Marcia Thornton Jones's Blog, page 24

Look: It's Fresh. It's a Poem. It's an Epiphany!

 

Charles Waters & Irene LathamIt's a brand new year, and I've got poetry on my mind.

While I've written (and co-written) quite a few poetry collections, this year marks my debut as a co-anthologist (with Charles Waters) with the release of The Mistakes That Made Us: Confessions from Twenty Poets coming from Lerner in the Fall with illustrations by Mercè López. (The cover isn't quite final, but soon!)

As we worked with poets (including Margarita Engle, Naomi Shihab Nye, Linda Sue Park, Jane Yolen, and others!) on poems for this project, I found myself really responding to poems that offered some sort of epiphany. And that reminds me of this marvelous quote from (marvelous) poet Joyce Sidman. 

 "I love the brevity and power of poetry, and the way, through metaphor, it connects everything to everything else. I love the way it can celebrate the humble things, the odd or overlooked things, and make them fresh and amazing. I love the way it captures these moments of epiphany: when we suddenly realize something deep and powerful." 

- Joyce Sidman
May your 2024 be filled with epiphanies...and poetry!

10, 9, 8....

 by Charlotte Bennardo

It's been a GREAT YEAR. Honestly, I'm filled with trepidation for 2024, because I fear my luck and good fortune may be all used up. Here are the good things:

Photo by Cup of Couple: https://www.pexels.com/photo/birthday...

1. My oldest son graduated from Rutgers (Go R U! my alma mater) with a degree in Mechanical Engineering with High Honors.

2. He got a job at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, FL and moved into his first apartment.

3. My youngest son married a wonderful young woman whom we adore. They had a beautiful civil ceremony, officiated by my nephew, in my meditation garden.

4. They had a touching and elegant religious ceremony in Ecuador, and we explored the country and culture for eight days with our new family members.

5. I finished my Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing with a Certification as a Professional Writer.

6. My thesis novel was only an idea with a few bare scenes when I started my coursework two years ago. Now it's out on submission.

7. My MFA was broadly based; not only were there literature courses, but practical courses such as Editing and Revising, Social Media Marketing, Short Story Writing, Content and Copywriting, and business courses like how to run my writing or editing business, and... which will assist me in advancing my writing and helping me with the business aspects.

8. I've gotten back to short story writing, which is where I started my fiction writing. Fridays are for writing, revising, and subbing them. 

9. My middle son is doing well in his computer engineering classes and has a new confidence about his abilities and future.

10. The hubs and I got Trek bikes and have been cycling and hiking all over (even hiked in Ecuador!).  

There are many smaller joys that I am just as thankful for. I wish you all a New Year filled with good things small and large. See ya next year! 

Photo by Jill Wellington: https://www.pexels.com/photo/happy-ne...

Charlotte writes MG, YA, NA, and adult novels in sci fi, fantasy, contemporary, and paranormal genres. She is the author of the award-winning middle grade Evolution Revolution trilogy, Simple Machines, Simple Plans, and Simple Lessons. She co-authored the YA novels Blonde OPS, Sirenz, and Sirenz Back in Fashion. She has two short stories in the Beware the Little White Rabbit (Alice through the Wormhole) and Scare Me to Sleep (Faces in the Wood) anthologies. Having finished her MFA, she's applying what she learned and is working on several children's and adult novels, along with some short stories. She lives in NJ with her family and her floofy cat. When they trimmed the backyard tree, the crazy squirrel couple had to move out.

Merry Everything (Holly Schindler)

I hope you are in the midst of enjoying the holiday. I hope you are eating something delicious and laughing. I hope you are warm and dry and the power is on. I hope the lights are twinkling. And I hope that you are excited about 2024.

Happy Holidays! ~ Holly Schindler is the author of The Junction of Sunshine and Lucky

Cosmic Apple Winter Solstice Tree: Smack Dab in the Imagination by Dia Calhoun

In celebration of the winter solstice and holiday season, every year I make a unique winter solstice tree.

This year's Cosmic Apple Tree came from a dream where I made a large red apple out of clay. I was trying to figure out how to circle it with the rings of Saturn, when I woke up. The apple, as a symbol of physical life on earth, combined with the cosmic rings of a shining planet, suggests that the physical world is radiant with eternal spiritual force. The star is a spiral galaxy. Other details are streamers of the Milky Way with crystal hummingbirds, silver butterflies, crescent moons, and stars.

To see my Winter Solstice Trees from years past, click here.

My best wishes to all for peace and mercy in the coming year.

`~Dia Calhoun

The Wait and the Peck

In which I highlight the hardest part of writing (The Wait)and what to do about it (The Peck).

Recently, author Greer Macallister discussed her thoughts onwhat she considers the hardest part of writing: the Wait:

“Writers in the process of publication are always waiting. Waiting on agents, waiting on editors, waiting for publication, waiting for cover designs, waiting for reviews, waiting for a verdict on the proposal for our next book, waiting, waiting, waiting.”

You wait for an agent/editor to respond to your pitch oryour proposal.

You wait to hear from beta readers, or interview subjects.

You wait for the mailperson to hurry up and bring yourcoveted research that took months to locate.

You wait for an editor’s thoughts on the revision.

You wait for months and months and months on publicationschedules.

The Wait can be debilitating, especially – if you're like me -- patience is not one of your virtue s.

What you don’t want to do is check your email every hour tosee if anyone responded. You don’t want to email your editor, or agent or betareader every two days to ask if they had a chance to read it yet. Nor do youwant to shower them with promises of chocolate in the hope that it might helpthe process.

What you can do, as Holly Schindler recently suggested inher article, is The Peck.  

There are all sorts of advice on how to deal with The Wait.(Take a walk. Read a book. Take a course. Be sociable. Garden.) The Peck, itturns out, is one of my favorite strategies. As Holly offers,

“I’ve tried all sorts of different approaches to juggling multiple jobs over the years, searching for a process that fit me and my working style the best. Never was this more important than this year, when I was taking several courses and expanding into commercial illustration and editing in addition to keeping up with my full-time writing.”

Keeping fairly loose schedules, Holly does a little bithere, a little bit there. In the end, she discovered, if she finds she’s makingprogress on everything, she feels less overwhelmed.

For me, I peck at working on two or three projects at once.While I wait to hear on one project, I peck on another outline, following anarrative structure arc so I stay organized. I may read a chapter or two ofresearch, making notes to fill in the action timeline. I’ll work on charactersketches. But I may also discover an interesting tidbit along the way – newresearch, for example, that seems very promising. It’s not uncommon for me tostart research on a new project while weaving the threads on another.

Even as I work on a draft, I find that The Peck works to myadvantage. Switching gears, if only for a bit, allows the scene to simmer abit. It allows characters to stew a bit in their muck. If I’m working on aparticularly hard scene, taking a break gives my brain a minute to process. Through theyears, I find that I am most creative in the morning hours; thus, I use themorning hours to work on my draft while using the afternoon to Peck.

Of course, you still have to do the other stuff. Burn-out isa very real thing When you take care of yourself, you’re a better writer. Thisis why patience is key.

“Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength.” – Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

 

-- Bobbi Miller

Middle Grade Fiction for the End of the Year

 

Middle Grade Fiction for the End of the Year

 

It’s the holiday season, so what better time to look forsome new middle grade novels? On my other blog, Book Q&As with DeborahKalb, I’ve recently interviewed a variety of middle grade authors.

 

Here are some samples:

 

In her new novel, The Dubious Pranks of Shaindy Goodman,author Mari Lowe features an Orthodox Jewish sixth grader and her classmates.Asked what she hoped readers would take away from the novel, Lowe said, “Ialways love it when readers gain a deeper understanding of my community from mystories, so that’s a given! But I really did write this one for those adolescentgirls who are working out their place in the world.”

 

Author Jen Malia is writing a series called The InfinityRainbow Club. “I wanted to write a chapter book series that featured a lot ofdifferent neurodivergent characters to show a full range of brain differences,”she said. “At least one in five kids are neurodivergent, but it's hard to findpositive representations of neurodivergence in books for young readers. In theseries, the Infinity Rainbow Club is a place where stims and differentcommunication styles are accepted and celebrated.”

 

And neurodiversity also features in Kate Foster’s new novel,All the Small Wonderful Things. Foster said of the book: “I hope it goes beyondproving that autistic people are not broken, just different, and that sometimestaking a moment to think, to consider, and then make the smallest changes, canmake the most enormous impact on a person’s day, and even life.”

 

So much to read! Happy holidays!

 

--Deborah Kalb

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Highlights of 2023 by Darlene Beck Jacobson

 In no particular order, here are EIGHT things that absolutely stand out this year.

1. A 21 day trip to SCOTLAND where I saw amazing views, met amazing people, and even walked the path of JK Rowling in Edinburg. 

2. Signing a book contract!!

3. Finding out I will be a GRANDMOTHER in 2024.

4. Reading so many wonderful MG books.

5. A trip to IOWA. WISCONSIN, and MINNESOTA with family.

6. Friendships old and new and reconnecting with people I haven't seen in awhile.

7. Learning to watercolor paint.

8. School Author Visits and connecting with young readers in all venues...even at a Carriage Museum on Long Island, NY. www.longislandmusuem.org

 

 May 2024 be a year of amazing discoveries, encounters, and  things worth celebrating.

Darlene Beck Jacobson looks forward to many more highlights in 2024. She does most of her writing from her home in NJ.

 

A Quiet Year?

 

Until today, when I scrolled backthrough my calendar, I had no clue what I’d feature as my Top Ten Highlights of2023. For the most part, it’s been a quiet year for me. Or so I thought. Looking back, I've come to realize that the cumulative nature of smaller events andexperiences can make for a highlight-laden year. Here we go!

 M*A*S*H production location
Malibu, CA10. Travel. Outside of any work/writing/author-visit related trips, there was New York City; Los Angeles; San Luis Obispo; Rochester, New York; and Sewanee, Tennessee. 

9. Writing retreats. More travel! For these, Southbridge, Massachusetts and Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. SO worthwhile. Ihighly recommend spending long weekends with like-minded people. 

At the huge house!

8. The writing itself. Things startedoff at a snail’s pace this year. I was slowly developing the plot, characters, anda few opening chapters for a brand new book, which is all well and good. But as I was slogging through, I woke one morning with an out-of-the-blue concept and a bellyfulof excitement, excitement that had been missing so far this year. I’d never stoppedwriting a book  midstream, but this time I did. Now, just a short time later, I’m 88% finished with a first draft. And I’m still excited.

7. Inspiration. Where should I set thisnew book? How about the hurge house where we stayed during Lake of theOzarks retreat.

6. Fun opportunities. Yep. It was timeto take advantage of a few. I attended an 8-session West County CitizensPolice Academy. Then I went ahead and did the 4-week advanced course. Totally different, I got to see Dan Santat just before he won the National Book Award. I went to an event featuring a psychic medium. And I drove a couple hours to attend an event featuring the International Pictures of the Year competition, during which we participated in a mock voting. Reminder: keep doing stuff like that! 

It's heavy!

5. Learning something new. I volunteered todevelop a website for a group I belong to. Challenging, simple, but it exists!

4. Award. Competing in a category which includes booksfor adults, my YA took third place, Best Fiction. from the Missouri Writers Guild.

3. Surprising a classroom. A Texas teacherwhose classes I’ve virtually visited a number of times—she reads TheGollywhopper Games with her students every year—moved here, to St. Louis. Instead of seeing one another through webcams, surprise!, I dropped in instead. 

A few of them :)

2. New friends. No need to explain, right?

 1. The icing on the cake. Amid this all,a dear, dear loved one, who experienced a very extended hospital stay, is nowhome and doing really well. So even if 10 through 2 never happened, I'll take a quiet year like 2023 any time.

Jody Feldman is feeling very grateful writing this. By this time next year, she hopes to feel the same and hopes you will, too.

2023 Highlights -- by Jane Kelley

The theme of 2023 should be NOT WHAT I EXPECTED.

In March, I took a train trip with my daughter Sofia. One of our stops was the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately, the mile deep gash in the Earth was filled with fog. It was beautiful in its own way, if only we could forget what we had hoped to see.

We continued on to Los Angeles. At the Getty Museum, I came face to face with My Nemesis. She didn't look malicious. Her smile was serene as she spun my wheel of fate. What was she really thinking???

The highlight of May was one of pure joy. Our daughter Sofia graduated from LAW SCHOOL. If we look happy, it's because we know how hard school was for everyone during the pandemic.

In June, we let the spirit of our dear friend Alice soar as we celebrated her life with her family and friends.

In August, we got kayaks and discovered a different view of Lake Michigan.

Have you noticed that none of these highlights are about writing? I certainly did. So with determination and daring, I changed course.

I did not become a pirate. I decided to turn one of my stories into a family musical. Since I don't write songs, I found two fantastic partners who do. Clifford Lee Johnson III, Greg Alexander, and I are transforming my novel into a drama of life and death -- for the monarch butterfly. 

While we were working on GRACE AND THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, as I wrote in this blog, these actual caterpillars shed their skins, hid inside their chrysalises, and began the humongous task of reinventing themselves. What once crawled along a leaf did eventually fly. I have no photo of that -- I didn't want to take my eyes off of those brave and beautiful butterflies.

In November, our team was invited to develop that musical at the 2024 Johnny Mercer Writers Grove at Goodspeed Musicals in Connecticut. No photo for that either.  You'll have to imagine the butterflies swirling inside my head. 

Oh. There is one last highlight. In December, started another MG novel. 

to be continued . . . .

Jane Kelley -- is the author of many middle grade novels and the book for the musical GRACE AND THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT.

Top 10 Highlights of 2023 by Irene Latham

As the year comes to a close, it's time to take a look back at all the happy happenings. Things are tough in the book industry these days, but I'm still feeling incredibly grateful, lucky, blessed.
Here's my top 10-ish highlights, in no particular order. Thanks so much for reading!

This was my year of writing weekly ArtSpeak: LIGHT poems. Not light, ha-ha, but light, as in sun, moon, stars, candles, etc. Here's a favorite from the series:



This was also my year of selecting SPACE as my One Little Word. I reflected on what that as meant for me in this post. Quick takeaway: I am no less an author when I am not participating regularly in social media.

I wrote my first-ever 100k novel...for adults! What an accomplishment! Now, after working with a freelance editor, I have shaved off a good 15K words and am finishing up some other revisions, in hopes of hitting the next round of agents in early 2024.

Meanwhile, I have had SO MANY HELPERS for this book. So much kindness has come my way via texts and calls and emails from some dear ones who've really encouraged this project by simply asking about it or offering feedback or reminding me how tough it is in the publishing world right now, but I'll get through it if I just hang on.

I, along with my writing partner and poetic forever friend Charles Waters, got to meet Lauren Gerber, granddaughter of Scott O'Dell at the ALA awards luncheon recognizing AFRICAN TOWN for getting the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. I wore my “African Town” dress (fabric was printed with one of the poems from the book!). There were tears. It was beautiful and validating and meaningful! It also left me feeling so grateful, like anything else that happens in my writing life is gravy.

I read some great books this year, including one that really changed how I think about myself. Learn about my Top 3 2023 Reads over at Shepherd.com.

I made some beautiful music this year and grew as a musician by making group playing a priority. This led me to attend a week-long cello camp (amazing!) and participate in Cellobration, hosted by Alabama Cello Society in which we played along with percussion, piano, saxophone...and Miss Alabama singing “Stars Fell on Alabama” and “I Look to You” (by Whitney Houston). What a special experience.

I got my first award in a photo contest! (An HM in the “pets in nature” category.) The same photo will be featured on the Bismarck Cancer Center 2024 calendar.

My mom and I got to quilt with the Gee's Bend quilters Mary Ann Pettway and China Pettway (with whom I have a long history, thanks to my very first MG novel LEAVING GEE'S BEND).

I got to share my love for the moon and deliver to the world a book dedicated to my moon-loving son: THE MUSEUM ON THE MOON. I'm grateful it was named an NCTE Notable Poetry Book. It also meant moon jewelry and moon postcards and moon attire, including a made-by-me denim moon vest covered in Apollo and Artemis patches! Oh, and when I spoke at Homewood Library about it, they served moon pies and sun chips. (Librarians are the best!)


That's ten, but I've got to add one more: serving on faculty with Charles Waters at Highlights during National Poetry Month (April)! We had a great group, and Dean Spencer even brought his banjo and, accompanied by firesong and smores, he serenaded me with a rendition of “Good Night, Irene.” My 7-years-gone Papa used to sing this to me, so it was especially sweet, and I have remembered it often in the months since.
Wishing you every good thing as we move into 2024!