Check This Out: Gertie, The Darling Duck of WWII

Welcome to the blog! With me today is a friend, the wonderful and vivacious Shari Swanson, who is here to talk about her latest picture book:

Gertie, The Darling Duck of WWII was published by Sleeping Bear Press on March 15, 2023. Shari is represented by John Rudolph.

El Space: Like your other picture book, Honey, Gertie is narrative nonfiction. How did you hear about Gertie? What made you turn this story into a picture book? [To see photos of the actual Gertie, click here.]
Shari: Years—maybe decades—ago, poking through a used book store, I found a book: Reader’s Digest: Animals You Will Never Forget. It had an account of the Gertie story, and I was captivated. For me, the story represents everything good—people coming together toward a common goal, kindness, concern for others—and it was a powerful beacon of hope in a dark time. True to the title of the book I never forgot Gertie’s story. At one point in time, I was writing a daily devotional and wrote a brief summary of the Gertie story as a devotion based on Psalm 91:4: “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” This is how I will always think of this story. But, even with time, still the story persisted for me; my time with Gertie wasn’t done. When I was pursuing my MFA, I returned to Gertie’s story, dove deep into the research, and crafted it into the final picture book.

El Space: Please give a quick snapshot of your process for researching.
Shari: I am so fond of research and all the treasures that are uncovered along the way. For Gertie, I poured over the 1945 editions of the Milwaukee Journal as my starting spot. It was fascinating to watch the rise of the little duck story until she was sharing the front page with very consequential events in WWII. Even the ads in the newspaper, many of them duck-centered, were fascinating to understand the time and how important Gertie became to people. From there, I rounded out my research with all the secondary sources I could find about Gertie, with help from the Milwaukee Public Library and Milwaukee County Historical Society (photo below), and then took a dive into WWII itself so I would feel grounded in the time and place.

In general, I absolutely love research and tend to go quite deep and broad as pretty much everything fascinates me. I love primary sources; all of the quotes in both Honey and Gertie are sourced. I love the contemporaneous quotes I find because they draw me right into the time and personalities of the speaker. But, in general, very little of what I discover ultimately finds its way into the book. For example, with Gertie, I researched why the river by Gertie’s nest was so dirty—sewage emptied directly into the river!—and how the flushing station worked. I also became fascinated by bridges that open to let big ships pass by. I’ve tucked what I learned there into my quiver in case that might turn into a future book down the line.

El Space: What draws you to historical settings?
Shari: I love that there are some things about humans that are universal and some that are dependent on time and place. I’m interested in how people respond to the specific challenges from the time in which they find themselves. With history, we can see where we are and look back to where we were and consider the impact past events have had on our present.

The 1940s

One of the things I found tremendously compelling about Gertie’s story was how everyone rallied around her and around the war effort. Everyone helped. In these times of division, that kind of unity uplifts me.

In researching Honey: The Dog Who Saved Abe Lincoln, I was fascinated with the ripple effect of kind actions. We know who Abraham Lincoln came to be, and how important he was to our country, so tracing those ripples back to an original kindness, like Honey saving his life, felt very powerful. Without Honey, no Abe.

El Space: What do you think are the ingredients of a great nonfiction story?
Shari: So far, I’ve written narrative non-fiction which means that all the elements of a fictional story are right there in the non-fiction: characters, time and place, a dramatic arc, a climax, and resolution. Personally, I love when a non-fiction story has each of these elements. In Honey, the climax turns on whether Honey will rescue Abe when he is stuck in the cavern. That is as consequential as any fictional story could be. And the resolution when Honey comes through, bringing help, is so rewarding, particularly when we know who little Abe grew up to be.

At Shari’s book launch party

In Gertie, again, the stakes are life and death. Will the bridge tenders be able to save Gertie and her brood when the eyes and hope of the whole world are on them? When juxtaposed with the concurrent events of the war, this little duck’s struggle takes on new depth and meaning.

To me, these high stakes stories make for page-turning non-fiction. The happy resolution in both of these stories leave the reader with a sense that all is right, or can be, with the world, and that people (and dogs) can accomplish great things when working together.

El Space: What inspires you as you write?
Shari: I love children and want to give them stories that will feed their souls as well as their intellects. Hopeful stories of people coming together inspire me and, when I find a good one, particularly if there are animals involved, I’m eager to pass it along with hopes it will inspire others as well.

Shari with her granddaughters, Ella and Lily

El Space: What are you working on next?
Shari: I’m not sure what will be my next published book, but I’m at work on several: a non-fiction picture book gold rush journey, a middle grade fantasy, a non-fiction-inspired picture book about a prisoner’s daughter, an early chapter book fairy tale, and an early chapter book legal fiction which I hope can be a series. I’m focusing on finishing, and then we’ll see where things go.

Thanks, Shari, for being my guest!
Looking for Shari? Look for her on her website, Twitter, and Facebook.

Looking for Gertie, The Darling Duck of WWII? Check out Bookshop, Barnes and Noble, Amazon

One of you will be handed a copy of this very book! Comment below to be entered in the drawing. Winner to be announced sometime next week.

Book launch photos by Todd Swanson. Author photo courtesy of Shari Swanson. Animals You Will Never Forget book cover from Open Library. Photo from 1940s from Wallpaper Safari. Gertie cover photo by L. Marie.

The Whole Story?

The other day, I discovered on Netflix an interior design show that was new to me. I’m not going to tell you which one. Suffice it to say that in the introduction, a fresh-faced young couple mentioned (in a couple sentences or so) an eleven-year journey from self-trained interior designer to internet sensation to having nearly 100 employees, an affluent clientele, and a we’re-working-on-it-still dream house with over five thousand square feet.

All the while I watched the show, at the back of my mind, I wondered, What’s the whole story? Interior design is not a field that I know anything about outside of watching HGTV shows years ago and a few Netflix shows. I’m someone whose friends, out of pity, came and hung their own pictures on my walls because I didn’t have any. So I don’t know how easy or difficult it is for someone to go from friends admiring his or her taste in decorating to acquiring a huge internet following with paying clients willing to shell out huge amounts of money to redo their rooms. Not when I have family members who have done the same thing in that amount of time who have neither a huge internet following nor wealthy clients.

I often think, What’s the whole story? when I hear success stories of any kind. How many times have we heard a debut author say something along the lines of, “I wrote a book. Two weeks after querying agents, ten agents were interested in my manuscript. Seventeen publishers fought to get it. Once it was published, it hit the NYT bestseller list, where it currently rests after being on it for six years.” Okay, that is a slight exaggeration. But only a slight one. I know publishing journeys that fit this description pretty closely. So for some authors, that might be the whole story. But those situations aren’t the norm, even if they make for a good news story.

I will be the first to tell you I have queried a book that was rejected 91 times. You read that number correctly. By the way, I know an author whose book was rejected three times that amount before an agent and a publisher picked it up. So in her mind, I’m just getting started. You might be thinking, “Why would you query it that many times? Why not give up on it?” I mentioned that fact not to get into whether or not I should have continued querying but to let you know that this is my reality. And yes, I have felt the sour grapes sensation when someone has talked of querying for a couple weeks only to land an agent. Please hear me when I say I don’t begrudge people their agents. The point of this post isn’t to gripe about that but to ask, are we hearing the whole story when we’re told about these things?

Why am I asking that? Because many, many people over the years have come to me asking me how they can get into publishing. Many had the idea that they could easily get an agent or a publishing deal because they saw such-and-such a news story describing what seems to be the instant success of someone.

During a school visit years ago, a group of kids asked me if I made as much money as J. K. Rowling, because that was their frame of reference. None of them seemed to know that she had received many rejections. This article tells how many.

I’ve heard several speakers say there are no overnight sensations. One person in particular (Person A) mentioned that someone said to her, “Where did you come from? What an overnight sensation!” because she had been invited to speak in a huge arena. But Person A explained that for twenty years she had been doing what she was doing in obscurity before stepping into the limelight. Twenty years of faithfulness.

Those are the stories I appreciate. I love when authors mention how they toiled at it for years before getting the visibility they later acquired. Like Jill Weatherholt who has posted numerous times of the multiple rejections she received, but persevered through. I’m not suggesting that people have to toil for years, sweating and suffering. But I remember their stories more because I haven’t had an easy road either.

This is not to say that authors who quickly get agents or publishing deals have had an easy road. Somewhere along their road they had to have hit a snag somewhere. But often we only get a quick soundbite, rather than the full account.

Spotlight from clipartix.com. Rejected imaged from clker.com.

When I Relax, I . . . Work?

Sadly, I did not get a post out last week to announce the winner of Charles Yallowitz’s War of Nytefall: Anarchy. The week got away from me with its awful stress. I’m sure you can relate to stress. One of these days, I’ll have the emotional wherewithal to tell you alllllllllllll about it. For now, let’s discuss a stress management tactic—rest/relaxation. I don’t mean taking a nap, though my mom says that’s her favorite form of stress relief. I’m not much of a napper, because napping subtracts from my nighttime sleep hours. The only time it doesn’t is when I’m really ill.

  

One of my favorite forms of rest/relaxation, besides watching this show (based on the book by Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus)

or playing this

is to crochet. I’m currently making an underwater habitat for this little whale as part of a gift.

   

Whale crochet pattern by LittleMagicHouse

Coral, seaweed, and shell patterns by TheYarnConspiracy.

It might seem like a lot of work. And it is. But with every stitch crocheted or felt sewn, that’s minutes of stress off my back. I’m not sure why it works that way for me. Some people do crossword or jigsaw puzzles (looking at you, Jill Weatherholt and Charles Yallowitz); I crochet. I like to keep my hands busy while watching a movie or show on Netflix.

What do you do for relaxation? While you consider that, Marian Beaman, consider yourself a winner of Charles’s latest book!

Thank you to all who commented and faithfully read this weird blog.

Book cover and author photos courtesy of Charles Yallowitz. Other photos by L. Marie.

Guest Post: Seasons of Story

Today, I welcome to the blog a good friend who has been here a number of times—the great Lyn Miller-Lachmann. You have the floor now, Lyn!

Spring is my favorite season. I appreciate the buds and blossoms, the longer days, the fresh smell of grass after a rain shower. Yet I don’t feel the urgency to get outside with each warm day, the way I do in the fall. I know there will be many more warm, sunny days. I can afford to waste a few of them.

Writing fiction, though, I have to break the habit of wasting days. I don’t mean procrastinating in my daily word count. As a fan of spring and its endless possibilities, I tend to let my characters dilly-dally, smelling the roses, spending an afternoon on a winery tour in southern Moravia while the bad guys hunt them down.

A tight timeline is a writer’s friend. While many successful novels take place over the course of a calendar year, or in books for kids and teens, a school year (or four), tension rises when events occur within a short period of time. In some cases, there’s a ticking clock—something bad that will happen within a week if the protagonist doesn’t stop it. Long timelines tend to defuse tension, though they’re better suited to quieter novels that prioritize the emotional growth of the protagonist over a triumph over an evil adversary. As any critic of insta-love will tell you, genuine relationships and emotional transformation need time to develop.

I’ve found that my most successful novels take place over the course of one season. Of the middle grade and YA manuscripts I’ve completed—three published, two unpublished, and two due to be published in 2022—two take place in spring, two in fall, one in the northern hemisphere summer but the southern hemisphere winter, one in a six-month period between February and August cutting across three seasons, and one over the course of an entire year. The weakest manuscript, now shelved, takes place over the entire year, and much of it feels like vignettes rather than a story that builds tension to a climax. The other unpublished story awaiting revisions is a YA historical romance that takes place over a few weeks, and I’m coming to realize that I need a longer timeframe for the romance, one that balances the ups and downs of their relationship while taking into account the outside threats that the new couple faces. I will need the entire season, not just a month within it.

Given that I tend to keep the timeframe within a single season, how do I choose the season for each story? In general, I let the school calendar define my window, as school is such an important part of life for children and teenagers. My forthcoming middle grade verse novel Moonwalking, which I’m writing with Zetta Elliott [below], takes place in fall because it’s the start of the school year and my protagonist, JJ, is a newcomer to his neighborhood and school. Faced with the foreclosure of their home on Long Island and JJ’s inability to secure a scholarship at his Catholic school due to poor grades and behavioral issues, his parents move to his grandmother’s basement apartment in Brooklyn just before the school year starts. The novel explores JJ’s adjustment to attending a public school for the first time, one in which there are few white kids like him.

In contrast, my 2015 YA historical novel, Surviving Santiago, is a summer vacation story. While her newly remarried mother goes on honeymoon, Tina journeys to visit her father in Santiago, Chile, where it’s the middle of winter—though a much milder winter than it would be in her Wisconsin home. In Chile she counts down the days until she returns to her friends and her daily routines. Her father’s home is a disorienting and dangerous place on the cusp of transition from dictatorship to democracy, a time of settling scores with people who upheld a violent regime and people like her father who helped bring it down. The countdown in this “upside-down” situation means returning to safety, at least until Tina meets a mysterious boy her ago with so much in common, and then she doesn’t want to leave at all. In Surviving Santiago, the season of the year works on multiple levels, including as a metaphor for the situation in which Tina finds herself.

Other factors can determine a choice of seasons. What sports are in season at the time? That had a lot to do with my choice for Rogue, set in a northeastern US spring with opportunities for mountain biking through muddy trails and swollen creeks. With historical fiction, reality often determines when the story begins. The inciting incident for my forthcoming YA novel, Torch, involves a teenage political activist motivated by actual events that occurred one and two months earlier, in January and February of that year; in March, he would be the third to carry out the same act.

Choosing the season for your setting, and using it as a ticking clock or metaphor can help you structure your story. Your details specific to that season root your story in a time and place and help your setting become a character in itself. If you don’t like that season (and I’m not a fan of either summer or winter), you can give your book a dystopian feel, as I did with Surviving Santiago. Or you can imbue it with the kind of possibility that you feel when the calendar, and the weather, turns to your favorite time of the year.

Lyn Miller-Lachmann writes fiction and nonfiction for teens and translates children’s books from Portuguese and Spanish to English. She debuted with the award-winning historical novel, Gringolandia, followed by its companion Surviving Santiago, and  has two more historical novels forthcoming in 2022: Moonwalking (co-authored with Zetta Elliott) and Torch. She also wrote the pioneering #ownvoices middle grade novel, Rogue, based on her experience of growing up autistic but not yet diagnosed.

L. Marie here. I just learned of another book project that Lyn is working on—a nonfiction book. Check it out here: https://www.lynmillerlachmann.com/i-get-to-write-another-book/

Author photos courtesy of Lyn Miller-Lachmann. Photo of Lyn by Joan Heffler. Daffodil photo by L. Marie.

Salad Days

Back when I was in college, back when the transportation of choice was the covered wagon, I aspired to afford the salad bar at Fritz That’s It. What’s that, you say? It used to be a well-loved restaurant in Evanston, Illinois—part of the Lettuce Entertain You chain of restaurants. Alas, it closed in 1987. Click here and here for more information on the restaurant. Today, that name is associated with another establishment.

A menu from 1973 (I was not in college at this point, in case you were wondering.)

When I was a student, I was always broke. So I shared restaurant menu items with my friends, who were equally broke. As the articles I linked to above will tell you, Fritz was known for its extensive salad bar. It even had caviar and pâté! But the salad bar was an extra cost.

A well-stocked salad bar was the hallmark of Lettuce Entertain You restaurants. Rich Melman, the founder of Lettuce Entertain You, talked about the salad bar at RJ Grunts  (the first restaurant he opened) in this post at Foodandwine.com:

Instead of just iceberg and a few toppings, I would say we started with about 30 choices, maybe more, and it just kept growing and growing.

I loved having so many choices. Those were indeed salad days! But years later, many restaurants scaled back on the salad bars. Even Wendy’s pulled the plug on them back in 2006.

Yet salad bars live on at some restaurants (like buffets) and many grocery store chains. The grocery stores in my area have salad bars with multiple options (including soup) and charge for the salads by weight. (The photo below was not taken at a grocery store in my area, in case you wondered.)

The element of choice is one many people treasure, not just in a salad bar but in other areas in life. I love going to a craft store and seeing aisle after aisle of colorful skeins of yarn of all different textures in which to choose. Many of us love to binge watch seasons of shows on Netflix because we have multiple episodes from which to choose. (Unless the show is uploaded once a week like The Great British Baking Show is this season. Sigh.) And many make purchases on Amazon because of its staggering variety of items.

Another area of choice I love involves authors with multiple books just waiting to be discovered. Many, like Jill Weatherholt, John Howell, and Charles Yallowitz, have been featured on this blog. (To discover where to purchase any of these books, just click on the cover.)

   

What authors have you discovered recently, who have multiple books just waiting to be read?

Have you visited a salad bar recently? What do you like about it?

Kitty thinks her giant veggies will net her a fortune at salad bars across the nation. But I doubt that, since most edible vegetables don’t have faces.

Fritz menu from worthpoint.com. Salad bar image from Rochebros.com. Salad items from clkr.com. Kawaii veggies from etsystudio.com. Other photo by L. Marie.

The Language of Flowers

On my walk the other day, I was drawn to the peonies in the yard. I love this time of year, with its abundance of green grass and trees, and especially with flowers blooming everywhere. And since we’ve experienced a ton of rain in my neck of the woods (with a flood advisory in some areas ☹️), the flowers are growing quite nicely.

Looking at the flowers got me to thinking about what flowers symbolize in the floral arranging community. When I checked online, I learned a new word: florigraphy—the language of flowers. According to howstuffworks.com, the following flowers have these meanings (captions and punctuation as per that website):

Peony = I’m shy, but I like you a lot.

 

Iris = Thank you, or Sending sympathy.

Gerbera daisy = Cheer up, or Thank you.

Tulip = Happy housewarming, or You’re a great host.

Red rose = I love you.

But during my walk, the peonies spoke a different message to me. The closed bud below reminded me of how I sometimes approach life—with a closed mind when opportunities to stretch or change come my way, or with closed hands when asked to give time or energy that I think I don’t have.

Or I’m like the peony below: sort of open but still wary.

The fully open peony reminds me of open-handedness or open-mindedness. I wish my default mode was flexible/open. But as of late, I’ve realized how cautious I’ve been about trying new things. Perhaps that’s a factor of getting older. But I know I’ve played it too safe at times. I’m working toward being more open. How about you?

Jennie, I hope you have an open hand to receive your copy of Mary Quattlebaum’s book, Brother, Sister, Brother, Sister, Me and You.

  

And Charles, the same goes for you in regard to Andy Murray’s book In Brigantia. Please comment below to confirm.

 

Tia Tigerlily and her mini-me are pleased at the floral theme of the post and the fact that the FTD site mentioned that the tiger lily symbolizes “confidence, pride, and wealth.” “Very fitting for me,” she said (though she probably has about 37 cents to her name).

Photos by L. Marie. Tia Tigerlily Shoppie is a product of Moose Toys.

Photos by L. Marie

Chillin’ Like a Villain

Lately, I’ve been reading a novel by Timothy Zahn about a Star Wars character—Grand Admiral Thrawn—and how he came to power.

    

Thrawn’s like Machiavelli and Sun Tzu—known for his ingenuity and military prowess. However, if you side with the rebel characters in season 3 of the animated series, Star Wars: Rebels, you’ll have only one word to describe this guy: villain.

I haven’t read many novels in which the antagonist is the main character. It’s interesting that a number of novels this year feature compelling villains or villains searching for redemption. Charles Yallowitz wrote one. A friend who had read other novels by Zahn encouraged me to read Zahn’s latest. And since I’ve written a novel in which one of the main characters is the primary antagonist, I wanted to see what made Thrawn tick.

Thrawn in Star Wars: Rebels

In an interview, which you can read here, Zahn, who created the character, discusses why he made Thrawn so compelling:

Readers like their villains to be a challenge to the heroes because that forces the heroes to bring their best game to the field. The more clever the opponent, and the more difficult the fight, the more satisfying the victory.

I’m down for that! An ingenious antagonist means the stakes will be high, especially when the hero is thwarted at just about every turn.

I’m enjoying the book so far. Thrawn is a fascinating character with a mind like that of a chess grand master. And how nice that this fan favorite is now canon in the Star Wars universe (hence this novel published by Del Rey/Random House).

What brilliant, but controversial characters have you read about (fictional or nonfictional) lately? While you think about that, I’ll move onto the giveaway, which I discuss here, if you missed that post. Thanks to the random number generator, the winner of the $25 Amazon gift card is

Is

Is

Is

Is

Is

(Okay. I’ll stop.)

Laura Bruno Lilly!

Thank you to all who commented. Have a happy and safe Halloween! Are you planning to dress up? What is your costume?

Grand Admiral Thrawn image from starwars.com. Star Wars Rebels logo from denofgeek.us. Book jacket photos and eerie pumpkin luminary photo by L. Marie.

Thirteen for 2013

Writers also are readers, gaining inspiration and learning about the craft of writing as they read the works of others. Some writers swear by specific books on the craft of writing, books that have helped them hone their skill. I have several beautifully informative craft books on my bookshelves or stacked on the floor of my living room. I’ll probably write a post about them someday. But the following thirteen books, most of them award winning, are favorites that have inspired me over the years to put fingers to my keyboard (or pen to my writing journal—whichever I happen to be nearest), to dig deep and make my prose sing.

I don’t think I can adequately articulate why I find these books so inspiring, so I’ll just list them. I decided to go with thirteen in honor of 2013. Here they are, in no particular order:

• Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley (YA fairy tale retelling)
• Sabriel by Garth Nix (YA fantasy)
• Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien (fantasy for all ages; technically three books, but I’m counting them as one, since they can be found in one volume)
• The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis (MG historical fiction)
• Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt (YA historical fantasy)
• Goose Girl by Shannon Hale (MG/YA fairy tale retelling)
• Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens (classic)
• Beowulf—the Seamus Heaney translation (epic)
• Castle Waiting by Linda Medley (graphic novel series)
• Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales (fairy tales for all ages)
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (MG science fiction)
• American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (YA graphic novel)
• Bone by Jeff Smith (MG graphic novel; nine volumes nicely shoved into one 1300+-page book)

I’ll give a quick shout-out to Harper Lee’s classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. I didn’t add it to the list, because I wanted to keep the list to thirteen books.

What books inspire you?