Author Archives: Larissa Theule

Why You Should Travel Now More Than Ever, Especially with Kids

10 Saturday Jun 2017

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When I was a kid growing up overseas in the ‘80s and ‘90s, first in Nigeria, then Japan, it was cheaper for our family of seven to buy around-the-world tickets than fly directly to Michigan where our relatives lived. My parents took full advantage of this pricing oddity. We visited every country we could. This was before Google, before Airbnb, before Uber—before the Internet. It wasn’t easy. My dad would wash dirty diapers in hotel sinks at night after we visited at least four hotels to find the cheapest rate, all of us lugging our bags (without wheels) around town.

Of the memories I have of our family adventures, I regularly come back to two in particular.

The first is from a visit to Singapore when my dad, a Christian, stood at the top of the stairs leading to a mosque, talking with the imam. Both men were at ease, showing each other courtesy and respect. I wasn’t impressed at the time. The rest of us wanted to go do something else and my dad was holding us up, but I’ve never forgotten the image of two strangers of differing faiths making time to be with each other. There was no wall of suspicion between them. They delighted in their conversation.

Another, more general memory, is of my mom talking with craftspeople: jewelry makers in New Mexico, basket weavers in Japan, soap makers in California, furniture makers in China. She could hold up the family to talk basketry with a local artisan in a market the way my dad could hold us up at a mosque, or a museum. To this day, if she revisits a place, she seeks out the artisan she spoke with months, or even years ago.

It strikes me that the sheer force of humbly showing up at a shop or a house of worship in an unfamiliar town or country is a blazing sign of wanting to bust through cultural walls to be with the people on the other side. At which point the people on the other side are nearly always willing to be with you, too.

We’re living in a moment in history when we are entrenched in our own identifiers, suspicious of those who look, live, politic, and pray differently than us. We talk about The Wall (you know the one,) all the while building our own walls, emblazoned with memes, that keep us from truly seeing and being with each other.

My son, now eight, has been traveling since the day he was born. We used to tuck him into a Baby Bjorn, strap him on, and carry him with us wherever we went. Once, we took him on a fan boat ride through a jungle in Vietnam. It was hot and the boat was loud, but he seemed happy. Possibly, the thrill of it worked its way into his bloodstream. He loves to travel. He has a gift for making friends and a natural curiosity that reminds me of his grandparents.

After the 2016 election, my husband suggested we travel this summer to explore family roots in the Netherlands and visit a dear brother in France. To me, this idea didn’t seem wise. The future seemed—and still does—not just precarious, but grim. Shouldn’t we save money? Ride this out? See what happens? Shouldn’t we huddle up?

I think about how carefully I watched my parents as a kid and how their steady, joyful openness while traveling formed my perception of the world as a place in which we are all connected. I want the same for my kids. I want them to know that huddling up and hiding behind walls of our own making stunts our shared humanity. I want them to engage in enthusiastic conversations about baskets, and religion, and whatever else, with zero thought of changing other people’s minds but with a willingness to change their own.

My son has a new patch on his backpack that says, “Think Peace.” He feels this communicates a nice message to the people he will meet in the Netherlands.

Now, more than ever, is the right time to travel, have fun, and say hello to a neighboring city, or state, or a country you’ve always wanted to visit. Bust through some walls. Meet the world. Be reminded that we’re all in this together.

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Telling the Story

30 Monday Sep 2013

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We are about to repatriate to the US and during our last weeks in China we’re making an extra effort to take our two preschool-age kids to historical landmarks. Two weekends ago we visited the Great Wall and other places in Beijing like the Temple of Heaven and Tiananmen Square.​

Before we left on our trip to Beijing, the prospect of visiting Tiananmen Square was giving me a little trouble of mind. I wanted the kids to know what happened there, the silencing of cries for freedom and subsequent death blows, the total beat down of hope that echoed around the world but is still silenced here in China. I wanted them to know these things while they stood there, the Square beneath their feet, their adoring parents at hand, and not to be read about in a lifeless history textbook some ten years in the future.

​But how would I tell them? I get heart palpitations and sweaty hands when my four-year old wants to know what it means to die. How do I explain? Will he have nightmares? I don’t want him to think about these dark matters.

Yet he does think about them because the world in all its greatness and ugliness is making itself known to him, every day a little more. He wants to know the definition of death, but he’s also asking me to tell him how to feel when something or someone dies. I tell him, briefly, reluctantly, and then do what I often do when I run out of words of my own, go to the bookshelf to find a story written by an author more adept than I at illuminating life’s dark side with humor and grace. (Fairy tales do this wonderfully.) ​
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My mother-in-law, an exceptional 3rd grade teacher and grandmother extraordinaire, looked at me in surprise one time as I read the kids Vladimir Radunsky’s Mannekin Pis: A Simple Story of a Boy who Peed on a War. I was reading the kids a book about war!

​Yes, both because it’s a pretty funny story and because it’s through story that we learn to empathize.

​When kids read about or witness the beating down of hope, how should they feel? What should they do about it? They want to know, and stories, funny or sad, fiction or biography, teach them.

​When they see news clips of children being shot and killed in their classrooms, their teachers’ arms wrapped around them, how should they feel?

When they are bullied, or see someone else being bullied, or themselves feel the shame of bullying others, what should they do?

​I’ve been reading Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water, as I do every four months or so when my soul needs settling. She teaches me about faith and writing, but also about children.

She writes about the gift of second sight, “that gift which allows us to peek for a moment at the world beyond ordinary space and time.”

​Children have this gift of second sight. As we grow up most of us lose this gift, but children filter life through a lens different than ours. Their own stories are as closely linked to the stories they read and hear about as they are to their parents’ and siblings’. They see the middling place between love and hurt, sadness and joy as opposing sides of the same fabric, the magic that makes heroes of cowards and princes of paupers. For all the big bad wrongs of the world for them to know and imagine, they are able to imagine even bigger, more glorious ways of righting those wrongs.

They can be princes.

They will be heroes.

As it happened, when we stood in Tiananmen Square, it was post naptime and the only thing my kids could think about was their promised ice cream.

So when we returned home, taking advantage of our fresh memories of the place and trusting in the kids’ second sight to adapt the story to their own young hearts, I fumbled my way through a brief retelling of the student uprising.

The kids didn’t notice my clumsy words. They’re two and four and think I’m cool. Also, they were playing with their castle, which was being threatened by a two-headed dragon.

The dragon burned down the castle and everyone in it died, except for one lone knight, sitting astride a royal charger on the arm of the couch some distance away.

​The knight raised his sword, a hero in the making.

​The kids continued playing while I talked, but they heard the story, I’m sure of it. And they understood two important things.

Firstly, that a wrong occurred at Tiananmen Square.

Secondly, how their mom feels about that wrong.

​Telling my children the story is what I did about it.​

Lipstick

07 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by in In Real Life, The Writing Life

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Almost forty years ago, on a warm summer evening, a charming coed double-booked. Laurel couldn’t say no to Bill or Peter, so she said yes to both.

Bill and Peter were both good-looking young men, but Peter was a shade bolder than Bill. His bellbottoms flared more. He was the star pitcher of the baseball team. He wanted to travel and see the world. And he knew that Bill had a date with Laurel prior to his own, so, naturally, he showed up early.

Sure enough, Bill’s car was still parked in the driveway.

Laurel stood with Bill on the steps and seeing Peter pull up, blushed at being found out and ran inside.

Peter stepped out of his truck. “Bill.”

“Peter.”

Inside, Laurel burst into tears. “He’s impossible!” she cried.

Her mother, a stylish woman, peered out the window. Maybe she smiled. Young love, that sweet old thing. Years of experience had taught her the importance of giving pithy advice.

“Honey,” she said, “Put on a little lipstick and everything will be alright.”

Laurel did as instructed, breathed easier, and decided to take charge. She went back outside, kissed Bill on the cheek goodbye, and half a year later married Peter.

Forty years, five kids, and four continents later, Peter and Laurel are still together.

Like all good stories over time, this one has grown in my imagination. My mom’s curls are blonder and fro more, my dad’s bellbottoms are even more flamboyant, but what hasn’t changed, are my grandma’s words. “Put on a little lipstick and everything will be alright.”

She could have said something like, “Buck up,” or, alternately, given a long beautiful talk about the choices we make in life, but she didn’t.

She invoked lipstick.

I often think of this story when I write, of the everyday article of beauty that was given great power, of my grandma’s unsentimental manner in advising a quick-fix to regain self-control. She suggested making a physical change, even if just a small one.

These are the flowers I bought the other day.

These are the flowers I bought the other day.

For years I have subscribed to her advice and on occasion work while wearing pajamas and red lipstick. Don’t laugh. I know it’s not about the lipstick itself. The small physical change might be anything at all, like opening a window, wearing cowboy boots instead of flats, going for a run, getting a haircut, or buying flowers and arranging them in a vase to place next to your computer.

These are small bursts of beauty that zero in on one’s heart to kindly remind it to breathe. As a writer, it’s my belief that when I breathe better, my story will breathe better also.

If you’re feeling weathered, try lipstick.

Or bossy boots.

Or both.

(This post was unabashedly written with women in mind, but men, you’re smart too–adopt what works.)

And don’t forget that tomorrow is International Women’s Day. Celebrate!

Interview with Linda Pratt of Wernick & Pratt Agency

25 Monday Feb 2013

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Linda Pratt is part of the dynamic duo that forms literary agency Wernick & Pratt, whose clients include such legends as Richard Peck and Mo Willems, and National Book Award Winner Kathryn Erskine. Linda Pratt

LT: Linda, we are so happy to have you with us today. Yours is our very first agent interview, so we are especially pleased and grateful that you are willing to take time to answer a few questions. Let’s start at the very beginning. In 2011, you and Marcia Wernick left Sheldon Fogelman and stepped out on your own. How did Wernick & Pratt come into being?

LP: Marcia and I had been colleagues and friends during our tenure at the Sheldon Fogelman Agency, and we were always amused by how well we each seemed to fill the spaces in the other’s skill set. For example, Marcia is an expert in subsidiary rights having negotiated licenses for everything from film and theatrical plays, to audio and translation editions, and all kinds of merchandise, including ringtones! I have a finance/accounting background so the administrative aspects of running a business such as forecasting and financial analytics are more in my wheelhouse. When it came time to think about the next phase in our professional careers, the question of who we each wanted on that journey was a no brainer. We have similar approaches to working with our individual authors and illustrators, and together we are able to pool our specific skill sets to offer the kind of full service representation that we each feel is so important in creating long term careers for our clients.

LT: You represent both authors and illustrators, and those particularly remarkable author/illustrators. Do you find that dealing in both pictures and words lends you a unique perspective as an agent?

LP: Hmmm. That’s an interesting question that I’ve never really consciously broken down in my mind. I’m glad you asked, though, so that I have to! The answer for me would be that pictures and words are really just two different forms of language. I suppose the uniqueness in perspective is the same as one might get being bilingual.

I drew all the time as a kid and well into my teens, and my drawings were always illustration. I created a lot of characters, some people, but many anthropomorphic. I was also an avid reader, and I love language. Turns of phrase just fascinate me. In fact, I’ve been known to get so caught up with my romance with words that I can pick up an accent or way of talking very easily if I’m in a place too long. So the idea of communicating through words and pictures is something that has always been a part of my life. I take it for granted, like riding a bike.

LT: One of the hallmarks of your agency is your commitment to clients’ long-term careers. Can you speak to this?

LP: Authors and illustrators have already spent a lot of time pursuing their craft before we ever come into the picture. As such, Marcia and I feel that it is only fair that in offering representation to someone we are going in with a long-term view of working as well. There are a number of aspects as to what that means to us.

We don’t pursue relationships with the idea of floating a title out to publishers and if we can’t place it, “Well, thank you very much. You’re on your own again.” There are times when the title on which we based our offer of representation doesn’t sell. That’s OK. We’re interested in helping our clients move forward to their next project and the project after that. As an example, one of my author clients originally came to me for representation with a beautifully written historical middle grade novel. It hasn’t sold…..yet. But her skill as a writer was so clear in that piece that I knew she had many other books to write. Ironically, her first sales wound up being picture books. In fact, one was just optioned for TV.

When you work with someone long enough, things change, too. Sometimes it’s the industry. The market for the kinds of books an author or illustrator has been doing may not be there in the same way. Sometimes it’s the client’s creative approach. An author or illustrator may feel pigeonholed by an expectation for certain kinds of work when they really want to be doing something very different. Helping to navigate these shifts is another aspect of working long term.

There is also the goal of protecting a client’s control over their creations for the long term. If a book becomes a major success, suddenly there are many, many opportunities to exploit rights beyond the original book. We work to allow our clients the most freedom to make decisions on how and the degree to which their work is used and/or licensed in other forms.

LT: When reading manuscripts, from the slushpile or otherwise, a): where is your favorite place to read, and b): what are you hoping to find?

LP: a) My favorite place to read is in our guest bedroom. Guest rooms never seem to have the clutter of everyday in them. No paperwork, laundry hamper, discarded shoes and clothes, etc., which gives them a bit of a Bed and Breakfast feel. Reading there feels like a mini-getaway. Plus, our guest room has my childhood bed in it. An antique brass bed that my parents found in the back of a junk shop when I was 3. There are also books everywhere and artwork from far away lands. So a bit of the familiar coupled with the possibility of places unknown in one place. The same makings of a good book!

b) The primary thing that I’m always hoping for in reading a manuscript is to connect with the character. They can be kind, funny, prickly, morally questionable, or anything else. No matter what their personality traits are, there has to be a point of connection with the reader, though. I think this comes out of creating a feeling of empathy.

For example, like so many, I’ve spent my last number of Sunday evenings watching Downton Abbey. Thomas, who is now Under Butler of the house, is a mean spirited, vindictive character. While I’m not claiming to have never been mean in my life (cue a breezy glass house if I did), his brand of vindictiveness is not something with which I identify. While his story evolved over the season to make him a much more tragic figure, which made him much more empathetic, the turning point for me in being able to relate to him came before the major drama in his character arc. It was his reaction to Lady Sybil’s death that gave me a bridge to relate to him. The fact that he, more than anyone else downstairs, took it the hardest made him more humane.

It’s these kinds of layers of complexities and contradictions in characters on the page that I want to discover. The little things that make me see the unexpected or nuanced aspects of a character’s inner being. When you see a writer who understands this so often they also have a strong sense of voice, too, because the two go hand in hand.

LT: Now for the heart of the matter:
Coffee or tea?
LP: Tea. All four of my grandparents are from Scotland. Everyone drank tea in my family. Even the coffee drinkers still have a cup now and again.

Dogs or cats?
Dogs. We have a scruffy little terrier mix. She’s my first little dog. I had always thought of myself as a big dog gal until I fell in love with her photo on Petfinder.com.

Running or zumba?
Running, but unfortunately I’ve had to take a break due to an injury. My husband is hoping it will heal quickly because I can get a little cranky when I haven’t exercised.

LT: Lastly, do you have any advice for writers seeking representation?

LP: Marcia and I always say that the things that we look for in clients are:
a) They are talented.
b) That we connect with them. We have to feel like they like and trust us and vice versa us about them. This doesn’t mean being best friends, but in any long term relationship bumps can arise. If you didn’t like or trust one another all that much at the start, you won’t grow to if you find yourselves in a bumpy patch. Failure would be a certainty under that circumstance.
c) We have to have an idea of how we envision helping the Author reach their goals.
d) There is a sense of flexibility since no person, industry, or career is stagnant, and changes are inevitable, and an ability to change with them is the key to surviving for the long term.

I’d say a writer may be wise to seek these same things in their agent.

The other thing I would say is that a “no” today may not be a “no” forever. If you get any feedback, and you feel that you’ve addressed the concern raised, it would likely be OK to approach that agent again unless they have a stated policy otherwise. It’d probably be best to approach the agent with a new piece if a revision wasn’t specifically requested on the original submission. If you do want to go back with an unsolicited revision, however, you should probably query the agent first before resubmitting.

LT: Linda, thank you so much!

INTERVIEW: Varian Johnson on Being a Writer and a Dad

24 Monday Sep 2012

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Varian Johnson

Varian, you’re a dad of a very young child. How much sleep did you get last night?
 
V: It’s funny that you’re asking this, as last night was the first night that I’ve been on my own all night with the baby. I ended up getting about six hours—one more than usual.
 
And did you have time to shower this morning?
 
V: A helpful tidbit for writer-dads-to-be: babies don’t seem to care about little things like showers or lunch or book deadlines. I wasn’t able to get a shower in this morning, but I was able to fit a quick one in when the baby went down for a nap.
 
As a parent of young children myself, I’m green with envy over your time management skills. You’re a civil engineer, you write award-winning books, and you’re a father. That’s an overflowing plate. Do you have any advice for writers in similar circumstances?
 
V: I wish I had some good advice, but to be honest, my mantra right now is just to make it from day to day. I’m content with writing as much as I can when I can (usually late at night after everyone’s asleep). I try my best not to get too upset during the stretches of time where meaningful writing doesn’t happen (though I can get pretty surly if the drought stretches for too long).
 
Also, there’s a lot that you can do on a manuscript in 15 minutes. Okay…maybe not “a lot,” but you can make progress. And fifteen minutes a day on my really, really busy days is enough to sustain me until I’m able to find bigger blocks of time for writing.
 
How has becoming a father influenced you as a writer?
 
V: You know, it hasn’t affected me too much. If anything, it makes me wish I wrote for a younger audience, so I didn’t have to wait so long to expose my daughter to my books.
 
Before you were a dad, you said you’d never attempt to write a picture book. Is this still true?
 
V: I’ve got one completed picture book sitting in a file on my computer. Maybe I’ll try to get it published one day. Knowing my luck, by the time I get it published, the baby will be an adult.

What currently is your daughter’s favorite book? And what is your favorite book to read to her?
 
V: She alternates between The Very Hungry Caterpillar, written and illustrated by Eric Carle, and Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, written and illustrated by Eileen Christelow. They are both fine books, but daddy-fatigue starts to set in anytime you read a story three times in a row (like tonight).
 
My current favorite is I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen. The baby loves the book as well, except when she’s trying to eat the pages.

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On My Week Without Exclamation Marks

02 Thursday Aug 2012

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I did it.

I went a week without using exclamation marks. Not a single happy stick and dot in any emails, text messages, or reminder notes to myself or anyone else.

The week required concentration. I like using exclamation marks. I like when other people use exclamation marks. They’re like virtual fist bumps. In nixing the mark, I had to choose my words more carefully to accomplish the same feeling of comaraderie that the mark communicates so effortlessly.

A little while ago I was reminded of this quote from C.S. Lewis:

Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

His sage advice makes sense to me too with respect to punctuation. Don’t use an exclamation mark if you don’t need to, otherwise you’ll have no punctuation option left when you want to talk about something really exclamatory. Or, you’ll risk falling into the trap of having to use multiple exclamation marks, which more than anything suggests an over consumption of spirits or caffeine.

This is informal communication I’m referring to, but even casual correspondence should strive to represent the best of ourselves. Think, virtual fist bump plus virtual eye contact.

Like this:

Jane wins the Newbery.

Dan emails: Holy frickin’ awesome!! You’re a rockstar!!!! (fist bump)

Sam emails: This is really wonderful news. You are truly deserving of this incredible honor. I am so, so proud of you. (fist bump + deep meaningful eye contact)

Using exclamation marks doesn’t necessarily preclude poor word choice, but it tends to. And in fact, Sam could probably have used an exclamation in his message because if ever there was something worth exclaiming about, it’d be a friend winning the Newbery Medal.

The week has been just a little bit liberating. Already I feel more grounded, less high-pitched.

Less like I’m communicating through a megaphone.

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The Small World of Slippers And Eric Carle

12 Thursday Jul 2012

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Having spent a lifetime overseas, small world moments shouldn’t surprise me anymore. How many times have I bumped into childhood friends while dragging luggage to my departure gate in Chicago O’Hare, declaring aloud, “It’s such a small world.”

But these moments get me every time, like “Boo!”

My two kids have a thing for shoes, especially boots. Because of this, I was remembering Alfie’s Feet by Shirley Hughes, a book about footwear that I had read and loved as a child. But where in China could I find a copy for my kids? Woefully, I gave up before I even started looking.

Then my in-laws came for a visit and we embarked on a whirlwind boat tour of port cities in Asia. When we docked in Nagasaki we chose a hilly cobblestone street to explore. Suddenly, in that wonderful way in which traveling can spring surprises, there on our right was the Nagasaki Picture Book Museum. How totally perfect!

We went in, took off our walking shoes and put on the slippers that all guests are required to wear (they had kid sizes too).

And there, waiting for me in a basket of used books for sale, was a former Brownsville Elementary School library copy of Alfie’s Feet. My old friend.

The slippers room.

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A tad emotional, I lifted my head to fend off full-on blubbering and there above me on the wall hung Eric Carle’s autograph and picture.

“Boo!”

In the photo he is sitting with his legs crossed, slippers on his feet.

The photo is behind the fuzzy green thing.

Were they the exact pair that I was now wearing? What if! No matter. He and I had both found this impeccable cottage of picture books on this unlikely street in a country far from the ones we call home, and doesn’t that say something about he and I maybe being kindred spirits? Oh hey now, a dreamer can dream.

The happy encounter made me say out loud for possibly the thousandth time in my life, “It’s such a small world.”

As I hoped, my kids love Alfie’s Feet (though perhaps not quite as much as I do).

This is Us

02 Monday Apr 2012

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When we met, most of us didn’t know the correct way to pronounce the city of Montpelier (mäntˈpēlyər), but we were happy to be there, at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Very happy, in fact, and not just a little scared. At least, I was scared. An MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults would take two intense years to complete. I’d heard stories about people’s lives changing dramatically during those two years and didn’t know if, or how, my own would change. And then I met my class and I knew that everything would be all right, as over time we laughed together and stressed out together and navigated the dark waters of disagreement together (bagpipes or no bagpipes?) and through it all we became family. And because of this class-family, I changed to become a stronger person, a bolder writer, and a more faithful friend. We are a diverse group and we live all over the map, and we think that’s why you’ll enjoy stopping by to read this blog. No single post will be like another, but will reflect our differences even while celebrating our greatest common interest: writing good, good stories for kids. We hope you’ll stop by often and leave us little messages so that we can get to know you. We really like little messages. They make us feel the love, which we hope you’ll feel in return, because if you’re reading this then you, too, probably like good, good stories and, see? we’re getting along already.