Gail Gauthier's Blog: Gail Gauthier Reads, page 4

Some New Love For "Saving the Planet & Stuff"

The end of last month a new review of "Saving the Planet & Stuff" ran in The News-Gazette in Urbana, Illinois. Reviewer Deb Aronson starts out by saying, "It's not often these days that you read a middle-grade novel where there are intergenerational friendships. Gauthier does a great job both poking fun at and showing the marvels of friendships like this." She ends with "This outburst is especially striking since Michael could just as easily be describing himself." As a family member who read the review said, "She gets it."

Yes, I was delighted.

Interesting point: I was in Illinois the weekend before the review ran. In fact, my traveling companion assures me we were very near Urbana.

I need to travel more.

A slightly different version of this post appeared at Original Content.

An Ode to an Ode

Slate has a wonderful article by Johanna Winant, All Our Work Holds Good, about poet Donald Hall's Ox-Cart Man. Among other things, Winant describes how the text of the book was originally a slightly different poem with a different tone.

Donald Hall died last month.

I loved this book when my children were young. I saw it as a tribute to everyday life, something I'm interested in with art. (By the way, Barbara Cooney won the Caldecott Medal for her illustrations for this book.) I read the book a number of times with my kids and think it's time to gift a copy to some other family members.

It would be wonderful to find this book promoted in bookstores this summer as part of a Hall memorial-type display, a way to introduce children to adult poetry. Or just to a really good picture book.

A slightly different version of this post first appeared at Original Content.

"Saving the Planet & Stuff": Twitter Edition

A Twitter marketing push for the Saving the Planet & Stuff eBook wasn't one of my objectives for this year, but it seems like something that ought to be connected to my annual goal of Community Building/General Marketing/Branding. So it's okay that I've spent some time on a Twitter edition of the book. Really. It is.

Now, I published the eBook edition of STP&S a few years back. In traditional publishing, no one would be making a new marketing effort for a book that old. (The hardcover edition published by G.P. Putnam's Sons is even older.) But this isn't a traditionally published book, it's a self-published book. And, to me, a big reason for self-publishing is that you can do things you wouldn't do with a traditionally published title. You don't have to follow any marketing rules, beyond not being any combination of tasteless, needy, and dishonest. I'm going to try to pull that off.

So What Are You Doing, Gail?

I'm using quote images on Twitter for this particular plan. I got the idea for quote images from the article 5 Fresh Ideas For Promoting An Indie Book at the Writer's Edit website. I probably stumbled upon this Fresh Ideas thing through Twitter, to be honest. You know. A tweet? (And, yes, I do try to avoid reading listicles and any article with a number in the title. I am ashamed, but just a little.) When it came time to decide what quotes from Saving the Planet I should use, I decided to use enough to do a Twitter version of the book, tweeted over an entire month.

My computer guy created the images for me. He didn't use a "graphic design tool" as described in the Writer's Edit article. Because real computer guys don't need no stinkin' graphic design tool. I have no idea how he does these things. He is a mystery.

Why July?

In the past, I've promoted Saving the Planet as an environmental book because it has an environmental setting and the plot involves an environmental issue. But the book also involves a summer vacation and a summer job. And it's funny. It could just as easily be described as a summer book. Thinking of the STP&S in this new way opens up a new marketing opportunity. Especially since it is summer. You know...a summer book...it's summer now...

July is the first full summer month, a month when some people find themselves with extra reading time. July leads into August, which might end early as far as summer vacations are concerned, but people still can be doing some summer, light reading then.

What Do You Actually Hope To Achieve, Gail?

Well, it would be great sell a few books.
If I got a couple of decent Goodreads or Amazon reviews out of this, I wouldn't complain.
It would be terrific if I collected a few new Twitter followers who enjoy the Twitter version of STP&S.
Computer Guy and I will have gained the experience of running this new, to us, marketing strategy. In fact, depending on what kind of response I get to this effort, I might tweet some quote images related to one of my eBooks published by Putnam.

Doing Anything Else For This Promotion, Gail?

I hope to get a few blog posts up about STP&S next month and finally create a Pinterest board related to this book, one that I've had in mind for well over a year. Improving my use of Pinterest is one of my objectives for the Community Building/General Marketing/Branding goal, so, good work, me.

A Tasteless Mention of Money

I've instructed Amazon to drop the price of STP&S to $1.99, and I'll keep it there for the month of July. After the beginning of August, it will go back up to $2.99.

So those of you interested in book marketing and/or Twitter might want to follow me at gail_gauthier and look for #STPStwittered. You can also keep checking back here to see how this diabolical plan of mine works out.

A slightly different version of this post appeared at Original Content.

A Short Retreat Makes For A Great Afternoon

I spent last Sunday afternoon at a nature writing retreat sponsored by the Connecticut Forest and Park Association and run by author Katherine Hauswirth. It was not what I’d expected, and yet a very good experience. Because I’m in to that mind-of-the-beginner thing. I can be open.

So Here’s What Happened

I heard about this nature writing retreat that would start with some sharing of nature writing, a brief group discussion of writing approaches, themes, and formats. Then we’d spend time in nature (going for a walk) and engaging in the writing process. I jumped right on this because I hear “nature writing” and what do I think? I think “nature essays.” And I write essays! I have a couple of nature-ish essays on my hard drive! I have those blog posts I’ve done about snowshoeing! This retreat was only 4 hours long, it was a half hour from my house, and it cost $20. Seriously, who wouldn’t jump on this?

Well, the first thing I figured out during the brief group discussion was that “nature writing” does not automatically mean “nature essay.” It can be poetry, journals, almanacs… We were not talking a straight essay retreat, I just thought we were, because that’s how my mind runs. Essay, essay, essay.

The second thing I figured out was that I was way over my head with this crowd as far as reading nature writing is concerned. To me a nature writing book is Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit, which is, obviously, about walking. I got it at the library, maybe eight years ago. These people were reading books about spring and mushrooms. They own these things and have just read some of them.

But There's Always Something To Take From Every Experience, Right? Right?

We had about two and a half hours between the 45-minute intro and the 45-minute wrap-up. During that time I:

Went for a walk with the group. While out in the woods I learned that Connecticut has fairy shrimp in its vernal pools.
Got an idea for the framing I need for another, totally not nature essay.
Went back to the meeting room.
Read Katherine's terrific handouts.
Looked up Ron Harton on-line; Katherine referred to him in her handouts.
Read some nature poetry.
Had a revelation that nature writing may be observational while the two nature-ish essays I have on my hard drive are more in the area of recollection, even though they do involve recalling natural situations. That might make them memoir, rather than nature writing.
Used some of the points Katherine makes in her handout to try to come up with some changes for my nature-ish essays.
Decided one of my nature-ish essays needs a different tone, which has nothing to do with nature writing.
Bought a copy of Katherine Hauswirth's book, The Book of Noticing.
Ate some pretzels and listened to some George Winston on my phone.

Spending a Sunday afternoon reading about and talking about writing, even a type of writing that I don't actually do, was...both relaxing and stimulating at the same time. I would appreciate a retreat like this about travel writing and food writing. Oh, yes. Food writing.

I'll jump on something like that.

Cybils History

Last Friday, Tanita Davis of Finding Wonderland did a great job in Cybils Countdown of explaining Cybils history. Among other things, she said of the big name children's book awards "...sometimes "literary" doesn't take into account "beloved." In 2006, the Cybils Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards were founded to address that particular issue."

Her post reminded me of something I saw at a professional listserv of academics and reviewers a few years after the Cybils were started. Someone had been following the nominations at the Cybils website and posted a message asking where were __________, _________, ___________ (that year's big name books that everyone was talking about)? Those titles needed to be part of any award consideration, he insisted. To which I responded, "That's not the point of the Cybils." (Or something like that. This was years ago, after all.)

The point of the Cybils, as Tanita says, is to "discover books that might not be famous or popular, but which have both literary merit and kid appeal." And then the Cybils brings them to the attention of readers.


The Cybils' Place In The Childlit World

In the childlit world, there's a big focus on awards, which are announced at the beginning of the year. (This year, just this past Monday.) It's not unusual for bloggers to start writing about next year's possible Newbery and Caldecott winners in March or April. We're in the middle of the Olympics, so I'm going to make an Olympics analogy. Get ready. Here it comes. Starting to focus on the "contenders" so early is like beginning to count medals on day three of the Olympics. It distracts from all the competition that is still going on. The book award talk narrows the literary conversation to a relative handful of children's books when there are thousands published every year.

This isn't terrific for writers who aren't being talked about, of course. But it's particularly bad for readers who don't get a chance to hear about books that might be more to their liking than those that the award predictors embrace. For instance, historically, humor books and science fiction haven't turned up regularly among Newbery winners. Regency novels, mysteries, sports stories...you don't see these a lot on award lists. Only recently have we started seeing books with diverse characters and situations at all, let alone on the podium. (Another Olympics reference.) But all those books are out there. I've read a couple of terrific Regency novels for YA over the last couple of years. And I've just started seeing alternative history. There are readers who want to know about these books. There are readers who might be reading more if they could find these types of works. But with childlit talk often being about award contenders, will the word get out?

And that's what the Cybils does differently. It broadens the literary conversation, because it isn't one award, it's multiple awards, hitting fiction for both younger and older readers, picture books, graphic novels, speculative fiction. And unlike other awards, all the books being considered are out in front of the public at the Cybils website for the two months leading in to the release of the short lists. And anyone with a lit blog can throw a title in the ring. You don't have to be a traditional childlit gatekeeper to be part of the process.

So, to wind up things, I'll say that the Cybils are an Olympic effort, broadening the scope of the books considered and awarded. That makes them particularly valuable to readers.

A slightly different version of this post appeared at Original Content

My "Horn Book" TBR List

I caught up on my Horn Book reading during my retreat week earlier this month, though I appear to have lost one issue. At any rate, here are the books I read about that I’m particularly interested in:

July/August 2017

The Special Ones by Em Bailey. When my kids were young, I read a lot of edgy, interesting childlit and YA novels from Australia. This sounds as if it could be another. It also sounds as if it could have a bit of a Never Let Me Go thing going on. YA

Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth by Frank Cottrell Boyce. I like the alien-human save the world premise here, though I do think it’s one I’ve seen before. Additionally, I liked one of Boyce’s earlier books. Not crazy about the grandfather situation described here, which I think has become a cliche in children’s lit. Middle grade

The Fashion Committee by Susan Juby. I loved one of Juby’s adult books. This is described as a comedy with things to say. YA

Our Dark Duet by Victoria Schwann. Follow-up to This Savage Song, which I read last year and liked. YA

And Then There Were Four by Nancy Werlin. I’ve read some of Werlin’s thrillers. This is described as a “psychological page-turner" and involves high school kids being killed off by an interesting group. I want to read more YA thrillers this year, anyway. It’s an objective for one of my goals.

A lot of the books that interested me from this issue were by authors I already know. Let’s see what happens with the next issues.

September/ October 2017

Jasmine Toguchi Mocha Queen by Debbi Michiko Florence This book has shown up on the CCLC a couple of times and is written by a NESCBWI colleague. I’m interested because it’s a book for younger readers that’s about something different. And at the same time, it’s not. You have the eight-year-old child who feels a need to compete with family members, which is the not different part, but she lives within a culture I’m not familiar with, which is different. Shallow me. That’s why I’m interested in diverse books. I want to read something different. Younger readers.

The Night Garden by Polly Horvath. This is described as a madcap comedy set during WWII, so it has both humor and history for me. Also, I’ve never read anything by Horvath, who has been around for a while. Middle grade

When I Am Through With You by Stephanie Kushner. Another YA thriller for my YA thriller reading objective.

Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart YA thriller. See above.

You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins. First, I will be upfront and say I am acquainted with the author, to the point that we’ve actually met in the carbon-based world a few times. Additionally, this sounds as if it might be a multi-generation book, something I was fond of as an adolescent. Also, there’s a character who sounds as if she becomes a Bollywood star, something I don’t see every day in my childlit/YA reading. YA

November/December 2017

I have no idea what became of this issue. It sure didn't make it to my retreat site.

January/February, 2018


Nothing by Annie Barrows. The premise for this book is fantastic. Two teenagers realize that they’d make poor YA novel characters because they don’t live the eventful lives they see in books. So one of them decides to write a book about them. YA written by the author of the Ivy + Bean books for younger readers, which I’ve liked.

Pashmina by Nidhi Chanani. A graphic novel featuring a trip to India. Middle grade

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson. A mystery with a setting in my home state. I liked Johnson’s Suite Scarlett. YA

The Inevitable Victorian Thing by E K Johnston. Alternative history, which I don’t think I’ve seen much of for young readers. Brings the Victorian era into the present. YA

Escape From Syria by Samya Kullab with illustrations by Jackie Roche and color by Mike Freiheit. A graphic novel about a family dealing with what’s happening in Syria. Material I haven’t seen before and wish I knew more about. Middle grade

The Big Lie by Julie Mathew. More alternative history, this time dealing with the Nazis conquering Britain in 1940. I think this may be a common setting in adult alternative history (the Farthing books by Jo Walton, for instance), but I haven’t see it before for kids. YA

Who Killed Darius Drake? by Rodman Philbrick. A mystery with a tough kid (maybe bully?) providing protection for a social outcast who is being threatened. Middle grade

The Secret of Nightingale Wood by Lucy Strange. A historical novel set post-WWI, one of my favorite periods. Though I seem to have a lot of those. Middle grade

I haven’t listed any nonfiction, but there is fascinating looking stuff featured in all these issues. A wealth of interesting subjects.

My Year In Books

"I am active on Goodreads for one reason--it keeps track of my reading and gives me an account at the end of the year. This year I read 45 books, nothing to write home to Mom about. This is down from 83 books last year. Well, that's 2017 for you.

I'm not sure if I read more adult books this year than last, but some of my 2017 adult reading wasn't very gripping. In fact, there was one particularly lengthy one that was quite a chore to get through. I kept at it believing that I was improving my self-discipline.

I don't feel all that improved.

I considered setting some kind of reading goal for this next year, but I'm not comfortable with that. Reading is sort of spiritual. (Though maybe not when you read the kind of books I was reading last year.) Should you set goals for something spiritual? Will having a goal make me feel pressured and wreck my reading mojo?

I do hope I break 50 books this year, though."

This post originally appeared at Original Content.

What Have You Been Doing These Last Two Months, Gail?

Well, I did make thirteen submissions, six of them as part of the September Twitter Pitch Madness. I wrote seven blog posts. I made twenty entries in my idea journal. I came up with an idea for a new major writing project. So I can't say I did absolutely nothing.

However, I had a fleeting thought when I first stopped working back in August that I might do something meaningful…profound…even spiritual…while I wasn’t working. Then when I went back on the clock, I would be changed. In a positive way, of course, a way that would make me a finer human being, or, better yet, a finer writer.

Yeah, well, as you may recall, I dropped off the work bandwagon because dealing with various family issues meant I could only work three or four hours a week, and the effort to keep trying for more was making me nuts. Turns out that I can’t do anything particularly meaningful, profound, or spiritual in three or four hours a week. Though I did change my daily schedule around so that I no longer exercise right after eating. So there's that. That's kind of meaningful.

This Was Disturbing

In the early days (many days) of not working, I had this fatalistic feeling that I might not ever be able to go back to work. (Given how this upcoming first week back in the harness is turning out in terms of still more family commitments, I wasn’t being melodramatic.) I didn’t actually want to work at that point, but at the same time I felt as if I was nobody and nothing without working.

A couple of weeks in to my family leave, my husband was finally driving again after his shoulder surgery, which meant that after a meet up at an elder’s place, we went our separate ways. For the first time since May, I didn’t have some place I needed to go instantly. But, remember, I didn’t work. What was I going to do?

I don’t work, I thought. I don’t have to go home. I don’t have to go anywhere.

So I went to Michael’s and bought, maybe, three hundred of those little things for holding pierced earrings in your ears. Then I went over to T. J. Maxx and walked around and around and ended up spending eighty dollars.

This could be my life now, I thought as I dragged my haul to the check-out counter.

This Was Disturbing, Too

I also didn’t know if I’d ever read another kids’ book. Or The Horn Book. Or Writers’ Digest. (The renewal form for that magazine has been sitting on my kitchen counter for a long time, a very long time.) Instead I polished off lots of adult books from my To Be Read pile and my Kindle. I don’t think I’ve been to the library since July to this day. I just couldn’t bring myself to read anything that wasn’t produced for my age group.

In An Odd Way, This Is Also Disturbing

One day I started reading a really good YA novel I'd just bought for my Kindle. (Except for The Little Blue Truck, I still haven’t read one for anyone younger.) I started picking away at a Writer’s Digest, and a few weeks ago I realized I was reading a Horn Book. I got started on some blog posts for October. I got an idea for a totally new book and began working on an exercise to develop voice for one of the characters.

I was working. Barely. And weeks early.

What Made This Experience Disturbing

This experience has been disturbing because being unable to work undermined my desire to work, or maybe I should say my ability to work. A case, perhaps, of use it or lose it. At the same time, not working was not satisfying. My identity is tightly involved with writing. I write, therefore I am. I don’t write, therefore I’m not.

The whole thing was like being sick, actually. Something was wrong, and I’m recovering, but slowly.

This post originally appeared at Original Content

Shame Motivated This Writer--For A While

I recently returned home from a week in Seattle. I don't usually work much on vacations, but I do bring my laptop with me so I can do a little journal work and catch up on professional reading. This time, though, I left the laptop home, because I didn't want to bother bringing it on a plane. All I had with me was a traditional bound journal, a Writer's Digest, a Horn Book, and some other improving reading to do on the plane. I even printed out the chapter list and notes for the book I'm working on, figuring that surely over five days I'd be able to do something with that.

I didn't even make it to the airport in Boston before I decided I needed some lighter reading. I picked up Mindy Kaling's latest book at a news stand. Temptation. I'm very fond of Mindy.

On the flight to Seattle I did nothing but shuffle back and forth between a couple of books and listen to a Backstory podcast. It had been a few decades since I'd flown, and while it appeared that I was no longer terrified of flying (who knew?), I was bored as Hell. I only said, "Are we there yet?" once, but I was thinking it, even though I was glued to the flight tracker on the monitor in front of me and kept scrolling through the same TV stations I could have watched at home.

Who can work under those conditions?

While in the Seattle area, the few hours I wasn't visiting relatives, biking sixteen miles (see how I managed to slip that in?), or doing touristic things, I spent with Mindy Kaling. Then I bought two more non-work and involving books for the flight home. Because, you know, I already had learned that it's ridiculous to think you can work on a plane.

So I was set for the trip home with The Fever by Megan Abbott and A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson. All was good. Seriously, I had a feeling of well being while I was sitting at the gate waiting for my plane to Boston.

Then I noticed this guy sitting next to me with his laptop open. (He didn't have any concerns about traveling with it.) What did I see on his screen? (Because I looked.) Manuscript pages. The guy was a writer. And he was writing in an airport.

I immediately recalled Mindy Kaling's book, which I had just finished. This woman has a really disturbing work ethic. By which I mean disturbing when compared to mine. She sounds as if she's always working. Even when she's drinking and eating and admiring guys, she's working because she writes about all that. If she's ever been in Seattle, I'm betting she was working.

So I'd been reading about that for a couple of days while, remember, I was doing nothing. Then this guy sits down next to me and rubs it in that he's not reading a Megan Abbott novel.

What if he sits next to me on the plane? I thought. What if I have him working next to me for four or five hours? I finally casually turned and took a look at the guy, himself, wondering if he was Sherman Alexie, who's supposed to live in Seattle. What if I had to sit next to Sherman Alexie for nearly six hours (what with takeoff and landing) and he worked through the whole trip, illustrating why he is Sherman Alexie and I'm Gail Gauthier?

Well, this guy wasn't Sherman Alexie. And he didn't sit next to me. He sat directly in front of me. I couldn't see his laptop, but I know he had it open, because I leaned around him so I could see it.

That's why I wrote most of this post in my bound journal on the plane, as well as notes for two book posts. The only reason this post is going up on time is because I did that writing on the plane. See? Shame is good.

Then I went back to reading Megan Abbott, and then I took a nap.

So shame is good, but only for a while.

One More Week To Comment For A Chance To Win "Jump Up and Sing!"

Check out this post at Original Content to learn how you can enter for a chance to win a copy of Stand Up and Sing! Pete Seeger, Folk Music, and the Path to Social Justice by Susanna Reich.