Mary Cronk Farrell's Blog, page 23

Does History Sell?

At a recent gathering of writers from around the country, I talked to more than a few bemoaning the difficulty in selling non-fiction on historical topics. One reported being told by an editor, "Well, we have Russell Freedman."
    Another editorial comment, "It's so labor intensive. We just can't take on very many projects."
    Biographer Brandon Marie Miller believes we're in a golden age of history books for kids. She says, "Books are more inclusive of peoples and cultures. They have lovely illustrations, photographs and prints. Many have maps, sidebars and helpful back matter—time lines, glossaries, places to visit, bibliographies and source notes."
   Brandon writes for Chicago Review Press. "I've proposed my own ideas for all my books—although I've had an "in" with editors I've already worked with and I was able to bounce ideas off of them before submitting a written proposal or outline for the selection process."
  I'd be interested in hearing from others writing history for kids. How do you see the market?  What factors most influence the whether an book proposal on a historical subject will sell?

Are You Connected?

        To write from the heart, one must feel a connection to the whole of life. Yet the writing life itself offers so many enticements toward separateness and disconnection. When six weeks have passed with no word from my agent about my most recent manuscript, acceptance of the whole of life is difficult. When months have passed, it can become almost impossible.

      To continue working, writing the next story, a way must be found to accept disappointment and rejection.  Not simply to resign oneself to it, but to embrace it as a given part of the process, no less important than its opposite. For me, the first step is recognition that I am running away as fast as I can from these painful feelings. I need something to stop me in my tracks and make me pay attention.  Often it's OHM.      
        OHM is the most often chanted sound of all sacred chants on earth. It is the sound of connectedness with all of life. I've noticed sometimes when I begin meditation I feel a resistance to chanting the OHM.  I feel a draw to maintaining my separateness.
        Tara Brach explains this tendency to separateness by telling a funny story.               My first inclination is to judge this tendency toward separateness as petty and self-absorbed.
          Looking more closely, I can find compassion for myself . This pulling away is a natural human reaction to pain, and has been an important part of the evolution of humankind. In past generations, it was necessary to flee from pain in order to survive. In the present, survival depends upon connection. Turning away from the perception of separation to write from the heart is my small contribution.

So Quickly Things Change

Yesterday snow falling, today sun shining & crocuses blooming.

With this Weather, might as well Head to the Arctic!

        I woke up to snow falling again this morning. I like snow, but not this slushy stuff. I also like the tried and true strategy, if you can't beat it, join it.  So--off to the arctic with Polar Explorer Matthew Henson.
Two men made history in 1909, the first men ever to stand on the North Pole.  Admiral Robert Peary is the one you've probably heard about. Matthew Henson? Maybe not. Twice on the polar ice cap, Henson saved Peary's life. The two men faced "sudden storms, frozen peaks and ridges and shifting iceberg castles," on their perilous journey. Patches of open water and faulty instruments made more trouble before they reached the Pole. The achievement had been both men's life ambition. But when they returned home some dismissed their accomplishment because Henson was a black man, and Peary downplayed Henson's contribution to the expedition.
Adults and kids will enjoy this biography of Henson by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Eric Velasquez. I love everything about the illustrations in this biography. The colors, the shapes, the varied scenes. The emotional resonance and the beauty of the art makes this a powerful and stunning book. The text is unique. You will have to read it for yourself to see how this author shows Henson's determination and strength of purpose through the sentence structure she chose. Fabulous book! 

Only the Brain-Injured Write for Children?

Oh joy.

Quote of the Week in the New York Times...Martin Amis says if he had a serious brain injury he might write books for kids. "I would never write about someone that forced me to write at a lower register than what I can write," Amis added. See a follow-up story in the Guardian.

Nice come-back by Lucy Coats and Charles London.
            Books by the Brain-injured?

The Sun Porch

One of the few perks of being a struggling writer, unpaid and unrecognized, is the freedom to choose where you work. When my husband and I moved our young family to Spokane years ago, the dream of writing books for children stood far back on a dusty shelf in my mind.

While looking for a house, we visited one with a second story sun porch. The moment I saw it, I thought—what a perfect place for writing. My husband liked the big back yard with room for kids and a dog to run around. So we bought it. The house needed fixing-up, and the sun porch was first on the list because, for a few years, it would be a nursery.
It wasn't until that baby was five years old that I started writing on the sun porch.
The baby is seventeen, now. Getting published has required much more learning, practice, perseverance, and time than I anticipated. If I counted up the hours I've spent in the sun porch and divided them by the dollars and cents I've earned, my income would be far in the negative.

So why do I keep writing? Because I have a dream that someday I'll write the next Harry Potter? No. I write because most days when I go out on my sun porch and close the door, I'm happy. Some days, I'm miserable, discouraged and tormented, but most days, I'm happy. In the winter the sun streams in. In the summer, I look out at a huge one-hundred-year-old leafy-green sycamore tree. In all seasons, I write.

I love words and the challenge of choosing the right ones and putting them together in the right way to say exactly what I want to say. I love stories, I love exploring character. Through writing I discover who I am.

World Explorers--You Gotta Love 'em

   When I saw Doraine Bennett's new book, Readers Theater for Global Explorers, the first thing I wanted to know--what possessed those people?  While most of us sit at home in front of the fire, explorers go off to the jungle, the wilderness, the desert, the moon!
  Doraine was sweet enough to let me be part of her blog tour to introduce this wonderful resource for teachers, so I asked her, did you discover common traits among these explorers?  Did she ever!
 
"Many were ruthless, many were arrogant, most wanted fame, despite any stated noble reasons for their activities. All had the ability to endure hardship beyond anything most of us could imagine. The determination to press through almost any difficulty, no matter how distressing the extremes of climate and circumstance."

Do you have a favorite person in the book?  

"I really liked Sir Ernest Shackleton because he was a decent, kind man. He gave his mittens to one of his crewmen who had lost his in the ocean. Shackleton suffered frostbite as a result. He was capable, daring, and a good leader, as well."

I guess it's no surprise most of these explorers were men. But Doraine did a great job of finding a range of women to include, like Mary Kinglsey, a writer! 

Oh. A writer that left her home in England to explore Africa.

"After living a very sheltered life, she set off alone for Africa. She went to the villages of the Fang (fong) people who were known to be cannibals. Most European explorers considered the Africans to be unintelligent beings who needed civilizing. Mary  respected the Africans and did much to change European thinking about them." 

Social studies will never be boring with this book. Inside everybody is sure to find at least one explorer that will catch his or her imagination. 

Thanks for visiting Doraine!  

The Kings Speech Speaks to Writers

If you haven't seen it—go. The King's Speech is about courage, the kind of courage it takes to be a writer.  Not many of us are as good-looking as Colin Firth or Helena Bonham Carter, neither are we in line for the throne. But like Prince Albert, we're trying to find our voice. And all too often we're scared and we doubt our own potential.

Rolling Stone calls the movie "a crowning achievement powered by a dream cast [that] digs vibrant human drama out of the dry dust of history….The emotion this film produces is staggering."

Report From the Southern Hemisphere

Check out these photos from my friend Bob Harkins who is on his way to Antarctica
to sail aboard the bark Europa.  Bob says, "Yesterday I rode a catamaran through the channel between Argentina and Chile on the way to the sea." "We made a couple of stops and two fly-bys of small islands so we could greet the locals. We didn't get off the boat on Penguin Island. The captain just put the bow on the beach." " This whole area is surrounded by snow capped mountains. It's cloudy most days of the year. It gets to almost 60 on the warm days. Ushuaia is the southern most city in the world and is full of lots of very friendly people. Clearly my Spanish needs work. I'm not sure what I ordered for dinner last night, but the waiter returned with a shoe and a banana." 
  Thanks, Bob!

Sailing Adventure

The Age of the Great Sail when empires were won and lost at sea—
That's where I'll be today folks, researching my work-in-progress.Open the covers of one of these books for young people and join me at the prow. Feel the wind in your face, hear the slapping canvas and taste the salt spray.
Meet Sophie as her mysterious past is revealed on a perilous cross-Atlantic journey. Or travel back in time to the famous Battle of Trafalgar as seen through the eyes of a boy on Lord Nelson's ship.
Take a sail with Patrick O'Brien on Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge, or Sir Francis Drake's Golden Hind.

I plan to vicariously follow a friend as he sails to Antarctica aboard the Dutch tall ship Europa. Curious about life aboard a tall sailing ship? Check out the video below.