Goodbye Day Job! 12/28/2011
 Today I am guest posting over at Tracy Barrett's blog Goodbye Day Job! Tracy is the author of nineteen books for young readers and her blog chronicles her last year in her day job teaching Italian at Vanderbilt University. My experience is not about quitting my day job, but about withstanding the pressure to get one. It’s about going for years between book contracts, making no money and still believing in myself. Hop on over to Goodbye Day Job! to read more, and leave a comment to let Tracy know you visited. Add Comment Will Stories Be Lost When Veterans Pass On? 12/07/2011
 Welcome Author Karen Fisher-Alaniz today in remembrance of all those who served in the War in the Pacific 1941-1945. I heard my father’s WWII stories all my life. I knew he’d been stationed at Pearl Harbor a few years after its bombing. But I wouldn’t have known the details of his service, if it hadn’t been for two notebooks full of letters that sat on a shelf, in my parent’s home, for more than 50-years. On his 81st birthday, he put them on my lap. I didn’t know what it meant. I went home that night and cried. I cried for all the times I didn’t give him time to talk, all the times I didn’t listen. And although my father told me I could do what I wanted with the letters; I could throw them away or burn them, those letters were the beginning of a journey that neither of us had intended to take. I was a baby boomer and he was aging. More importantly, he’d begun to have symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. My sweet, gentle father had slowly become depressed, angry and haunted by nightmares and flashbacks. And all I wanted to do was to help him. So I started asking questions – once a week – at a local diner. Sometimes he had answers for me; often he did not. But we kept meeting, week after week, month after month. Slowly, a story was emerging. It was one I couldn’t fathom. My father hadn’t sat behind a desk during the war as he’d told me many times. My father was a top secret code breaker. He’d served on submarines and ships off of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He’d experienced a traumatic loss on one of these missions. It took nine years for the whole and true story to come to the surface. I can’t help but think about how many veterans’ stories are sitting on someone’s shelf or kept locked deep inside the veteran him/herself. Boxes, scrapbooks, photo albums, that haven’t been cracked open in years. They hold a story waiting to be told. The veteran waits for someone to ask. What if each of us chose one person in our life and simply began asking questions? What if we opened those boxes and listened to the stories that tumbled out? Veterans of all wars deserve our very best, and sometimes that’s as simple as chatting over breakfast once a week. Listen to Interview about Karen's book on NPR's Weekend Edition. Karen Fisher-Alaniz is the author of Breaking the Code – a Father’s Secret, a Daughter’s Journey, and the Question That Changed Everything (Sourcebooks, 2011). She can be contacted through her website at http://www.storymatters2.com.  What's the Cost of Good Writing? 08/31/2011
Author Libba Bray could easily have a second career as a comedian. At the recent SCBWI Summer Conference in LA, she had me and most of the other 1350 people in the audience laughing our heads off. But for me, the most memorable thing she said was down right serious. When reading a book that doesn’t grab her, Libba says she feels like it didn’t cost the writer anything to write [it]. To write with honesty, it’s got to cost you something.  Libba Bray's books Each story demands something different. Often the demand is to realize you have preconceived notions and be open to learning about yourself as well as your topic. Patsi Tollinger worked for nearly ten years on her picture book biography of jockey Isaac Murphy. It was a sense of injustice for Isaac that motivated me in the beginning. Later, after I started digging into the research, Isaac turned into my teacher and wouldn’t turn loose of me until his story was done. I thought I knew a lot about the complexities of southern history. Isaac convinced me otherwise.  Isaac Murphy, the first jockey to win three Kentucky Derbies, had nearly disappeared into history. With the help of Illustrator Jerome Lagarrigue, Patsi brings him to life beautifully in PERFECT TIMING. Do you agree that good writing must cost the author something? I’d love to hear other writers thoughts about this. Please comment and share your personal experience.  Patsi Tollinger speaks to students at Fallon School about Jockey Isaac Murphy. How A Single Moment Matters 08/17/2011
 History can turn on a moment of perfect timing. Such is the story of Isaac Murphy, one of the greatest jockeys in the history of American horse racing. Isaac’s record—winning three major stakes races in a single week—still stands one-hundred and fifty years later. It’s the kind of story I love. A boy born into slavery grows up confronting the odds of grinding labor and poverty, until one day he sees his chance and takes it. The world of horse racing changes forever. But I’d never heard of Murphy before I happened upon his biography by Kentucky author Patsi B. Trollinger. PERFECT TIMING is written in lively fashion for young people and illustrated with arresting earth-tone paintings by Jerome Lagarrigue. The author lives not far from the first track where Isaac Murphy raced. Come back next week to hear how she discovered this amazing story. Does History Sell? 04/13/2011
 At a recent gathering of writers from around the country, I talked to more than a few bemoaning the difficulty in selling non-fiction on historical topics. One reported being told by an editor, "Well, we have Russell Freedman." Another editorial comment, "It's so labor intensive. We just can't take on very many projects." Biographer Brandon Marie Miller believes we're in a golden age of history books for kids. She says, "Books are more inclusive of peoples and cultures. They have lovely illustrations, photographs and prints. Many have maps, sidebars and helpful back matter—time lines, glossaries, places to visit, bibliographies and source notes."  Brandon writes for Chicago Review Press. "I’ve proposed my own ideas for all my books—although I’ve had an “in” with editors I’ve already worked with and I was able to bounce ideas off of them before submitting a written proposal or outline for the selection process." I'd be interested in hearing from others writing history for kids. How do you see the market? What factors most influence the whether an book proposal on a historical subject will sell? I woke up to snow falling again this morning. I like snow, but not this slushy stuff. I also like the tried and true strategy, if you can't beat it, join it. So--off to the arctic with Polar Explorer Matthew Henson.  Two men made history in 1909, the first men ever to stand on the North Pole. Admiral Robert Peary is the one you’ve probably heard about. Matthew Henson? Maybe not. Twice on the polar ice cap, Henson saved Peary’s life. The two men faced “sudden storms, frozen peaks and ridges and shifting iceberg castles,” on their perilous journey. Patches of open water and faulty instruments made more trouble before they reached the Pole. The achievement had been both men’s life ambition. But when they returned home some dismissed their accomplishment because Henson was a black man, and Peary downplayed Henson’s contribution to the expedition.  Adults and kids will enjoy this biography of Henson by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Eric Velasquez. I love everything about the illustrations in this biography. The colors, the shapes, the varied scenes. The emotional resonance and the beauty of the art makes this a powerful and stunning book. The text is unique. You will have to read it for yourself to see how this author shows Henson’s determination and strength of purpose through the sentence structure she chose. Fabulous book! World Explorers--You Gotta Love 'em 02/16/2011
 When I saw Doraine Bennett's new book, Readers Theater for Global Explorers, the first thing I wanted to know--what possessed those people? While most of us sit at home in front of the fire, explorers go off to the jungle, the wilderness, the desert, the moon! Doraine was sweet enough to let me be part of her blog tour to introduce this wonderful resource for teachers, so I asked her, did you discover common traits among these explorers? Did she ever! "Many were ruthless, many were arrogant, most wanted fame, despite any stated noble reasons for their activities. All had the ability to endure hardship beyond anything most of us could imagine. The determination to press through almost any difficulty, no matter how distressing the extremes of climate and circumstance." Do you have a favorite person in the book? "I really liked Sir Ernest Shackleton because he was a decent, kind man. He gave his mittens to one of his crewmen who had lost his in the ocean. Shackleton suffered frostbite as a result. He was capable, daring, and a good leader, as well." I guess it's no surprise most of these explorers were men. But Doraine did a great job of finding a range of women to include, like Mary Kinglsey, a writer! Oh. A writer that left her home in England to explore Africa. "After living a very sheltered life, she set off alone for Africa. She went to the villages of the Fang (fong) people who were known to be cannibals. Most European explorers considered the Africans to be unintelligent beings who needed civilizing. Mary respected the Africans and did much to change European thinking about them." Social studies will never be boring with this book. Inside everybody is sure to find at least one explorer that will catch his or her imagination. Thanks for visiting Doraine! Sailing Adventure 02/02/2011
The Age of the Great Sail when empires were won and lost at sea-- That’s where I’ll be today folks, researching my work-in-progress.  Open the covers of one of these books for young people and join me at the prow. Feel the wind in your face, hear the slapping canvas and taste the salt spray.  Meet Sophie as her mysterious past is revealed on a perilous cross-Atlantic journey. Or travel back in time to the famous Battle of Trafalgar as seen through the eyes of a boy on Lord Nelson's ship.  Take a sail with Patrick O'Brien on Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge, or Sir Francis Drake's Golden Hind. I plan to vicariously follow a friend as he sails to Antarctica aboard the Dutch tall ship Europa. Curious about life aboard a tall sailing ship? Check out the video below. A Film Unfinished 11/10/2010
Once I saw the trailer for A Film Unfinished, I knew I had to see it. Though horrified by the images of life in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942, I wanted to know the truth. Rarely, is the truth clear cut, as this film so aptly demonstrates. After WWII, an unfinished Nazi propaganda film was discovered in a concrete vault. The silent hour-long rough cut portrayed life in the Warsaw Ghetto.  Shot over 30 days, in May 1942 —just two months before the Nazis started sending the Ghetto’s Jews to Treblinka—the film highlights extremes of poverty and luxury. Edits juxtapose scenes of people dying of starvation on the sidewalks with views of a fancy dinner party. For nearly half a century historians used the film as a record of life in the Warsaw Ghetto. Then in a film vault at an American Airbase, a British researcher stumbled on two film cans lying on the floor titled "Das Ghetto". Inside—30-minutes of footage left on the cutting room floor when the Ghetto film was made. The outtakes clearly showed the film crew had staged many of the scenes. Some caught cameramen accidentally filming one another. Tragically, the scenes of profound suffering and death are not the fakes. Face after face appears, eyes vacant, skin taut over bone. A fly buzzes and lands. A hand too weak to brush it off. I want to look away, but I don’t. I open myself to see each face that flashes on the screen as an individual human being. That man had a wife and children. That woman had plans and hopes, just like I do. That person never imagined his life would turn out like this. I look at each skeletal body shown sliding down a chute into the mass grave. I make myself a witness to the human dignity of each one. Because that is an undeniable truth. | About Me
I am an author of books for young people,
and an occasional journalist. I blog about dealing with demons and other dark holes of the writing life, also about literature, history, food, gardening, nature, stuff I like. 
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