Since today is Martin Luther King, Jr. day, I decided to base this post on one of his famous quotes:

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

 To me, this describes the writing process.  Years ago in a writing workshop, I listened in awe as a wildly successful novelist and essayist described her writing process.  Let’s call this award-winning writer “Star.”

Star taped a long sheet of white paper to the wall, pulled out several different colored felt-tip pens, and proceeded to illustrate how she outlined plot, character, emotion, and other components of her “novel-in-progress.”  In fact, by the time she finished, it didn’t seem in progress to me; it seemed done—just written in shorthand rather than prose.

She began with a straight line across the paper.  That represented nothing, she explained, except the point of departure. Life is not a straight line; neither is fiction.

One hour later, the piece of white paper was criss-crossed with multicolored lines representing each major character in the book. The basic plot line of the story dipped and rose over the original straight line.  (It was red.)  Brief notes were scribbled in various spots of the lines: Character meets conflict; character resolves conflict.  Other notations were scattered over the page, like, character impacted by other character; foreshadow;  what if?   The paper looked like something some bored child had done with an Etch-a-Sketch.

The room was silent.  Finally, one person asked, “You mean, when you start a novel you know exactly all of those details, you know exactly how it’s going to end?”  The rest of us in the room waited.

“Of course not!” laughed Star.  “As I engage in the writing itself, things change!  I don’t know,” she rather tossed off.  “Perhaps my muse takes over.  Perhaps I see that something I thought would work actually won’t work.  You have to shift when need be; change direction.”

And then she said something that resonated with me.  “As time passes, things change. They change in important ways. That character you knew in October won’t be the same character in July.  Of course, she’s basically the same person, but she has grown, had experiences, developed.  You, the writer, have to follow her development.  You can’t leave her where you found her.”

Now the people in the room were puzzled.  “Then,” asked one person, pointing to the paper, “why do all that?”

Star seemed genuinely stunned.  “You have to have an idea of where you’re going!  Of course, you make changes as you go along the way, but if you don’t know where you intend to go, how will you ever get there?”

At that moment, I knew I would never be a writer.  Having to do all that work before I wrote the first word was as alien to me as laying out all my ingredients and utensils in advance of preparing a meal.  For me, the creative process was, go.  Get it down.  How could I possibly know everything I would need in advance?

A few months later I attended a lecture by E. L. Doctorow.  He said, “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Now that’s my kind of writing!

But we are all different. Whether one plans meticulously, designing ones story before writing a single word, or simply writes the first sentence and continuing sentence by sentence, scene by scene, with the evolving development of our characters, writing any story is a leap of faith.  It’s believing we have something to say, something someone else will want to read.  And it’s remembering – things change.

Speaking for myself, I never see the whole staircase. I have a pretty good idea of what is at the top of the stairs, but I’m going to depend on my headlights to get me there.

A Ramble

The other day I was listening to an interview with Ann Patchett on NPR. Several things she said caught my attention. For instance, she said, “I can teach you how to fix a sentence, how to make that character stronger, but I can’t teach you to have something to say.”

Her interview intrigued me to the point that I sought out my old friend, Google, and looked her up. She has a lot to say about writing, and she knows of what she speaks.  A topic she hits hard that hit me hard was that balance between talent and hard work.  Her thoughts reminded me of what Richard Ford (apologies, folks; I know I’m talking about adult fiction writers….), who, when I was working on a book-length biography and said “Richard, I don’t know if I know how to do this!”  responded, “Writing is 5% talent and 95% butt in chair.”  I think Patchett would agree.

For instance, she said “I’m always looking for ways to break rituals because I don’t want to become obsessive-compulsive, which I think is a real tendency in writers, or in people who spend lots of time alone trying to be self-motivated….I don’t want to have a special teacup; I don’t want to have a special sweatshirt.  I don’t want anything to be the reason that I can work.”

Boy, do I have the reasons!  Let me count the ways!

Patchett goes on to say the difference between writers and wannabe writers is simple:  Hard Work.  She says a writer has to accept his or her writing as “work.”  It’s like getting up in the morning and going to the office.  Not that one blocks out three hours between 10 – 1, no matter what, and writes, but writing is one’s work.  It’s what you wake up every day expecting to do.

And that brings me to my next point in this “ramble.”  I do not wake up each and every morning thinking about or planning to address my writing. Au contraire!  I plan to do anything but!  But I do think about my writing. I think about that story that I love, that’s in the drawer, that makes me feel guilty because I don’t pull it out, clean it up, and send it out.  Alas.

And then, the next point of this “ramble” is that in a meeting with an agent I met two years ago, she said she liked this story. She liked the main character. She thought the story had appeal.  Like a puppy being petted on the head, I immediately packed up my manuscript, went off alone for a few days, and did a complete rewrite.  I was on a roll.

Home again, the manuscript went back into the drawer.  Reading about my colleagues’ progress, their books, their activities, I felt like a complete loser. I went to the same school they did. I completed the same studies. I loved the same instructors. I love the art of writing, the challenge. I thought I had something to say.  But I did nothing.

Ramble number three. Lo and behold, out of the blue, the same agent emailed me two weeks ago and asked, “How are you doing with that story?  I’d love to see it when you’re ready.”

Really?  Two years later?  She remembers the story?  I doubt it. I imagine she has something set up as an alert program on her computer that reminds her there was a story she liked once upon a time.

But hey. It was my story!

So, puppy patted on the head again, I pulled out the manuscript and in two days re-read it and edited it, and started entering the edits into the document on my computer.  I was amazed!  I cut phrases that added nothing to the story. I changed words. Stronger! More descriptive!.  I thought of another writer of adult fiction who has influenced me immensely:  Ernest Gaines.  Ernie told me, “Write with fire, edit with ice.”

And I did. I edited with ice, I killed my darlings, and still, I love the story.

But I don’t work at writing. I dabble at it. And if Ann Patchett is right (and I suspect she is), until I really work at it, this story will go nowhere except where it is now:  in my archives.

So this is the end of my ramble to anybody out there who is reading this. No matter how much natural talent you have, until, and unless, you make this your work, your great story probably won’t be read and appreciated by anybody but you.

And that would be a pity.

For eight years during the late 80’s and early 90’s I directed the Paris Writers’ Workshop.  Our location, Paris, France, provided the enormous benefits of attracting outstanding writers who were also outstanding teachers, and an international clientele.

One year, a known Canadian writer gave a guest lecture to an adoring audience.  This writer was most known for her short stories but also wrote novels and plays. It is said she published her first story in The New Yorker when she was nineteen.  She was a literary force and the audience was humbly awed…. Until she said, in response to a question: Either you have it or you don’t. Either you write, or you don’t. Writing cannot be taught, and it cannot be learned.

From my perch I watched rapt faces fall into disbelief.  Seriously?  Nobody can help me learn to write?  Some individuals dared to challenge her statement, but mostly, people were too stunned to respond.  The writer based her statements on her experience as a Writer in Residence at the University of Toronto. One can only guess what a disastrous encounter that must have been for students and instructor alike!

I took our guest to dinner and said, Surely you don’t believe that. Surely, between the Solzhenitsyn’s of the world, who wrote on scraps of paper and tucked those scraps into chinks in the wall, later to compile them into beautiful prose, and the amount of crap that is “out there,” there is a middle ground…people who want to write, love to write, but simply need a bit of help and guidance. Surely those people can be taught, and they can learn, and as a result, become better writers.

She didn’t budge.

Clearly I didn’t buy her argument as I continued to direct the workshop for years and participated in summer workshops myself, and finally, completed my degree in Writing for Children at Vermont College.  I know I’m a better writer.  Was I a writer before I started learning about writing?  I don’t know.  Full disclosure:  I submitted my first short story for publication when I was twenty years old under a pseudonym, and I kid you not, the first line of the story was, It was a dark and stormy night.  I never heard back from the publication.

Two years ago I taught a university class in Writing for Children. For the most part, it was a disaster. Of the twelve students in the class, three had a true interest in writing and knew how to write.  By that, I mean they could write with proper spelling, punctuation, grammar and usage. They also clearly loved words, and played with words.  If The cat walked across the balcony was good, The cat crept across the balcony was better! They understood the power of verbs.

Probably because the course I taught was offered in the School of Continuing Education, most of the students were there because they simply needed a credit.  Consequently, they were not interested in the excitement of the printed word, they were challenged by basic rules of writing prose, and they couldn’t wait to get the whole thing over with.

So what’s the point?

Maybe learning to write is similar to learning to waterski. If you have no agility or balance, you probably shouldn’t even try getting on skis.  But if you have those basic characteristics, and you’re brave enough to try, you will quickly learn the rules of shifting your weight for turns, balancing your weight for a smooth ride, dropping one ski, and maybe even jumping over ramps! The sky is the limit.

Brave enough to try. That is a crucial component of learning to write.  I believe anyone who writes for the mere pleasure of it, delights in finding a better word, loves to imagine what will happen next, and is brave enough to put that prose before the eyes of a qualified teacher, will become a better writer.

And maybe teaching someone to write is really a matter of degree. Some of us need more teaching than others. Over the years of my own development I recall those AHA moments: when I learned to ax the adverbs, show don’t tell, forget passive verbs, kill my darlings, and so forth and so own.

On the other hand, I recall a conversation I had with one of the first Writers in Residence at the Paris Writers’ Workshop, D. M. Thomas, author of The White Hotel. I love the book and consider it highly complicated in both plot and language. When I asked him how long it took him to write it, he mused, and said, Well, I had it in my head for about a year and a half. Then, I just sat down and wrote it.

Gulp. There really are writers who can do that.

The great majority of us struggle, however. We labor over the point of view, the language choices, the pace, the continuity, the sense of it all… We ask for advice.  We give up. We start again.  And we believe each step makes it all better. We’re developing our craft; learning.

Now, if someone would just figure out how to teach a writer to keep her butt in the chair and write….  I’ll sign up for that class immediately!

I am working my way through the book, APE, by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch. It presents a fresh and fascinating viewpoint about the world of book publishing, and I want to share some tidbits with you.

First, the title:  APE represents Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur.   The term self-publishing tends to carry the dirty insinuation that if your work isn’t good enough for a bonafide publishing house to get your darling out there, you can always go to Vanity Press or, gulp, publish the thing yourself… Instead of giving the writer a sense of control and power, it makes the writer feel embarrassed, guilty.

I hope, with Kawasaki’s* help, I can debunk part of that attitude.  Consider his definition of Artisanal Publishing:  The concept of authors writing, publishing, and lovingly crafting their books with complete artistic control in a high-quality manner.

First, why write a book?

                        Enrich lives?  Good reason

                        Impart knowledge?  Good reason

                        Promote understanding?  Good reason

                        Provide entertainment?  Good reason

                        Provoke laughter?  Good reason

                        Meet popular demand?  Bad reason

                        Make money?  Bad reason.

Kawasaki (K, for the rest of the piece), cautions those who encounter the following: “Lots of people tell me I have a good story.” Or, “Lots of people tell me that I’m a good writer.”  He asks, “How many is ‘lots?’  Divide that number by a hundred to estimate how many people will actually buy your book. Then divide that number by four to estimate how many people will read your book.”

When it comes to money, K says, “The average number of copies that most books sell … is a few hundred. … making money is a possible outcome, but not the purpose of writing a great book.”  He kindly adds, “May you be so fortunate as to experience both.”

Anyone who has ever tried to publish a book-length manuscript with traditional publishers has probably experienced the following:  (1) Knocking on the doors of dozens of publishers and/or agents but rarely achieving success; (2) If striking gold and getting a positive response, likely facing two to three months of contract negotiation, and if lucky, getting an advance in the $5000 – $10,000 range; (3) Spending twelve months to finish writing; (4) Waiting two to three months for the editor to read your draft who will then want substantial changes. Even if you agree with the suggestions, you need six more months to fix everything; (5) Even though your spell check tells you your manuscript is perfect, the copy editor finds hundreds of mistakes; (6) You hate all of the cover designs but you’re told if you want the book to come out on time, pick one; (7) “A month after you ‘finish writing’ and implementing all of the changes from your editors, your publisher tells you that you need to rephrase what you thought were perfectly crafted sentences. There are a few dozen changes … to fix those loose lines, widow, and orphans – whatever those are.” (8) Twelve to eighteen months after you started your book is in the store, but your publicist is getting little PR traction because you’re unknown, and Mark Zuckerberg just released his book, too: F Is for Facebook: The Gospel According to Mark.

Z’s main point going forward is that the advent of eBooks and multimedia has revolutionized publishing, and he convinced me this is a positive development. It’s not embarrassing; it’s empowering.  He compares the productivity of the traditional printing press. From that unquestionable important invention for the literary world, think about where we are today.  Apple, Aldus, and Adobe enabled anybody with a Mackintosh, laser printer, and Page Maker to print books.  Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble enabled writers to create and sell books electronically as well as print paper copies on demand.

En bref, anyone who can use a word processor can write and publish a book, and the shelf space for ebooks, is infinite. The system has become more accessible.

K discusses in detail the advantages and disadvantages of ebook publishing and he links to online references throughout his book. He cautions that just because it’s more accessible, it’s not less work. He quotes Zoe Winters:  “There is no shortcut to awesome.”  The entire sixth chapter of his book lays out in detail exactly what you have to do to produce a “good” book. What he describes is no different than anything you ever learned in a creative writing class. Writing is hard work.

Oh, and by the way… so are publishing and marketing. The difference is, you call the shots. You have the plan. You get the financing (he explains entrepreneurial methods).  When and if money comes in, it comes directly to you. And, your book is getting exposure.

When K discusses how to avoid the self-published look, he starts with one basic principle:  Appearance is everything.  He goes into everything from font, to front matter, to blurbs, to copy editing gaffes:  incorrect capitalization, hyphens, commas, spacing… It is ALL there.

But space and time are short here, so I’ll end with a few stories.  When Audubon created his work, The Birds of American, in the early 19^th century, Harper Brothers, G.P. Putman, Charles Scribner, and John Wiley publishing houses existed. Audubon self-published his book using a subscription model, five illustrations at a time.

“Until the mid-nineteenth century, most authors published their books at their own expense. Walt Whitman … self-published and typeset Leaves of Grass.”

The reality is this. During this time in our literary history, New York publishers “based much of their business on pirating the works of Charles Dickens, Emily Brontë, and Thomas Babington Macaulay.  … George Palmer Putman instituted the royalty system that’s in place today.  Before then, publishing was mostly self-publishing.”

I propose we may have come full circle. Having read most of Kawasaki’s book, I agree with him; the advantages of launching your masterpiece yourself far outweigh the disadvantages.  He says, “Keep in mind the concept of artisanal publishing as a new, cool form of publishing – you heard the term here first!”

*I refer to the author as Kawasaki because the book is basically his; Welch is an associate.

Susie taught me, mentored me, vouched for me, and became a best friend. It’s a pleasure to share her with you! Carol

1. How did a girl from New Jersey end up being the most popular writer in France of children and young adult literature, and how has that worked for you ?

By some quirky accident of fate, I, born in Newark, ended up in Nice, France, married to a Frenchman, and started writing in my limping, lumpy French which I had never studied. Over the past forty years I’ve published over one hundred including picture books, young readers, chapter books and young adult novels. As late as last night, I had to send a one page article to my daughter for corrections before allowing it out into the world. I can’t show the face of my grammaticale ineptitude. When my poor overworked daughter is simply too overloaded, I send a story to an editor and tell her « Now you know my deepest, darkest secret. »

2. Wow. Over 100 books ! Can you name any favorites ; any books that stand out for one reason or another ?

Three big bestsellers : « Sixth Grade », « A Book of Coupons » and « Secret Letters from 0 to 10 » (all translated into English by Viking). I’m grateful to « Sixth Grade » (La sixième) for being my first big success, to « Secret Letters » for winning dozens of prizes (including the Margaret Batcheldor Award in the U.S.) and to « Coupons » for existing. The things that can come out of our heads!

What is Coupons about ?

An old almost retired teacher gives each child in his class a deck of coupons : to get up late, not to come to school, not to do homework, to sing in class, to make noise … A long list which always causes jubilation in the reader. The problem is : you can only use each coupon once. I love this book, wrote it for myself when one day I really wanted to play hookey from the university.

3. What lead you to writing for children ?

I have always written, starting a diary when I was seven and kept alive to this day. Wrote poems in grammar school that earned me the nickname Susie Shakespeare. I was editor-in-chief of my high school paper. I started writing for children because I was inspired by my own two daughters and also because I was an illustrator of sorts. For my first books, I wrote the text to accompany my illustrations.

4. I know you write every day and feel deprived if you don’t do so. What stumps you ? Does the page ever just stare back at you ? How do you get going again ?

I’m a factory. If something is stuck in one book, I put it aside and work on another one. I never stare at the page. Just keep going. Nike stole my favorite motto : JUST DO IT ! The other day an editor called me and asked me to write a novel in English for a collection they are trying to start to get kids to read English directly. I had an idea while she was talking. Wrote one page and sent it to my friend Gill who wrote the second page and I continued the third and it’s so much fun.

5. What has been the most difficult obstacle to getting your work published in the United States ? Aren’t you published in any number of other countries besides France ?

I’m published in around thirty languages. These things happen or don’t. I just received one of my books in Hungarian ! The problem with the U.S. is that the editors don’t know French. So they can’t read my books or any foreign books. I was published because I hit upon an editor who knew French, Jill Davis. I wanted very much to be published in English so my mother could read my books. It’s always exciting to see your book in a language you can’t even read. But it isn’t essential to me. The important thing is to realize my ideas in one language. I once gave a talk to the Israeli writers union. It was in Jerusalem. How many people read Hebrew ? I told them they would have to invest in a translation if they wanted to be read by a foreign Publisher, but isn’t it enough just to exist in your own language ?

6. You’re 67 years old. Is a new frontier of writing ahead of you ?

Yes, every day, every minute so charged up with excitement and ideas. Right now, I’m applying to a film school in Paris for a course in screenwriting. And today, Valentines Day, I’m trying to write a love poem to my Georges.

7. What’s the most memorable thing a reader of yours ever told you ?

An astute child in a class noticed that when I answered questions about my husband (I’m a widow) I would sometimes talk in the past tense and sometimes in the present and sometimes in the imperfect tense Why? And I told him the truth — that I would burst out in tears if I had to admit that my husband was dead. And that was the first time I ever said it in public.

8. What are the differences between submitting and getting published in France vs selling the translation rights?

I have nothing to do with translation rights. The « foreign rights » people do that in Frankfurt and Bologna, even when I happen to meet an editor (like Jill Davis) and obtain a Reading of one of my books. As I said before, these translations just happen (or don’t). Today I received the cover of one of my books in German with the question from Isabele who handles foreign rights about changing the name of the heroine. The Germans didn’t like my Hedwige and asked if they could change it to Hannah. It’s fine with me. The Egyptian Publisher wanted to change the boy in a picture book to a girl so that a boy and girl wouldn’t be in the bath together (they are four-years old !). Finally they didn’t do that book.

9. Are most of your stories set in France or in the US, are where?

All but one of my novels are set in France, except the autobiographical ones like « First love, Last Love » which is in Jerusalem and « The First Time I Was 16 » which is in New Jersey. The novel « Barbamour » (Samantha Claus) is also in the U.S. about a Jewish girl who gets a job as Santa Claus in a department store. I wrote that book in English and my daughter translated it.

10. You are often approached by others to help them get their writing or illustrations published, or translated. How do you manage that?

It’s a big investment and I’m often more worried about their submissions than my own. I have to take the time to read, diplomatically word an encouragement for something hopeless or else send the manuscript to one of my editors and harass them about their answer. At the moment I am waiting for news about a beautiful manuscript of a friend about her husband’s childhood in the shoah. I want it to be published so badly that it hurts. But I don’t win all my wars !

11. Recently you and a cowriter realized the story you were writing had no plot. You said you have never in your writing career developed a plot line. What IS your writing process?

I just let the idea grow and mature and one day I start writing and let my pen lead me from beginning to end. It almost feels out of my hands. I had an idea the other day because my daughter Mayah wanted me to take my 16-year old grandson out of his environment to live with me for a year and make sure he isn’t swallowed up by a computer. Thank God my daughter Lili, the mother, said no way. But it gave me this idea about a teenager coming to live with a crazy grandmother like me and I’m almost ready to sit down and write it. But another manuscript called « Private Spy » has been agonizing in my head for around fifteen years, twenty pages written and ready to be torn to pieces. One day I’ll sit down and just do it.

12. You are a writer, you have taught writing classes, and you’re about to be a screenwriting student. What do you think is/are the benefits of writing classes?

The big benefit is making someone who isn’t as motivated and relentless as me sit down and do it. I have never really attended one myself except three hours with Grace Paley which was a great inspiration to me. Maybe if I had participated in a course I would actually be able to create a plot ! I guesss I’ll answer after I attend this screenwriting course.

susie.morgenstern.free.fr/siteweb

In November, 2003, a book I had been working on for three years was published. My routine while working on this book was set. In the morning, after breakfast, I sat down to my computer and spent one hour – no more, usually no less, answering emails.  The rest of the day, I worked on my book. Late in the evening, after dinner, I checked my email again, and spent one hour, clearing out my inbox.  The system worked.

Let me be clear. I am not someone who works fulltime outside the home. I am retired, and I work on whatever I am doing through my personal schedule and from home.

In 2008, I went through a life change that threw me into a “who am I” crisis.  I was still retired, although trying to find a job, and I was still doing whatever I had to do from home, through my personal schedule. But the book I was writing fell to the wayside as I pursued a volunteer role in community activism.  Along with that book fell other projects; a YA biography; a cookbook for young people; a short story. They’re all there, lurking in that “IN PROGRESS” folder on the upper right hand side of my computer screen. They stare at me daily, if I give them the chance.

But normally, I don’t dare give them the chance. To do so makes me feel guilty, a loser,  a squanderer. I spent two and a half years and a lot of money having one of the most exciting experiences I ever had… pursuing an MFA from Vermont College in “Writing for Children.”  That time was clearly the best gift I ever gave to my creative self.  I was driven. I loved it. I worked like a dog completing those damnable packets, and I have kept every single one of them in a computer file.

I graduated in July 2009 with my thesis, a novel I love.  Michèle, a mixed race girl in New Orleans in the 19^th century, wants to be something more than her mother was… the mistress of a wealthy, white Frenchman.

But I digress. Once upon a time I spent hours and hours and hours on this story I love. And yet, it sits.  Unattended, unfinished.

Why?  I blame it on my weakness vis-a-vis the Email Monster.  That book I wrote in the early 2000’s? Email in the morning; email in the evening.  Book during the day.

Now, being the president of the oldest advocacy group in the state of Louisiana, I check my computer as soon as I awake. And there are emails. And I respond. And I respond.  And I send. And I respond. And it is never ending. And it is killing my novel.

So here, now, on January 7, 2013, I resolve to set aside email time in the morning and in the evening, and finish that novel. Michèle deserves it.

Wish me luck.

Recently I listened to someone being interviewed on NPR who was recounting his youth. He said he had been a nerd, not one of those fortunate people sprinkled with social fairy dust.  I was charmed by the term. All of us have known those people blessed with social fairy dust. They sparkle, no matter where they are.

In a curious twist of the thought process, my mind transcribed the term: Literary Fairy Dust.  Years ago, before I ever thought about writing for children, I would read novels with a pen and paper in hand, and write down sentences that just knocked my socks off. How did they think of that, I wondered.  Literary marvels. The books of Carol Fields, the deceased Canadian writer, filled several notebooks. Her sentences were magic.  A LESSON BEFORE DYING by Ernest Gaines affected me so profoundly I could not physically detach my fingers from the book for several moments after I closed it.

Then, wading into the world of children’s lit, I discovered all kinds of literary fairy dust. The perfect grimace on the face of a kid in an illustration; the perfect come back in dialogue; the perfect title; the perfect story that sticks to you and won’t let go; the perfect pause; the perfect inner dialogue; the perfect surprise; the perfect conclusion;  the perfect idea; the perfect laugh line….. So much fairy dust! Blow some my way!

Would you agree with some of my literary fairy dust picks?  The brilliance of telling the story of growing up behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis, in THE WALL; the entire genius of telling a fantasy story with no words, like David Wiesner’s FLOTSAM; the gut-wrenching fairy dust in Jandy Nelson’s story of loss in THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE;  the laugh-out-loud fairy dust in THE CANNING SEASON by Polly Horvath;  the ebullient Mina in David Almond’s SKELLIG, so brilliantly cast opposite the pensive Michael; conversations between Jess and Leslie in BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA by Katherine Paterson;  HOLES, the book, everything about the book, by Louis Sachar; Carolyn Coman’s first line, “When Jamie saw him throw the baby, saw Van throw the little baby, saw Van throw his little sister Nin, when Jamie saw Van throw his baby sister Nin, then they moved” in WHAT JAMIE SAW…

HEARTBEAT by Sharon Creech, the sparse language, rhythmic – thump-thump-thump-thump – understated telling of Annie’s story… and that apple!  The last three paragraphs in Trent Reedy’s WORDS IN THE DUST, and how about that title?

I remain in awe of literary fairy dust.  I challenge you to start paying attention to your reading and noting those sparkles you find on the pages.  They really are everywhere, but not really, if you know what I mean.  When they jump up and grab you, you feel as though you’ve been sprinkled a bit, too.  May the literary fairy dust of you and all our many colleagues fall upon our fingers and spread the magic around!