Carolee Dean's Blog, page 22

THE IMPOSSIBLE KNIFE OF MEMORY by Laurie Halse Anderson

Laurie Halse Anderson was at Alamosa Books on 1/10/14 on tour with her latest novel, The Impossible Knife of Memory. Laurie is a warm and endearing person as well as a fabulous author. She is probably most well known for her groundbreaking young adult novel, Speak, but she has also written numerous contemporary and historical novels as well as picture books and the middle grade series, Vet Volunteers.
Laurie confessed that she had a hard time learning to read and received assistance from a reading specialist in elementary school. Then she caught the reading fire and started reading everywhere. The library became her refuge. 
I found this aspect of her story fascinating since I work with struggling readers and am always wondering how to inspire them to love reading. 
Laurie said she has a dream of a literate America where every one reads for fun, surmising that if you still read for fun at eighteen then you will also read for information and learn to think for yourself. Unfortunately, every time we hand kids a book they can't connect with we kill that spirit. 
Reading canonical literature, written by old, dead white dudes, made English her least favorite class in high school. She understood the value of the classics later in life, when she had the perspective to appreciate them, so she sees their worth, but she also believes we must provide teens with stories they relate to. 
She suggested teachers read From Hinton to Hamlet: Building Bridges Between Young Adult Literature and the Classics by Sarah K. Herz. One recommendation she shared from that text is to use YA fiction to teach literary devices while tying the teen novel thematically to canonical literature.  Many teachers using Speak in the classroom tie it to The Scarlet Letter.

The Impossible Knife of  Memory, Laurie's latest work, is about a girl, Hayley Kincain, and her father who have spent the last five years on the road, trying to outrun their demons and their memories. They return to her father's hometown to try to have a normal life, but the only method her father can find to deal with his PTSD is through drugs and alcohol.
The story was inspired by the experiences of Laurie's family and her father's bouts with alcohol and PTSD. She shared that during World War II, he helped liberate the inmates of Dachau, one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps. Her father was working on a college campus during the Vietnam Nam era and it caused his experiences at Dachau to come back to him with a vengeance. He fell apart and lost his job. They lost their home. She said her father now has dementia and sometimes can't remember her mother but he wakes up screaming, remembering Dachau.
The power of memory..Laurie ended her talk by stating that one of her aims as an author is to produce literature that connects with the spirits of young people. Anyone who has read her work knows she had definitely accomplished that mission. 
Thank you for another fabulous story!

Outlaws and Friends and the Inside Story

LAST WEEK I was over at Alamosa Books for the Inside Story, an international event bringing local authors to bookstores all around the world.


Above is author, Lois Ruby, talking about her latest ghost story, Rebel Spirits. To her right is Kimberley Griffiths Little, Uma Krishnaswami, Me, and Lauren Bjorkman.

And here am I, talking about my latest ghost story, Forget Me Not. I'm sharing the poster featuring my favorite poem from the book... a 2Pac - Poe mash up.

After the event I had a chance to catch up with another local author, Vaunda Michaeux Nelson, standing to my left.

Speaking of Vaunda, THIS WEEK I'm over at The Spellbinders Blog with my analysis of her book, Bad News for Outlaws. I've used my twelve step story system to discuss the plot of the book. It's a Coretta Scott King Award winner.

NEXT WEEK Vaunda and I will be giving a plotting presentation for NaNoWriMo on Saturday, November 16 at 2:00p.m. at Esther Bone Library in Rio Rancho. It's free and it's open to the public, so come on down!!

FREE eBook Version of Tyger Tyger

Go to the Haunted Hearts post over at Spellbinders to read the November feature article by author, Kersten Hamilton, and find out  how to get a free eBook version of the critically acclaimed Tyger Tyger. This offer is available through the iTunes store through November 5!

Stop #2 of the FIERCE READS TOUR

 Wednesday afternoon Kimberley Griffiths Little (far left) and Caroline Starr Rose (far left) hosted a dynamic panel of authors at Alamosa Books for the Fierce Reads Tour. (Left to right - Jessica Brody - author of Unremembered, Leigh Bardugo - author of Siege and Storm, Jennifer Albin - author of Altered, and Ann Aguirre, author of Horde).
Authors shared their thoughts on writing books as a part of a series vs. creating stand alone stories. Jennifer Albin told how she wrote the first draft of her first novel during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Her husband had lost his job, they had gone bankrupt, and she used the computer in the library to create her story because she didn't have a computer of her own. She rewrote and polished her story to perfection, of course, but it all started with that NaNoWriMo first draft. Selling the Crewel World series to Macmillan Publishing changed the course of her life. She continues to promote NaNoWriMo.
That should serve as inspiration for everyone taking part in this November's challenge which starts tomorrow!! To find out more about this terrific FREE online writing event, visit nanowrimo.org.
There will be a special interview with the Fierce Reads authors in the December 2 issue of Spellbinders. Stay tuned for more details. In the meantime, go on over to Alamosa. There are still plenty of autographed copies of these amazing books.

Cyber Bullying

This month I'm over at The Anti-Bully Project with a contest to win a free copy of Forget Me Not.Here is an excerpt from my article...A student breaks out in tears in the middle of class, talking out loud to someone who isn’t there. Psychotic break? No, his girlfriend just sent him a text saying she’s breaking up with him. The teacher doesn’t even know he’s texting until she sees the phone, carefully concealed between his lap and his desk.A mother is driving home from the grocery store with her teenage daughter when the girl’s eyes grow wide in panic. One of her classmates is in ICU with a traumatic brain injury from a car accident.She read the post on Twitter.A twelve-year-old girl in Florida jumps to her death after being stalked and bullied on social media. (http://nation.time.com/2013/10/16/a-florida-tragedy-illustrates-rising-concern-about-cyber-bullying-suicides/#ixzz2iSNw8oYC)Technology has changed the way people communicate, the way they get information, and the way they bully.According to an article in the online magazine, Time U.S.(http://nation.time.com/2013/10/16/a-florida-tragedy-illustrates-rising-concern-about-cyber-bullying-suicides/#ixzz2iSNw8oYC) experts link the rising suicide rate among young adults (those under 24) to bullying via social media.To see the rest of the article and enter the rafflecopter contest, visit The Anti-Bully Project.

THE INSIDE STORY - Local Authors at Alamosa Books

Saturday, November 2 at 2:00 at Alamosa Books - Five New Mexico authors will be taking part in an international SCBWI event called The Inside Story.

Each author will talk for 7 minutes about the "Inside Story" behind his or her book -the inspiration - the people and circumstances that influenced the story. An audience Q & A will follow. There will be prizes, a chance to win an author phone call, and an opportunity to be in Lin Oliver's next book!
The Alamosa Authors are:
Uma Krishnaswami - The Problem With Being Slightly Heroic (Atheneum Books) ages 8 and up
The delicious sequel to the multiply starred The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, BFFs Dini and Maddie continue their dizzying journey to bring order to the chaotic life of the starriest star in all of Bollywood, Dolly Singh.



Lois Ruby - Rebel Spirits  (Scholastic) ages 10-15A contemporary girl falls in love with the ghost of a Gettysburg Battle soldier. Nathaniel died during that battle, but not from enemy fire: he was murdered! And now, as they fall in love, he wants Lori to help him solve the mystery so his spirit can rest in peace. 




Lauren Bjorkman - Miss Fortune Cookie (Holt) ages 12 and upErin expresses her true self through her advice blog, Miss Fortune Cookie, until her ex-best friend takes her advice with disastrous results. Fate will come looking for you. Don't bother hiding.






Carolee Dean - Forget Me Not (Simon Pulse)  ages 14 and upA verse novel exploring cyber bullying and teen suicide at a school where the dead never leave, but rather gravitate to locations around the school based on how they died - reminiscent of Dante's Purgatory.








Kimberley Griffiths Little - When the Butterflies Came (Scholastic)  8 -12 When dazzling butterflies begin to follow Tara around after Grammy Claire’s funeral and she's delivered a box of keys and letters, Tara knows that her grandmother has left her a final mystery to solve. On the beautiful islands of Chuuk, Tara discovers the most shocking truth of all.




Saturday, November 2, 2013 - 2 pmAlamosa Books    8810 Holly Ave. NE, Ste. D   Albuquerque, NM 87122   (505) 797-7101
For more information about The Inside Story, see the article in Publishers Weekly.

Lisa McMann and THE UNWANTEDS at Alamosa Books

 Lisa McMann spoke at Alamosa Books last Tuesday, September 10, as part of her tour for The Unwanteds: Island of Fire, the Third book in The Unwanteds series published by Aladdin (an imprint of Simon & Schuster). Also available were the books from her Wake Trilogy, a haunting series for older teens published by Simon Pulse (also my publisher - yay!). Alamosa created a beautiful display of Lisa's books.


Lisa told the Alamosa audience that The Unwanteds is special to her because it was inspired by an experience with her own children. They came home one day with a letter from school saying the arts classes were going to be eliminated because of budget constraints. This was devastating news to her highly artistic children. She told them, "It sounds like you kids are being punished for being creative." That comment started a line of What If questions that led to The Unwanteds and the world of Quill where crazy rules, built up over time, prohibit any sort of artistic expression.

In Quill, thirteen-year-olds are placed into three categories: Wanteds go to college and have the chance at an education, Necessaries are trained to serve in menial jobs, and Unwanteds, those deemed dangerous because of their artistic tendencies, are sent to a death farm. Fortunately, the man who is supposed to be putting kids to death has secretly been saving them and training them in his own magical world.

Lisa talked about the creative process and reminded us that if you are creating a magical world you must have a lot of rules for governing that world. Her kids had a great time helping her come up with the rules for the spells in The Unwanteds books.

One of the highlights of Lisa's talk was when she shared how she got started as a writer and her inspiration for the Wake Trilogy. She had won a short story contest and it provided her enough money so she didn't feel pressured to find a job when her family moved to Arizona. She decided to take the time to write a novel, but it wasn't as easy as she thought. Finally, after a year and a half and no book on the horizon, she immersed herself in movies, going to the theater five times in one week. Then she reread books she used to love to read. A piece in one of the movies gave her the idea for her first novel which she wrote in three months. She then spent another three months revising it.

She didn't sell that book or the second book either, but one night she had a dream about being able to see inside her husband dreams. That's when she envisioned Janie, a seventeen-year-old girl who gets sucked into other people's nightmares against her will. Lisa worked feverishly, eighteen hours a day for seven days, until she completed the rough draft for Wake. She said this isn't hard to do if you have the entire story in your head, especially if the story is short. Wake is about 40,000 words.

I'm not so sure I agree. I would have a hard time sitting that long without some serious yoga. Lisa said after completing that quick first draft, she spent another two months rewriting the story. She found an agent fairly quickly who introduced her to the wonderful team at Simon Pulse.

Lisa's experiences were inspirational and informative. Many of the audience members were from our local SCBWI chapter. Lisa was gracious enough to pose with the other authors for the photo below. Oh, and it looks like somebody's granddaughter sneaked inside the photo, too. Perhaps she's an author in training?

The People You Meet Along the Way

Miss May survived hurricane Sandy, but the first floor of her home was uninhabitable. This is what her living room looked like when our work crew showed up to tear out the remaining walls and put up dry wall this past July. The week prior another group had come through to put in the sub-flooring.

You would never guess from the exterior that the first floor was in such poor condition. Miss May gave us permission to take photos of the house, but did not want to be in the pictures herself. She was a truly inspirational woman. A retired nurse, she said she had lived in this house on Long Beach, New York for over sixty years. Although the hurricane was last October, she had only just returned home the week before we arrived. When this photo was taken, she was staying on the second floor while the first floor was renovated.

Miss May had been living with her nephew ever since Superstorm Sandy destroyed much of her home. She walked with a cane and got around pretty slowly, but her mind was as sharp as ever. She had wanted return when the waters receded, but her nephew was worried about her safety. He was so concerned he took down the stair railings so she wouldn't be tempted to go back, but while he was out of town she moved back anyway.

We were in Long Island with Next Step, a faith based group that organizes work project like this all over the world. See my August 6 post for more details. The people you meet along life's journey are truly remarkable. Each one is full of stories.

Hurricane House

Appearances can be deceptive. I've always known that, but often I forget. I was reminded of just how inaccurate perceptions can be when I traveled to Long Beach, New York earlier this summer. The beach town is located off of Long Island's South Shore and surrounded by Reynold's Channel to the north, east and west. It's stunning beach runs along the Atlantic Ocean to the south.

A cursory drive through the streets would give the impression that this is a sleepy little beach town with quaint little houses where people from the city take the train or bus in for day trips to the beach on the weekend. Although that's still true, what one doesn't realize at first pass is that many of the houses are empty.
Some have even been condemned, but you wouldn't know it unless you got close enough to see a red X drawn on the window.

Superstorm Sandy raged across New York's eastern seaboard nine months ago, but the devastation it left behind is still painfully evident in the lives of Long Beach residents. Many of them are still living with family members, making due in small apartments, or squeezing their belongings into the second floor of their home while tearing out the ground floor and replacing dry wall still wet from last summer's storm. These are not the second homes of the rich who live and work elsewhere. Most of the residents of Long Island are working class folks, just like the rest of us.

I was in Long Beach chaperoning my daughter's youth group who was there with Next Step helping to rehab houses damaged in the storm. Next Step is a faith based organization that sets up long term construction and service projects all around the world. Various groups come to a location for a week of service. Our group ripped out damaged interiors and put up dry wall. The group coming after us will mud the dry wall. The group that came before us put in a new sub floor. Construction continues like that until the project is completed, with kids painting, hanging siding, putting in laminate and basically just showing up to be of service.

We slept on the floor of a church that we were also helping to rehab. It was quite a process just to get all the kids fed and showered. I never knew there was such a thing as shower trailers. Now I have first hand experience.

During our orientation the Next Step Staff (all young people themselves, mostly college students and recent graduates) told us that we weren't just helping rebuild houses, we were helping to bring hope to a struggling community.

I tried to do my share to rebuild the local economy by going out with my new friend (fellow parent and chaperon, Chrissy) to buy coffee at a local sandwich shop just off the beach called Paninis and Bikinis. We were touched by the warm and excited reception the staff gave us at 6:45 in the morning. One of the girl's said, "You are our first customers." I thought Well that's nice. I wonder if that's their typical morning greeting.  Then she clarified by saying, "You are our first customers since the storm." They had just reopened the sandwich shop that very day!!  As you can see, there was still paper in the new windows. I was so excited I came back at lunch to buy our little work crew sandwiches and salads.




There were several things the Long Beach experience taught me. First of all, you don't know when a simple gesture like buying coffee might bring hope to someone. Second, houses are like people. Sometimes they look perfectly fine on the outside, but inside they are crumbling. I try to remember that when I'm tempted to think that other people are more successful, lucky, happy, etc. than I am. I never really know what's going on inside.

Stay tuned next week when I report on the story of Miss May, one of the wonderful Long Beach residents I got to know while I was there.

ALA Chicago Highlights

I went to the American Library Association (ALA) Conference for the first time June 29-30th and it was a truly magical, amazing, and
overwhelming event. I could have spent a week just hanging out in the Exhibit Hall. I got to catch up with old friends like Esther Hershenhorn - author, Chicago resident, and fellow panelist at the IRA Conference in April of 2012.

I also got to meet one of my favorite writers of all time, Laurie Halse Anderson. She is as warm and wonderful as she is talented. Laurie is most well known for her riveting novel, Speak, a Printz Honor book which many of my students have read, but she's also written some wonderful historical novels. I picked up Chains, which won the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. It was also a National Book Award Finalist. I also got the sequel, Forge. I'm looking forward to sharing both of these with my students this school year.

In addition to hanging out in the exhibit hall with authors, I attended the Coffee Klatch on Sunday morning. It's like Speed Dating with librarians. Thirty-eight authors, myself included, went from table to table speaking with young adult librarians about our books. Each table had about eight librarians and when the bell rang, the authors moved to a different table. It was exhausting and invigorating and I nearly lost my voice afterward, but so much fun!

The biggest highlight of the conference was getting to see Vaunda Micheaux Nelson at her book signing. Here she is with the Coretta Scott King Honor she received for No Crystal Stair. It's a documentary novel of the life and work of her uncle, Lewis Michaux, a Harlem bookseller in the tumultous 60s. Vaunda works as a librarian at the public library in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. It's the same city where I'm a speech-language pathologist. She and I led author panel discussions at both high schools last fall about book research. We also talked about our experiences at the YALSA SYMPOSIUM in St. Louis last November.

I'm already marking my calendar for ALA 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada.