Benjamin Ludwig's Blog: Perspectives, page 2

Meeting One of My Literary Heroes

Sometimes you meet your heroes in serendipitous, almost miraculous ways.

About a month ago I reached out to author David Elliott to ask if he would read my book, Outside, which comes out in November 2024. I’d never met David in person, but I’ve been reading his books to my children for years. The first book I read to them is David’s And Here’s To You! which is an utterly joyous, linguistically rich picture book. Through his books, David helped my children develop a love of reading. Moreover, he helped them develop a love of language and poetry.

Anyway, I sent David an email, and told him how much my family loves his books, and he said he’d be glad to read Outside with an eye toward endorsing it with a blurb. It was a miracle! And an honor! I’ve said many times, mostly in my newsletter (you can sign up at the bottom of my website, if you’d like to subscribe) that asking for blurbs is a chance to meet the writers who helped form you as a reader, and who continue to inform your work. It’s a chance to meet your literary rockstars.

And when it comes to picture books and fantasy novels in verse, David is The Boss.

A few days after connecting with David, when I was at work (I teach public school), I received an email from our reading specialist. She said, “Author David Elliott is coming to give a presentation to our students on Friday, February 23rd.”

I couldn’t believe it. My literary hero, who I’d just met through email, was coming to my school! I wrote to him right away to let him know, and we both agreed that it was a very happy coincidence.

David’s presentation to our middle school students was simply awesome. He read from several of his books, and talked with students about Greek mythology, growing up, fairy tales, and book banning. He talked about the publishing industry, and what it takes to be a writer. Most importantly, he made my students – a group of not-so-privileged kids from a very small, rural town in the mountains – see that their lives could be an adventure, and that with a bit of luck and whole lot of passion, they could have a life that they’d be proud to live.

If you’re looking for a picture book to give as a gift, please consider getting a copy of And Here’s To You. And if you’re hunting for an enormously entertaining novel in verse for a young adult reader, get your hands on Bull and The Seventh Raven as soon as you can. David’s work is the best there is. Lastly, if you’re a NH educator, consider having him come to your school! His love or reading is infectious, and your students will love him.

Lastly, here’s a picture of me completely geeking out with David! Our true colors come out when we meet our heroes, I guess.

Where It’s Safe

The short-short story below, titled Where It’s Safe, is part of the collection of 100 short-shorts I mentioned in my last blog post. Dylan, the main character in my novel, Outside (forthcoming from Conquest Publishing in November, 2024) encounters a bear while working through some wilderness-survival tasks in Alaska. Where It’s Safe begins to describe just how dangerous a human-bear (or human-dog) interaction can be. I lived in Alaska for six years, and…let’s just say I learned a lot.

Where It’s Safe

         The newcomer and his wife were high on a mountain slope, resting.  They had loaded a backpack with plastic containers which they’d filled with wild blueberries.  Now they were sitting quietly watching a grizzly bear on the slope opposite them.

         They had known such a thing might happen, and so they had taken their two dogs along.  The dogs were big, brave, courageous dogs who would alert them at the slightest sign of danger.  And they were off their leashes so they could run around and scout.  If a bear was in the area, the dogs would smell it and would bark like mad.  So the couple sat resting on the slope, content in the knowledge that their precautions had been wise.  Still, they were keeping an eye on the bear, which was miles and miles away. 

         Thus far it had been a day of surprises.  When they’d first arrived, the sides of the mountain had looked smooth, as though they were covered with turf from a giant golf course.  But they had been mistaken: what appeared to be a smooth carpet of grass was actually alpine tundra, which was more like an ocean of jagged bird nests.  And though the slope appeared steady and flat, it turned out to be covered with deep folds and rises, all of which were covered with the same green shrubs and plants.  It had been difficult climbing into and out of them.  Now, hours later, they were exhausted and in need of rest.

         Sitting on the slope they watched the bear make his way across the opposite slope.  At such a great distance he seemed a tiny speck of a bear.  Sometimes he would disappear.  When that happened, the newcomer and his wife realized the he was crossing one of the folds, just as they themselves had done when they were climbing.  But they were amazed at the way in which the bear seemed to disappear so completely. 

         In truth it troubled them that they were looking at a grizzly bear.  But they had the dogs, and so they were confident that they’d be warned of any danger. 

         It was at that moment that the dogs came bounding up over one of the rises on the slope above and behind them.  The wife called the dogs to her, and they came to her happily, tails wagging.  She rubbed their heads and sides and told them to go ahead and play.  So they did.  They were loyal, intelligent dogs - dogs who knew it was their job to investigate and explore, who knew how to make lots of noise if danger approached, and who would always come back if they ran into trouble.

         The dogs ran up the slope, stopped to look back at the couple, and continued on again, disappearing behind a rise.  But within a minute they came back, their heads appearing before their bodies.  They were like two dolphins appearing and disappearing amid waves of green.  They were staying close because they felt the need to be near their family. 

         On the opposite slope, the bear reached the top of the mountain and disappeared over it.

         “What do you suppose would happen,” said the newcomer’s wife, “if the dogs found a bear on this side of the mountain?”  She was sitting on the ground, buckling one of the straps on her backpack.

         “They’d probably bark at him,” said the newcomer, feeling the wind on his face.  “Isn’t this view spectacular?”

         She was quiet for a moment.  “And then what do you suppose they’d do after they started barking?”

         “I think they’d probably keep barking,” he said.  He turned and looked at her.  “Listen, I know you’re thinking that there could be a bear behind any of these dips and rises.  And you’re right.  But we have the dogs, so we’re safe.  If there was a bear in the area, they’d find it.  They’d sniff him out and then they’d let us know by barking.”

         She held the buckle between her fingers thoughtfully.  “If they found a bear, and started barking, what do you think the bear would do?”

         “I don’t know.  Either run away or chase them, I suppose.”

         “You think he’d run away from two dogs?”

         “Sure.  Bears hate loud noises.”

         “And if the bear was hungry?”

         The newcomer shrugged.  “Those dogs are too fast for a bear.  He’d never be able to catch them.”

         She smiled.  “You’re right.  They’re fast as lightning.  They’d run right back here to us where it’s safe.”

         The newcomer hesitated, and his wife’s smile dropped.

         Fumbling for the leashes and gathering their things, they thought it best not to speak.

 

Northern Lights

From the year 2000 to 2006, I lived in Alaska. It’s a long story, and I’ll eventually tell it, here. But the experience of living in and on the Last Frontier changed me forever. Mostly it was the light, the direction of it. The intensity, too. And in winter, the utter lack.

The short-short posted below, titled Northern Lights , is one of one hundred works of flash fiction I wrote while living in The Great Land. It’s insanely short – just 379 words long – but it captures an important moment in my evolution as a person. My hope is that it begins to explain why I set my next book, Outside , in Alaska.

I’ll have more to say in my newsletter, which you can receive via email by filling out the form at the bottom of my home page (www.benjaminludwig.com).

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Northern Lights

         At night in winter when the newcomer took the dogs out one last time before going to bed, he would look up to see if the northern lights were out, and if they were he’d run back into the house, glasses instantly steamed from the rush of warmth, to tell his wife.  Then he’d head out into the yard to wait for her, watching through clearing lenses as the strange green lights began to open and fold in on themselves, slicing long slices across the fabric of night sky, then healing themselves up again.

         When his wife arrived they would stand together close with their heads back, watching.  They’d stand like that for a few minutes, and then with eyes fixed intently in the sky, their feet would come unmoored.  They would begin to wander through the yard, stepping through snow, each searching for a new point of light, the new curtain that would appear first as a thin crack, and would then spread like a pair of massive geometric wings, undulating and constricting in planes and curves tens of thousands of miles long. 

         Like a giant kite, the aurora borealis would move this way and that, propelled across the sky by solar winds.  And the newcomer and his wife, standing below, became like kites themselves, propelled this way and that across the yard.  It was clear that there was some sort of connection between the couple and the aurora, and secretly the husband and wife both felt as though they were attached to invisible kite strings which stretched into the sky.  But they could not fathom whether it was the aurora that held the strings, or if they were the ones holding the strings to it.  Or perhaps something else was holding a string to the kite which was the aurora, and they themselves were only like the kite’s tail.  Or maybe they were separate kites, all three of them together.

         Tethered on their strings, the two would maneuver through the yard in an elaborate waltz, feeling the weight of their bodies tug against the aurora.  And after they were both quite cold and ready for sleep, they’d go back into the house, certain, at the very least, that they’d been blown there by the same wind. 

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Welcome!

Hi, I’m Ben. I wrote a book a while back called Ginny Moon, published by HarperCollins/Park Row Books. Now I’ve got a second book coming out in November, 2024. It’s called Outside, and the process by which I’m publishing it will be very, very different from the first. I’ve had a shift in perspective, you might say, which is why I’m starting this blog, aptly titled Perspectives. Incidentally, Outside is all about shifting one’s point of view, which is why the camp featured in the book is called The Perspective Project.

Anyway, there are some things I’ve wanted to say for a while, and this blog is where I’m going to say them. There are three things I’ll focus on.

The first is Alaska. I lived there, once upon a time, and the place changed me. I mean, changed. If you’ve been there, you already understand. If you haven’t, maybe this blog will help. Since I’m a writer, a lot of what I’ll say will come in a more creative form, rather than traditional exposition. I might cover some non-Alaska material in this section as well, but if I do it will definitely have to do with places.

The second thing is education, and it’s probably good for you to know that I consider education (or teaching, to be more accurate) to be an extension of parenting. I’m a teacher by trade, and have recently experienced a major shift in (you guessed it) perspective regarding my own profession. If you’re a fellow educator, or maybe a student (or possibly even a foster parent, since I was one of those as well a few years ago), you might be interested in what almost 30 years in the field, combined with some pretty unique circumstances, have led me to believe.

The third thing I’d like to talk about is the life of a writer. If you’re a writer or an artist, you might be interested in the perspective of someone who started with a “Big Five” publisher, and then shifted to an independent press.

Now, I have to be honest in saying that I’m going to reveal a lot of personal information, and I’m a little leery of sharing it all right here in the open. I’ve therefore come up with a solution: Every time I post a blog entry, I’ll only one cover or two of the three topics above. The remaining topic (or topics, if the blog only features one) will be posted separately in my newsletter. That way, I can say some things publicly, and save the other information for folks who are a bit closer. I don’t want to air everything to everyone, if that makes sense. There are some things that I want to hold back a bit. I’m sure you understand. The signup link is at the bottom of this page. If you’re reading from GoodReads, click over to my website at http://www.benjaminludwig.com, and the link is at the very bottom of the site.

Stay tuned – the next blog post and newsletter will be posted in just a few days!  

Welcome to My Blog

Hi, I’m Ben. I wrote a book a while back called Ginny Moon, published by HarperCollins/Park Row Books. Now I’ve got a second book coming out in November, 2024. It’s called Outside, and the process by which I’m publishing it will be very, very different from the first. I’ve had a shift in perspective, you might say, which is why I’m starting this blog, aptly titled Perspectives. Incidentally, Outside is all about shifting one’s point of view, which is why the camp featured in the book is called The Perspective Project.

Anyway, there are some things I’ve wanted to say for a while, and this blog is where I’m going to say them. There are three things I’ll focus on.

The first is Alaska. I lived there, once upon a time, and the place changed me. I mean, changed. If you’ve been there, you already understand. If you haven’t, maybe this blog will help. Since I’m a writer, a lot of what I’ll say will come in a more creative form, rather than traditional exposition. I might cover some non-Alaska material in this section as well, but if I do it will definitely have to do with places.

The second thing is education, and it’s probably good for you to know that I consider education (or teaching, to be more accurate) to be an extension of parenting. I’m a teacher by trade, and have recently experienced a major shift in (you guessed it) perspective regarding my own profession. If you’re a fellow educator, or maybe a student (or possibly even a foster parent, since I was one of those as well a few years ago), you might be interested in what almost 30 years in the field, combined with some pretty unique circumstances, have led me to believe.

The third thing I’d like to talk about is the life of a writer. If you’re a writer or an artist, you might be interested in the perspective of someone who started with a “Big Five” publisher, and then shifted to an independent press.

Now, I have to be honest in saying that I’m going to reveal a lot of personal information, and I’m a little leery of sharing it all right here in the open. I’ve therefore come up with a solution: Every time I post a blog entry, I’ll only one cover or two of the three topics above. The remaining topic (or topics, if the blog only features one) will be posted separately in my newsletter. That way, I can say some things publicly, and save the other information for folks who are a bit closer. I don’t want to air everything to everyone, if that makes sense. There are some things that I want to hold back a bit. I’m sure you understand. The signup link is at the bottom of this page. If you’re reading from GoodReads, click over to my website at http://www.benjaminludwig.com, and the link is at the very bottom of the site.

Stay tuned – the next blog post and newsletter will be posted in just a few days!