Sarah Sullivan's Blog, page 4

NOV. AFTERNOON - PORTSMOUTH, NH

“What I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house,” Edward Hopper is reported to have said.  Who can explain the transfixing attraction of light on weathering boards?  So alluring.  So mysterious.  So endless and deep.  And so inconstant.   


Your eyes follow glimmer against gray, then shadow and darkness as clouds pass over the sun.  A slight feeling of dread, followed by relief when the light returns.  Life in miniature.  Uncertainty and darkness followed by comfort and embrace.

BEFORE THE FIRST FROST

A few days ago Rick and I made our annual before-the-first-frost trip to our camp.  It was a gorgeous October afternoon . . .   my favorite time of year in the woods.
 I like to see how high the pine trees have grown since Rick planted them 15 years ago.
 Crossing the river requires dodging a few rocks.  (And yes, okay, we did get stuck once. . . or twice.)
 But neither one of us minded.  We were having too much fun . . . 
watching sun light up the woods. . .  watching it shimmer on the water.
 Taking in deep breaths of clean mountain air and re-connecting with the natural world around us.

The Denver Post on my mother's 94th birthday. . .

Yesterday morning I got up at 5 and hustled downtown to answer phones during the pledge drive at my local NPR affiliate.  During a lull in the activity I checked email and discovered a message from Tracy in Marketing at Candlewick telling me that All That's Missing had been reviewed in The Denver Post. Holding my breath, I opened up the link and  started reading.  The review began with these words: 

"Middle-grade" fiction is hot right now. It's one step younger than Young Adult — think 11- or 12-year-old heroes rather than 17-year-olds. Not a lot of cursing and no sex.
But oh, the stories can be so rich, the characters so irresistible, even for an adult reader.
So it is with "All That's Missing," by debut novelist Sarah Sullivan, which deftly captures the complicated workings of an 11-year-old mind caught between the confidence of youth and the vulnerability of adolescence.
There is something magical about reading a review of something you've written when it appears in the newspaper you grew up reading in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th . . . all the way through 10th grades.  I think about all the teachers I had during those years from Mrs. Healy at Centennial Elementary to Mrs. Karras at Littleton High School and all I can say is, thank you.  I feel like I have come full circle.  In a way this feels like coming home.  And, as if this weren't enough, yesterday would have been my mother's 94th birthday.  It's also the anniversary of the day she died.  One of my callers at Public Radio remembered that.  It was nice to know that people still think about her.  My mother died before I ever sold my first book, so she never knew my work was published. I can't help being struck by the fact that news of this review in our old "hometown" newspaper came on her birthday.  Somehow I don't believe it was entirely coincidental.

FALL WALKS IN THE WOODS

I had a great time catching up with old friends and making new ones at the West Virginia Library Association Conference on Friday.  Thanks to Belinda Anderson for arranging the Authors Cafe.  Driving the back roads from Hillsboro, VA to to Shepherdstown, WV was a delight.  I passed old stone buildings and farmhouses and did not mind at all the  reduced speed limit.  Now I am happy to be home for a few days.  I look forward to sunny walks on the the Carriage Trail once the leaves have reached their peak.  Each year the change seems to come later, but that doesn't spoil the glory of it.  Sparkling yellow and brilliant orange.  So much color.  So much light.  

600 miles and counting . . .

FOUR SEASONS BOOKSYesterday I drove a little over 400 miles in steady rain with only 1 brief stop to carry out a cup of coffee.  Today I drove about 200 miles in more rain with no stopping.  And yes, I'll admit I  arrived in quaint and lovely Shepherdstown a little road-weary.  But, all that fatigue faded in an instant when I set foot in FOUR SEASONS BOOKS.  Once inside, I reveled in the wooden floors which set off a satisfying creak as you walk over them.  I took my time browsing through the wonderful selection of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, travel, children's books, memoir. . . really, everything you can think of! There was the new Lee Smith novel set in Asheville at the time Zelda Fitzgerald was a patient in a mental hospital there.  There were the books which made the long lists for the National Book Award.  Shepherdstown is a community of readers, so it did not come as any surprise to me that local patrons had already cleaned the store out of Alice Munro books earlier today after the announcement about her Nobel Prize.  "We have more on order," Sarah, the bookseller at the register told me.
They also had copies of my novel, All That's Missing at the front counter.  Be still, my heart.  THANK YOU!  This is why writers love booksellers.
Tomorrow I'll be attending the Author's Breakfast at the West Virginia Library Association Conference at the Clarion Conference Center and, tonight I am curled up in bed enjoying the two books I purchased at Four Seasons Books, a collection of poems by Mary Oliver and Irene McKinney's poetry collection Unthinkable.  Outside, it is still raining, but it doesn't matter.  I am completely happy and satisfied, all because of an oasis called FOUR SEASONS BOOKS that awaited me at the end of my long journey.

BOOK LAUNCH - OCTOBER 8TH - PRIZES! FOOD! FUN!

On Tuesday, a new book, All That's Missing, goes out into the world.  In the story, a boy named Arlo sets off on a long journey at the end of which he makes a new friend.  His new friend's name is Maywood.  Her family owns an independent Look at the poster in the window under the fern!bookstore in a small town.  They live in an apartment over the store.  On Tuesday, I will celebrate the publication of this book at a launch party which is being held in an independent bookstore in the town where I live.  The owner, as it happens, lives in an apartment over the store.  While the characters in All That's Missing bear no resemblance to the owner of the independent bookstore in my town, the idea for the bookstore in my novel came directly from my beloved hometown indie, Taylor Books.  Like many other independent bookstores around the country, the folks at Taylor Books are tremendously supportive of local authors, (note poster in the window of the store).  I cannot tell you how much I appreciate them.  So, it is both a privilege and a joy to celebrate this milestone in my life in one of my very favorite places.  If you live close to Charleston, I would love to see you at the book launch.  It will happen on Tuesday, October 8that 5:30 at Taylor Books, 226 Capitol St., Charleston, WV.   

WHAT DO HOT AIR BALLOONS HAVE TO DO WITH WRITING?

            When I was growing up in Colorado, the Martin Marietta plant where they built rockets for the space program was a few miles down the road.  President Kennedy had announced the race to the moon three years earlier.  We were obsessed with space.  At night I used to stretch out on the grass in the back yard and stare at the vast universe, thinking about rockets hurtling through the darkness.            This was also the era of UFO sightings.  At the University of Colorado in Boulder, a presidential commission was assembling data for what came to be known as the Condon Report, a study on the existence of Unidentified Flying Objects.
Directly across the street from my family, lived a man who, one weekend near the Fourth of July, assembled a hot air balloon in his garage.  He started after work one Friday.  When he was finished, all the neighbors gathered to watch him launch the contraption from his driveway.  We held our breath, wondering if the thing would hold air.
It did hold.  The balloon achieved altitude.  The wind caught it and carried it away.  We craned our necks to follow the small white dot across the city.  It was magical.
The way I remember this, it happened on a Saturday.  That Monday, a story ran in the newspaper.  “UFO SIGHTED OVER DENVER.”  Was it our neighbor’s hot air balloon?  No one ever knew for sure.
In the long run, it doesn’t matter whether the UFO came from outer space or from the driveway across the street.  The important thing is that our neighbor believed he could build a hot air balloon and make it fly.  I try to remember that when I’m struggling with a story.  I sit at my desk and try my best to write and hope like crazy it will fly.
When I’m writing the first several drafts, I remind myself not to worry about what my story looks like to other people.  The first objective is to give it enough substance so that it might hold air.

HELP! WHERE'S THE NEAREST BOOKSTORE?

During a Labor Day weekend in San Francisco, Rick and I had a bad moment.  How could you have a
bad moment in such a glorious place?  We were each nearing the end of the books we had started on the flight from Atlanta.  We needed something to read.
     "Where's the nearest bookstore?" Rick asked the desk clerk in our hotel."
     "They're all gone," he replied.  "There used to be lots of bookstores around downtown San Francisco, but not anymore."
     Holy blockbuster, Batman!  What do we do now, I wondered.
     Now I know some of you may be thinking, CITY LIGHTS!  CITY LIGHTS!  But, it was too far away, as was the wonderful BOOK PASSAGE in Corte Madera.

 Upstairs in our room, I googled "San Francisco Independent Bookstore" and up popped Alexander Book Company on Second Street.  I got out my map and determined that we were only a few blocks away.  Thank goodness!  I glanced at my watch.  Five-thirty.  I called the store and, upon being told they were open till six, decided to take a brisk walk, motivated by the thought of lying awake in bed that night with nothing to read.  I took one wrong turn which cost me five minutes, but managed to arrive with ten minutes to spare.
     "Do you close at six?" I asked the clerk at the sales desk.
     "More or less," he said.
     I tried to think of a book I'd heard about that might make a good read and remembered an interview on NPR with a memoirist who had worked as a receptionist at The New Yorker starting back in the sixties.  Of course, I had no idea what the title was.  I described the book to the man at the front desk, apologizing for not knowing the title.
     "Just a second," he said, picking up the phone.  He described my request, hung up the phone and said, "she's checking."
     "Thanks," I said.  "I'll browse."
     "About a minute and a half later, his phone rang.  He talked to someone for a second and then hung up.
     "Did you find it?" I asked.
     He gave me a funny smile.  "It's called The Receptionist," he said.
     The customer standing in line laughed, as did I.
     "It was a trick question," I said.
     "It'll be on the right side of that shelf there," he said, pointing at a shelf opposite the front desk.  "If you don't find it there, I can help you find it up front."
     "Thanks," I said.
     The book was, in fact, right there in the very front of the store.  There was also another book with a very alluring title, Lillian and Dash.  A novelized story about Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett?  That will do very nicely, thank you very much.
     I plucked it up and headed to the second floor where the children's section is located.  Two booksellers were admiring the giant Candlewick bear perched in a chair overlooking Second Street.
     "I love Candlewick books," one of the booksellers said.
     I knew I had found a good place.  All was well.
     "You close at six, don't you?" I said, more as an explanation of why I was scanning the middle grade fiction at such a hurried pace, than a question.
      "More or less," one of the two women said.  And they both smiled and exchanged knowing looks.
      I slowed my scanning pace, ever so slightly, smiling and exclaiming loudly when I ran across a copy of Margaret Mahy's The Great Piratical Rumbustification.
     "I love that you have this book," I said.
     The booksellers smiled again.  
     When it was clearly six o'clock, more or less, I grabbed a copy of
Bo at Ballard Creek, by Kirkpatrick Hill with illustrations by LeUyen Pham and headed back downstairs to make my purchase.
     "Thank you so much," I told the booksellers.  "I'll be back tomorrow morning with my husband."
     "We open at ten o'clock," the man at the front desk told me.
     In my head, I silently added, "more or less," as I happily headed down Market Street toward Union Square, secure in the knowledge that I would have something delightful to read in bed that evening.

WRITING KIT FOR TEACHERS, LIBRARIANS & STUDENTS

 http://www.hholtkids.com/WritingKit.pdfIn July I had the opportunity to lead a writing workshop for the Summer Institute of the Central West Virginia Writing Project.   During the workshop I mentioned a Writing Kit which had been put together by the people at Macmillan together with Dr. S. D. Collins, Director of the Upper Cumberland Writing Project and Associate Professor of Language and Literacy Education at Tennessee Technological University. At the time I did not have a URL for retrieving the Kit, but I have since located it.  As promised, I am sharing it here.   http://www.hholtkids.com/WritingKit.pdf

There are some interesting and useful writing exercises employing books published by Macmillan including my own book, Once Upon a Baby Brother.  

There are lots of places to find ideas for writing exercises.  Some of you may have participated in Kate Messner's Teacher's Write - a Virtual Summer Writing Camp.  You can find out more about it here.  

Meanwhile, there are two more days until summer is officially over.  The weather outside my window is perfect.  I'm headed out there to enjoy it right now!    

Happy last weekend of summer to all of you! 

ENERGY EXPRESS

This was the third summer I visited Energy Express programs in schools throughout Kanawha County.  Energy Express is an AmeriCorps program under the sponsorship of the WVU Extension Service which provides reading enrichment and nutrition programs for children living in West Virginia's rural and low-income communities.  A special pleasure of visiting these programs is the fact that the Americorps volunteers are often college-aged students of close friends.  I have known one of these outstanding young leaders since she was a baby and now she is a freshly-minted graduate of Oberlin College & Conservatory in Ohio.  Sarah invited me to visit the program she was directing at Sharon Dawes Elementary in Cabin Creek, WV, a community best-known outside the state as the hometown of basketball star Jerry West.  On a steamy July morning I made the trip south on I-64 to find the school tucked up close against the road.  The kids were lively and enthusiastic and Sarah was clearly and very ably in charge, not only overseeing the morning classes, but also mentoring young volunteers from the community.  I took along my lap dulcimer and, after reading Passing The Music Down and asking the students to share their stories about family members who play musical instruments and sing, we did some singing ourselves.  A week or so later, a bundle of thank-you notes arrived in the mail.  This is one of them.  It's nice to have a keepsake of a special memory.  When Sarah marks the next milestone in her life, I will look back at this note and remember this step along her path.