Sarah Sullivan's Blog, page 5

ONE OF THOSE SMALL-WORLD COINCIDENCES

It's been a busy and interesting week.  Last Friday, I had a lesson in glass-blowing at the annual Festival of Glass at Blenko Glass in Milton, West Virginia.   Having never done anything like this, I wasn't sure what to expect.  The men working on the production floor are experienced.  I talked to 6 of them and each one had worked at Blenko for at least 30 years.  They were extremely patient and took time answering my many questions.  My project was to make a vase.
The first step was choosing colors from piles of broken bits of glass.  I chose cranberry, blue and white.  Next came the rolling and the molding and the blowing and finally, the finishing process.  When the piece is finished it has to go through a slow-cooling process.  I get to pick up the finished product this Thursday.  Can't wait see how it turned out.





On Saturday, Rick and I attended the second annual Lewisburg Literary Festival.  Noah Adams read from his book Far Appalachia.  His voice is every bit as amazing in person as it sounds on the radio.  In the afternoon Jeannette Walls talked about her unique childhood and about writing her memoir The Glass Castle.  People in the audience were delighted to learn that Jennifer Lawrence has recently signed on to star in the movie.  In between events, we watched a terrific documentary film called "Conversations with Booksellers" by filmmaker Russell Williams about the importance of independent bookstores to communities  (it's hard to tell you how much I enjoyed watching this).  At the end of the afternoon we loved hearing novelist Glenn Taylor read from his latest work-in-progress.
On Sunday, I had a book signing at Tamarack, the arts and crafts center on I-77/I-79 in Beckley, WV.  Sunday is a good time to do a book signing because travelers are heading home after a weekend, usually having had a relaxing and enjoyable time.   I had lots of interesting conversations with people who stopped to chat, including a young librarian who works in Welch, WV and alerted me to the fact that the documentary Hollow will have a screening at the Clay Center in Charleston sometime soon.  (Glad to know that!)  The conversation that was the mind-blower for the afternoon was with a school librarian from a suburban community near Chicago.  She was on her way home from a vacation in North Carolina.  After looking through my book, Passing The Music Down, a story inspired by the lives of 2 old-time fiddle players, an old master named Melvin Wine and his young apprentice, Jake Krack, she told me that she had known a man in college who had had a passion for old-time music.  She said he had been obsessed by it.  She also mentioned his name -- Brad Leftwich. 
I did a double-take.
"Brad Leftwich?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
I smiled as I opened my book to the Author's Note at the end where I tell the real "story-behind-the- story."  I pointed to one name in particular.  "Look," I said, with my finger aimed directly at Brad Leftwich's name.  "He was Jake Krack's teacher in Indiana," I told her.  "He's the one who told Jake he ought to get his parents to take him to the Appalachian String Band Festival at Clifftop to meet Melvin Wine.  Brad Leftwich is the reason this whole story happened."
She looked dumbstruck for a moment.  Then we both started laughing.
"I think I was meant to be here today," she said.
"What are the odds?" I said.
And then we both said, "small world."

SEEING A REVIEW MAKES IT REAL!

I was super-duper excited to read this early review of ALL THAT'S MISSING on MRS. TOLLESON'S BLOG .  I don't know Aimee Tolleson, but I am so grateful that she read my book and delighted beyond belief at her reaction to it. This is my first experience with publishing a novel and to say I am nervous is the understatement of the year.  Knee-knocking, teeth-rattling fear is more like it.  So, I was literally dancing around the room when I saw that she had pulled out one particular passage from the book and said this about it.

I thought that so many aspects of the novel would be super-relatable to my middle school students, and there was one quote in particular that I really loved:


"...the thing about families, Arlo thought, was that there was always some question nobody wanted to answer, and it was like a stray thread pulling loose in a sweater. You could tug at it all you wanted, but in the end, all you'd have was a pile of twisted yarn."
The image of twisted yarn is something that came to mind early in the writing of this book and, while many things changed -- characters were created, characters were deleted ---  this particular sentence remained more or less intact throughout numerous (dare we say hundreds) of revisions.   Arlo comes from one of those families in which certain secrets are never divulged.  He has lived with his grandfather on his mother's side of the family since his parents died in a car accident when he was 2.  Now his grandfather, Poppo, as Arlo calls him, is having serious memory problems.  He gets confused about things and can't always find his way home.  Terrified by the threat of foster care, Arlo sets off to find his grandmother on the other side of the family, Ida Jones, a woman he has never known.  He knows Poppo doesn't care for her much, but he has no idea why.  At the end of his 300-mile journey, Arlo finds a prickly relative who proves to be more of a challenge than he'd expected.  And there are other surprises as well, including a dog named Steamboat who jumps out of car windows, a girl named Maywood who's a natural at picking locks and a community of small-town characters anxious to claim Arlo as one of their own.  Before he knows it, Arlo is caught up in a mystery involving a couple of con artists and his grandmother's house.  
I started writing this story a long time ago.  I always knew what would happen in the first half of the book, but figuring out what happened once Arlo reached his grandmother's house took some time.  (Did I mention characters were created, characters were deleted?)    Looking back on the process now, I can smile and say the figuring-out part was fun.  And, it was . . . sometimes. . . on those days when a new idea clicked.  Then there were the long dry afternoons when nothing clicked at all.  Those were NOT FUN.  I once heard J.K. Rowling make a statement in an interview to the effect that starting a book is easy, but finishing a book is hard work.  Well-said, Ms. Rowling.  I couldn't agree with you more.  But, I'm glad I did it.  And now, I'm working on another book.  And yes, I'm afraid it's hard work.  But I'll keep on doing it anyway, because when the writing is going well, there is no better feeling in the world.   

YOUNG WRITERS DAY - UNIVERSITY OF CHARLESTON

Thanks to Paul Epstein and the Central West Virginia Writing Project and Mike Oldaker of Vandalia Books and the University of Charleston for making Young Writers Day possible.  Ron Sowell of the Mountain Stage Band entertained us all.
Una reading her workshop piece Writing workshop - State winners grades 4-6 Writers hard at work Sharing book recommendations after our workshop

KIDLIT CARES FOR OKLAHOMA

The wonderful and amazing children's author Kate Messner has organized an effort to assist the Red Cross fund-raising efforts for disaster relief for residents of Oklahoma impacted by the recent tornado.    If you make a donation of at least $10.00 to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund between now and June 7th, your name will be entered in a drawing for a free signed book.  A number of children's authors have agreed to donate signed books as a way to show our concern for the people hurt by the devastating tornado.

If you would like to make a donation and enter your name in the drawing, go to Kate's website here for more information, a list of the books and authors whose books have been donated and a link to the page where you can make your donation to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.

MEMORIAL DAY

This morning I went in search of the burial plot for my ancestors in Huntington, WV.  This is my great-grandfather's marker.  He came to the United States from Ireland as a boy.  We know almost nothing about him, other than the fact that he came through Baltimore rather than New York and he worked for the C & O Railroad.     It is strange to think that, West Virginia had just become a state when he arrived.      If time travel were possible, there are a hundred questions,  I would love to ask him.  But, if I had to settle for just one, I guess it would be,  weren't you scared? According to family lore, he was 12 when he left Cork with his mother.      Someday, maybe I will learn more of the story.  For now,  I will simply marvel at his fortitude and be grateful  for his good fortune.

LETTERs FROM A BIG BROTHER AND SISTER

During a three-day school visit last fall, the students in a third-grade classroom shared letters of advice they had written to members of their family after reading my epistolary picture book, Dear Baby: Letters From Your Big Brother.  Can I tell you how much I loved these letters?  These students had great advice.  Here are a couple of examples:

Dear Little Brother,
Hello!  As your big brother, I have some advice for you.  Make sure you never get gum in your hair!  It is sticky and hard to get out.  And make sure you do good in school.  If you don’t do your homework, your teacher might make you complete it at recess.
                                             Love,                                             Jackson
I wish someone had warned me about getting gum in my hair.   Unfortunately, I learned the hard way after falling asleep with gum in my mouth.  Trust me.  It wasn’t pretty when I woke up in the morning.
Here’s another one:
Dear Little Sister, Hello!  As your big sister, I have some advice for you.1.  Never make macaroni in the microwave without water.2.  Please don’t pull my hair.  3.  Never do a backbend without someone to spot you.4.  Behave5.  Wear pant[s] to school.6.  Never swall[ow] bugs and leaves.7.  Never play with scissors or nifes.
                                                       Love,                                                       Angel
What I love most about these letters is the way the students’ protective attitude toward their siblings shines through.  And the business about the macaroni – I have to admit I love that too!  

REMEMBERING NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK

With apologies for being a bit late, I want to recognize and thank an extraordinary person who works at The Ohio County Public Library in Wheeling, West Virginia.  His name is Sean Duffy and he has created this wonderful program called Lunch With Books .  Four times a month, Sean schedules authors, musicians, scholars, historians, community leaders and others to present free programs over the noon hour in the library.  For example, shortly after the publication of his award-winning novel, A Land More Kind Than Home, Wiley Cash was a featured speaker.  Julie Zickefoose, frequent NPR commentator and author of Letters From Eden, has also been a speaker.  In April of 2012, I was lucky enough to be invited to speak about my book, Passing The Music Down.  Because the story was inspired by the lives of two West Virginia musicians, Sean suggested that it might be a good idea to invite musicians to provide music to accompany my presentation.  Of course, I was delighted.  But, I had no idea how lucky I really was until I met Richard Pollack and Scott Black and heard them play.
Not only are they wonderful musicians, they also went to great pains to play tunes that had some direct relevance to my book.  Richard suggested which tunes they might play and in what order and boy, am I glad that he did!  The result was a
fully-rounded program.
So, why am I mentioning this now?  Did you notice the "Library Memories" program at the beginning of this post?  Week before last I received an email from Sean telling me that he was planning a program in celebration of National Library Week that was to be hosted by West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman.  He said the program would feature "patron memories of any library that may have impacted their lives, as well as poetry about libraries and reading."  He invited me to submit any brief library memory that I might want to share and told me that he was putting together a booklet for the occasion.
Upon returning from vacation on Monday, I was delighted to find this booklet in the mail.  This is the sort of thing Sean does.  He goes way beyond the call of duty to create special memories for library patrons.  I think the library is lucky to have him. 

WOOD COUNTY SCHOOL AND RECEPTION FOR YOUNG WRITERS

Now that spring is here, I'm looking forward to breaking out of my study and visiting schools.  It's been a fruitful winter.  I actually sent a new manuscript off to my editor last week.  And I started working on a new idea yesterday.

Next week I'll be sharing words about writing with students in Wood County, including an all-day extravaganza at WVU-Parkersburg.
I'm looking forward to it.  One of the things I enjoy when visiting schools is asking students what books they're reading.  In the world of digital media and online stores, there is sometimes a disconnect between the books which librarians and booksellers discuss and the books which actually find their way into the hands of students.  I like knowing what books students read.  I like introducing new books to them too.  As school libraries and school librarians continue to dwindle, it's alarming to see how hard it is for new titles to find their way into schools.  I'll be mentioning titles like Splendor and Glooms and Liar & Spy and Rabbit and Robot: The Sleepover and Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs and Monsieur Marceau and the list goes on and on....


If you have any contact with a local school, please support your school librarian.  In many places, they are an endangered species.  We cannot afford to lose them.  I can't tell you how important the school librarians were to me, especially Jean Reid at The Tatnall School in Wilmington, Delaware.  She guided my reading.  She answered questions.  She counselled and cajoled and encouraged.  My high school experience would have been far poorer without her.  I wish every student could have librarians in their lives like the ones I've had in mine.

FIRST DRAFT CRAZINESS

Help!  I’ve working on a new book and I've reached that stage where I'm within striking distance of the end – (actually, I’ve already written the ending), but I need to complete a few connecting threads.  Obviously, these connecting threads are the points in the story that I didn't want to write the first time through because they were too hard or too boring or too . . . I don’t know what.  But, now I HAVE to write them.  There is no escape.
Agony. 
Can’t I just skip them?
No.  Of course not.
So, here’s what happens.  I write a hundred words, okay maybe a hundred and fifty -- and then I hit a wall.  And, my poor battered brain is so starved for some pleasurable feeling, all it can think is CHOCOLATE  NOW!  So, I check the clock.  But, it turns out it's been less than an hour since my last chocolate break, so there's no way I can justify another one.  Not if these chocolate rewards are to have any meaning at all.
I go back to work.  And pretty soon, I’m checking the clock again.  And only ten minutes have passed this time.  I can’t believe it.  Surely it’s been longer than that.  But, no.  It hasn’t.   And I still have four more of these little threads to write.  And they really don’t add up to that much, not compared to a whole novel, which is what I would have if I would just buckle down and finish.  
I pretend to write another hundred words, but my brain is still fixated on chocolate.   FOR HEAVEN’S SAKES, GET ON WITH THE WORK, I tell myself. 
And if I’m really desperate, I might get up and play the three songs I know on the piano, which are really just beginner pieces, because I was a pathetic piano student, but they will have to do.  Or, maybe I play the dulcimer.  Or, when things are really grim, I clean the bathroom.  No.  not just clean.  I scour grout between tiles. 
 And three hours later, no connecting threads have been written.  Maybe the bathroom’s a little cleaner, but the day is nearly gone and what have I accomplished?
 Clearly the only answer is to get out of the house and go someplace where there is NOTHING ELSE TO DO BUT WRITE!
Ah… Better. 
Yes.  That’s two threads down.  Only a couple more to go.
And hey, the bathroom’s clean.  Bonus!  Not a bad day’s work.  But, can I tell you how much I prefer revision?  It’s much less fattening.  Of course, the bathroom tile doesn’t shine and dust tends to collect on the piano. 

A CURE FOR DOWNTON ABBEY WITHDRAWAL

Still reeling from the startling conclusion of Season 3 of Downton Abbey?  I confess I am.  Luckily I had this book on the nightstand.  I found it on one of the many reading lists compiled for ailing Abbey addicts who are coping with withdrawal.  I doubt I would have been drawn to it without the introduction to that time period I got from watching the series.  However, once intrigued by the fashion, culture, politics and mores of the period beginning in April, 1912 with the sinking of the Titantic and continuing through one of the warm months in 1921, when the final episode in Series 3 takes place, I craved more.    


While reading the book is certainly NOT THE SAME as watching the series, it is nevertheless an interesting look at the real English castle in which the series is filmed, as well as the actual people who lived there, the 5th Earl of Carnavon and his wife, Lady Almina, who was the illegitimate daughter of Alfred de Rothschild.  Their real-life story would fuel an entirely separate series.  Of course, you already know by now that the real 5th Earl of Carnavon, was, in real life, one of the men who, famously with Howard Carter, discovered the tomb of King Tut.   
You can find video clips of interviews with the 8th Countess of Carnavon, the author of the book about Lady Almina, on YouTube.  And it appears that there is a BBC documentary on Highclere Castle (the real Downtown Abbey), which is to be released on DVD in March.  Reading Lady Almina and the Real Downtown Abbey will provide you with a host of interesting tidbits, items such as the fact that Evelyn Waugh was married to two nieces of the 5th Earl of Carnavon, (obviously not at the same time).  Why hadn't I heard this before?  Imagine that Waugh must have walked the halls of Crawley Castle before the first lines of Brideshead Revisited even entered his consciousness.Armed with this piece of information I am off on a Google search to learn more about famous people of the era and their connection to the country estates, which will inevitably lead to more reading lists which will help pass the time as I cope with WAIT!  NO.  I won't reveal what happened in that last episode, though it will be hard for anyone to avoid a spoiler.
Addicted.  Yes.  I'm afraid so.  But, there are worse things, aren't there?
In case you are a fellow addict and have not yet perused one of the many reading lists, here's one from the New York Public Library.
http://nypl.bibliocommons.com/list/sh...