Zetta Elliott's Blog, page 11

Educator Night

THE WITCH’S APPRENTICE launches in two weeks! Join us at The Salt Eaters Bookshop for a virtual Educator Night (register here). I love talking to teachers and appreciate how stressful the return to school has been for so many. I’m looking forward to having a casual conversation about using inclusive fantasy fiction in the classroom with artivist/educator/librarian Jehan Giles. Hope to see you there!

Stay tuned for details about a future event at Loyalty Books on February 2. You can also order a signed copy of Book #3 in my dragon series from 57th Street Books here in Chicago. I’m just about to turn in edits for Book #4 and can’t wait to talk to readers about the next stage in Jaxon’s journey!

everything old is new again

Last week I got my author copies of The Witch’s Apprentice. I had a moment of excitement and then I opened the book and the dedication to my cousin was missing and my Kenyan friend’s surname was misspelled in the Acknowledgments. I’m partly to blame because in all our rounds of revisions, I didn’t catch the error or the omission. Hopefully both can be fixed before the next print run but nothing can be changed at this point so I set the box aside and had a quiet Christmas. Yesterday I started reading the novel and, as always, it felt new. Publishing is so slow…I finished Book #4 in October and have to turn in edits on Monday; we’ll go through several rounds and I won’t hold that book in my hands until 2023! By then, I’ll have forgotten what I wrote. On Monday I turned in final edits for Moonwalking and at this point, I’m totally over that book. That’s generally how I feel after countless passes and changes. I don’t feel pride or a sense of achievement—just annoyance at those tedious but necessary tasks. So reading Book #3 now is a relief and a pleasure. It isn’t perfect but kids can hold this pretty, purple book in their hands and reunite with Jax and his friends.

Last week I didn’t work on a new novel as hoped but I did write an op-ed. I titled it, “Here Be Dragons: Critical Race Theory in Black Kid Lit” but it got changed to something much longer. I can’t seem to load the full article on my laptop but hopefully you can. The complete op-ed is over at Blavity. I also recorded a fun interview with Jed Doherty for the Reading with Your Kids podcast. That episode will go up in the new year but I taped another discussion with author/educator Kate Narita for her podcast Chalk + Ink and it’s available here.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time reflecting and setting goals for 2022. How should we assess the past year? We made it! Basic survival matters when you’re living through a pandemic. Did we thrive? Grow? Give to others? I didn’t have any books come out in 2021 and I didn’t take any trips; I wrote a lot but that’s starting to feel inadequate or redundant. My vision board remains incomplete so I’ll be thinking about my intentions going forward. This new variant makes me feel justified in staying home but with two books coming out next year, I need to stop hibernating and prepare to venture out into the world once more…here’s hoping we all take into 2022 the lessons we learned over the past year.

new vision

I can always tell when I’m “in the zone” creatively. I finished my first graphic novel yesterday and am really pleased with how The Boy in the Lake turned out. I sent it off to an editor friend but feel ready to keep on writing. I generally do write over Xmas and hope I don’t experience a “postpartum” slump now that the graphic novel is done. I had guests over a few nights ago and while giving them a tour of the apartment, I stopped for a moment in front of my 2021 vision board. It was surprising to look at it and realize that a couple of things had moved from the realm of dreams to reality. I wanted to buy a condo in a charming old building in Chicago and did that this fall; I wanted a black room in that new home and I’ve got that, too. I don’t think I’ll do another vision board workshop for 2022, but I might search for a couple of new images to paste over the goals I’ve already achieved. I’m looking forward to Chani Nicholas’s comprehensive horoscope for the year ahead, and will probably do her journal prompts for the winter solstice. But I also want to write something right now, while the world feels sunny and my sensitivity is heightened, mostly in a good way. For the past few days I’ve been tearing up while watching TV—commercials, cartoons, crime dramas—almost any kind of content can set me off. The world seems exceptionally beautiful when I’m in the zone and I hear things I might normally miss. The other day I was at the sink and heard a single bird chirp that was new to me; I peeked out the window and saw a chickadee at the bird feeder. Mostly I have sparrows but sometimes there’s a female downy woodpecker out there, too. I went to the Japanese garden last week for the first time since our cold snap; the lagoon had a thin sheet of ice over the water and I didn’t see any blue herons but I did see a kingfisher for the first time. And a cardinal couple led me along the path, flitting from tree to tree, chirping at each other—or at me. Today I took a long walk along the lake up to Bronzeville to see Santa and his reindeer; I didn’t stay for the trap carolers but got some cake and some Senegalese food before coming back to Hyde Park. My Lyft driver and I talked about how much we love Chicago and as soon as I got home, I turned my Xmas lights on. I’ve had carols playing since Thanksgiving and have started my holiday baking. I think I’ve struck the right balance when it comes to helping the sister living at the bus shelter. I requested a wellness check but the Salvation Army called me to report that she declined assistance. When I asked her myself about going to a shelter, she refused to even look at me so I’m going to leave that alone for now. One agency told me there’s a two-year wait for housing right now…so I’m trying to support her in other ways.

Last week I gave four book talks via Zoom and remembered why I went on hiatus for three months. It’s not the best way to connect with folks but at the end of yesterday’s presentation, a sweetheart named Zoe told me my books were her mirrors. Then her mother emailed me to say that Zoe and her brother sat down to write their own books as soon as our hour together was over. I just read an article on how to use social media to support a book launch—ugh. By industry standards I’m definitely NOT an “influencer” but I’m still sowing seeds…

close to home

Last week I learned that some Global Read Aloud classes are doing service projects after reading Dragons in a Bag. After learning more about homelessness, students in OH learned that food banks need supplies to bake birthday cakes—so they raised funds for the pantries in their community! Right now Madagascar is experiencing drought in the southern part of the island; I made a donation to Doctors Without Borders and then wondered if students might want to do that same…I want to be careful because it seems most of the kids participating in the GRA are White and middle-class. Book #3 talks about the difference between serving someone and trying to swoop in to save them, but no kids have read The Witch’s Apprentice yet. And I realize that I need to say more about gentrification because it can lead to displacement of folks who were already paying reasonable rent. I think a lot of folks assume Jaxon is poor but he comes from a middle-class family; his mother’s a paralegal and his father was a sports journalist. Gentrification floods neighborhoods with tenants who have the means to pay a lot more for rent, and landlords sometimes try to force the former out in order to replace them with the latter. You can be working full-time in this country and still wind up on the street or living out of your car. So many veterans are homeless…it’s frustrating and heartbreaking. In my own neighborhood there’s a woman living at a bus shelter. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around that. Kids sometimes ask me about Ambrose and why I chose to make him invisible. Adults don’t need to ask; they know that most of us have learned to walk past the homeless and avert our gaze to avoid taking responsibility for a major injustice in our society. Every person has the right to be housed, yet here in Chicago there are tents in many of the parks that line the lake. When I visited Seattle last year, there were streets lined with RVs because many people can no longer afford to buy or rent since Amazon came to town. As a nation, we haven’t built enough affordable housing. I’m trying to figure out the best way to help the woman living at the bus shelter. Every time my radiators start clanging, I think of her outside, buried under blankets. I’m painting and perfecting my apartment, proudly posting updates on social media, and she’s just a few blocks away with only two sheets of plexiglass to block the wind. I took some hand warmers along with a hot meal today. On Thanksgiving someone else pulled up and dropped off food as I was leaving; I’m guessing that was a church group or nonprofit so donating to those organizations is a good option. She’s clearly on folks’ radar but I’m not sure that’s very reassuring. She’s not invisible, but she’s still living outdoors. How many bus drivers pull up to that shelter day and night, see her, and then move on? The shelter is across the street from the AKA headquarters so I reached out to them today. They have a housing fund so maybe their sorors will have suggestions on the best way to help. I have a lot to be thankful for as we head into the holidays but it’s not enough to just count one’s blessings. Last weekend I was interviewed for a TV report on youth activism. Kids are already leading the way when it comes to climate change and gun violence, and children bravely faced police dogs and fire hoses during the civil rights movement of the ’50s and ’60s. I’m not going to tell my young readers what to do, but I’m definitely going to make them aware of some problems that need solving…

dust

Everything in the apartment is covered in a thin layer of dust. My painter goes to great lengths to seal off the room he’s working in but despite his best efforts, plaster dust travels past sheets of plastic to settle everywhere. Wipe once, and there will be streaks. Same with mopping. I woke up with a migraine this morning so I’m just puttering around the apartment, wiping at the dust with a wet cloth, waiting, going back to wipe the surface again. I have three appointments today so hope to be fully operational by noon. There’s an eclipse coming this week and my horoscope suggests I “go dark” in order to “recharge, refuel, regenerate.” I’m definitely ready to hibernate but it’s hard when my home is still so disordered. I thought the dining room was done and planned to rearrange the furniture but now white spots are showing through the black paint…I think the painter has applied three coats already but maybe a fourth will be required. The office is still off limits so that leaves the kitchen, living room, and bedroom. Just heated up some soup, feel ready for a nap, and will hopefully be more alert for my phone conference and zoom. The Global Read Aloud international raffle produced a winner in Kenya! Looking forward to meeting those young readers soon. I heard from a school in Alaska last week and arranged to meet them next month; I saw on Twitter today that classes are sending postcards to one another and some plan to read the sequel together as well. I love that these GRA connections are being extended…I imagine many children have felt quite isolated during the pandemic and are eager to connect—with and without screens. Plans for the January launch of The Witch’s Apprentice are underway and I’m meeting this week with my publicist in Toronto. I need to make the most of the next few weeks because I think the new year is going to be busy…hopefully by then my apartment will be dust-free!

under the sea

I went to the Shedd Aquarium for my birthday. A few days earlier I was working at my desk; relative to the rest of the apartment, it’s quite tidy. Next to the lamp and vase is a piece from my grandfather’s desk set. I remember being fascinated by it as a child. I think it was a gift from his eldest son Gerald who lived in British Columbia. If I recall correctly, there was a letter holder (which I now have), a letter opener (which my mother has), and a pen stand that doubled as a paper weight. All are like tidal pool snow globes—there was even a tiny crab or sea horse that floated underneath the glass. My letter holder mostly has mother of pearl shell fragments and it was clearly dropped at some point and fixed with what looks like wood glue…I have vivid memories of so many items from my childhood (my grandparents’ manse in particular), and I’m adding some of those remembered colors to my apartment. The yellow chaise arrived on Friday; it matches the Tahitian landscape painting by Gauguin that used to hang in our home. I got teal velvet chairs for the dining room table, matching my grandmother’s tablecloth and the felt that lined her silver chest…what brings us comfort is a curious thing. We can’t recreate the exact feeling we had in certain spaces in the past but just a hint of the remembered moment or place seems to suffice. There’s a tiny sea horse in the corner of this underwater tableau from the aquarium. I couldn’t help wondering if it was content. Zoos are always a mixed bag; it’s thrilling to see these creatures up close but then you consider how limited their life is…sea otters shouldn’t be kept in a tank. Dolphins shouldn’t be doing tricks to entertain humans. If you’re born in captivity, do you even know what it means to be free? I finished the novel on Friday and turned it in right on time. Now I’m navigating my post-project slump…yesterday I just wanted to rest but now I’ve got to come up with a plan. I think November will involve a lot of museums, maybe a matinee for the first time in over a year…the sponge that is my brain has been wrung dry and so I’ve got to soak it with art and nature…the leaves are finally starting to turn. I bought ingredients to make a pot of vegan chili and my dear friend Satia just gave me a book about Black food…I’ve decided to write a poem a day for the month of November and I want to finish The Boy in the Lake, maybe Ola’s Dream, too. For now, I’m heading out to have tea with friends at a swanky hotel. Then I’ll be handing out books to kids in my condo complex. I hate Halloween but I do love seeing the little ones all dressed up…

grace

It’s not yet noon but I’ve clocked 11K steps…many of them earned by going up and down the back stairs as I clear out the apartment. Some things go in storage in the basement, some things get recycled, some things can’t be bagged and go straight into the dumpster. I didn’t sleep well on Thursday night but had a full day on Friday and so went to bed early to “catch up.” I always said I wouldn’t be that woman (my mother) who obsessed over calories and the number on the scale. I do count other things, though—like my steps, and think it’s important to know when I’ve been sitting in front of the computer all day and ought to take a walk. Yesterday I hopped on the treadmill while watching the news and didn’t meet my daily step goal but still stretched my legs. I worked in my office all day; it isn’t yet painted but has a functional layout and lots of plants and sunshine. The painter was working in the living room and that’s where my router is so wifi in that back office is spotty. Which helps, really—I definitely write more on the days when I’m forced to work offline. That will be part of my memory of this novel: having contractors in and out of the apartment, having stuff everywhere, having to find corners of order where I can focus and write. This morning I woke up early, as always, and dreaded all the things I knew needed to be done around the apartment. The painter’s doing other jobs next week so things are in limbo. Like the living room, the kitchen is mostly done so today I’m moving everything back in even though it looks so much better when the room is empty. I wanted a blank slate in that space and now I’ve got it, though the missing baseboards look ghastly. This morning I filled the gaps with steel wool to deter any critters and then taped up strips of white paper to serve as temporary baseboards. I know that says something about me…that I can’t bear to have anything mar the pristine whiteness of the kitchen. A friend from Toronto left a comment on IG noting that I seemed to handle upheaval with grace. I wish! I’ve been alternately grumpy and blue and too busy to fix a lot of small things. Why bother when the big glaring issues haven’t been fixed? But doing things makes me feel better so I got busy this morning. Mopped and vacuumed before heading out for a walk instead of hitting the farmers market. But then I took a new route and wound up at the market anyway! Bought loads of bread and soup and vegan sweet treats. My tiny fridge is now packed—the freezer, too. I’m grateful for this abundance—the full fridge, my full heart, even the sense of purpose that comes from this never-ending To Do list. I walked home with a full bag and the city was so quiet…the leaves still haven’t started to turn but I spotted one tree in Woodlawn that stood out because it wasn’t entirely green. I passed the statue at the end of the Midway Plaisance that I wrote into The Witch’s Apprentice. When I visited it last fall, a class of tiny kids was admiring the student memorial to Breonna Taylor. All the artwork is gone now but I preserved some of the kids’ messages in my novel and the photo of Breonna is still visible, even from a distance. No one knows the guy the statue is meant to honor (Thomas Garrigue Masaryk), but for now, at least, they recognize Breonna’s face and can #SayHerName. Been thinking lately of the opening lines of “Tintern Abbey” by Wordsworth: “Five years have passed, five summers, with the length/of five long winters…” How do we measure our lives? Daily steps and calories are easy to track but how do we know we’re making progress as people? I read an article last week that urged people not to over-identify with their job. Try meeting someone new without leading with what you do for a living. It’s hard! I identify as a writer, an educator, a Black feminist. What else should I say about myself—what else IS there to say? Some kind (or deluded) soul nominated me for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, which I always thought of as a lifetime achievement type of prize. I haven’t spent my whole life writing for kids but it has been twenty years…and I’m ready to move on. But for now I’m focused on turning in The Enchanted Bridge before my birthday on Tuesday. On Friday I talked to a set of film producers about Dragons in a Bag and I’m talking to an animation director on Monday; I’m letting everyone know how disastrous the first film deal was and don’t intend to repeat that experience. Next month (which is just one week from now!) I will decide whether I want to find a structural engineer to help me plan the kitchen renovation. Right now, I’m satisfied with having a clean, functional space that isn’t pink! I can hear the sparrows chattering as they peck at the suet on the back porch and hopefully I’ll find a way to put a stool right in front of that window—another sunny place to daydream. Once this novel is done, I can spend more time outside of the apartment. Being here all day every day while contractors work can make me more anxious than I usually am. My birthday is Tuesday and I think I’m going to visit the Shedd Aquarium. I prefer a low-key celebration so will spend the day on my own and then meet up with friends later in the week. Edi drove out from IN on Thursday and it was SO nice to break bread with her again! She graciously looked past the chaos and only had kind things to say about my messy apartment. Because that’s what friends do—they look past your flaws and focus on the best parts of you. I’m going to try to do the same…with my home and myself.

turn

This morning I woke up wishing the heat was on in our building. I broke out the space heater last night and had a blanket draped over my legs as I worked on my laptop. Outside, the leaves stubbornly remain green here in Chicago. Inside, my painter has made great progress in the kitchen; the cracks in the plaster have been filled but there’s still a fair bit of pink to be seen and the window seems to be sealed shut. With caulk. I’m at 33K words with this novel and thought I’d wrap up tomorrow at 35K but clearly that’s not going to happen when I’ve still got three chapters to finish. This fall the universe is definitely trying to teach me patience…and I really am trying to sit with the discomfort caused by my inability to make things happen on MY schedule. I want flame-colored leaves and clanging radiators and complete chapters that seamlessly flow into one another. But that’s not what I’ve got. This week the painter returns with an assistant so by Friday, the apartment should look very different. But if it doesn’t, I’ll have to just live this way for a little while longer. I ordered some furniture for the dining room but right now there’s nowhere to put it because that room holds everything emptied out of the kitchen, and everything I need to take to the basement storage locker, and all the boxes I’m afraid to throw out in case my new ceiling fans or light fixtures suddenly stop working. “A place for everything, and everything in its place.” According to my father’s unfinished memoir, he learned that proverb from his paternal grandmother. Well, Bertha would be mortified if she saw my apartment right now. I’m mortified but try to remind myself that it’s temporary. And not being done doesn’t mean progress isn’t being made. Writing a thousand words a day is still an accomplishment and the world won’t end because I missed my deadline by three or four days. Two weeks from now, the view from my window will look differently. I will be done with this novel and fussing over some new story. Then the leaves will fall, the trees will be bare, and winter will be here…

play time

Last night I spent three hours formatting my play so I could submit it to a competition here in Chicago. Might be a long shot, but I figured it was worthwhile since I now have a completed application that I can tweak for other workshop opportunities. Writing fiction is very satisfying for me but when it comes to theater, your words don’t really live until actors embody them on the stage. So this program offers playwrights of color the chance to have a director prepare a professional cast to read the play for the public. There’s another program for plays that haven’t yet been written and I already know I’m going to apply for that, too. Unless, by some miracle, I manage to finish that 2008 play before the competition opens in June 2022. I’m definitely ready to try my hand at something new, though I’m not a total amateur. I wrote nearly twenty plays between 2004 and 2008; some were staged but most were not. Writing plays for those years made the dialogue in my subsequent novels much stronger, I think. Has writing for children for a decade changed how I think about the theater? Definitely. Just as being a professor for a decade impacted the way I write for young readers. I’m revisiting my past lives lately…I think I’ve let go of my professor life, though I can’t seem to part with certain books because my notes are in the margins and what if I *do* teach that novel again? And I’m still easily seduced by gothic architecture and exploring the University of Chicago campus last week did make me feel a bit wistful. I used to get the blues in September but I think I was too busy with the move to slip into a funk this year. Now the leaves are starting to turn, the temperatures are dropping at night, and I just feel dreamy…too aware of too many possibilities in the world around me. The Boy in the Lake is blooming into a much longer, more complicated narrative. I haven’t finished The Enchanted Bridge but think I can finish a rough draft this weekend. I hoped to finish Ola’s Dream this fall…maybe even revisit central PA to do a bit more research. But mostly I want to enjoy these months without endless Zooms and speaking gigs. I fumbled my way through a Global Read Aloud Twitter chat this morning and was relieved not to have to set up my camera in order to participate; a class joined from Pickering, Ontario which is where I grew up! I went back to Evanston on Wednesday; I’m hoping to continue my weekly walks with Cozbi. Afterwards I stopped at Dollop for lunch as I always used to do when I lived up there. Something old, something new…that’s what we carry into a new life, right? The electrician returns on Monday and I should get two quotes from painters as well. I’ve had a few no-show contractors lately but I’m not letting that get me down. The IKEA guy is on his way over right now to assess and measure my kitchen. Mail was actually IN my mailbox today instead of on the floor of the vestibule. My desk was delivered as I got home from my walk; the box is practically demolished but hopefully the desk itself isn’t damaged. Will bring it up piece by piece and see if I can get it assembled today. Bit by bit, I’m piecing this new life together…

sparks

Today is Day One of the 2021 Global Read Aloud! It’s exciting to know that kids all around the world are about to meet my three dragons. I’m taking a much-needed break from school visits this fall but look forward to joining the #DragonPals21 Twitter chat on Friday morning and having my November conversation with GRA founder Pernille Ripp. Imagine—one educator had an idea to connect students around the globe and eleven years later, Dragons in a Bag is one of the titles bringing kid readers together. I try to read at least half an hour a day and am looking forward to curling up with one of the books I just checked out with my new Chicago Public Library card. I’ve been in my new home for one week and haven’t yet established a routine. Today I got up and moved things around so the electrician would have access to all the two-prong outlets that need replacing. Put the kettle on to make a cup of tea and two fuses blew, leaving the fridge and microwave with no power. The electrician got everything fixed when he arrived a couple hours later, but I came home from the library just now and the sleek new ceiling fan he installed today wouldn’t turn on. The manual says to check the fuse box but I don’t feel like heading into the basement right now. The wifi was a little spotty today while they were working but that actually helped me to focus on The Enchanted Bridge. I’m trying to write a thousand words a day to meet my 10/15 deadline and today I wrote nearly two thousand words (which is why I’m treating myself to a little HGTV tonight). I finished watching A Discovery of Witches over the weekend and felt relieved that my kid audience had no expectation of romance in my books. I am SO not a romantic and found myself zoning out whenever the lead witch was on screen, professing her eternal love for her vampire husband. Ugh. Sometimes you hear a story and tune out because you’ve heard it so many times that you know how it’s going to end. But then the storyteller introduces someone new—Satu, the weaver-witch from Finland—who’s just as powerful but isn’t blond and has no love interest and she’s SO much more interesting. And, of course, she got next to no screen time. I started a new novella the other day: The Boy in the Lake. What if Emmett Till lived in Lake Michigan? What if, what if, what if…that’s how all good stories begin…of course my head would fill with new story ideas just when I need to finish this dragon book. But once that spark is lit, there’s not much you can do…