very helpful. Other sources included Ada Calhoun’s Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give, and Mary Pipher’s Women Rowing North, along with excerpts from poets Mary Oliver and Carl Sandburg.

 

This memoir contains a bibliography simply because I like to glean wisdom from other authors—and I relish the research process. My English teacher background pops out in my writing. I simply can’t help it!

El Space: What advice would you offer someone writing a memoir like this?
Marian: Memoir writing always taps into one’s physical and emotional reserves. I felt like a ragdoll when I finished the whole project, but I remember feeling the same way when I wrote Mennonite Daughter: The Story of a Plain Girl.

Memoir writing is not for the fainthearted. Yet, if you have a story to tell, by all means write it. Even if you don’t intend to publish it, it serves as a way to preserve the facts and articulate your true feelings. Writing evolves—you never know quite what will happen—you may become your family’s historian, preserving a legacy as you progress.

Marian with Bobby Oliver, her ideal reader. Click here for why.

El Space: What will you work on next?
Marian: I have sworn off ever writing another book. Friends remind me that I said that after writing my first memoir. However, I may be open to coauthoring a book with another established author, especially if the topic sounds appealing.

Thank you, Marian, for being my guest.
Looking for Marian? Look for her on her website, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook
Looking for My Checkered Life: A Marriage Memoir? Look for it at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Magers & Quinn Booksellers, Target

One of you will be given a copy of My Checkered Life: A Marriage Memoir simply because you commented below. Please feel free to comment on memoirs or other nonfiction that inspired you. Winner to be announced sometime next week.

Author photo by Cliff Beaman. Cover design and graphics by Cliff Beaman. Photos of the author and Cliff and the author with Bobby Oliver by Joel Beaman. Wedding rings from Marriage Wallpaper website.

On a Snowy Day

Quite a contrast to the last post. The autumn-to-winter juxtaposition of the posts was not deliberate, however. I didn’t post last week because I couldn’t think of a topic. And I didn’t know about the snow until last Saturday when my younger brother announced its scheduled arrival on Tuesday (the day I wrote this). Sure enough, overnight, it came. The Grinch couldn’t stop it like he couldn’t stop Christmas from coming. I admit to feeling a tiny bit grinchy when I saw it though. So yes, Ally, I feel the pain expressed in this blog post.

Still, days like this, I’m reminded of the classic book by Ezra Jack Keats, The Snowy Day, which Amazon adapted for the screen. As I gaze at the snow-laden branches through my balcony window, I feel the fire of joy trying to melt my cold heart, encouraging me to appreciate the subtle beauty of winter as fall leaves are replaced by white lace.

A mug of hot chocolate is in order!

The Snowy Day cover from Goodreads. Other photos by L. Marie.

Check This Out: Film Makers and Torch

With me on the blog today is the awe-inspiring Lyn Miller-Lachmann who is here to talk about two more books she has written. She’s already been on the blog in recent months to discuss two other books. Click here and here for those interviews. Today, we’re celebrating her nonfiction book, Film Makers: 15 Groundbreaking Women Directors, which was coauthored by Tanisa “Tee” Moore and published by Chicago Review Press on September 6.

       

Torch, her historical novel for young adults, will be published by Lerner/Carolrhoda on November 1. Click here to read the synopsis.  Lyn is represented by Jacqui Lipton.

El Space: Lyn, you have been quite the workhorse this year with so many books debuting. Film Makers: 15 Groundbreaking Women Directors debuted last month. Torch debuts next month. There’s a connection between the two, besides you as their author. Please share that connection if you can, unless there is a huge spoiler you can’t reveal.
Lyn: No spoiler at all! I came up with the idea for Torch after watching the TV miniseries Burning Bush, which begins with the self-immolation of Charles University student Jan Palach in Prague in 1969 to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia the previous year and his people’s passivity after losing their freedom and independence. The director of that miniseries is Agnieszka Holland, a Polish director who has made a number of significant historical films, including three that explore the Holocaust and the more recent, Mr. Jones, about the Soviet terror-famine known as the Holodomor in 1930s Ukraine. Holland is one of the groundbreaking women directors I included in Film Makers and one of my all-time favorite directors.

El Space: You have so many interests. I’m always curious as to how you choose a project to work on.
Lyn: While Burning Bush showed me the different ways the people of Czechoslovakia resisted the Soviet occupation, I never got a sense from the miniseries of the young people who bore the brunt of the repression, including Palach, who sacrificed his life. I asked myself, Who were his friends? How did his death change their lives? What consequences did they face as a result of their association with him? From there, my characters of Pavol, Štěpán, Tomáš, and Lída emerged.

In the case of Film Makers, my agent, Jacqui Lipton, represented other authors who were writing for Chicago Review’s Women of Power series, and she invited me to submit a proposal. I like films and use them heavily in researching my historical fiction, so I suggested women directors. And since one of the filmmakers I wanted to include was Ava DuVernay and Tanisia Tee Moore, who was one of Jacqui’s other clients at the time, is a huge fan of her work, I suggested Tee as a co-author.

El Space: I was only familiar with nine of the fifteen filmmakers featured in your book. How did you research it? Were you able to talk to the featured directors?
Lyn: The series features contemporary directors, ones still working in the industry, so Tee and I chose some of our current favorites. We wanted directors from diverse backgrounds, those who worked with both popular franchises and indie films, documentary filmmakers, and TV directors and showrunners. Most of the directors make both feature films and TV episodes. We weren’t able to talk to the directors personally—that’s show business—but we saw several in exclusive panels for festivals and premieres.

El Space: How did the characters of Torch come to you? Why was it important for you to tell their story?
Lyn: Pavol is based on Jan Palach and even more on a secondary student, Jan Zajíc, who followed in his footsteps a month later. The first one of his friends who came to me was his girlfriend Lída, who, unbeknown to him, is pregnant with his child. Tomáš is my most autobiographical character—an autistic child of privilege who cannot fulfill his father’s expectations because of his neurodivergence but has a keen eye for the hypocrisy of the communist elite. Pavol is a genuinely kind person, and Tomáš clings to him as his first and only friend. Štěpán, on the other hand, is the bully who has tormented Tomáš all the way through school. However, his friendship with Pavol—due in part because they share a desire for freedom, and in part because he has an unrequited crush on Pavol—motivates Štěpán to change, even though change is hard for him. I wanted to tell these stories because all four teenagers lose their dreams and their futures when the democracy and freedom of expression they’ve been promised is taken away. This freedom is precious to them, and they’re willing to give up everything—their families, their homes, even their lives—to keep it. This is a something I think many young people in our country are becoming aware of now, because we’re beginning to lose our freedom in so many areas.

El Space: Though Torch is historical fiction, it feels current thanks to recent events. How did you wrap your head around the past events? Did you have to turn off today’s news in order to stay immersed in the past?
Lyn: I’ve written about young activists and human rights, most notably my debut YA novel, Gringolandia, about a Chilean refugee teen during the Pinochet dictatorship whose father, an underground journalist, is released from a political prison and comes to live with his family in exile. I think that growing up in an oppressive social and political environment in the South and being bullied because of my differences has made me keenly aware of how societies bully and oppress. And no, I didn’t turn off today’s news. It’s in the background of everything I write.

El Space: What was your process for working on multiple projects with more than one co-author? Is there anything you would do differently? Why or why not? What advice do you have for an author who juggles multiple projects?
Lyn: For both Film Makers and Moonwalking, the verse novel I wrote with Zetta Elliott, my co-author and I were responsible for alternating chapters in the book. In the case of Moonwalking, I wrote the poems from the point of JJ, my white autistic character obsessed with The Clash, and Zetta wrote the ones for Pie, the Afro-Latinx honor student who wants to make it in the art world like Jean-Michel Basquiat. For Film Makers, we divvied up the 15 directors and drew from our backgrounds and experiences in writing their biographies. In both cases, the collaboration worked because each of us had our strengths that complemented each other. But it takes a lot of trust in each other to make that happen.

As far as juggling multiple projects, which I continue to do, what helps is scheduling blocks of time for each project. By now, I have a good idea of how much time each needs and the best environment—work space, time of day—to work on each.

El Space: What will you work on next?
Lyn: I’m working on four translations from Portuguese—two picture books and two YA graphic novels. I’m also in the middle of a YA verse novel that’s set in Portugal and inspired by several of my translation projects. There will be more exciting news to come!

Thank you as always, Lyn, for being my guest!

Searching for Lyn? You can find her at her website and Twitter. Film Makers: 15 Groundbreaking Women Directors  and Torch can be found here:

Amazon        Amazon
B&N              B&N
Indiebound    Indiebound
Bookshop      Bookshop

One commenter will receive Film Makers: 15 Groundbreaking Women Directors. Another will receive Torch. Comment below to be entered in the drawing. Winners to be announced sometime next week.

Book covers and author photo courtesy of Lyn Miller-Lachmann. Ava DuVernay and Agnieszka Holland photos found somewhere on the internet.

Cozy, Stress-Free Reading

Lately, I’ve heard more than one person describe the stress he/she feels. I can relate! So, in times of stress, at bedtime I turn to books that are calming. Like picture books. Yes, I’m an adult who reads (and loves) picture books. I’m also reading The Silmarillion, in case you’re wondering. But my nighttime favorite picture books include the following. To learn more about them, click on the titles below.

 

Big Bear and Little Fish and Knight Owl

 

Extra Yarn and I’m Not Scared, You’re Scared

Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs

They make me laugh, think, and cause a warm feeling to well up inside each time I read them.

What, if anything, do you read at night or during the day to de-stress in general? If books aren’t your thing, but other activities are (exercising, puzzles, cleaning, building model cars, crocheting/knitting [me too], sitting with your puppy or kitty in your lap), do tell!

Photos by L. Marie.

Check This Out: Big Rig

With me on the blog today is the amazing and gracious Louise Hawes, author extraordinaire and member of the faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts! She’s here to discuss her recently released middle grade novel, Big, Rig, published by Peachtree. I love this book, so I’m thrilled to have Louise here! Louise is represented by Ginger Knowlton.

El Space: Louise, what inspired this story? This might sound weird, but as I read your book, I thought of Route 66—the iconic route discussed in the first Cars movie, though that route is not a focal point of this book. Cars made me nostalgic. I had a strong sense of nostalgia as I read Big Rig, the trucking industry being so iconic. Back in the day, when my family traveled, we stopped at truck stops.
Louise: Honestly? What inspired Big Rig is the same thing that inspires all my books—a character. I never start with a story, you see, or even a premise or idea. It’s always a beating heart, a voice, that grabs me. Of course, Hazel, my 11-year old protagonist grabbed me harder than most and held on longer, too. She insisted on having her way as we hit the road together. She made it clear that she’s highly allergic to those two words, THE END. And even though my inner writing teacher tried to tell her about turning points and resolution, she just wasn’t buying it; she didn’t ever want to our story to end. She got her way, as folks will see when they read the book!

At Louise’s book launch—McIntyre’s Fine Books in Fearrington Village, Pittsboro, NC.

And that’s funny about Route 66. I wanted the book’s flyleaves to feature the major U.S. truck routes in a double spread. I never won that battle, but we did get road signs as chapter titles! Oh, and I wore a route 66 tie to the book launch!

Photo by Karen Pullen

El Space: How did you research this book?
Louise: Very unwillingly! At first, when Hazel popped into my mind and told me she and her dad had been traveling across the country for seven years in an eighteen-wheeler, I said to myself, and to her, “NO WAY! I know nothing about trucks, and I don’t want to know even the slightest thing about them.” But of course, after she popped into my mind, Hazel burrowed into my heart. And three years later? I know a LOT about trucks. I’ve researched trucks and the trucking industry. I’ve interviewed dozens of drivers, put plenty of miles in on big rigs. As a passenger. No, I’ve never driven one; at 100 pounds and 5 feet, I wouldn’t trust myself in the driver’s seat. I reached out to organizations like Trucker Buddy, who pair up individual drivers with classrooms; and Women in Trucking, who work with organizations like the Girl Scouts to publicize the fact that there are lots of women active in, and crucial to, the industry.

El Space: Hazel/Hazmat is a great character. She felt like an old soul—a marvelous blend of the past and the present. So confident and engaging. What was your process for finding her voice?
Louise: As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t find Hazel, she found me. But as with any character that inspires one of my books, I needed to trust her before I could begin an actual draft. I have a notebook of free writes (in the form of first-person letters from her to me); that notebook was full of her voice, cover to cover, before I ever wrote a single page of the novel.

   

Canine book reviewers: (Left) Jenn Bailey’s pooch, Ollie. Jenn is a VCFA grad and author. Photo by Jenn Bailey (Right) Bella, the canine co-author of “BEAGLES AND BOOKS,” a blog by Laura Mossa, an Elementary School Reading Specialist. Photo by Laura Mossa.

El Space: You have such wonderful characters. Even Hazel’s mother’s ashes (not much of a spoiler, since you learn that on the first page) is a character with weight in the book. What was the most challenging part of writing this book?
Louise: What a great question! I think the toughest moments to write were the ones where I needed to stay inside Hazel, and not give myself up to feeling sorry for her, which she never does for herself. The moments when she’s talking to her mom, or afraid of growing up, or angry at her dad—during all those times, she’s just right there in the moment, never feeling “poor me,” or “life sucks.” She’s just bringing her whole self to every experience, knowing better than most of us, that it will give way to a new one before we can truly catch hold.

The feline reviewer is an assistant to a Twitter follower and middle school teacher, Kate McCue-Day. Photo by Kate McCue-Day

El Space: What do you hope your readers will take away after reading Big Rig?
Louise: Besides the fact that a good story doesn’t need a beginning, middle, and end? I guess I’d like readers to undergo the same change-of-mind I did about truckers and trucking. Drivers and their rigs are crucial to all of us—to the economy, to the culture, to our whole way of life. And yet we pretty much forget about them, once we grow past the age of 6 or 7 and stop asking them to pump their air brakes when we drive by. We forget about automation and the driverless trucks that may well be destroying and brutalizing a whole way of life. That’s a thread that winds through the entire book, and I’d hope folks pay attention.

El Space: What inspires you these days?
Louise: Being outside, plain and simple. I need fresh air, and water in the form of the sea, or a lake, or a rainstorm. I need the bull frog in my pond with whom I engage in daily ten-minute dialogues. I need to see how relentlessly beautiful the world is, how it keeps going with or without us. I need something bigger than myself or my day. And nature gives me that.

El Space: What writing advice do you always share with your students and anyone else who’s asking?
Louise: The same advice I’ve been giving ever since I set myself free from slaving over every word via free writes. My first drafts are still like other folks’ second or third passes, and that’s because I can’t leave a word or a sentence alone until I hear it ring true. But with free writing, the loose, free times I spend with my characters, I can relax into them, get out of me. Which is why, behind every chapter I write, painstakingly, laboriously, there is a poem or a free write that came first. So, whenever myself or one of my students has a writing problem that’s stumping us, I advise taking it to our characters. To let it go, turn it over. That doesn’t mean I won’t edit or revise those free writes, or advise my students to do the same. But it does mean that what’s at the start, the heart of our work is something unhampered and flowing, something free.

El Space: What will you work on next?
Louise: I’m working on two things right now—one is a project I started a long time ago and am only finishing this year. It’s YA historical fiction, and the protagonist is Salomé, the biblical character who supposedly performed the dance of the seven veils and won the head of John the Baptist. The other project is a new novel for adults. The character who won me over there is a failed playwright who’s fallen in love with a dead poet. See? There’s just no telling with me, who’ll come out of nowhere and sweep me up and away!

Thank you, Louise, for being my guest!
Looking for Louise? Look here: Website, Twitter, VCFA, Facebook, Instagram
Looking for Big Rig? Look no further than Barnes and Noble, Indiebound, Amazon.
Comment below to be entered into a drawing from which one of you will receive a copy of Big Rig! Winner to hopefully be announced next week!

Other books by Louise:

    

Book launch and author photos courtesy of Louise Hawes. Tree photo by L. Marie. Other book covers from Goodreads and Louise Hawes.

Are You Hungry in 2022?

 

This is not a Snickers commercial, assessing your physical hunger level. (Actually, I could go for one of those, right about now.) Let me back up. I was thinking today of my own hunger level in regard to writing. From a young age, I wanted to write anything I could write: stories, novels, play scripts, movie scripts, poetry, graphic novels, essays. I attempted any and all forms of writing. But as I grew older and rejections happened, my hunger slackened. In other words, I played it safe.

But who was I hurting by doing that? Me. So in 2022, I’m tired of avoiding an activity just because of the fear that someone else might not like what results when I try it.

Maybe you feel the same in this dawning of a new year. So with that in mind, my new year’s giveaway is a $50 gift card to Amazon/Amazon UK or some other source that will inspire you in your goal to advance in your writing or illustration, your artistic endeavors in needlework, or your whatever is legal. Maybe you want to purchase a craft book to boost your skill. Or, if you’re like me, you want to buy a coffee table behind-the-scenes book featuring a movie you enjoyed because you’re fascinated by the process of the filmmakers. (The Art and Soul of Dune, anyone?) Or maybe you want to buy a book from a trusted source (like Bookshop.org) or some crafting supplies (Hello, Michaels or JOANN) to inspire you to greater heights.

   

Comment below to be entered in the drawing. Be sure to name the place where you would want to spend the money. I hope to post the winner sometime next week after my next deadline.

Happy New Year!