So here I am in Dublin, a literary capital. A renowned whiskey town. It's raining. We went for a walk this am, a literary tour that took us by Oscar Wilde's home, Finn's Hotel, near where James Joyce met Nora and where she once worked as a chambermaid. We stepped into Sweny's chemist--a pharmacy featured in Ulysses, here lemon scented soap is purchased. We joined locals gathering for tea and for a reading.
Now I sit on a cafe near Grafton Street waiting for V to finish his last meeting before we head to County Wexford for two days and then we continue on to Paris. I am sipping an Irish Coffee and wondering how and when life became so pleasantly unexpected. Here I sit, at age 39, on my first trip abroad in Ireland, from whence part of my family stems. (Ah, whence, would I be using that word if I were in Austin. Nope.)
I am doing what I love for a living. Writing. Teaching. Editing. I am so grateful. And speaking of editing, it is today's recent work at Hunger Mountain, that I am here to share. The children's lit team is extraordinary and our Assistant Editor, Caroline Carlson, who is repped by Greenhouse Literary just earned herself a three book deal! As stated on the Greenhouse website:
Caroline Carlson’s MAGIC MARKS THE SPOT, pitched as Eva Ibbotson meets Lemony Snicket with a twist of ‘yo ho ho’, to be illustrated with maps, journals and letters, in which a girl is rejected by the Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates and shipped off to a Finishing School for Delicate Ladies instead, from where she must escape and set sail with a motley crew including a governess, a budgerigar and a talkative gargoyle on a treasure hunt for the kingdom’s lost magic, to Phoebe Yeh and Toni Markiet at Harper Children’s, in a significant deal, in a pre-empt, in a three-book deal, for publication in 2013, by Sarah Davies at the Greenhouse Literary Agency (NA).
Congrats, Caroline and thank you, thank you, thank you for all you do at HM. You make my job easier, more fun and even more inspiring. All good things! (And possibly some Writers' Tears Whiskey in your future.) Cheers.
Now on to the latest over at Hunger Mountain...
This week, we welcome our Katherine Paterson prize winner and finalists, as judged by National Book Award winning author Kimberly Willis Holt: Him by Heather Smith Meloche; Forty Thieves and Green-Eyed Girl by Christy Lenzi, and Cesar by Betty Yee. Another highlight is Writing from Both Sides of the Brain, a feature by Kelley Barson, which explains how both the left and the right sides of the brain are engaged in producing good fiction. We offerseveral poems by Guadalupe Garcia McCall, author of the recent Under the Mesquite. This issue’s Flipside is unique. We offer three voices, a seasoned writing instructor,Uma Krishnaswami, author of The Grand Plan to Fix Everything and newer writing teachers,Sarah Aronson, author of Beyond Lucky and Debby Dahl Edwardson, a current National Book Award nominee for My Name Is Not Easy. Each shares her own unique method of The Art & Insanity of Teaching Writing.
And as a reminder, we are accepting pieces for submissions for consideration for our Winter 2012 issue The Magic & Mystery of Identity and our Spring 2012 issue The Landscape of Literature. Please see here for submission guidelines. *Note: there is now a $3.00 submissions fee which is not a reading fee, but a charge that helps fund the cost of the online submissions manager. Since our readers and editors are scattered around the globe, snail mail submissions, which would also cost submitters roughly $3, are not viable. Thank you for your continued support of Hunger Mountain.*
The temps in Austin climbed to 105 earlier this week. Yikes, it was hot. But, over at the Writing Barn we can now stay cool as we check on the daily progress. The french doors have arrived and the AC had long been installed. We cooled the place down last night and took a couple of new pics.
instructor apartment/guest bedroom
Kitchen with loft area above. Stove gets installed today.
Instructor/guest bathroom
French doors with inner blinds.
By next week, we have some of the furniture in (my comfy love seat and overstuffed chair from my apartment) and the books in the bookshelves--should the cement floor get painted this weekend in the main area of the barn. There still will be a screened porch to come where the horse stalls were but much, much progress has been made!
In the Wider World
Another week has come and gone and with it some good news: BEA is winding down in NYC, a Dear Teen Me post from Cynthia Leitich Smith (geektastic!), the blog tour of The Grand Plan to Fix Everything by Uma Krishnaswami--and some sad--the death of author/librarian Bridget Zinn. I never met Bridget Zinn but I know those who have. A group of Austin authors were writing yesterday and Jenny Moss shared a picture of Bridget holding a beautiful colorful umbrella. She looked like a thirty-something on her way to school for the first day. When I got home the PW Children's Bookshelf had arrived in my inbox and I read a tribute to Bridget by her agent and friend, Michael Sterns. If you haven't already, read it--hug someone you love--and countdown the days until Bridget's novel Poison is released.
Bridget and her writing group--with colorful umbrella.
It is my Grand Pleasure to welcome author Uma Krishnaswami to Inside the Writer’s Studio today. Uma began teaching at VCFA after I graduated but the thing about VCFA is its arms reach far out into the writing world. You don’t have to physically be there to be considered family. And, I am honored to be part of the VCFA family with the talented Uma. (And as yesterday was Oprah’s last show I have to make the Letterman joke. Uma—Oprah. Oprah—Uma. THIS is the Uma Oprah should meet.) Recently, Uma Krishnaswami led a craft class at the YA A to Z Conference and I led a Q &A with Uma about the book she is here to talk about today, The Grand Plan to Fix Everything. This inventive book has also been racking up some Grand (aka *starred* ) reviews.
The Grand Plan to Fix Everything
Hooray for Bollywood. Eleven-year-old Dini is not pleased at all at the prospect of leaving Takoma Park, Md., and her best friend Maddie to live in a small town in southern India for two years. But though she knows it’s ridiculous, bakvaas, as Indians say, she wonders if she might get to meet her idol, Dolly Singh, Bollywood film star. Dini and Maddie are devoted Dolly fans. And, in a series of events as wonderfully convoluted and satisfyingly resolved as any movie plot could be, she does. The fast-paced tale introduces and manages to connect an Indian-American family, a postal worker from Mumbai, a movie producer and his erratic star, a car mechanic, a tea plantation owner, a local baker and assorted monkeys—all coming together for a grand finale party and dance. Set in imagined Swapnagiri (which means Dream Mountain), this high-energy concoction is thoroughly believable and entertaining. The story is told in a third-person present-tense voice that rings true to its protagonist, who sees her life as a movie script. Though Dini and Maddie are halfway around the world from each other, they communicate through cell phones and computer chat, keeping up their friendship while making new ones. Full of references to Bollywood movie traditions and local customs, this is a delightful romp with a fresh setting and a distinctive and appealing main character. - KIRKUS, April 1, 2011, *STAR
The Grand Plan to Fix Everything
Krishnaswami perfectly captures movie-star infatuation, best-friendship, geographical displacement, and youthful determination in this exuberant blend of American tween life and Indian village culture. When 11-year-old Dini's physician mother gets a grant to work at a clinic in the tiny village of Swapnagiri in India, Dini is plucked out of her contented life in suburban Maryland. Distraught about abandoning her BFF Maddie--who truly understands Dini's passion for Indian movie-star Dolly Singh--and their plans to attend Bollywood dance camp, she nevertheless remains optimistic as she tries to plot her new life, and those of the people she meets, as a screenplay. Krishnaswami (Naming Maya) interlaces Dini's story with lighthearted portrayals of the Indian film industry and postal system; she neatly and satisfactorily resolves every dilemma, suggesting elements of magic ("[W]hen you are moving... to a place whose name means ‘dream mountain,' your mind begins to open up in strange ways") while remaining firmly grounded in reality. An out-of-the-ordinary setting, a distinctive middle-grade character with an unusual passion, and the pace of a lively Bollywood "fillum" make this novel a delight.
--Publishers Weekly, April 4, 2011, *STAR
Let us welcome Uma. Now, on to the interview…
Is there a story behind the story that you wish to share? (i.e.: the ah-ha or lightning moment where the story inspiration struck.)
I’m the slow cooker in the story kitchen, so my work always progresses through very long simmering rather than dramatic lightning moments. I take things that happen to me and places where I’ve been, and then slowly, slowly work them into fiction. “How slowly?” you may ask. I will tell you that there is a house named Sunny Villa in The Grand Plan to Fix Everything. The tea estate in the book is named for the house. It’s the place where our star-struck young heroine Dini ends up, and the place where she plans to track down the movie star she admires, so she can fix…you, know, eveyrthing. Well, when I was just a baby (in the last century) my parents lived in a house in these very mountains in south India. A house with a name—you guessed it, Sunny Villa.
Here it is, this house from my childhood, and it is the house in the story, in a town much like the town in the story. It took me all of five years of trying to get at this story from many, many angles before I realized that this house needed to be in it, and that its red walls and blinking eyelash shutters were telling me something and I had better pay attention. It's a muddled, tedious way of constructing story but it's my way.
Theme can be seen as a dirty word but as writers I believe we all have something to say, something we want to share with the world. What is that something for you?
I think it’s the concept of home, and of geographies that overlap and criss-cross in maddening, mysterious ways to create that concept in the heart. I find myself returning to this idea again and again, whether it’s a picture book about a boy waiting for his adopted baby sister to arrive (Bringing Asha Home) or a child’s-eye view of the rain (Monsoon) or, as in The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, friendships that survive and thrive in spite of, or sometimes, in very crazy ways, because of, the vast distances that separate the friends as well as their own often quite muddled internal sense of place. It’s funny stuff, in The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, but it also has a layer of reality to it that I think many children in our fast-paced shrinking world will recognize.
How important is voice in your work? How does “voice” come to you?
I'll answer that by talking about this book in particular. Is it true of everything I write? I don't know. But voice was essential to this story finding its form. The story of Dini, and Dolly the movie star, hung around in my files and notebooks for a couple of years, looking for a voice. It wasn't until a passage about the town arrived in my mind, almost exactly the way it is now, that the voice kicked in, and it was only then that the story began to move forward. It's a slightly loony voice, with a definite omniscience to it. It asserts itself in varying degrees in the scenes with the girls and the eccentric adult characters in the book. It's the voice that links all the various storylines that come together in the end. It is critical to the book. As to where it came from, I think perhaps it grew out of books I read when I was 12 and 13: P.G.Wodehouse, Paul Gallico, and the Don Camillo stories by Giovanni Guareschi. All their story voices poured into my mind long ago, and emerged in some sort of mad fusion in the voice of this book.
I am keen on examining structure. A favorite quote of mine goes something like this: “We only look at a poorly formed story and call it formula. Structure is the art that conceals itself.” How important is structure to you and what are some techniques that help you build a story?
My quests for voice and structure run parallel to each other forever, and when they begin to converge, I know I'm onto something. I wish I could figure out structure first in some logical way, but I can't, so I have to settle for circling around the story, sometimes for a year or two, before I begin to know the characters enough to understand what's likely to happen to them. In the case of The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, once I had the voice I knew that the story needed to rotate among several micro-settings in which a host of characters are all inching towards each other with Dini desperately trying to corral everyone into cooperation. And once I realized that Dini would see her own life playing out as one of the Bollywood "fillums" she adores, that's when I knew how not only this book but also its sequel (due out next year) would need to be structured. Techniques? I do the usual things--timelines and maps and notes off the page, but I'm terrible at most of them. Still, they're not the art form, the novel is, so I don't sweat it. I just do my best to pay attention to my characters and to the places in which they're moving through time.
Do you have a favorite craft book? If so, what is it? And what is your favorite take away?
I think Ursula LeGuin's Steering the Craft is my best-thumbed craft book. "An Opinion Piece on Paragraphing" where she dismisses all "rules" about the desired lengths of paragraphs, is just one of my favorite passages. But here's a book that is not really a how-to book but it's just incredible reading. It's Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino. I've read it so often that my copy pops open to pages I particularly love, and there are so many of them that when it's not tidily on the shelf, the book splays permanently open, fanning out to several dozen places just for me.
Describe your main character's favorite meal? And why does she love it?
Dini, in The Grand Plan, eats at a bakery in the little hill town of Swapnagiri, and acquires a taste for curry puffs: pastry crust stuffed with potatoes and onions, and another secret ingredient that you have to read the book to identify. The curry puffs are paired with a luscious chocolate cake and rose-petal milkshake, with or without chocolate sprinkles. My big fear is that someone will ask me for a recipe for those curry puffs, and I have honestly never, ever tried them with that secret ingredient. But I am sure they are quite wonderful and the moment I make them, all my fears will completely vanish and I can make grand plans to fix anything at all.
In ode to Maebelle, the main character in my new book Truth with a Capital T, who keeps a book of little known facts about just about everything, please share a wacky piece of trivia that has stuck with you or please share a little known fact about YOU.
About me? I am addicted to dried mango. The unsulphured, organic kind. Why didn't I make that the secret ingredient? Oh, I am kicking myself but it's too late.
Do Not Miss
A Grand Giveaway! Three lucky Grand Prize winners will each receive one copy of THE GRAND PLAN TO FIX EVERYTHING along with a starry assortment of bangles and trinkets that Dolly Singh, famous famous Bollywood movie star, would adore! An additional 3 runners-up will receive a copy of THE GRAND PLAN TO FIX EVERYTHING. To enter, send an e-mail to GrandPlanGiveaway@gmail.com. In the body of the e-mail, include your name, mailing address, and e-mail address (if you're under 13, submit a parent's name and e-mail address). One entry per person and prizes will only be shipped to US or Canadian addresses. Entries must be received by midnight (PDT) on 6/30/11. Winners will be selected in a random drawing on 7/1/11 and notified via email.
Today is VCFA Day on Uma’s Grand Plan Tour. Check out other interviews with Uma with Kathi Appelt, Michelle Knudsen, and Sarah Johnson. Thanks Uma for being with us and look for an essay about the art (& insanity) of teaching writing penned by Uma that will appear in the fall issue of Hunger Mountain.
We then took off for Atlanta. Saying goodbye to my aunt Susan was difficult but her service and us all being together had its own bumpy grace attached. Along with our goodbyes, we had hellos. V met the all the family who lived in the area. We went to the Marietta diner and feasted on pancakes, cake, omelets, and other yummy dishes. The kids, my mom, and my sister went to the movies where Bella conked out—as did my mom. I read books to Tehmin and Bella—signed books I’d collected for them since the last time I was home. We devouredHoller Loudly,All the World, and the Hallelujiah Flight. We took funny pictures and tucked the kids in and before you knew it we were back in Austin.
I signed copies of Truth with a Capital T for my family and I pointed out to my mom this passage from the acknowledgments at the back of the book:
To my parents, Allan and Beth Hegedus, for sealing my fate and moving the family to Georgia. To the Bells, the Browns, and the rest of the Hegedus crew, and to all those who’ve ever been to the Kiss-Me-Quick Bridge: family is family. Our hearts have been healed.
And, that’s what this trip home to say hello and goodbye was: healing.
Truth with a Capital T has been named a Bank Streets Best Book of 2010. As a prior New Yorker, I love the Bank Street School of Education and the Bank Street Book Store. And like last year when Between Us Baxters made the list, (with an extra special *) I was glad to see Truth be one of the 600 out of 6000 books which were endorsed by Bank Street. Truth is on the list in the Nine to Twelve, Today category.
What’s Happening for Grandfather Gandhi
An illustrator announcement for the Gandhi book is expected soon. Fingers crossed.
What’s Happening for Hunger Mountain
I’ve served as HM Co-Editor for about two years now and the editorial hat is one I’ve grown accustomed to wearing. I love putting the issues together, reading submissions, approaching authors to write for Hunger Mountain, and I love digging deep into the “gushy” stuff of an essay or a fiction piece and getting my editorial hands dirty as the author of the piece creates and shapes and digs a deeper, more substantial pocket of earth to lay their creative seeds in. (Ah, it is spring and flowers, planting, etc. abound). I was more than pleased to do this work with Linnea Heaney and even more pleased to see she wrote about her HM experience over on her blog, Linnea’s Illuminated Notes.
We did go through revision, with Bethany’s gentle, but to-the-point comments. During this time, I learned about addressing editor suggestions and how to rewrite to find the story in the snuggest and most illuminating way. By the time I sent off the final version near the deadline and heard my phone ringing, I knew it was Bethany with the call all writers want to get. I thanked her for being my first teacher in the writing world!
If you haven’t read A Real Best Friend, the picture book manuscript Linnea discusses revising for me, go do. It’s a real good read!
In Awesome Austin
Congrats to Jo Whittemore who celebrated the release of her latest book, Odd Girl In this last Sunday at BookPeople. Check out Jo’s post over at Diversity in YA, Against Tokenism.
For all the Austin TLA buzz go check out the Austin author schedule over at the Austin SCBWI. I will be there walking the floor on Wednesday and attending the All Publisher Party at the Four Season’s Residences Wednesday night.
The YA A to Z Conference kicks off this Friday. I am bowled over at the fab line up and will be busy beyond belief but I am excited to be a part of this inaugural event. Along with my WLT Office Manager duties, I will be sitting on two panels and also doing a Q&A with Uma Krishnaswami. Check out the fab book trailer of Uma’s new novel, The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, which is racking up starred reviews and has early Newbery buzz.
And, as I’ve got to get the office in Awesome Austin, this Tuesday wrap-up has no Outside Awesome Austin links this week but maybe that is a-ok. After all, TLA kicks off today and this year all those librarians are here, keeping Austin weird and well-read (and protesting cut backs and everyone is doing all we can to Keep Libraries Open!)
Sunday March 20th, would have been my Aunt Susan's 61st birthday. I wasn't sure what the day would bring, in a week that took her from her apartment to ICU to the crematorium (her wishes) and ended with her birthday, the first day of spring. I spent the day working--me at the kitchen table on a talk I am giving on March 26th and V (the man in my life) in his cedar cubby of an office a few feet away working on his many projects.
At 5pm we left the house, (me with painted nails in honor of my aunt who taught me how to use nail polish and who often gave me a manicure) and drove to East Austin to celebrate V's African drumming teacher's 33rd birthday. We gathered at a picnic table with Abu's many students. Wine and water was shared. African dishes and pita and hummus. After about an hour of talking and laughing, the music began. Abu played the ballaphone--a wooden xylophone instrument and his students gathered with their djembe, drums. One of the guests had brought her roommates toddler and he stole the show dancing--arms thrusting as the music wove a spell over us all. It wasn't the way my aunt would have celebrated her birthday but I found myself looking skyward after taking in the love, graciousness, and beauty of the faces around me that it was the perfect way for me to say goodbye and to celebrate life and the signs of spring all around.
The week also brought many fruitful connections for the behind-the scenes work I am doing for ReachOut.com and the Reaching Out Through YA Fiction Campaign for May. ReadergirlZ.com is on board, and author chats are being scheduled and lots of good stuff is ongoing.
The new issue of Hunger Mountain went live and the Passion for the Picture Book article is being mulled over by many a reader. I also did an interview over at WordCrushes where I talk about what is up and coming for the Hunger Mountain Children's and YA Page. Lots of new stuff happening--including rolling content with the next issue!
There is also much to be celebrated in cyberland, as well.
In Awesome Austin
Texas Sweetheart (or Scoundrel) depending on her mood or her wit, Jo Whittemore released a new title!
Look for an interview with Jo here, on the Inside the Writer's Studio series, next Wed.
Austin Author, Chris Barton, got a PW starred review for his latest--a YA non-fiction title.
Can I See Your I.D.? True Stories of False Identities Chris Barton, illus. by Paul Hoppe. Dial, $16.99 (144p) ISBN 978-0-8037-3310-7
In 10 impeccably crafted profiles, Barton (The Day-Glo Brothers) shares the stories of individuals--many just teenagers--who adopted false identities for amusement, profit, or survival. From Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, who disguised herself as a man to fight in the Civil War, to 16-year-old Keron Thomas, who in 1993 impersonated a transit worker to fulfill his dream of piloting a New York City subway train, Barton reveals the motivations behind and the consequences of each deception. The use of second-person narration is very effective, allowing readers to assume the identities of each individual. Barton's prose captures the daring, ingenuity, and quick thinking required of each imposter ("You can bluster and grumble with the best of them.... You use up your share of tobacco too," he writes of Wakeman). In the most powerful stories, assuming a false identity was a life or death decision, as with Soloman Perel, a Jewish teenager who joined the Hitler Youth to escape being killed, and Ellen Craft, a slave who disguised herself as a white Southern gentleman to escape to the North. Hoppe contributes dynamic comic book–style panel art, not all seen by PW. Ages 12–up. (Apr.)
One of the bravest Dear Teen Me letters yet has been posted. Be sure not to miss Jessica Burkhart's letter to her teen self. Here is the opening:
Hey nineteen-year old me,
You feel like you’re drowning in secrets, huh?
Jessica at 19
I know. Every morning, life crushes your chest until you can’t breathe? Look, that might last a little while. But, and I know you won’t believe me now, it won’t be forever.
To read the letter in it's entirety, go here. You won't be sorry you did.
Eleven-year-old Dini is not pleased at all at the prospect of leaving Takoma Park, Md., and her best friend Maddie to live in a small town in southern India for two years. But though she knows it's ridiculous, bakvaas, as Indians say, she wonders if she might get to meet her idol, Dolly Singh, Bollywood film star. Dini and Maddie are devoted Dolly fans. And, in a series of events as wonderfully convoluted and satisfyingly resolved as any movie plot could be, she does. The fast-paced tale introduces and manages to connect an Indian-American family, a postal worker from Mumbai, a movie producer and his erratic star, a car mechanic, a tea plantation owner, a local baker and assorted monkeys—all coming together for a grand finale party and dance. Set in imagined Swapnagiri (which means Dream Mountain), this high-energy concoction is thoroughly believable and entertaining. The story is told in a third-person present-tense voice that rings true to its protagonist, who sees her life as a movie script. Though Dini and Maddie are halfway around the world from each other, they communicate through cell phones and computer chat, keeping up their friendship while making new ones.
Full of references to Bollywood movie traditions and local customs, this is a delightful romp with a fresh setting and a distinctive and appealing main character. (Fiction. 9-13)
Can I See Your I.D.? True Stories of False Identities 
In 10 impeccably crafted profiles, Barton (The Day-Glo Brothers) shares the stories of individuals--many just teenagers--who adopted false identities for amusement, profit, or survival. From Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, who disguised herself as a man to fight in the Civil War, to 16-year-old Keron Thomas, who in 1993 impersonated a transit worker to fulfill his dream of piloting a New York City subway train, Barton reveals the motivations behind and the consequences of each deception. The use of second-person narration is very effective, allowing readers to assume the identities of each individual. Barton's prose captures the daring, ingenuity, and quick thinking required of each imposter ("You can bluster and grumble with the best of them.... You use up your share of tobacco too," he writes of Wakeman). In the most powerful stories, assuming a false identity was a life or death decision, as with Soloman Perel, a Jewish teenager who joined the Hitler Youth to escape being killed, and Ellen Craft, a slave who disguised herself as a white Southern gentleman to escape to the North. Hoppe contributes dynamic comic book–style panel art, not all seen by PW. Ages 12–up. (Apr.) 
Editor Review