Zetta Elliott's Blog, page 84

use it or lose it

Publisher's Weekly did a nice report on the children and YA events from the Brooklyn Book Festival. We had such beautiful sunshine that weekend and now we've got days and days of rain…perfect weather for curling up with a book. I'm re-reading Andrea Levy's The Long Song, which I didn't especially enjoy the first time around but thought it would make a good addition to my neo-slave narratives course. The students did NOT like the first hundred pages; hopefully they'll push on and search for meaning in the remaining 200 pages. I taught Wish last week—that was my first time teaching my own novel and it was a little uncomfortable for me. Do the students feel free to express their true opinion of the book knowing that the professor is the author? It's easier to gauge an audience of strangers. At Thursday night's reading at Outpost Lounge I was thrilled to meet a librarian who hosted my first author presentation back in 2009. I had connected with a group of literacy coaches and was invited to present Wish during their monthly meeting. I did a terrible job, if I remember correctly, but that librarian kept her copy of Wish and brought it along to Thursday night's reading. We had a small, supportive group and we talked about the importance of asserting our voices in this distressing political moment—I read for Troy Davis, an innocent man whose voice was silenced by the state of Georgia earlier this week. Use your voice or lose your power—that's how it goes in this country. Use it or lose it. I was proud to join the chorus of voices gathered by Toshi Reagon for the Word, Rock, & Sword festival.

Great Women Were Once Great Girls

Tomorrow! Join us at Outpost Lounge for a reading and author Q&A with me, Jacqueline Woodson, and Rita Williams-Garcia. It's part of Word, Rock, & Sword, a week-long women's art festival that features performances, screenings, classes and discussions at Manhattan and Brooklyn performance venues as well as yoga studios, cafés and bookstores, September 18-25. You can find the complete schedule here. Tonight at Brooklyn's Restoration Plaza you can see Christy Turlington Burns' directorial debut, No Woman No Cry:

BBF

I didn't sneeze once while I was out today and it was a glorious afternoon for a book festival. We had a great conversation about historical fiction, and it was a real pleasure meeting Judy Blundell, Nick Bertozzi, Victoria Sanders and TR (Tanya) Simon. There were lots of other authors on the plaza—I snapped a shot of Jacqueline Woodson and Christopher Grant. I even came home with a free BBF mug, which I promptly filled with honeyed tea…

Nick (with daughter Sabine) signing my copy of Lewis & Clark

me, Tanya, Judy, and Vicky

Jackie (and daughter Toshi) & Christopher

Don't forget that you can see Jackie, Rita Williams-Garcia, and me at the Word, Rock, & Sword reading on 9/22. The festival actually starts today—check out the complete schedule here.

Reimagining History—today!

I'm fighting off a cold with lots of tea and vitamin C—and finalizing my questions for the authors on my panel at the Brooklyn Book Festival (learn more at the BBF Facebook page). Hope to see you there!

1:00 P.M. Reimagining History. National Book Award winner and New York Times Bestselling author Judy Blundell (What I saw and How I lied, and Strings Attached), Coretta Scott King Award Winners, Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon (Zora and Me), and best-selling author Nick Bertozzi (Lewis and Clark) discuss what it takes to tap into and re-imagine unforgettable characters that bring us mystery and adventure wrapped in emotional and timeless settings. Moderated by Zetta Elliott, author of the novel A Wish After Midnight.

The Girl Who Swallowed the Sun

Ten years ago I was in Athens, OH. I won a dissertation fellowship at Ohio University, and had moved there about a week before 9/11. On that sunny morning I had gone for a run and when I returned to my campus apartment, my sister called from Toronto and frantically told me to turn on the TV. As I watched footage of the planes hitting the Twin Towers she kept saying, "It's over! It's over! You don't understand—they've already fallen." I finally hung up and tried to grasp what was happening—what had already happened—in the beloved city I had chosen as my home. I remember feeling very isolated in the weeks following 9/11; I wasn't teaching, I wasn't taking classes. I spent most of my days alone in my apartment—writing. Not my dissertation (on depictions of racial violence). I reread The Little Prince and immersed myself in stories for children. By November I was able to write this story, which has been rejected over and over by editors and won't likely be published now. I think maybe today's the right day to post it here on the blog.

 The Girl Who Swallowed the Sun

©  2001 by Zetta Elliott

To most people, Zoe looked like an ordinary little girl. She had dark brown eyes, and warm brown skin, and square white teeth with a gap in between.

Zoe had two quick hands that loved to clap, or bounce a ball, or turn a jump rope. She had two rather short but very strong legs that loved to run, and skip, and push the pedals of her bicycle as she rode down the block.

On the outside, Zoe looked just like an ordinary little girl—but she was special inside.

On cloudy days, Zoe and her father played a game. Daddy would stand by the window and look up at the sky. "I wonder where the sun is," he would say before casting a sly glance at Zoe.

Zoe put both hands over her mouth to keep the giggles inside.

"Zoe," Daddy would say as he peered into her laughing face, "did you swallow the sun?"

Zoe always shook her head, but Daddy never believed her.

"Are you sure, Zoe? I can see the sun peeking out from behind your brown eyes, and there are sunbeams coming out of your mouth. Your ears are glowing, and your belly is warm—I think you swallowed the sun!"

And Daddy would tickle Zoe all over until she cried out—"I did, Daddy! I did it! I swallowed the sun!"

Then her father would pick Zoe up and hold her while she put the sun back in the sky. Afterwards he would squeeze her tight. "You're my sunshine, and I love you," Daddy would always say.

And Zoe would hug her father back and whisper in his ear, "I love you, too, Daddy."

Monday was a cloudy day, so Zoe and her father played their special game. Tuesday was a sunny day. Zoe waved goodbye from the window as her father left for work. Then she ate her breakfast, took her mother's hand, and headed off to school.

Tuesday seemed like an ordinary day, but it wasn't. Something terrible happened that day.

Zoe knew something was wrong when Nana picked her up at school instead of Mama. Nana came before recess, took Zoe's hand, and walked home quickly without saying a word. Mama wasn't waiting for them when they got home.

Nana told Zoe she could play with her toys all afternoon, but Zoe didn't feel like playing. Nana held the phone in her lap and sat in front of the television whispering, SweetJesus SweetJesus SweetJesus over and over again.

Zoe stood by the window and waited for her parents to come home. Mama came home late that night, after Zoe had fallen asleep. But Daddy didn't come with her.

When Zoe woke up the next morning, Daddy still wasn't there. At breakfast Nana told her that school had been cancelled.

"You can play all day," said Nana with a strange, upside down smile.

But Zoe didn't feel like playing. She knew that something was wrong.

Zoe went out into the backyard and looked up at the sky. She waited for an airplane to glide overhead, but the sky was empty and silently blue. The wind blew gently, but the air burned the inside of her nose, and a bitter taste settled on her tongue.

Zoe knew that something terrible had happened. Even the birds seemed afraid to fly. The sun was still shining high above her, but Zoe felt cold inside.

Zoe stood alone with her shadow and wondered what she should do. Mama was in the kitchen, staring at the phone. Nana was still whispering in front of the TV. Zoe thought about her Daddy, and how much she missed him, and suddenly she knew just what she needed to do.

Zoe pulled herself up on the tips of her toes and threw back her head. She opened her mouth as wide as she could, and then Zoe—swallowed—the sun.

"I'll put it back when Daddy comes home," Zoe promised. Nobody heard her but the wind.

Soon it was time to go back to school. Zoe took her Nana's hand and headed down the street. Nana looked up at the pale, cloudy sky. "I wish the sun would come out," she said.

Zoe smiled a tiny, secret smile.

On the outside, she looked like an ordinary little girl. But on the inside, Zoe felt warm and full of light. No one seemed to notice that she had swallowed the sun.

Things had changed in Zoe's neighborhood since that terrible day. There were flags everywhere—even more than on the 4th of July. But there weren't any fireworks, and instead of celebrating, everyone seemed sad…or angry.

At school, some of Zoe's classmates were absent. Zoe sat alone at her desk and wondered what had happened to the quiet girl, Aaliyah, who always wore a pretty pink scarf over her head.

After lunch, Zoe's teacher taught the class a new poem called "The Pledge of Allegiance." Each morning Zoe stood up and faced the flag with one hand held over her heart.

As she read the words written across the blackboard, Zoe felt her heart beating inside her chest. She missed her Daddy more and more, but the sun inside of Zoe kept her heart warm and full of hope.

When Zoe got home from school that day, she found her mother standing by the window. "Hi, Mama," said Zoe as she hung up her coat. "Is Daddy home yet?"

Mama quietly shook her head and kept on looking at the sky.

Zoe crept up close to her mother. "What are you looking at, Mama?" she asked.

Mama laid her hand gently on Zoe's head. "Nothing, baby," she said.  "Just a hole in the sky."

Zoe put both arms around her mother and held on tight.

"Nothing will ever be the same again," she heard her mother whisper. Zoe wondered if Mama knew that she had swallowed the sun.

More days passed.

One morning Zoe woke up and looked outside her window. It was another cloudy day. Zoe lay in bed and wondered when her Daddy was coming home. She was tired of looking at the dull gray sky, and she longed to tell someone about the secret she was carrying inside. But who would believe her besides Daddy?

Zoe knew she looked like an ordinary little girl on the outside. But she no longer felt like doing ordinary things. Her hands didn't want to bounce a ball, or turn a jump rope, and her legs no longer liked to run, or push the pedals of her bike.

Plus something was happening inside of her. Some days the sun inside Zoe burned warm and bright. On those days Zoe used the golden sunbeams to chase away the shadows that kept creeping into her heart.

But on other days, the sun inside Zoe turned cold and dim. It weighed inside of her like a big heavy stone. On those days Zoe didn't have much room for food, and it took her a lot longer to walk home from school.

One day, after picking Zoe up from school, Mama suggested they stop at the playground before heading home.

Zoe looked up at her mother and smiled. They hadn't been to the playground since that terrible day. Zoe squeezed her mother's hand and felt a little bit lighter inside.

At the playground, Zoe went straight to the monkey bars and began to climb. When she reached the top, Zoe waved to her mother. "Look at me, Mama! Look at me!"

But Mama wasn't looking. She was staring up at the hole in the sky.

Zoe tried again.  "Look at me, Mama. Please?" begged Zoe.

But Mama just wrapped herself up in her arms and kept staring at the sky.

Zoe felt the sun inside of her grow heavy once again. As she climbed down from the monkey bars, Zoe lost her balance and fell onto the pavement.

Mama rushed over to her right away. "Baby, are you okay?"

Zoe had scraped both of her palms, and there was a cut on her knee.

Even though it hurt, Zoe didn't cry. She couldn't. The sun inside of Zoe had changed again. Now it felt like a little ball of fire stuck at the back of her throat. "I want to go home," was all that Zoe could say.

As soon as they got home, Mama cleaned and bandaged Zoe's cuts.

She kissed Zoe on the forehead and said, "There. All better?"

Zoe wanted to nod, but she didn't feel better at all.

Zoe pressed her lips together. Her secret was almost ready to come out. "Mama, when is Daddy coming home?" asked Zoe.

Mama looked at her for a moment and didn't say a word. Zoe could see the tears shining in her mother's eyes. Finally, Mama sat down in a chair and pulled Zoe onto her lap.

In a soft, steady voice, Mama talked about that terrible day. She told Zoe about the thousands of people who had lost their lives. Mama told Zoe that Daddy was one of those people.

Losing Daddy hurt much more than falling off the monkey bars. And this time, when Zoe wanted to cry, the sun inside of her didn't get in the way.

Zoe cried, and cried, and cried. Hot sizzling tears fell from her eyes as Mama held Zoe in her arms and rocked her back and forth.

After a long while, Zoe's tears began to cool and they fell more slowly than before. When she was ready, Zoe told Mama the secret she had been carrying around inside.

"Is that where the sun has been hiding all this time?" asked Mama.

Zoe nodded quietly. Then she said, "Mama, will you help me put the sun back up in the sky?"

Mama took Zoe's hand, and together they went out into the backyard. Mama picked Zoe up and held her close to the sky.

Zoe opened her mouth but nothing happened.

Then she remembered what her Daddy used to say whenever they played their special game.

Zoe tried again.

"You're my sunshine, and I'll always love you, Daddy," said Zoe.

Then Zoe opened her heart and put the sun back in the sky where it belonged.

Without the sun to fill her up, Zoe felt kind of empty inside. But Mama squeezed her tight.

"We'll always remember how much Daddy loved us, and what a special person he was," Mama said. "And don't ever forget, Zoe, that I love you, too, and you can always tell me what you're feeling inside."

"Will things get better now that the sun is back up in the sky?" asked Zoe.

"It's going to take some time," said Mama, "but I think everything's going to be alright."

Zoe and her mother hugged one another and the golden sunrays wrapped them in a warm embrace.

 

Word, Rock, & Sword

I'm so excited and honored to be included in this festival! Along with award-winning authors Jacqueline Woodson and Rita Williams-Garcia, I'll be reading on 9/22 as part of an evening we're calling "Great Women Were Once Great Girls: An Evening of Strong Girls in Fiction" (8-10pm at Outpost Lounge in Ft. Greene, BK). More details can be found on the Facebook page; you can also check out Toshi Reagon's website for more information.

 

What is Word*Rock*& Sword?

 

In response to the conservative political backlash against women's rights, the first Word, Rock, & Sword festival will unite New Yorkers for eight dynamic days of creativity, support and activism. Conceived by musician-activist Toshi Reagon, Word, Rock, & Sword offers performances, screenings, classes and discussions at Manhattan and Brooklyn performance venues as well as yoga studios, cafés and bookstores, September 18-25.

On Saturday, September 24, famed multimedia art cabaret Le Poisson Rouge will host Word, Rock, & Sword: A Musical Celebration of Women, featuring Tamar-kali, Toshi Reagon, Joan As Police Woman, Meshell Ndegeocello, Morley, Imani Uzuri, Slanty Eyed Mama, Arooj Aftab, and many other noted music artists.

Festival highlights also include a free screening of No Woman No Cry, a documentary by Christy Turlington Burns at Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Plaza on Wednesday, September 21. In this gripping directorial debut, Turlington Burns shares powerful stories of at-risk pregnant women in four parts of the world, including a remote Maasai community in Tanzania, a slum of Bangladesh, a post-abortion care ward in Guatemala and a prenatal clinic in the United States.

let "the help" tell their own stories

Need some help making sense of The Help? Then stop by Amy Reads and join her exploration of the REAL conditions of black maids working in white households. Amy and Amanda are using the recommended reading list prepared by the Association of Black Women Historians to address these concerns:

 

1. I'm all for authors having the option to write whatever they want. But for that to work, we need a level playing field where all people can tell their stories. If one group is profiting of the stories of another group, as seems to always happen, that is where the issue comes in. If you've read this book, have you also looked up similar works by African American authors? 

2. Way too many people are willing to see The Help as historical fiction and accept the view Stockett gives of a white woman helping the poor black maids who love their jobs. And if readers aren't willing to engage and seek out the truth, that is where the second issue comes in. In this book we have, essentially, a white-washed truth. So again, if you've read this book, have you also looked into some of the real truth of the civil rights movement?

I've read some of the novels on the reading list so will try to join in—how about you? Here are the books Amy and Amanda will be discussing:

Fiction:

Like one of the Family: Conversations from A Domestic's Life, Alice Childress

The Book of Night Women by Marlon James

Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neeley

The Street by Ann Petry

A Million Nightingales by Susan Straight

Non-Fiction:

Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph

To Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors by Tera Hunter

Labor of Love Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present by Jacqueline Jones

Living In, Living Out: African American Domestics and the Great Migration by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis

Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody

Reimagining History at the BK Book Festival 2011

I hope you'll attend our panel if you're in the tri-state area on September 18th! You can learn more about all the festival events at the BBF Facebook page.

1:00 P.M. Reimagining History. National Book Award winner and New York Times Bestselling author Judy Blundell (What I saw and How I lied, and Strings Attached), Coretta Scott King Award Winners, Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon (Zora and Me), and best-selling author Nick Bertozzi (Lewis and Clark) discuss what it takes to tap into and re-imagine unforgettable characters that bring us mystery and adventure wrapped in emotional and timeless settings. Moderated by Zetta Elliott, author of the novel A Wish After Midnight.

sucked in

I'm a little worried about this bog. The semester's about to start and I just created a blog for my job (check it out: CESatBMCC); I might need to take a break from Fledgling so that I can wear my professor hat all the time. Then again, do I ever really take it off? I'm sure topics will come up that I can't fully address on the work blog. This weekend I feel like I've been swept away…Hurricane Irene was pretty much what I expected—more of a tropical storm that didn't really disturb my life in any significant way (thanks to everyone who checked on me just the same!). Woke up this morning and the rain had already stopped and the wind was blowing gently enough for the windows to be reopened. I didn't lose power and I have food in the house but with the entire NYC transit system shut down, there isn't anywhere to go. So I'm doing what I usually do on a Sunday afternoon: daydreaming, writing, and watching PBS. A friend asked if I would be getting cable now that I'm working full-time; I'd like to get BBC America (no, not to watch Idris Elba) but it's hard to imagine anything on cable really competing with the programming on PBS. Global Voices is one of my favorite shows and they've got a great fall line-up. I just watched the tail end of a film about Robert Kennedy's visit to South Africa in 1966 (RFK in the Land of Apartheid). He concluded his visit with a speech at the University of Witwatersrand and these lines jumped out at me:

There are those who say that the game is not worth the candle – that Africa is too primitive to develop, that its peoples are not ready for freedom and self-government, that violence and chaos are unchangeable. But those who say these things should look to the history of every part and parcel of the human race. It was not the black man of Africa who invented and used poison gas or the atomic bomb, who sent six million men and women and children to the gas ovens, and used their bodies as fertilizer. Hitler and Stalin and Tojo were not black men of Africa. And it was not the black men of Africa who bombed and obliterated Rotterdam and Shanghai and Dresden and Hiroshima.

Genocide is not foreign to Africa, of course, but in that moment and in that space, it was incredibly powerful to have a white man speak those words. I want to warn my students away from racial chauvinism but there are moments when the comparisons are necessary. Anyway, my head's full of other things but maybe I'll try turning to the new novel. I'm incorporating current events like the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the massacre in Oslo. And now Irene will have a place in the story as well…

get ready to submit your story

About the Award

LEE & LOW BOOKS, award-winning publisher of children's books, is pleased to announce the twelfth annual NEW VOICES AWARD. The Award will be given for a children's picture book manuscript by a writer of color. The Award winner receives a cash grant of $1000 and our standard publication contract, including our basic advance and royalties for a first time author. An Honor Award winner will receive a cash grant of $500.

Established in 2000, the New Voices Award encourages writers of color to submit their work to a publisher that takes pride in nurturing new talent. Past New Voices Award submissions that we have published include The Blue Roses, winner of the Paterson Prize for Books for Young People; Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story, a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People and a Texas Bluebonnet Masterlist selection; and Bird, an ALA Notable Children's Book and a Cooperative Children's Book Center "Choices" selection.

Eligibility

1. The contest is open to writers of color who are residents of the United States and who have not previously had a children's picture book published.

2. Writers who have published other work in venues such as children's magazines, young adult, or adult fiction or nonfiction, are eligible. Only unagented submissions will be accepted.

3. Work that has been published in any format is not eligible for this award. Manuscripts previously submitted for this award or to LEE & LOW BOOKS will not be considered.

Submissions

1. Manuscripts should address the needs of children of color by providing stories with which they can identify and relate, and which promote a greater understanding of one another.

2. Submissions may be FICTION, NONFICTION, or POETRY for children ages 5 to 12. Folklore and animal stories will not be considered.

3. Manuscripts should be no more than 1500 words in length and accompanied by a cover letter that includes the author's name, address, phone number, email address, brief biographical note, relevant cultural and ethnic information, how the author heard about the award, and publication history, if any.

4. Manuscripts should be typed double-spaced on 8-1/2″ x 11″ paper. A self-addressed, stamped envelope with sufficient postage must be included if you wish to have the manuscript returned.

5. Up to two submissions per entrant. Each submission should be submitted separately.

6. Submissions should be clearly addressed to:

 

LEE & LOW BOOKS

95 Madison Avenue

New York, NY 10016

ATTN: NEW VOICES AWARD

7. Manuscripts may not be submitted to other publishers or to LEE & LOW BOOKS general submissions while under consideration for this Award. LEE & LOW BOOKS is not responsible for late, lost, or incorrectly addressed or delivered submissions.

Dates for Submission

Manuscripts will be accepted from May 1, 2011, through September 30, 2011 and must be postmarked within that period.

Announcement of the Award

The Award and Honor Award winners will be selected no later than December 31, 2011. All entrants who include an SASE will be notified in writing of our decision by January 31, 2012. The judges are the editors of LEE & LOW BOOKS. The decision of the judges is final. At least one Honor Award will be given each year, but LEE & LOW BOOKS reserves the right not to choose an Award winner.