Last Stop (+ a Giveaway!) on Clare Hodgson Meeker's GROWING UP GORILLA Blog Tour

Today my dear friend Clare Hodgson Meeker joins me for a chat about her latest nonfiction-for-kids title. I had the pleasure of interviewing her for an SCBWI Western Washington event as the book launched in early fall, so it’s an extra treat to end the season hosting her here.

Growing Up Gorilla (Millbrook Press, 2019) is the gorgeously photo-illustrated true story of how first-time gorilla mom Nadiri learns to mother newborn Yola, despite having herself been raised by humans. Clare deftly guides young readers through a suspenseful yet tender and uplifting narrative chronicling this mother and child's sometimes rocky bonding period, which is so carefully nurtured by an expert team at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo. Readers of all ages will worry over the gorilla pair's obstacles and cheer for their triumphs while also engaging in the fascinating reality of what it really means to be a gorilla, and to care for one.

Welcome to my blog, Clare, and congratulations on the successful launch of Growing Up Gorilla! I’ve so enjoyed watching your journey with this book. We'll talk more about that in a second, but why don't we start with having you share with our readers just a bit about your background. How long have you been writing for children? And how did you turn the endeavor into a career?

Since 1993. I left the practice of law and started freelancing as a grant writer after my two kids were born. Reading picture books to them inspired me to try writing for them, too. My first picture book, A Tale of Two Rice Birds, based on a folktale from Thailand, came out in 1994.

My second book, Who Wakes Rooster?, was published after the manuscript won first place in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association’s children’s picture book category that same year. The judge, an editor at Macmillan, offered me a publishing contract, but the book didn’t come out for another three years after Simon & Schuster bought Macmillan. I followed that editor to Marshall Cavendish for my next book, a biography of Abigail Adams called Partner in Revolution, which was published in 1998. That book got me hooked on research and writing as a career, and I’ve been doing it ever since.

Such an exciting start to your children's publishing career — and you're still going strong! Let's take a closer look at the creation of Growing Up Gorilla. What drove you to write Yola and Nadiri’s story? In other words, what aspect of their story most captured your own imagination?

Like much of the Seattle public, I was fascinated by a Seattle Times article about zoo staff helping a first-time mother gorilla prepare for birth by practicing having her pick up a burlap doll and holding it. The question of whether or not Nadiri would instinctively pick up her baby and nurse her was compelling, since she had been hand-raised by humans away from other gorillas for almost a year after her mother rejected her at birth. I had first heard about Nadiri when she was a baby and I was researching and writing a book about another animal celebrity at the zoo, Hansa: The True Story of an Asian Elephant Baby. But it was Yola’s personality — outgoing and determined — and the bond the zoo staff helped forge between mother and daughter in the gorilla dens where she was raised from the start that drove the plot and captured this writer’s heart.

How did you go about translating your passion for the story into a narrative that’s just right for younger readers? Did that process pose any challenges?

Kids are naturally drawn to baby animals and to reading nonfiction. Most of my books are written for 3rd- to 5th-graders who are hungry for facts and eager to share what they know in the context of a good story. My goal was simply to present Yola and Nadiri’s story through carefully chosen scenes with as little author intrusion as possible. The lesson that mothering is a learned behavior is presented here as something gorillas have shown us and zoos have learned and are responding to over time. The lesson might apply to humans as well, but I leave that to the readers to interpret. It is not my role to be didactic. I tried to focus on the social behavior and family dynamics of this amazing animal species that shares 97.7% of the same genes as us.

I think you accomplished exactly what you set out to do! While your nonfiction books for kids include a number of wonderful animal stories, you’ve also written some lovely biographies and fun sports-related titles. Besides Growing Up Gorilla, which of your nonfiction works is most special to you, and why?

Thank you for asking that question, Lisa. Here are a few special moments for me as a writer: Researching American history through primary documents from Abigail Adams’s time and discovering a swatch of silk material she’d pinned to her journal from her trip to Europe. During research for my Rachel Carson biography, I Could Not Keep Silent, I witnessed this famous nature writer’s beginnings when I found a story she’d written at age eight about two wrens setting up house among her personal papers archived at Yale University. Finally, after catching Sounders FC fever in 2010 with my Soccer Dreams book, I was thrilled to interview MLS soccer heroes Kasey Keller, Steve Zakuani, Fredy Montero, Osvaldo Alonso, and Clint Dempsey. Hard work pays off!

Those certainly are some well-earned writerly moments, Clare! Thanks so much for chatting. 

********

Did someone mention a GIVEAWAY?

To celebrate our mutual love for putting books in kids' hands, Clare and I decided to add a giveaway to this post. The prize is a set of four FREE books — two written by Clare, and two written by me — all of which will go to one lucky winner!

Books in the set by Clare Hodgson Meeker:

• Growing Up Gorilla — see description above.
• Soccer Dreams — a fictional tale about a boy from Kenya who moves to Seattle and helps build a winning soccer team. Sidebars feature real-life game strategies and teamwork tips from the MLS Seattle Sounders FC.

Books in the set by Lisa L. Owens:

• Bigfoot: The Legend Lives On — a fictional story about a boy attempting to unravel the Bigfoot mystery in Mount Ranier National Park. Sidebars feature real-life Bigfoot research, cultural beliefs, and other factual information.
• Heroes of Dunkirk — a look at the World War II military campaign at Dunkirk as told through stories of heroes at the scene. Sidebars include STEM and hero highlights.

We'd love to get the word out to teachers, librarians, parents/families, and anyone with young readers in mind who could really use and enjoy this set of books.

Enter to WIN by leaving a comment on this post anytime between now and 11:59 PM on December 23. At the end of the giveaway period, I'll use an online randomizer to select a single winning entry. Then I'll post the winner's name in this space by December 26 and arrange to mail the books to the winner in early January 2020.

Thank you for reading, and good luck to all entrants!

Guest Blogging at LitLinks

I'm thrilled to be today's guest blogger for Patricia Newman's LitLinks, where children's authors, educators, and scientists highlight connections between STEM and language arts.

In "Code Breakers, STEM, and History Inspire Fiction Writing," I've outlined a classroom activity meant to enhance reading comprehension and information retention for readers of my book World War II Code Breakers. Readers will take inspiration from a brief passage about real-life cryptologist Genevieve Grotjan Feinstein to craft their own fictionalized scene about Ms. Grotjan Feinstein's breakthrough discovery of a crucial pattern in Japan's Purple code.

The book, one of four titles I wrote in Lerner's Heroes of World War II series, was designed to cover quite a bit of specific wartime history in a necessarily shorter format. That meant this particular historical Hero Highlight sidebar story had to be told in just a couple of paragraphs. I think there's just enough intriguing factual information in the passage to inspire kids' imaginations and fuel the activity. Readers can use what they've learned about the processes of creating and cracking codes (including the historical context in which they are presented) to take the creative leap of visualizing and writing an exciting fictionalized scene about Ms. Grotjan Feinstein's history-making a-ha moment.

As a complement to the LitLinks piece, I thought it would be fun to offer an add-on activity here at my blog. Treat the following as a warm-up exercise ahead of reading World War II Code Breakers. Or, during the prewriting phase of the main project, use it as vehicle for giving kids some fun hands-on experience to further inspire the writing and illustrating of a fictionalized scene about a real-life wartime code breaker. 

Please enjoy!

Tick-Tock, Don't Stop

I recently restarted the clock on some creative goals. No, not at 0000 hours. More like at "Hey, the clock says THIS is where I am, so let's go from there."

I'm taking this approach not because I'd ever stopped making progress. I just figure now is a good time to pivot away from the myth of my own making that I'm thismuch behind in anything and, therefore, somehow behind in Life. (Spoiler alert: I'm right on time, one that's mine alone to tell.)

And besides, doesn't catching all the way up signal The End? No one wants that.

So, I've hit a mini reset button and am taking a quick sec to feel proud of the many creative milestones I've already ticked off while also meeting and/or exceeding other life obligations and expectations.

I'm not stopping. Just taking everything step by step, minute by minute, day by day. 

Feel like joining me?

The Blog Log

Hoo-boy, I count 11 blogs from the past 2 years just sitting in draft form — and another 17 dating back to 2003. Many of them are fully formed, even, yet they still didn't inspire me to pull the "Publish" trigger.

In most cases, I can tell that I'd taken a break with the intention of coming back in an hour or the next day for one last look. But come back, I did not.

I do have a handle on why my blogging enthusiasm waned. Things changed. Life happened. Stuff I enjoyed doing felt more like chores once other stuff I wanted to do slipped through my fingers. Then life kept on happening. (Lots of it good, but change is change.) Oh, and I . . . as did we all . . . joined Facebook, to name just one thing Social.

Yes, I've attempted to return to regular blogging in the past. Well, no: I've had the idea that I should return to it — that not blogging was some kind of failure.

But right now I'm at one of life's many crossroads. (Maybe I'm at two. Can you be at two crossroads?) And, for the first time in years, I feel like blogging. As in, instead of making myself log on and write this post (any post), I couldn't stop myself.

Just like old times.

Watch this space for book news, musings on the writing life, and what I'm working on. If I really do get back into the swing, who knows — I might even return to keeping my website updated. Stranger things have happened, you know. (See: 2017.)

Sneak Peek at My Weekend on the Water Artist's Way Mini Class

The following is cross-posted on SCBWI Western Washington's blog. We have a creativity retreat coming up in October with great opportunities to customize your experience: member-led workshops, discussions, critiques, private writing time, walks in the woods — you decide! If you'd like to join us, register soon!

Hello, fellow retreaters! I can't wait to get to IslandWood and start soaking up the atmosphere, hobnobbing with you all, and marinating in all things KIDLIT & CREATIVITY until it's time to board that ferry back to reality.

I'm also excited to be leading a couple of exploratory sessions for anyone interested in learning more about Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. In addition to following this creativity practice on my own since 2010, I've participated in two outstanding full-program workshops and attended one phenomenal intensive weekend retreat led by Cameron herself. I find the program tools easy to incorporate into my routine and the program's underlying philosophy adaptable to different belief systems, so I really enjoy sharing info with anyone thinking about giving it all a whirl.

Here's the official description of what I've planned for our retreat:

The Artist's Way Mini Class 
Julia Cameron's 12-week program consists of targeted exercises and strategies meant to help anyone cultivate a more rewarding personal creativity practice. Along the way, students confront negative patterns and learn how to more easily and consistently access their creative talents. This mini class will cover key Artist's Way principles and give attendees a taste of the program's simple but effective methods. 

A few Artist's Way principles in action.

Saturday: Introduction to The Artist's Way
We'll take a quick look at the progression of themes in a full Artist’s Way cycle (from reclaiming a sense of creative safety to embracing creative possibility and beyond). Then we’ll discuss Morning Pages, Artist Dates, and Walks — aka the program’s hallmark “creative recovery” tools. And we’ll end with a short reflection exercise to start challenging any self-limiting beliefs that might be keeping you from following your personal creative path.

Important note about what Artist's Way techniques can help you discover and accept about your personal creative path: It's not my path or someone else's vision of your path or a path Julia Cameron lays out for you or a facsimile of the latest It-creative's path. It's all YOURS, and that's what makes it right.

Sunday: Artist's Way Hands-On Workshop
This session will include two fun hands-on activities designed to help you connect with some of your deepest creative interests and tap in to your personal power as a creative being. 

Translation in case that didn't sound fun: You will (1) interpret a relevant topic through a stream-of-consciousness drawing activity; and (2) rip up paper goods and use glue to create something new.

Is The Artist's Way right for you? I have no idea! It wasn't right for me until ... it was. But I do believe taking it for a test run in this setting will offer concrete creativity-boosting strategies you can later use, and benefit from, regardless of whether you decide to further explore the program after the retreat.

Each session stands alone, and everyone is welcome at one or the other or, of course, both.

I hope some of you will join me!

Change Is Afoot

How do you like LLOwens.com's new home page? The full website is still a work in progress as I complete a move into brand-new digs after leaving the hosting platform I've used for 13 years. I've done enough work so far, though, to go ahead and launch an early version of the update.

Now I look forward to completing the (what seems monumental) task of further developing its various pages. At the moment, for example, cover images for most of my still-in-print titles are up on the Books section's Fiction and Nonfiction subpages, but there's nary a book summary to be had. See the buttonlike thingies I added under the home page's main image? They represent the categories, or bookshelves, I expect to build into the site, and someday they will be clickable buttons. I also have plans for adding more useful content to the Author Visits and Bio pages. These things do take time.

Some of you may have noticed another change. Maybe. It's subtle, but to me it's BIG.

Check out the author name I'm now using for my site and this blog. Yep, I've switched to Lisa L. Owens. That's what I used in the contracts for my next two books (biographies coming out in 2017), and for me this shift also signals the beginning of a new phase in my kidlit career. "L. L. Owens" has served me well, but that pen name was essentially chosen for me in the late 1990s when I started publishing. It made total sense at the time, and I have nothing but positive feelings about it. But I've decided to claim my full name as I pursue writing more trade books and fewer titles geared specifically for the school and library market. More on all that another day.

Change is hard — but it is good!

A Peaceful World Imagined in a Cloud

The Camellia flower's petals fall with its calyx, symbolizing perfect unity.

In remembrance of the September 11 attacks, Lois Brandt invited folks to spend 10 minutes today writing about a peaceful world — a meaningful endeavor, indeed.

What I immediately discovered while starting to write this morning was that it's a snap for me to imagine such a world. But the full-on peace I envision is the stuff of fantasies, of idylls. It's not based in the reality of the world's situation or the human condition, and today in particular, I really didn't want to write about an imaginary world.

So I went about my busy day, planning to try the exercise again once I'd shut down the office for the evening.

While coming in from an after-work dog walk, the Camellia next to my porch caught my eye. Several years ago, an arborist chopped the plant to its quick against my wishes. He insisted that it was in the wrong spot and about to die. Well, it soon started growing again, sprouting right on up out of its stump. This Camellia wanted to live and do its thing in its preferred location, bad soil and space issues be hanged. Its height does need to be contained so it doesn't hit a portion of the house, but otherwise, shrub and home peacefully coexist. The Camellia has even started blooming again, a testament to its resilience in the face of near destruction.

This much we know: Humans will forever experience conflict and, thank goodness, we will forever pursue peace. We learn from tragedy and seek to create a better future. It's what we do. On this somber anniversary of one of our darkest days, I can't offer a blueprint for achieving an ultimate state of peace — but I can pay my respects to those we lost on September 11 with a simple word cloud I created in their honor. I started with the word peace and then spent a few minutes brainstorming some key attitudes and actions that support it.

The color scheme I applied is called Quiet Morning; the cloud's shape is Unconstrained.

My Current State of Mind

Win a Free Skype Visit or Books for Your Classroom!

I'm so pleased to share details of a giveaway sponsored by Online Author Visits!

OAV is a writers' group I belong to founded by my friend Suzanne Williams, the esteemed co-author of the wildly popular Goddess Girls series (among other terrific series and stand-alone books). We provide virtual author visits to schools, libraries, book clubs, writing groups, and anyone else wanting to host a chat with a professional children's or YA author. You can peruse our list of available authors here. We all enjoy using the online presentation format, which makes it easy to connect with people — regardless of location. And those seeking OAV's services love using the virtual option as a cost-effective and easy-to-schedule method of hosting an author guest for their meetings, classes, and other special events.

Online Author Visits has been online for a while, but with the dawn of this new year, we updated our website and reorganized as a group. To celebrate that, we decided to host a special giveaway! Prizes include (1) a FREE Skype visit with me and (2) a FREE set of Trudi Trueit's super-fun Secrets of a Lab Rat series.

This giveaway ends February 17. Winners will be randomly selected at that time. If you'd like to enter, we'd love to have you! Just surf on over to our most recent blog post to throw your hat into the ring. And feel free to share contest details with your favorite teachers, librarians, parents, writers, and readers. Note that you can also enter through OAV's Facebook page by clicking on the Giveaway tab.

Good luck to all who enter!

Deadlines. I've Got Deadlines.

I feel overwhelmed by looming deadlines this morning. This scene from The Pit and the Pendulum comes to mind, in all its Roger Corman–imagined glory:



And now I will stop feeling and get back to working. Must halt that pendulum so I can hop up from the desk, relatively unscathed, in time to truly enjoy a bit of this holiday season.

Getting Over Myself, One Milestone at a Time

I cracked open a new Morning Pages notebook today.

I'd been saving this one for when I reach a particular milestone in my writing work, but I woke up realizing that my mindset contributes to elevating that milestone to a level of preciousness I might decide I can't touch. Something I deny myself because I don't deserve it, or because reaching it means I have to let it go.

But guess what. This is just a notebook I like. I will use it now.

And the milestone? It's just one in the long line of career markers I've already passed. It is just one in the long line of future milestones I'll come to and love and move on from as I travel my long writer's-life road. I will stop holding the bloody thing so close to the bone now.

My Latest Titles

I'm pleased to share my new titles for Fall 2014 — two books in the Rourke nonfiction series United States Regions: Southern Region and Southwestern Region. These are, as you might guess, state studies books intended for classroom use in Grades 3–5. The content focus is to identify and investigate regions based on their common geography, industry, agriculture, and culture. I enjoyed getting to learn more about my two regions and working to make the information and broader concept used to frame it accessible for young readers.

Pretty covers, don't you think?

The "My Writing Process" Blog Tour Stops Here Today

Dori Hillestad Butler

Have you seen this writing-blog meme making the rounds lately? Well, last week, the talented Dori Hillestad Butler tagged me in her tour post, and I accepted the challenge. Dori and I met this spring when she moved to the Seattle area from Iowa City (my old stomping grounds), and we've discovered that our writing careers and Midwestern roots are just two of quite a few things we have in common. Thanks for putting me on the blog tour hot seat, Dori!

Be sure to visit Dori's author site to learn more about her numerous children's books, including the Edgar Award–winning The Buddy Files: The Case of the Lost Boy and her super-fun looking Haunted Library mystery series launching this summer.

And so the time has come for me to answer the tour's four questions designed to give readers a peek at how a writer's work . . . works.

(1) What am I working on?

I just recently finished checking layout proofs for two nonfiction books of mine due out later this summer. They're part of a new Rourke series called United States Regions, and I wrote the titles covering the South and Southwest. I can't wait to see the final copies!

My current works in progress include

• a YA historical novel, aka My Pet. This project is where I focus all my off-the-clock writing energies right now.
• one humorous picture book in revision, three additional picture books at various stages of development, and the dream of writing a YA nonfiction picture book to accompany the novel-in-progress mentioned above. But first things first — like finishing My Pet.
• two middle-grade mysteries I once sold but that were shelved before publication during the economic downturn of 2008. I own the rights to those and will revise, submit, and hope to sell again.

(2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I tend toward writing quieter, character-driven fiction and heavily researched but highly accessible nonfiction (whether it's prompted by a publisher's specific topic request or it grows out of some tidbit that sparks my own need to know/write it). Because I work with a number of genres, markets, and target age levels/audiences, it's difficult for me to make any blanket statements describing my writing. But I do believe my voice comes through in each book. That's the goal, anyway. In my view, voice is the thing that differentiates any writer's output, whether it's a person's body of work or a stand-alone piece of writing.

(3) Why do I write what I do?

At the why-I-write-for-kids level: I feel at home writing for young readers because as a young person I always felt at home while reading and writing. I read so much and wrote so much (in those days I wrote in diary format) that growing up to work with words for a living seemed the only logical result of all that reading and writing. Reading and writing for the win!

At the why-I-write-things-like-my-personal-WIPs level: Because I have no other choice but to write those things. The stories I create come from my needs to

• express thoughts and ideas
• shine a light on small details and big concepts
• weave compelling tales
• present new information (or known information in a new way)
• examine universal feelings and experiences
• experiment with different types of writing
• share my heart

(4) How does my writing process work?

It's the same for every project! Oh, and it's different for every project!

That constancy mixed with variety is one of my favorite things about writing.

But let me go into at least a little bit of detail:

I've yet to write anything that didn't involve some type of research, so after my idea takes hold, the research is where I start. This is true whether I'm working on fiction or nonfiction, and the amount of research I need to do varies. I might research a setting detail, potential character name, or biographical fact and get straight to writing — or I might spend months gathering and vetting piles of research before keying in Word One.

Sometimes I do the research and set it aside for the rest of the writing process. For my humorous picture book in development, for example, I did a quick check on the developmental appropriateness of my protagonist's dilemma relative to her age. I didn't need that information to write a draft, but that took no time to investigate, so why not.

Then there's the other end of the spectrum: Sometimes the research continues all the way to the bitter end. For the Neptune title in my Space Neighbors series, I monitored NASA's live feed of breaking Neptune research until probably an hour before turning in my final draft. A true nail-biter!

Once I've done some cursory research, I outline or outline/plot, depending on the type and expected length of the work. Then I start writing. If I have a deadline, I write to that. Deadline is here? Then the writing is done. If I'm writing on my own and plan to pursue publication, I set writing goals — and reset them if/when needed.

Now, if I'm writing on my own and have no particular plans for the work beyond trying it, I write until I stop getting anywhere. I may set it aside and pick it up again later. Or I may forget the writing ever existed. I know this can happen because I've had occasion to stumble across work I have no recollection of creating. What can I say. Life happens and things slip through the cracks. Besides, fellow writers, I'll bet you've done the same thing, too. OK, let me revise to plead: Please, fellow writers, PLEASE tell me you've done the same thing, too!

Thanks a bunch for reading my writing-process tour entry. For next Monday, I'm passing the blogging baton to my friend Wendy Wahman, the award-winning author-illustrator of some of my favorite picture books, including Don't Lick the Dog: Making Friends with Dogs, A Cat Like That, and Snowboy 1, 2, 3 (this one was illustrated by Wendy and written by Joe Wahman).

Don't Lick the Dog was selected as a 2010 Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year, starred for Outstanding Merit, and accepted to the Society of Illustrators Original Art show. Her book trailer for A Cat Like That was selected from over 7,000 entries for the Walker Art Center’s Catvidfest 2013. Wendy’s editorial illustrations have appeared in major publications including Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and the Harvard Business Journal. She teaches art classes through the nonprofit organization Powerful Schools, and she enjoys sharing creativity exercises with both children and adults. 

Look for Wendy's post July 14!

Nonfiction Monday: A Chat with PURE GRIT Author Mary Cronk Farrell

I recently had the pleasure of attending one of Mary Cronk Farrell's readings in support of her terrific new YA nonfiction book, Pure Grit: How American World War II Nurses Survived Battle and Prison Camp in the Pacific. It was fun to hear about her experience creating the book — and I was especially drawn to the story, which features an incredibly strong group of women who faced unspeakable hardships and dangers as combat nurses and prisoners of war. 

Pure Grit is thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and gorgeously photo-illustrated, making it a perfect title to feature on this Nonfiction Monday. Be sure to track it down in your local bookstore or library. And in the meantime, enjoy my Q&A with its author.

Welcome to my blog, Mary, and congratulations on the new book! How long have you been writing nonfiction for young readers?

For about ten years. Except for a couple magazine articles, Pure Grit is the first nonfiction book I have published for kids.

Tell us what sparked your interest in this story and why you wanted to write it for young adults.

When I first heard about the POW nurses, I was immediately drawn to the story by my curiosity about how they survived three years in the harsh conditions of prison camp, especially since many others in the camps died. It was difficult to believe, and also disappointing that I had not learned about these courageous women in school and I wanted young people to know about them. I was greatly inspired by their strength of purpose, their resilience, and their dedication to their vocation as nurses. I knew their story would inspire others, too.

From idea to final draft, how long did the research and writing take you? Were there any major stumbling blocks along the way?

It is difficult to gauge the amount of time I spent on this project. I worked on it intermittently for five years. Both the research and the writing were done in chunks of time between other projects I was working on.  I didn't have any major stumbling blocks. The research and writing were quite straightforward, but I will say that at times the material was very difficult emotionally. I remember a time or two that I was typing with tears running down my cheeks.

I’d love to hear about any particularly memorable interviews you conducted.

By far the most memorable interview was with Mildred Dalton Manning, the only one of the POW nurses still alive at the time I was writing the book. She was most gracious, and I felt honored to meet her. Another memorable interview was with Sascha Weinzheimer Jansen, who was a child in Santo Tomas Internment Camp where the Army nurses were imprisoned. She had been in the hospital for a tonsillectomy and remembered being cared for by Army Nurse Denny Williams. Her throat was not healing after the surgery, because the girl and everyone in the camp were starving and malnourished. Sascha remembers the nurse sitting with her all night when she was deathly ill.

What knowledge or message would you like readers to take away from their experience reading the Pure Grit?

I hope readers will get a strong sense of what it was like for these women to find themselves suddenly in the middle of war and then to be imprisoned for three years. I hope the book will cause questions to rise in readers' minds. I don't have specific ideas I want people to take away, other than how brave and dedicated the nurses were, but so many issues arise from the story that I think are worthy of thought and discussion.

What’s next for you as a writer? Any new children’s books in the works?

My next book, working title Fannie Never Flinched, is due out in February 2016.  It's another amazing true story about courage and dedication, this time a biography of one woman — Fannie Sellins — who was an incredible labor organizer in the early 1900s garment industry, coal fields, and steel mills. Like the POW nurses, her strength was imbued with compassion. Unfortunately, she did not survive, but died in a hail of bullets on the picket line of a Pennsylvania coal strike.
 
That sounds fascinating — I look forward to reading it. In the meantime, where can readers and reviewers find Pure Grit, and you?

Readers can get Pure Grit through any bookstore, on the ground or on the Internet, and I invite everyone to visit my website for more information about the POW nurses and me.


Terrific. Thanks so much for chatting with me, Mary! 

I Feel Some Blogging Coming On

As my career has evolved since I opened this blog in 2007, the blog itself has devolved. I've never wanted to shutter it; even in lean-posting times it's felt like a hardy living organism to me — one that can rebloom anytime I show up with my watering can and a little TLC. That's why I've been content to let it quietly sit for seasons at a time.

Part of my own growth in the last several years has involved intentionally refocusing my professional efforts. My goal has been to step off the very pleasant-but-specific career train I'd boarded when I first started freelancing full time (basically because it showed up at my local depot one day), and to work on claiming the career that I really want. And guess what — that takes time and considerable effort. It also, for me, has made it difficult to blog with anything resembling regularity. While writing about whatever I'm experiencing does help me process those whatevers, trying to do that on the blog has not appealed to me. So I've kept the writing-as-processing to my morning pages, which — as my fellow Artist's Way devotees know — are neither meant nor fit for public consumption.

Now is now, though — as everyone knows — and I've entered a new season. Earlier goals have been reached, realistic newer ones have been set, and all systems seem Go for continuing to move in the right direction. Which all makes for a more focused me and the proper time to say: I feel some blogging coming on.

I know that I'm ready to reengage, because I keep having post ideas while just going about my life. I even have a new overall blog theme in mind, and that makes both sides of my writer-editor split personality smile. (Those dames like them some purposeful structure.)

To any readers out there, I invite you to follow along with a simple "All aboard!" Rides on this blog train are always free, and you can hop on and off as you like.

Oh, and in case you're wondering what my newer goals might be/what theme I might apply to the blog at this stage,  I thank you for paying enough attention to question those things! Don't worry, though, all will be covered in future blogs. For you, and for me.

Another Picture Book Idea Month Has Come and Gone. Sigh.

Well, it's December 3, and that means November is no more. I've never done NaNoWriMo, but I do enjoy a good PiBoIdMo — the Picture Book Idea Month (aka November) that comes around every year now, thanks to founder Tara Lazar.

This was my third time participating, and I tallied my ideas on Sunday: 38 with 4 series in the mix. Not bad! I did come up with more in both 2011 and 2012, but still . . . 38 is not bad at all. It's good, even.

As I've already shared elsewhere, I announced my magic number to my husband with an enthusiastic "I win!" (note: anyone who makes it to 30 ideas wins this game, as well we all should) — and his immediate response was "Are you going to write them?" Of course he truly meant that in the most positive, encouraging way. But I admit to thinking (and then telling others, and now you) that I could have used a quick minute to enjoy my victory before launching an action plan for turning my little seeds into full-blown story gardens. Or something like that.

In any case, I will do this again next year and, I hope, every year — regardless of how long the event itself lives in the kidlit writers' community. It's such a fun challenge, and the benefits are tangible. The exercise is a great way to make yourself focus on idea generation, and I find that it also helps me come up with story ideas for different levels/audiences, as well as ideas for spicing up whatever I happen to be writing at the moment. Creativity begets creativity, and work begets work, and that's just the way things are.

How about it — did you do PiBoIdMo this year, too? I'd love to hear about your experience in the comments!