Julie Mathison's Blog, page 3
February 1, 2021
Book launch event!
I'm celebrating the launch of VASILISA on February 23rd with this free virtual event! Some of you have read my first novel BELIEVE and some of you are new to my reading circle, but I hope you all can attend this pre-recorded event to find out a little more about VASILISA and help me celebrate its birthday. Tune in any time on the 23rd for a short reading and some sharing about the inspiration for the novel and my writing journey. Get your free ticket at the link below and I'll enter you into a drawing for a signed, hardcover copy!
Get Your Free Ticket Here
Get Your Free Ticket Here
January 25, 2021
New Hire
Starr Creek Press is thrilled to announce the addition of Risotto “Rizzo” Mathison to our editorial staff. Rizzo joins us from the peach farm down the street and brings to his new job absolutely no skills whatsoever. He is cute, though. He will start at the bottom of the ladder, tasting manuscripts, ambushing hard-working members of the staff, and sleeping on the job whenever he is left unattended for two minutes.
Chief editor Rosie Lou (pictured below, taking our new acquisition to task after a particularly upsetting incident involving kibble) was against the hire but was overruled by the board.
January 23, 2021
January 18, 2021
My Old Rus
Writing a novel inspired by Russian mythology is tricky. There’s not much in the written record. When scribes were recording every aspect of Greek, Roman or even Celtic mythology, Slavic lore existed in a largely oral tradition. Before I wrote Vasilisa, I immersed myself in the darkly mysterious fables themselves, tales which occupy a deep place in the Russian psyche. I also read whatever obscure texts I could get my hands on, in an effort to absorb the flavor, the mood, and some of the language of this unique, powerful, and mysterious land.
The Old Rus I created is a figment of my imagination, inspired by these texts. I hope it does justice to a culture that I fell in love with years ago. As a freshman in college, I took an anthropology class about peasant societies and was captivated by what seemed to me an exotic way of life. Harsh in their stark realities, strictly bound by tradition, these cultures were yet rich in unexpected ways — the intricacy of roles and relationships, the depth of community ties, the ability to find beauty in small, simple things.
Here’s a list of some things that make Russia special, as well as some fun facts your probably didn’t know.
1. Russia is the largest country on the planet, comprised of 6,601,668 square miles, the majority of which lie in Siberia. 60% of the country is forest, and almost half that forest is totally uninhabited by humans.
2. Old East Slavic, or Old Russian, was the language of Kievan Rus, the loose federation of East Slavic and Finno-Ugric peoples ruled by the Rurik dynasty from the 9th through 13th centuries. It is the chronicles from this period that inspired the mood of my fictional “Old Rus.”
3. Currently in Russia, there are around 11 million more women than men.
4. Boyars were the highest ranking strata of Russian, feudal society. The boyars of Novgorod began to dominate Kievan Rus in the 12th century, which led to the flowering of a democratic tradition, far in advance of other European cultures of the time. This promising start was halted by the rise of the Muscovite princes in the 14th century, in the aftermath of the Mongol invasions.
5. Russia is home to the coldest inhabited place on the planet – Oymyakon. On February 6, 1933, a temperature of −67.7 °C was recorded at its weather station.
6. The famous Russian wooden doll, the matryoshka is of relatively recent origin. The first doll was carved in 1890, designed by Sergey Malyutin, a folk crafts painter who was gifted a Japanese daruma doll, which had other dolls hidden inside it. Although inspired by that Japanese design, the doll is regarded as quintessentially Russian.
7. The icicles hanging from the gutters in Moscow in the dead of winter can be so enormous that the pavements below are cordoned off – for fear of mortal damage to the people below.
Since Vasilisa has been released to reviewers, I’ve heard from a reader in Transylvania and one in Ukraine, and I’m happy to report that — for them, at least — the book captured something of the magic of Slavic culture. Russia is sometimes seen as the lumbering bear, powerful yet encumbered by social stratification and a history of tyranny. It developed along different lines from its Western European neighbors, well into the 20th century, with a massive, agrarian peasant class, a small aristocratic elite, and relatively little in between. From the elite, the world inherited a rich literary and artistic tradition. From the peasantry, an equally rich oral tradition of lore that represents both brutality and beauty, oppression and resilience. The Russian bear makes its way, one foot in the east, one in the west, and both in some other place that is uniquely, mysteriously Russian.
More to come, so stay tuned! Vasilisa will be released to the public on February 23rd, but I’m always looking for advance reviewers, so if you want to take a peek, let me know!
Image: Interior of a peasant’s house with an oven, artist unknown: compliments of http://www.oldbookillustrations.com
January 5, 2021
The story behind BELIEVE
My parents split up when I was six years old.
They got back together when I was eight, but in those two years of loss and longing and learning, something miraculous happened. I became a writer — long before I first “picked up a pen.” It’s a story shared by many (if not most) writers: out of pain, loss or loneliness is born wonder, salvation, and ultimately craft.
Believe is semi-autobiographical, but I won’t spill the beans here about which parts aren’t true because I don’t want to be a spoiler. I will tell you some of the things that are true. Melanie’s beloved, dilapidated house is very like the one I lived in when I was eight, the year my parents reunited. It was in an quiet, residential neighborhood in Rochester, Michigan. I remember it being deliciously old, with odd angles on the second story, and a comfy, lived-in feel. We had a wall-sized painting in the living room just like the one Melanie’s father is painting in Believe, a three-dimensional wonder of colors, whorls and textures. And Fairview is a bit like Rochester, as I remember it, with a small town feel (at least then, in 1977), and kids riding their bikes without helmets down the big hill that ended, more or less, at our house.
We were all latch key kids and liked it that way.
Like Melanie, I used to watch the squirrels in the tree outside my bedroom window, and I did get up one morning for an early morning bike ride to watch all the stores open. I played with broken glass in the alley and can remember being captivated by the idea that the different colors were types of jewels. I liked to get “lost” on bike rides, and I definitely laid all my treasures from the public library out on the floor when I came home with an armload of books. I can still remember the sense of anticipation and wonder I felt as I contemplated which “place” I would go first.
Buckminster is a lot like the school I started attending when I was nine. Having reunited, my parents decided to make a fresh start all the way out west, in this town my mom had heard about when she was living in San Francisco. I was called Eugene, Oregon, reportedly where old hippies went to die. We moved there sight unseen, driving out west in our tin-can Honda Civic, coming over the Cascade mountains with our jaws in our laps because the fir trees and mountains and ferns and waterfalls were so darn pretty.
Corridor school was a public alternative school, newly minted. It occupied just one corridor of a conventional school and had a student body of about a hundred kids, first through sixth grades. We staged Peter Pan, but unlike Melanie, I played the part of Wendy. Singing and acting were my true loves, after reading, of course, so it was easy to imagine what it was like for Melanie, up on that stage, dreaming herself into another world. Most of the Buckminster teachers are inspired by ones I had at Corridor school — Mike, who in the book became Matthew Howard, Laurie, who became Laurelann Gorman, and the shop teacher, whose name now escapes me. And yes, we called our teachers by their first names.
Lastly, the emotional content for Believe was informed by my own parents’ separation. I knew what it felt like to circle that abyss, inside your child self, to scramble for purchase on shifting ground — and finally to find sanctuary in your own imagination.
It felt odd to write a book that was so true and so untrue at the same time. I had formed the idea for it some years before when I was pitching an agent. A couple of years later, I had secured a very good agent (although a different one) and we were shopping my book Vasilisa around to editors. On a flight to the Yucatan with my family, Believe fell together in my mind as I was looking out the window for eight hours, and I had an epiphany about Peter Pan and what a wonderful metaphor it was for Melanie’s plight. We flew home two weeks later, and the following day I came down hard with some gastrointestinal disaster that kept me laid up for a week. Towards the end of that time, as I lay on the couch, finally able to think, I started writing, and twenty days later, my first draft of Believe was done.
My agent loved it, and over the course of several revisions, I layered in more material, building on the skeleton of that first draft. Unlike many of my books, not much had to be discarded. It seemed like the book wanted to be written, like I couldn’t get home fast enough as I was out driving the car, maybe taking the kids to school or doing errands — and all the while, the book was writing itself in my head. That’s probably because it’s so close to home, and once I had Melanie’s voice, I pretty much had the whole thing.
An editor at HarperChildrens was interested in Believe and requested what seemed to be some pretty minor revisions. But in the meantime, my agent had told me that she didn’t feel she was the right agent for me. Neither Vasilisa nor Believe had sold on the first round, though both had received revision requests. This wasn’t unusual, but she had come to feel like she didn’t know how to market my work, how to guide me. At least, that’s what I took from her “Dear Julie” email, shortly before I broke down in tears. If you’ve never spent years trying to get an agent, this may seem extreme, but the truth is that it is very hard and competitive. You can’t pitch editors without an agent, so if you lose representation, you’re out of luck until you find someone new, and it seemed to me that would be even harder now, that I might be perceived as “damaged goods.”
I gave it a shot and started pitching to agents again, but my fears were borne out. Even though editors at two major houses had expressed interest in seeing revisions, no offers for representation came through. In the meantime, friends were encouraging me to “go indie.” I spent a lot of time researching this, and the more I learned, the more I felt it was right for me — less exposure, credibility and support, but more freedom, more ownership, and much shorter production times. I took the plunge, and that’s another story for another post.
Believe will always be close to my heart. It has proven to be a book for all ages. It is so special to have heard from both adult and teen-aged readers who found themselves awake in bed in the wee hours, finishing Believe with a pile of tissues at their bedside. The book has hit some readers in a really deep place, and because it comes from a deep place in me, I find this profoundly satisfying. There’s something about turning our pain into art that gives us distance and resolution. Melanie does this with her imagination, just as I did it when I invented Melanie as a proxy for my own child self.
So here’s to the imagination with it’s power to create, to heal, and to keep us company. May we all be as lucky as Melanie Harper!
Image attribution: free image, compliments of https://www.pexels.com; photo by Froken Fokus
December 29, 2020
New Kirkus review of BELIEVE!
Believe by Julie MathisonCheck out the latest review of BELIEVE from Kirkus Reviews!
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
View all my reviews
December 20, 2020
November 15, 2020
VASILISA cover reveal!
Coming in February! I was really pleased with the beautiful artwork of my cover designer, Robin Vuchnich. I can’t wait to share with you all the adventures of Vasilisa, Ivan and Evelyn as they journey to Old Rus and encounter all manner of witches, sprites, dragons and ogres — and perhaps most importantly, their own fears and limitations. Stay tuned!
October 26, 2020
A Bit About Me... Part Two
Securing an agent. Ahhhh… Every aspiring writer’s dream. NOW, things will really get going, you tell yourself. And for many, that’s exactly how it goes. My agent was really good — young, smart, with best-selling authors to her name. She was excited about my work and got right back to me every time I sent in a revision. We worked together, brainstorming ideas. I enjoyed this, although sometimes, I wondered if I were losing some of my own vision for my books. I would encounter things like, “I’m sorry, you can’t have a middle grade novel with chapters from an adult’s point of view.” Really? So I rewrote it from my main character’s point of view. I didn’t like it as much, but hey, I was going into the big leagues! Compromise, schmompromise (that sounded better in my head).
(Spoiler alert — read Vasilisa when it comes out in February and find out what the chapter sounds like from the father’s point of view!)
My agent and I worked through Vasilisa, getting it ready to be submitted to editors. I have her to thank for my character Evelyn, who was originally a boy named Freddy. In fact, when I was first subbing the manuscript around to agents, she asked me, “can you rewrite Freddy as a girl?” I did, and it was that partial revision that convinced her to take on the project. Things proceeded apace (I just wanted an excuse to use that phrase), and out went the manuscript to all the big houses and the little imprints they’ve gobbled up over the years. Macmillian, Hachette, Harper Collins, and so forth, and the boutique houses like Candlewick. I waited with bated breath (perhaps I should have baited it?).
Here’s what I hadn’t bargained for when I set out on my publishing journey. I knew that I would need to secure an agent — and that meant convincing an individual reader to fall in love with my work. But I hadn’t realized there was an individual reader at the doorstep of each publishing house as well — with their own tastes and predilections, their own interpretations of the collective, industry wisdom. Vasilisa got lots of praise, but each editor had a different consideration. Was the voice firmly middle grade? Would it be able to reach a wide enough audience? Was it too old fashioned? One editor had already acquired a Baba Yaga inspired novel, go figure. There was a trend to industry thinking, but also an idiosyncratic strain. Each editor had their own personal tastes. The “industry” was confident it had figured out who the reader was and what she wanted, but the individual editor had her own take on that — and she had to love the book enough, personally, to want to work on it for months.
In the meantime, I had written Believe, which is a mash up of my own childhood. I wrote the first draft in twenty days — it just poured out. And then I went back and layered in another ten thousand words. My agent loved this one too, and we made the rounds again. In the end, we had secured requests to see a revision on both Vasilisa and Believe, but no sales on the first round.
I waited for the other shoe to drop (ouch!).
Perhaps it was the whiff of desperation that led me to start another project. After all, this was how I’d always dealt with setbacks. Start something new! As I was busy revising the first two manuscripts, I set to work on the first installment of the Canary House Mysteries, set in 1931 and featuring twin, female sleuths. I entitled it The Starlet Letter. My agent liked the first few chapters I sent, and yet — what was it, exactly? Not quite middle grade, nor YA, nor even adult. Once again, my voice had flummoxed the system. It’s a talent.
I got the email a few days later. I don’t think I’m the right agent for you. I knew what this meant. It had been incredibly hard to secure an agent the first time around. Who wanted someone else’s sloppy seconds? But at a deeper level, I knew I just didn’t fit in those industry boxes. Oh sure, there are spectacular voices that break out of those boxes all the time. But I sensed that wasn’t going to be me. My path lay a different way.
I cried a lot about losing my agent. She represented my long-held dream of “making it.” This dream came with a lot of strings attached. For one thing, I was dependent on other people to make or break me. I had given away my power so much over the years, I no longer noticed it. But now, I had to take a good look at myself. Did I believe in my work? Yes, I did. My friends had been urging me for years to try self publishing, but I had always looked down on that as something for people who couldn’t “make it.” But here I was, having been down the traditional road. I had discovered, for myself, that getting through that door wasn’t just a matter of talent and perseverance. The gatekeeper system in necessary, in its way. But the end result is that the taste-makers become, not the creators of the work, but the gatekeepers themselves.
With self-publishing, it was a wide open field. My fellow writers were not competing with me for the gatekeeper’s approval. They were my colleagues, sharing insights into what had worked for them. There were enough readers for everyone. And most importantly, they weren’t courting the agents and editors — they were courting the readers themselves, directly. Who were my readers? What did they want? How could my book be as good as possible?
And it was all up to me.
Next time, our intrepid indie author discovers the silver lining of a global pandemic: lots of time on one’s hands to learn things like, how to typeset and create a website!
P.S. What’s the bike about? I just think it’s a cool picture! We saw this bike in Rome, parked just like this by the riverside. It makes a good metaphor for knowing when to abandon outmoded ideas, don’t you think?
(Spoiler alert — read Vasilisa when it comes out in February and find out what the chapter sounds like from the father’s point of view!)
My agent and I worked through Vasilisa, getting it ready to be submitted to editors. I have her to thank for my character Evelyn, who was originally a boy named Freddy. In fact, when I was first subbing the manuscript around to agents, she asked me, “can you rewrite Freddy as a girl?” I did, and it was that partial revision that convinced her to take on the project. Things proceeded apace (I just wanted an excuse to use that phrase), and out went the manuscript to all the big houses and the little imprints they’ve gobbled up over the years. Macmillian, Hachette, Harper Collins, and so forth, and the boutique houses like Candlewick. I waited with bated breath (perhaps I should have baited it?).
Here’s what I hadn’t bargained for when I set out on my publishing journey. I knew that I would need to secure an agent — and that meant convincing an individual reader to fall in love with my work. But I hadn’t realized there was an individual reader at the doorstep of each publishing house as well — with their own tastes and predilections, their own interpretations of the collective, industry wisdom. Vasilisa got lots of praise, but each editor had a different consideration. Was the voice firmly middle grade? Would it be able to reach a wide enough audience? Was it too old fashioned? One editor had already acquired a Baba Yaga inspired novel, go figure. There was a trend to industry thinking, but also an idiosyncratic strain. Each editor had their own personal tastes. The “industry” was confident it had figured out who the reader was and what she wanted, but the individual editor had her own take on that — and she had to love the book enough, personally, to want to work on it for months.
In the meantime, I had written Believe, which is a mash up of my own childhood. I wrote the first draft in twenty days — it just poured out. And then I went back and layered in another ten thousand words. My agent loved this one too, and we made the rounds again. In the end, we had secured requests to see a revision on both Vasilisa and Believe, but no sales on the first round.
I waited for the other shoe to drop (ouch!).
Perhaps it was the whiff of desperation that led me to start another project. After all, this was how I’d always dealt with setbacks. Start something new! As I was busy revising the first two manuscripts, I set to work on the first installment of the Canary House Mysteries, set in 1931 and featuring twin, female sleuths. I entitled it The Starlet Letter. My agent liked the first few chapters I sent, and yet — what was it, exactly? Not quite middle grade, nor YA, nor even adult. Once again, my voice had flummoxed the system. It’s a talent.
I got the email a few days later. I don’t think I’m the right agent for you. I knew what this meant. It had been incredibly hard to secure an agent the first time around. Who wanted someone else’s sloppy seconds? But at a deeper level, I knew I just didn’t fit in those industry boxes. Oh sure, there are spectacular voices that break out of those boxes all the time. But I sensed that wasn’t going to be me. My path lay a different way.
I cried a lot about losing my agent. She represented my long-held dream of “making it.” This dream came with a lot of strings attached. For one thing, I was dependent on other people to make or break me. I had given away my power so much over the years, I no longer noticed it. But now, I had to take a good look at myself. Did I believe in my work? Yes, I did. My friends had been urging me for years to try self publishing, but I had always looked down on that as something for people who couldn’t “make it.” But here I was, having been down the traditional road. I had discovered, for myself, that getting through that door wasn’t just a matter of talent and perseverance. The gatekeeper system in necessary, in its way. But the end result is that the taste-makers become, not the creators of the work, but the gatekeepers themselves.
With self-publishing, it was a wide open field. My fellow writers were not competing with me for the gatekeeper’s approval. They were my colleagues, sharing insights into what had worked for them. There were enough readers for everyone. And most importantly, they weren’t courting the agents and editors — they were courting the readers themselves, directly. Who were my readers? What did they want? How could my book be as good as possible?
And it was all up to me.
Next time, our intrepid indie author discovers the silver lining of a global pandemic: lots of time on one’s hands to learn things like, how to typeset and create a website!
P.S. What’s the bike about? I just think it’s a cool picture! We saw this bike in Rome, parked just like this by the riverside. It makes a good metaphor for knowing when to abandon outmoded ideas, don’t you think?
October 11, 2020
A Bit About Me... Part One
My path to publication has been, to borrow a favorite lyric, a "long and winding road." I used to be an attorney and, as I quip on my website, "would write long briefs, making other people wrong on a part-time basis." I enjoyed law school because I'm crazy about ideas, and I love to get to the bottom of things. But I didn't like the practice of law, and deep down, I'd always wanted to write novels.
When I was pregnant with my first kid, Jacob, I took the plunge. I wrote Mab's Gate straight through, front to back, and said to myself -- ta da! Watch out world! Watch out, indeed. This was back in the days when you generally queried agents by snail mail with the help of the S.A.S.E. Did I mention that my son is now almost seventeen? Yeah, that long ago. I would occasionally get back nice handwritten notes from agents, even if they were taking a pass, which they invariably were. And for the next decade or so, when I wasn't practicing law part-time, homeschooling my kids, or chasing chickens and goats around our acreage, I was learning how to write good books.
I revised Mab's Gate more times that I can recall. In fact, I wrote two totally different versions -- with unique voices, plot points and everything -- and revised each of those many times. Kind of like Groundhog's Day on steroids. Then I had a brilliant idea. I could write a different book! So, I wrote Arcana, my homage to Something Wicked This Way Comes. I got very close to securing some excellent agents -- close, but no cigar (there's a nice 20th century idiom for you.) Then I had another brilliant idea. I could write a different book EVERY YEAR. That's when Vasilisa was born.
Vasilisa finally got me my top-notch agent, and phase two of my adventure was begun. Tune in soon for the next installment, but in the meantime, meet my chief editorial assistant.
Rosie is an avid hengi collector (that's how she says tennis ball, go figure). Her second favorite past-time is eating kibble and her third is chasing dabbits (again, sorry, she has something of a lisp).
When I was pregnant with my first kid, Jacob, I took the plunge. I wrote Mab's Gate straight through, front to back, and said to myself -- ta da! Watch out world! Watch out, indeed. This was back in the days when you generally queried agents by snail mail with the help of the S.A.S.E. Did I mention that my son is now almost seventeen? Yeah, that long ago. I would occasionally get back nice handwritten notes from agents, even if they were taking a pass, which they invariably were. And for the next decade or so, when I wasn't practicing law part-time, homeschooling my kids, or chasing chickens and goats around our acreage, I was learning how to write good books.
I revised Mab's Gate more times that I can recall. In fact, I wrote two totally different versions -- with unique voices, plot points and everything -- and revised each of those many times. Kind of like Groundhog's Day on steroids. Then I had a brilliant idea. I could write a different book! So, I wrote Arcana, my homage to Something Wicked This Way Comes. I got very close to securing some excellent agents -- close, but no cigar (there's a nice 20th century idiom for you.) Then I had another brilliant idea. I could write a different book EVERY YEAR. That's when Vasilisa was born.
Vasilisa finally got me my top-notch agent, and phase two of my adventure was begun. Tune in soon for the next installment, but in the meantime, meet my chief editorial assistant.
Rosie is an avid hengi collector (that's how she says tennis ball, go figure). Her second favorite past-time is eating kibble and her third is chasing dabbits (again, sorry, she has something of a lisp).
