Bouncing on toes

I am standing at the mouth of the Cave of Revision, impatiently waiting for the coffee pot to finish making coffee. I think I have a few more long days on this revision before I turn it in.

So. Here are my rambling, hurry-up-coffee-pot notes:

1. Yesterday, I corresponded with readers in Brazil and Norway. How cool is that?

2. My latest obsession is worm castings. Yes, that is a polite word for worm poop. I am gardening organically this year and worms are my new best friends. I am looking for a source in Central New York, if anyone knows of one. So far, I’ve been ordering them from Vermont, and am having a friend’s family (who are in the business of producing worm poop, don’t ask) bring me some on their next visit to the area.

Go ahead, laugh, but you should see what it is doing to my broccoli plants.

3. If you live in Michigan, please vote for the Thumbs Up! Award by May 30th! (twistedtwistedtwistedtwisted)

4. Little birds have been reporting that the TWISTED paperback version is turning up in stores in one of those cardboard stands. (Those are called dumps, but after my discussion of worm poop, I am not going there.) Have you seen one?

5. When you are in the bookstore, be sure to buy Tanya Lee Stone’s newest wonderful picture book: Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote. It has been named a Book Links Best New Books of 2008, and a Booklist Top Ten Youth Biography, and is sure to garner more awards soon.

Not only is it a wonderful book, but Tanya just made a generous contribution that brought my Beloved Husband’s fund raising efforts to his goal of $2,500!!! ALL HAIL TANYA! (Please give her some love on her blog!)

The fund raising is done! The fund raising is done! Our nice friends chipped in $5000 for cancer research! ::dances around the cave!!

Now all we have to do is run 13.1 miles on June 15th! ::sits down on cave floor::

No, really, our training has been going very well, so it shouldn’t be a problem. We ran 13.3 miles two weeks ago, and had a hilly 10.5 mile run on Sunday. That one aggravated some tendon issues, but everything will heal in time because I said it would.

6. INDEPENDENT DAMES received another awesome blog review. This one is of particular interest to middle school teachers.

7. CHAINS has been chosen as a Junior Library Guild selection!

8. Did I mention how great my broccoli looks?

The coffee is done and my characters are whining for me to hurry up because they have a lot to do today. See ya!

Summer Blog Blast Tour – in which I am interviewed!

There are a lot of terrific bloggers in the kidlit corner of the blogosphere. This week they have coordinated their efforts into the Summer Blog Blast Tour 2008. Little Willow has the entire schedule.

Kelly Fineman was kind enough to ask me to take part. So… warm up your linkety-link finger, because:

Step One – Kelly has posted an extensive review of INDEPENDENT DAMES.

Step Two – Yesterday she gave a preview of all the folks she’s interviewing this week.

Step Three! Today (drum roll, please) you can read her interview with me; in which I ponder writing history and historical fiction for kids, spill the secrets about the writing process of DAMES, and answer the age-old question: “cheese or chocolate?”.

Thank you very much, Kelly and organizers of SBBT!

Where is my list?

Thank you to everyone who came out to the bookstore in Oswego last night! (I also snuck into Oswego High School yesterday, courtesy of English teacher Heidi Sheffield, and surprised several classes of students who have been reading SPEAK. Thanks, Heidi and kids!)

River’s End Bookstore celebrates its 10th anniversary on Sunday. If you’re in the area, stop by for cake and to congratulate them. Few people would have had the vision and determination to open a bookstore in Oswego. It’s a small town, surrounded by beautiful countryside that is rife with poverty and struggles. But Bill and Mindy saw the potential. They took the plunge and changed their community for the better. The bookstore has been a significant part of Oswego’s renaissance and is now the heart of downtown. Huzzah for brave booksellers!

Instead of a Friday Five, I need to write up my Friday & weekend to-do list:

1. Work on revision until eyeballs roll up into skull.
2. Mail the ARCs of CHAINS to the people who donated to Scot’s race (he’s almost to his goal!).
3. Pay bills.
4. Celebrate Daughter #2’s graduation from SUNY Cortland. Yay Jessica!
5. Move wheelbarrows of dirt and mulch until arms give out.
6. Sow carrots and eggplant and squash.
7. Remind readers that PROM will be the featured title on Readergirlz next month and that will be a blast.
8. Attend to various publicity things for CHAINS release in October.
9. Run.
10. More revision work…. the next deadline looms!

What’s on your list?

More about what students write to authors

Apparently there is a discussion going on at some listserv about teachers assigning students to communicate with authors. I’ve talked about this here before. It can be wonderful (most of the time) and frustrating, especially if a reader’s grade hinges on hearing back from the author, or if the reader writes demanding the author explain all of the symbolism, setting, and themes of her book. But mostly it’s great.

I thought I’d post one day’s worth of notes so teachers could get a sense of things. Here is the email I got yesterday. (There was snail mail, too, but I am months behind on that.)

This comes from a teacher:
“I am teaching Speak in my Junior Honors class. As a parallel work, we watched the film version of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. My students found it a little weird that you named the wonderful art teacher the same name as Maya Angelou’s rapist. Since I didn’t have the answer (except to say it was probably more to demonstrate YOUR Mr. Freeman’s character and the connection to the other character was an accident), I told them I would ask you. So I am.”

A fairly detailed request, from a reader who hasn’t yet found the Biography or FAQ pages of my website:
“Hello…i m …. & im doing
a Author report on you and i was wondering
if you could help me and answer a few things.
please.

like tell me thing what you liked to do in
your childhood?

How did you become intersted in writting?

What other degrees did you earn?

Did you earn one to become a writer?

how was your family?

anty brothers/sisters?

What are your most important awards/honrs?

What your favorite book?
[my speak]] very good!

Well i would apprecitate it VERY much if you took time to answer me these questions and tell me about your self!”

Ah, spelling. But you have to love the sweet tone of this one:
“Hey, Im doing a school project on you, we were told to pick an author and do reserch and i really couldnt think of the books i have read cuz im not a big reader and the frist that came to mind was speak, i have read the book 2 times and have watched the movie plenty, it was a touching story, now i have got most of my info from writer lady, but thiers one thing i really coundt find and thats qoutes… i need a few qouets that u may say or live by and if u could reply back to this it would be much help and i would appreciate it tones!!!”

Never been asked for this before:
“Hi Laurie…. During our English 12 class, we have to choose one particular author and write an author study on our choice. I decided to write about you. I have read mostly all of your books besides a couple, only because our school library does not own them. But, I am hoping to buy them this summer. The reason I am emailing you is because we have to find a short story that our author wrote. I have looked long and hard and have not found a short story written by you. I was wondering if you have ever written any short stories. Sorry if that offended you, but in my search, every sight told me you have not written any. If you have, I was wondering if you had the time, if you could email me a short story you have written. I would appreciate it greatly. Thank you for reading this email. I understand that you have a life of your own and do not want to be a burden. If you’re too busy, I understand. I hope to hear back from you.”

Students are not the only ones writing:
“My name is… and I’m a bookseller at… my manager and I are trying to round up prizes and giveaways to put in our goodie bags. I have been given the unenviable task of e-mailing every YA author and/or publisher I can think of and asking for help. I read Speak when I was about 13 or so, and it made quite an impression on me, so of course, you were one of the first authors I thought to e-mail.

Do you have anything—and I mean anything—that you could send me to help me out? Anything from signed books to a stack of bookmarks would be fantastic. Not a lot goes down around here, so we are trying to make this as fun as possible. Let me know, and I can send you the store address and my manager’s name.”

This one is wonderful… she forgot to include the link to the site she was talking about, but did so in a post later in the day:
“i know you have no time for any of this, or maybe just no brain-energy left, but life is short & really what else matters?
so anyway i wanted to thank you for ‘twisted’, which i just read in one sitting / lying (sprawled, in someone else’s empty bed, in someone else’s empty house-)

i read ‘speak’ in high school, maybe when i was more part of the Target Audience, but now, finding ‘twisted’ at 22 i wish more than anything my (older) brother could have read it when he was most vulnerable.. it could have really saved him. you are doing immensely important work, i hope you know that..

though i understand you are terribly busy & probably inundated with emails like this, i would really be honored if you would look at something i made / am making… just a little nothing in the forest. click the house when it lights up.

if you find a moment, thank you, it takes awhile to load, i hope it’s worth it. oh, and your website is beautiful, by the way.”

This is simply lovely:
“I have recently read your book speak. I found it very interesting and i could connect with it in many different ways. Throughout my school years i have endured some very tough times, and reading this book brightened my life a little bit, and made me realize that anything is possible. I wanted to personally thank you for writing an excellent book, that is also very meaningful to me and many other readers. You are one of my all-time favorite authors and believe me i do not say this to everyone! Well once again thank you so much for the insight that your wonderful book provided me.”

As is this:
“hi laurie i’m yvette, i read three of your books and i loved them, i actully finished them it usally takes me a whole semester to finish a book but not this time. so far i read “speak” “fever 1793” and “twisted” i liked them all and i can’t wait to read the rest of your books!”

Gotta love this, too:
“that your book Speak is by far the best book I’ve read, and I’m sure you’ve heard this a lot, but I am an absolute slowwww reader and I have a very difficult time just sitting down and concentraiting for a solid ten minutes. So like I’ve said before, I know you hear this a lot but i couldn’t put this book down, and this book has also inspired me to speak up. thank you.”

My conclusion:
Beefing up the website has definitely helped stem the tide of reasonable requests for information. (Though I have no plans to post essays about the themes in my books!) Answering reader mail is mostly a very nice problem to have. The only thing I ask teachers is please don’t make a student’s grade rely on my ability to respond in a timely fashion.

Any thoughts?

I’m back in the Cave of Revision, BTW. Will be crawling out for my booksigning in Oswego on Thursday evening.