Debbie Levy's Blog, page 11

A Very Good Sentence

I love this, about small children in an extended family:

“They are the people who forgive us for no longer being what we started out wanting to be, who don’t remind us how we are no longer what we were and who have no memory of us when we were any better than we are now.”

It’s by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, at the close of her piece in The New York Times Sunday Book Review last week.   You can read the whole article here:  http://tinyurl.com/d8rkrck.

About An App

Poet and author Laura Shovan has had a great thing going all month over on her Author Amok blog:  daily posts by guest writers on a theme she calls ”TechnoVerse.”  When I heard of her theme, about the place where technology and writing intersect, I immediately thought of my favorite app.  An app so simple and obvious and helpful and entertaining that I can hardly remember my writing life without it.

Of course, I also can hardly remember what I had for dinner two nights ago, but that’s different.  At least I think it’s different.

And so I wrote about my favorite app for writing and for life in general over on the Author Amok blog.  And about what gets left behind when you take up with an app.  Read all about it here.

 

 

Poesie Postings

In Ohio’s Fairport Harding High School, English teacher Susan Tenon’s eighth graders have just finished The Year of Goodbyes–and my mailbox is full of their notes and poems for the online Poesiealbum Project.  This spring I’ll be sharing the thoughts they’ve sent my way.  To get there, go here.

Presenting Sandra Feder’s NBT. . .

. . . That is, Sandra Feder’s “Next Big Thing” on the Next Big Thing Blog Tour.  I tapped Sandra last week at the end of my turn on the tour, and here she is.  I’m going to step out of the way so you can listen to her.  Presenting Sandra Feder, author of Daisy’s Defining Day and Daisy’s Perfect Word:

SANDRA FEDER’S NEXT BIG THING

I am excited to be participating in The Next Big Thing blog tour.  The idea is that one author “taps” another – kind of an author version of tag – to get more information out into the blogosphere on coming attractions in the literary world.  I am so excited that Debbie tapped me last week and has kindly offered to host my post this week.

 I am the author of the Daisy Series, an early chapter book series about a girl who loves words and language.  It’s a subject that is near and dear to my heart and the hearts of most authors I know!

 1) What is the working title of your next book?

The first book in the series is called Daisy’s Perfect Word and the second, which just came out, is called Daisy’s Defining Day.  In that one, Daisy discovers the joys of alliteration when her teacher introduces the concept to her class – thus, the alliterative title.  In book three, which will be out next March, Daisy learns about poetry and the working title of that one is Daisy’s Big Night. 

 2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea of a character who loves words came from listening to my own daughters have fun playing with language when they were younger.  In Daisy’s Defining Day, the title character gets called a nickname she doesn’t like and decides to come up with a fabulous new name for herself that will make everyone forget the nickname.  One of my daughters came up with a very long name for herself when she was little, and we all had much fun trying to remember it.

 3) What genre does your book fall under?

While there are some ideas I got for my books by watching my own kids and other people’s kids – my books are pure fiction.  As a former newspaper reporter, I love the freedom fiction allows me to make up characters, settings and situations. 

 4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I would love to discover an unknown child actress to play Daisy, because she is so much her own person that I think she needs someone fresh to create her on screen.  She is spirited, thoughtful, kind and full of energy.  The physical characteristics the young actress ideally would have are naturally curly hair and a dimple in her left cheek.  Daisy’s little sister Lily is also a great character who has her own spunk and way of doing things. 

 5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

When Daisy gets called a nickname she doesn’t like, she does what any word-loving girl would do and uses her words to come up with a long, alliterative name for herself to make everyone forget the annoying nickname.

 6) Who is publishing your book?

Kids Can Press, which is a wonderful Canadian publishing house.  I feel very honored to work with them, as they don’t publish too many American authors. 

 7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

It’s very hard to say, because I originally created the story as a picture-book text.  Then, with help from a great editor, realized it would work better as an early chapter book.  So I rewrote it completely and discovered I loved the longer format in terms of being able to expand the story and more fully develop my characters.

 8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

It has been compared by others to Clementine and Frindle, as well as Fancy Nancy.

 9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

When I wrote for newspapers, I learned about the power of words and wanted to help kids understand the power words have in the world.  So a character who thinks about words and language seemed natural. Daisy is accessible and interesting, so that kids will see how much fun it is to think about words in creative and new ways.

 10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

Readers have told me that they like the “real world” aspects of the story in terms of the types of conflicts Daisy faces with peers, as well as the meaningful relationships she has with her best friend and her little sister.

 Now, it is my turn to tag someone to write the next installment of The Next Big Thing blog tour.  I am delighted to tap Pamela Jane, who can be found online at http://www.pamelajane.com.  On her site you will find information about her latest project, a fun romp through Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice featuring kitties! 

 One of the great things about this blog tour is that it allows authors to share their connections to each other.  I am connected to Pamela Jane through a wonderful group of women writer’s in Pennsylvania, where I used to live.  The Inkweavers taught me how to write for children.  I am grateful to Ruth Radin, Kay Winters, and Sally Keehn for their help and guidance, as well as to all the other wonderful women in the group.  Pamela Jane will be posting her answers to the above questions soon so check her blogs, http://prideandprejudiceandkitties.com/blog/ and http://blog.pamelajane.com/ to learn more and to find out which author she taps for The Next Big Thing.

– Sandra Feder

Thank you, Sandra, for sharing your Next Big Thing! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gotta Go To GottaBook

Last week I visited Greg Pincus over at his GottaBook blog to participate in his April-long celebration of children’s poetry that he calls 30 Poets/30 Days.  We participants supply him with an original, never-before-published poem, and he supplies us with praise that we richly deserve.  My poem for Greg is called “Garden Secret,” about a guy named Gilbert.  Read it here.  Then look around his blog some more, and come back to it throughout the month, as he’s got a great group of contributors lined up, such as:  Mary Lee Hahn, Leslea Newman, Naomi Shihab Nye, Andrew Fusek Peters, and Laurel Snyder.  And many more because–remember?–it’s 30/Poets/30 Days.

The ‘Next Big Thing’ Blog Tour

What’s a blog tour?  It’s like a book tour, but without the bookstores.  An author goes from blog to blog writing guest posts about her new book, or a forthcoming book, all without stepping foot on an airplane, train, car, or covered wagon.

What’s the Next Big Thing Blog Tour?  I’m told it began in Australia.  Each week a different author or illustrator answers a list of ten questions—which may also have come from Australia, or maybe were handed down on Sinai—about a new or forthcoming book.  The answers are posted on that author or illustrator’s own blog.  And then that person “tags” another, who answers the questions on his or her blog, tags another, etc. etc.—until every single author and illustrator on the planet is part of the next big thing.

I made up the very last part, about every single author and illustrator on the planet.  But it’s possible, isn’t it?

I was tagged by Jennifer Barrett O’Connell.  She answered questions about her gorgeous new book, The Eye of the Whale.   You’ll find out who I’m tagging at the end of this post.  But first, my answers to the ten questions.

No, first this:  A “blog tour” usually involves authors traveling from blog to blog.  The Next Big Thing Blog Tour involves authors writing on their own blogs.  So, really, it’s more like a Next Big Thing Blog Staycation, isn’t it?  But I’m going to amp up the “tour” part of this endeavor right here and now with links to “Next Big Thing” posts by some other authors: Kathyrn Erskine, Deborah Heiligman, Madelyn Rosenberg, and Linda Urban,

There.  Now we’re touring.  And now, my answers.

 1) What is the working title of your next book?

Some working titles:  Blame.  Catch My Drift.  Fault.  Humphrey & Danielle.  Remembering Humphrey.  Spiral.  To Know You.

But the final title, which was also the very first title I chose:  Imperfect Spiral.  There’s no changing it now; the book comes out on July 16!

 2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

From the idea store, of course.

And from thinking about a character, a teenage girl, who felt, as teenagers often do, that she was unutterably peculiar, when actually she was just a little bit peculiar, as so many of us are.  I wanted her to see herself reflected in the eyes of a little boy who was also a little bit peculiar, and with whom she develops a deep connection despite the difference in their ages.  These two characters, Danielle and Humphrey, then took on lives of their own in my imagination, and so did other characters and plot ideas, and this one, in particular:  What if something terrible happened to little Humphrey?

3) What genre does your book fall under?

Contemporary realistic fiction for young adults and older ones, too.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I don’t know enough to answer this question except to say that I am deeply sorry there appears to be no role for Meryl Streep in Imperfect Spiral, the movie, and that I think by now Jennifer Lawrence has already been booked through the year 2037 by other authors answering this very same question on The Next Big Thing Blog Tour, by which time she’ll be too old to play Danielle Snyder, my main character.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Imperfect Spiral is about a tragedy, a community’s search for someone or something to blame, and a teenage girl’s realization that sometimes the most—and the least—that you can do is try to stop one bad thing from leading to another.

For more than a sentence, look here.

6) Who is publishing your book?

Walker Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I started writing in November 2009.  By April 2010 I had a critical mass; by January 2011 I had a draft I was happy with.  And then came lots and lots of rewriting.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

There are some hard questions on this list!  Rather than compare, I will say that novels I admire that raise some of the issues I treat in my book include T.C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain, for the way the issue of illegal immigration is featured in that story without ever making it an “issue” book; and Russell Banks’ The Sweet Hereafter, for that book’s unflinching gaze at how people and communities act in the face of tragedy.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

The characters themselves inspired me.  They came first.  Their inner lives suggested situations where dramatic tension might develop, where opportunities for change would arise.  Until Humphrey has a tragic accident, Danielle has made something of an art form of not being engaged in her community.  (Her best friend, Becca, is exactly the opposite.)  But that becomes less of an option as reaction to the tragedy spirals, if not out of control, at least in directions that she can’t accept.  I was also inspired, I think, by an interest in exploring such disparate ideas as social awkwardness, unlikely friendships, immigration policy, and unforeseen consequences.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

One of my favorite characters is Danielle’s older brother, Adrian.  He’s the smartest person Danielle knows, but he dropped out of high school to become, among other things, a plumber’s apprentice.  And a cook.  Don’t hold me to this, but he may need his own book one of these days.

Now I feel bad that I just wrote a sentence with the words “my favorite” that didn’t also include the word “Humphrey.”  I just love him, and I love how he brings out the best in Danielle, both before and after the tragedy.  I hope readers will love him, too.

It’s time for me to play tag.  I’m passing my baton to Vanessa Brantley Newton and Sandra Feder.

Vanessa and I haven’t met in person yet, but we’ve worked together on a picture book that is very close to my heart and that will be published this December—and that’s all I’m going to say about that for now.  (That’s another of her books pictured on the left.)  Head over to Vanessa’s blog, Ooh-La-La Design Studio around this time next week for her installment of The Next Big Thing.

And I also haven’t met Sandra yet, but we were connected by another talented writer and good friend, Linda Himelstein, author of the award-winning book The King of Vodka.  Learn more about Sandra on her website here.  Since Sandra hasn’t put up a blog on her website, I’ll be hosting her in this space next Thursday.  So come back here next week!

Poetry On The Small Screen

Here’s something fun:  a video based on my poem, “Breaking the Spell,” from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School.  (I wrote about the anthology here when it came out last month.)  Janet Wong, co-editor of The Poetry Friday Anthology, told me about the video, created by Anna Darst, a graduate student at Texas Women’s University School of Library and Information Studies.  Watch it here, and dig those great cut-outs she uses–and that blue manicure!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_mB5bwtBo4&feature=youtu.be

Okay, So I’m A Little Star-Struck

Anyone who has talked books and reading with me knows that my favorite book of this century is Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout.  I love it so much that I become nearly speechless when trying to explain this love to others.  When I learned that Strout was coming to D.C.’s Politics & Prose last Tuesday to talk about her new book, The Burgess Boys, of course I had to go.  The author was a lovely speaker, funny and authentically self-deprecating, discussing her empathy for her characters, her mess (her word, not mine!) of a writing process, and the panic that sets it when the process takes too long, which apparently it always does.  She is not a fast writer, as those of us who await her books can confirm.

I allow myself the pleasure of re-reading Olive Kitteridge about once a year.  Before I set off to Politics & Prose earlier this week I looked at the notes I made after my most recent re-reading, which was right around last Thanksgiving.  “I’m struck after reading only the first chapter, ‘Pharmacy,’ at Elizabeth Strout’s skill in withholding information,” I wrote in my notebook.  “She could fill in the meaning. . . then and there, which is probably what I would do, which would provide clarity but reduce the art and beauty of the writing.  Strout has the patience to allow the uncertainty to breathe there for a while. . . .”

So I had this in mind as one of the reasons I love Olive so much when, on Tuesday, I stepped up to have Elizabeth Strout sign The Burgess Boys as well as a new copy of Olive that I bought because, well, just because I’m allowed to have two copies.  I told her that Olive Kitteridge was my favorite book of this century.  And then–I became nearly speechless, even though I was prepared to deliver at least one actual reason for my love of her book.  We laughed and then the friend I was with explained that I tell every reader I know about Olive and that she, my friend, was Exhibit A, as she was there to buy her (first) copy of this fine book.  What more does an author need to know about why a reader loves her writing?  And so this is why, in her inscription, Strout called me her “ideal reader.”  Of which I am proud.

I have never screamed at a rock concert, never stood in line to meet a celebrity, never read Us Weekly.  So forgive me for prattling on; I am new to being star-struck.

 

More Wonderfulness in the Willows

It’s raw and snowy and just a downright affront to my strongly held beliefs about when winter is supposed to end.  What better time to dip back into the world of Rat and Mole?  As I warned last month when I waxed enthusiastic about my new favorite children’s classic, The Wind in the Willows, I wasn’t done basking in its glow.  I was only pausing.  Maybe it’s warm and spring-like where you are, but not here.  I need this basking.

First, let us bask in such locutions as ”poetry-things,” to wit:

“The afternoon sun was getting low as the Rat sculled gently homewards in a dreamy mood, murmuring poetry-things over to himself, and not paying much attention to Mole.”

Second, let us bask in the compactness of writing that bursts with imagery, describing Mole as “wet without and ashamed within” when he falls into the river after grabbing the boat sculls from Rat.

Third, how about the spot-on characterizations:

“The Rat was sitting on the river bank, singing a little song.  He had just composed it himself, so he was very taken up with it. . . .”

Yes, of course.

Or try this:

“As he hurried along, eagerly anticipating the moment when he would be at home again among the things he knew and liked, the Mole saw clearly that he was an animal of tilled field and hedge-row, linked to the ploughed furrow, the frequented pasture, the lane of evening lingerings, the cultivated garden-plot.  For others the asperities, the stubborn endurance, or the clash of actual conflict, that went with Nature in the rough. . . .”

Fourth, let us bask in the humor that is appetizingly dry and yet not steeped in irony, as in this line, delivered after several verses of Toad’s over-the-top song in praise of himself:

“There was a great deal more of the same sort, but too dreadfully conceited to be written down.  These are some of the milder verses.”

And finally, let us bask in the food:

“When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb.”

And:

 ”Then he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal. . . a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes.”

This is all just so delicious in so many ways.  And now I am done writing posts about The Wind in the Willows, I promise, at least for this season.

Free Books!

There’s a Goodreads First Reads giveaway going on now until April 15:  My publisher and Goodreads are handing out 20 advance copies of my forthcoming novel, mostly at random, although the official rules of the lottery also mention the phase of the moon as possibly being a determining factor in who gets a book. . . .

Oh, how much there is to learn about book marketing!

Anyway, if you are a Goodreads person, and if you would like to win an advance copy of Imperfect Spiral, head on over to the entry form here.