Writers Lab: Coming Into Summer
Greetings, Lab Coats and all Storybellers, to the last post of May and spring. I’m out of town, visiting family and celebrating a high school graduation, then headed to Charlottesville, Virginia for another research day for the work in progress. Tickets to Monticello on Saturday and home late Sunday.
Staring into the summer ahead always makes me think of the courage on display in Mississippi in 1964, and as we head into those Freedom Summer days, I want to share an interview I did with Book Page when Revolution was published.
I’ll be back with June’s assignments next week. Meanwhile, I’m opening the Lab to everyone this holiday week, with an interview, and a short assignment. Welcome to the Writers Lab, everyone!
xo Debbie
June 2014
Deborah WilesInterview by Angela Leeper
Inspired by the author’s own childhood in Mississippi in the ’60s, Revolution is an unforgettable story of big changes—for a nation and for the two young characters at the heart of this book.
Why did you choose to tell the story of the Freedom Summer through the eyes of a white character, especially one who isn’t initially a firm believer in civil rights?
I chose to tell the story as I witnessed it in 1964. I was a white kid in Mississippi in 1964, and I didn’t understand what was happening. I couldn’t be called a “believer” in civil rights per se, as I didn’t know what that meant. Children have a finely honed sense of justice and fairness, however, and I knew something was wrong and unfair, although I couldn’t articulate it. At first, when “everything closed”—the pool, the rollerskating rink, the ice cream place, the library, the movie theater—all I could think was, now I won’t be able to do these things—how unfair! I hadn’t realized that there were kids my age who had never been able to do these things, because of the color of their skin. I always say this was the summer I began to pay attention.
When I wrote Revolution, I wanted Sunny to have such an awakening. I wanted her to begin to pay attention. I wanted her to expand her thinking, and thereby her world. Everything she hears, sees and experiences serves that awakening.
You don’t shy away from depicting the violence directed at blacks and the whites who are trying to help them. Why do you think it’s important for Sunny to observe this violence firsthand?
I need the reader to observe it! Sunny and Raymond are the eyes and ears of the reader, and through them the reader experiences Freedom Summer, as well as what it’s like to grow up with hopes and dreams within a loving family; what it’s like to weather storms together, to be scared together, to face hatred and change together; what honor and dignity look like; what it’s like to not understand what’s happening in your world, to seek out answers.
You spent much of your childhood in Mississippi. Were you able to draw on any personal experiences when writing Revolution?
I was born in Mobile, Alabama, and spent my growing up summers in Mississippi, at my grandmother’s home. I went to college in Mississippi in 1971, where there were still “colored” and “white” drinking fountains on campus. I grew up as an Air Force kid—which I write about in Countdown—so going home to Mississippi (where my parents were born and bred) was like entering another world, but one as familiar to me as breathing. I loved it fiercely—still do. I was largely sheltered from any civil rights unrest. Our little town was very rural, and there was no Freedom House in Jasper County, but I have vivid memories of “everything closing,” and of the small moments I observed as I began to pay attention. I saw, for instance, how Annie Mae, who worked for my grandmother, was treated in town. I wrote about this in my first book, Freedom Summer. I was confused and longed to talk about these things and understand what was happening. In creating Sunny, I gave myself a way to be part of the Movement.
The articles and photographs never overwhelm the story, but rather provide glimpses of the historical backdrop. How should young people approach these documentary materials?
They serve as a way to look at the larger world while the more intimate story plays out in the book. As writers and readers, we often look at a story—especially historical fiction—as happening in one small pocket of the historical world, when in reality so much is happening that’s important to a story, that defines it. The Beatles coming to America in 1964 is a defining feature of Sunny’s life and friendships, and I want you to see it. I want to see it, as I am such a visual learner and reader. I teach writing in schools, where I tell students and teachers about the awakening moments for me as a writer, when I learned that I could access the whole world in telling my story—an outer story and an inner story, if you will.
What was your favorite thing you learned during the research process for Revolution?
It astounded me, first of all, how little I really understood about Freedom Summer, especially as I had written a picture book called Freedom Summer in 2001, which had required me to do some research into the Civil Rights Act. As I dug deeper for Revolution, to write a documentary novel, I was most surprised to find what a local movement Freedom Summer had been. Yes, SNCC organized Freedom Summer, working with other civil rights organizations. Yes, they came into Mississippi—1,000 strong in 1964, mostly white, mostly college students—to register black voters, and yet the philosophy of SNCC was to help the local people who were already ready for change—already working for it—stand up and be supported and learn the tactics they could use after SNCC left to continue to work for change.
What would you say to young readers who want to make a positive change in the world?
Ask questions. Pay attention. Educate yourself. Find your people and stand for what you believe in. In Revolution, Sunny is almost 13 years old, and she makes a difference. Raymond, who is 14, certainly makes a difference as he learns to work in his community, learns to channel his frustration and anger, and learns that his dignity has no price. He teaches Sunny this, too, without saying a word to her. This is how we make a difference, one choice at a time, over and over again.
What can readers expect from the final installment in the Sixties Trilogy?
Book three takes place in 1968, in the San Francisco Bay area, and takes us into the turmoil of that year with the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, the Democratic National Convention, the Vietnam War, the counterculture, rock and roll (baby!) and the antiwar movement. I can’t wait to be steeped in this world and to find my story. I’m convinced that stories help us to understand ourselves and change the world.
A portion of this interview was originally published in the June 2014 issue of BookPage.
Here is Bob Moses talking about Freedom Summer:
If you’ve read Anthem, Book Three of the Sixties Trilogy, you’ll know that the book takes place in 1969 (not 1968 as I said in this interview), so you can maybe guess that there were lots of decisions made about that book in the five years between Revolution and Anthem’s publication! More on that another day.
*****
And now, THE ASSIGNMENT, which is a short one this week, a gift for the end of “My Month of May” and a look into summer.
This Assignment, Exercise #12 is open to everyone this holiday weekend. If you’d like to join the Lab and work with us every week, here’s where you can do that.
THE ASSIGNMENT:We’re deep into “last days” now — last days of school, last days of spring, last time we’ll walk through a certain door or do a certain thing… and we’re tiptoing into firsts as well.
I am thinking of my grandgirl D who graduated from high school today, and who is stepping into a new world…
I am thinking of teachers who are dismantling their classrooms… or who are starting summer classes.
I’m thinking of librarians compiling summer reading lists and activities for their patrons.
I’m thinking of the trip to Charlottesville tomorrow and what new things I hope to discover about the book I’m writing… and I’m sure I’ll be thinking about last-things, too, with this book. Old things, ancient things. History.
I’m thinking about how yesterdays become last days and how each of us steps into a new day, each day, if we’re lucky, and how each new day is a new opportunity to begin again.
I’m thinking about the Freedom Summer volunteers, both those who came to Mississippi and those who already lived there and made commitments large and small to change history.
I’m thinking about each of us who makes a commitment every day, in small, everyday actions, in sacrifices, in generosity of heart or spirit, in tough choices, in speaking up, in knowing when to listen.
THE ASSIGNMENT is to write about a time that you:experienced a last day or a last time;
a time you began again;
a moment of commitment;
a moment of courage.
Choose One.
Use this focus sentence: I’m going to write about the time that ___________.
Put it at the top of your page, to keep you… focused.
Begin with a strong lead. Read ’s April post with three great rules for capturing and keeping your reader’s attention:
Killer title.
Open strong
Format with mobile in mind.
Post what you come up with in comments.
Lab post comments are open to all this week; let us hear from you!
Questions? Ask away; the comments section is your friend!
We are off on a new adventure this morning. I’ll take you with me. I’m posting the journey on my IG stories, and will try to remember to put some of those photos here in Notes as well.
Until Monday!
xo Debbie
