Jeannine Atkins

Yesterday I gave a talk called Once Upon a Time: A History of Children’s Literature to a group of about forty seniors at Greenfield Community College. http://www.gcc.mass.edu/community_education/senior_symposia.html
It was sort of my semester course shrunk down to about an hour and a half. We began with fairy tales



And horn books



And Mother Goose



We took swift looks at Alice in Wonderland, Beatrix Potter, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Winnie-the-Pooh, The Hobbit, then scrambled through Little Golden Books, Dick and Jane, and The Cat and the Hat.

Of course we looked at picture books, most lucky children’s introduction to literature, though I resisted the temptation to just pull a few out and read. People seemed happy to see images of old friends – Wanda Gag’s cats and McCloskey’s ducks --and meet new ones: Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret got a lot of oohs and ahs. And yay, my fifty plus powerpoint images went off without a hitch. Afterward, a couple introduced themselves as Dick and Jane. I also saw two old friends and Nancy Frazier, who’d been my husband’s boss when I met him, overseeing black and white illustrations for the local newspaper. She said, “We had a lot of fun.”

I spoke on the invitation of Margo Culley, who currently oversees the senior symposia program, and years ago was my professor for a class called Lost New England Women Writers, a course which ignited my passion for research. I was so lucky to have her as a professor, and am so lucky to be friends with her all these years later.

Last night I went to the Odyssey Bookshop http://www.odysseybks.com/ to hear Harriet Reisen talk about her new biography for adults: Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women. Like many of us, Harriet Reisen’s passion began as a girl reading her way through Louisa’s novels, and grew during the past twenty years of writing this biography and co-producing a film biography which will be aired Dec. 28 as part of American Masters on PBS. She talked about conversations with costume designers about making the linen outfits the family wore on the utopian farm, Fruitlands. There were visitors, many of whom wrote journals, but while Henry David Thoreau, for example, might lavish pages on a tree, there’s no written description of the tunics and bloomers. The costumers did their best with this period when the Louisa was ten and her family avoided cotton, because it was based on slave labor, and wool, since it relied upon unconsenting sheep, and leather: though practical Mrs. Alcott surely insisted on shoes once the weather got cold. As authors we can do our best with words, but costumers and illustrators have to get more specific. Here’s what illustrator Jean-Paul Tibbles did with the cover of my book (Putnam 2001).



Like Harriet Reisen, the topic of the Alcotts is one I could go on and on about. I liked that the quote from the diary Louisa wrote when she was ten – how she and her older sister Anna were called to a meeting to see if the family should stay together -- which inspired my novel also kind of broke her heart. I loved hearing a few research stories: the unanswered phone calls, the plodding, the serendipity of a letter that fell out from a volume at a used book store with a phone number at the end. Harriet Reisen read two excerpts, and it’s clear she worked hard not only to elegantly and truthfully show Louisa, but put her vividly into the context of her time and place. Harriet Reisen loves a material world both for its clues and color. And she shows Louisa as a runner. Often twenty miles a day.

She cited authors who have been influenced by Louisa Alcott including Simone de Beauvoir, Cynthia Ozick, and J.K. Rowling. I might add more than half the the writers I know. I look forward to reading the biography and seeing the television documentary, with a script that is all quotes, many from Louisa’s diaries and letters, with some commentary by scholars.

I had a great afternoon talking about books at Smith Campus School in Northampton, MA. Thank you Sabra Aquadro and other organizers! And I got to listen to Patricia MacLachlan, author of Sarah, Plain and Tall, as well as many other books, read poems about dogs. Here she is holding a picture of herself when she was young.



Richard Michelson read from Did You Say Ghosts? while authors Heidi Stemple (back) and Corinne Demas listened, waiting for their turn to read.



What a thrill to hear Grace Lin read from Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. It’s exciting to see such a gorgeously illustrated novel.



Librarian Nancy Brady took this picture of me, Grace Lin, Anna Alter, Diane deGroat, and Shelley Rotner.



There was a lot of professional talent in that room, but the students, oh my gosh. We were given gift bags where I found, besides really good chocolate, cards the children had made on the theme of Great Changers. Here are two inspired by my picture books. Inside one card Abby wrote about Mary Anning. An excerpt: “She loved the sea as much as a lion loves his dinner. She loved her work.” I think you can see that from the beautiful grin she gave Mary. Hey, prying out a seventeen foot long ichthyosaur fossil has got to be some fun.



And Lila wrote, “…Aani made a great change in the seventies.
Whenever someone said, ‘Can I cut down some trees?’
She would say, ‘No.'
… She was peaceful
She was as peaceful as one tiny leaf falling
Were you scared, Aani?"

Excuse me while I go try to write another book that might be worthy of these readers.

This Monday, November 2, from 3 to 5 I’ll be talking about and signing books at the Smith College Campus School on 33 Prospect St, Northampton, MA.

I’ll be in great company. Other authors and illustrators include Patricia MacLachlan, Grace Lin, Anna Alter, Marguerite Davol, Diane deGroat, Barbara Diamond Goldin, Brooke Dyer, Jane Dyer, Jeff Mack, Rich Michelson, Michael Nelson, Shelley Rotner, Heidi E. Y. Stemple, Mo Willems and Kevin Markey.

Please come if you can! The event is free and open to the public. For more information, see

http://www.smith.edu/newsoffice/releases/NewsOffice09-050.html

I'll try to get some pictures!

Yesterday I saw my glowing niece Kelly at her baby shower, her organized sisters, my sisters-in-laws (good catch up on news), and one very cute four-year-old expert at ooohs and awws pulling tiny clothes and other merchandise of babyhood from gift bags. Kelly and Ben are expecting a boy in five weeks and I was told they have a name in mind but wisely aren’t about to reveal it. A friend used this strategy with her four children, as she said people feel free to tell you what’s wrong with the name of one in utereo, but if you’re holding the baby, may keep their opinions to themselves. (Family, I took photos I will try to figure out how to post on Facebook!)

Then I drove to Albany, where Debbi Michiko Florence d_michiko_f
was doing a book signing with Coleen Murtagh Paratore http://www.coleenparatore.com at The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza http://www.bhny.com/ Great store! They draped the table with a lovely Asian themed red cloth which I thought Debbi should pack up, but she is too honest. Here she is signing while Coleen chats with Eric Luper eluper.



We made Debbi pose with her earlier book about China, (Japan sold out!) by the cool statue outside the store.



Debbi, Coleen, Nancy Castaldo naturespeak, Jen Groffjenlibrarian, and I enjoyed dinner afterwards: We got to hear a real-life love story, discuss libraries and reading what our daughters are reading, and cheer each other on about current projects. We ended in the too cold parking lot – Debbi, wrapped tight in her wool coat, couldn’t believe she once lived here – while looking forward to a time when we’d all meet again: maybe SCBWI conference in LA next summer? I’ve never been, but with a daughter in LA….



I brought home a few books and inspiration. So this afternoon, do I read, write, knit, convince my husband to see Wild Things with me, or all of the above?

Truly there are joys to getting older. Following the adventures of my daughter as a young woman, and smaller things, too: I recently told someone, speaking of Star Wars, about the little boy who wielded his light saber over my wedding cake. I’m so happy and proud to have seen him grow from a Star Wars crazy boy to a Star Wars crazy young man, who teaches high school history, and recently married another teacher. ( no light sabers at their slightly fancier wedding)

But. Aging. I’m lucky to have good health, and yesterday at an eye exam was told things looked pretty good, but there was .. something…which was fine… but might turn into something sometime.

“If you start seeing things arc and wobble, let me know,” the doctor said.

Um, yeah, I’ll do that.

Anyway, letting the vile-yellow drops settle, I walked over to the lovely Cup and Top and let Mary’s ARC relax while I scribbled notes. I wish I could say the scribbling was due to the eye drops, but I’m afraid it’s everyday.



This Florence, Mass. coffee shop has a menu with sandwiches named after local old mills, and, in the back, a small slide, blocks, and play area for kids. As I wrote, I overheard:

Go play. Don’t run into anything.

No no no! On your bottom.

Well, Theodore, that’s it.

And at last: Good job, buddy.

I left the shop after that happy ending.

Don’t forget to let me know in the comments below if you’d like to take Mary’s ARC out for coffee or show it around your town. There’s another day before I pick the name of a lucky winner from a hat!

In Mary Pearson’s latest novel, due in stores soon, four teenagers take a trip that’s about finding home. They talk their way through rough-edged memories into closer friendship. Secrets peek in and out of sight, adding to the drama of where will they stop next? There’s the thrill of wondering if there can ever truly be one fair day, a little romance, wishes, loneliness, and a touch of magic. In other words, THE MILES BETWEEN is a wonderful read.

This ARC (advanced reader’s copy; the cover has since been changed to the one above) has already whipped back and forth across the country a few times. Melodye newport2newport just showed it a good time at a county fair in Orange County. We’re quieter here in western Massachusetts.

Not much more than a thousand people live in our town. We’ve got a great school, library, and post office, but that’s about it. No coffee shop, no movie theater, not even a general store. But we have an enormous milk bottle, which visitors beg to see. Or at least we drag them there for photo ops. The book doesn’t show up too well, but I guess that points out how huge this milk bottle is! (in the caring hands of a walking buddy, Jeanne, who as a retired librarian knows how to hold a book with care.) Quonquont Farm is still around, but selling berries and apples; the cows have all gone. Back in the 1930’s, I think, you could buy ice cream from a little door that opens in the back. Now you can get the ice cream only at our Fall Festival.



I introduced this ARC to the one that thrillingly just showed up at my house (though Borrowed Names won’t morph into a book until spring 2010; Mary’s The Miles Between will be out this fall).



Okay, it’s no county fair with corn dogs and cotton candy, but I took the ARC out for a drink and discussion of children’s literature with friends who oohed and ahhed. Here it is enjoying an evening on the Deck with (from the left) teacher Tiphareth Ananda, writers Ellen Wittlinger, me, and Peg Davol (seated on the right), and librarians Nancy Brady and Mia Cabana. I don’t think it minded that we talked about her sisters, Mary’s widely acclaimed novel, The Adoration of Jenna Fox, and my favorite, A Room on Lorelei Street.



You too can win a chance to have The Miles Between visit your home by commenting below. If you win this chance to be one of the book's first readers, you’ll need to post some pictures of the ARC in your hometown on your blog, or, if you don’t blog, send a picture or two to Mary to post on hers marypearson where you’ll find the simple rules. If you’re not registered on Live Journal, you can post anonymously and write in your name and how to reach you by email (please write “AT” instead of the fancy a thing and I’ll figure it out). Contest is open until Wednesday, July 29, midnight PST. Please enter! This ARC wants to see a bit more of the country before it’s sent back to Mary’s editor in NYC at the beginning of September!

A wide swing over the blue Pacific, then we flew over craggy brown mountains, then arid red-brown plains, some broken by crooked rivers. Usually I like an aisle seat, where I can stand and stretch at will, but I was glad that hadn’t worked out as I watched puffy clouds and their puffy shadows over land where I can’t imagine a soul. The father who sat beside me and behind his wife and two small children dozed or read the paper. By the time the view changed to straight highways breaking up the green, now and then a tiny pale brown hand poked from between the seats in front of us. Sometimes the small fingers just wiggled hello. “Papa!” Sometimes they contained offerings of a packet of applesauce or Oreos passed between son and father.

I had a hefty carryon with not only a laptop, but also the thick paperback of New Moon that my daughter said I could probably finish between the coasts, and, “Really Mom, you teach children’s literature. Don’t you want to read what most of your students read?” She has a point. When I took a break from teen vampires, I pulled out the even thicker novel that my husband recommended. Drood by Dan Simmons is based on the life of Charles Dickens in his later years and evokes a seamier side of nineteenth century London. It’s narrated by rival-friend novelist Wilkie Collins, whose habit of drinking laudanum by the glassful, (an opiate usually prescribed as a drop or two) makes him a unreliable narrator, thought he’s fascinating, too. I learned that Dickens might be credited for popularizing turkey over goose for Christmas dinner. I made my way through a few hundred pages before I wanted a break from the London underworld. I didn’t need a glittering vampire, but could I have a garden or something pleasant, or even a female voice? Dickens’s wife, exiled for a few complaints after bearing ten children who survived, too many who didn’t, and spending about twenty years pregnant or lactating is treated sympathetically – but is never on stage. Nor, at least yet, is Ellen Ternan, the young actress who took her place. It reminded me of how every character needs a presence, at least some dialog from time to time, or their shadowiness will grate. This is something I’ve got to work on in my own revision.

I read a short piece in last Sunday’s New York Times about Mary Oliver, well known for her poems depicting that natural wonders of Provincetown on Cape Cod. She speaks of haunting the woods and ponds, where there is always inspiration. After once getting stuck without a pencil, she has since hidden pencils in the trees.

I made it home safely, where I plan to spend the rest of the summer admiring orange day lilies and daisies blooming in my yard, swimming in the local pond, and finishing up my book. Happy travels to friends going to ALA or elsewhere!

While my daughter went to her art history course – American, not her favorite land for art, covering, she said, “from “when Columbus sailed the ocean blue to World War II,” I did some writing. And when she went to work yesterday, she sent me to her hairdresser, who’s sending me home a bit more chic. We’ll see if my husband notices. Nobody’s placing bets, but of course that’s one of the things I love about him. The hairdresser, who grew up in LA, asked about where I lived and what commutes were like. It takes about twenty minutes to get to most places, but it’s length, not traffic, I told her. She told me of once driving in the hills, where she just stopped the car because no one was ahead of her or behind her. “I was afraid I’d crash into nothing. It was the saddest moment of my life.”

I met Em for lunch, where I tipped over my miso soup and she didn’t even sigh. Then I walked home, passing by about thirty opportunities to get my nails done; glad my sandals weren’t as pointy toed and gilded as those of some people I passed. I stopped at Whole Foods for supper supplies: chicken, asparagus, and salad, with enough chicken for Em to freeze.

Now I bid my sad good-bye and am at the airport writing this, so will post after a hopefully happy landing. I’m waiting near a mom with two kids, and the little girl, with doll’s head sticking out of her carry-on, is amusing herself (and me) with a pack of M & M’s: “Ladies and Gentlemen! How many red ones do you think I can put in my mouth at once?”

I’ll enjoy the quiet at home, but miss the sun and all the people and seeing what my daughter sees. I’ll miss eating cereal from a zebra-print bowl in the morning. I’ll miss the pool where I wrote, swam, and heard a young woman watching three three-year-olds say, “Who wants glitter?” (Don’t worry, I didn’t run over.) I’ll miss the friendly folks at Coffee Bean and will have to find a place to order coffee and when they ask for my name, give them my daughter’s. Not just cause it’s easier to spell, but for the brief pleasure of hearing “Emily!” called.

My daughters’ roommates went back home for a bit, so Em was feeling a bit freaked out coming home from work or class to an empty apartment. I’m visiting for a few days mostly to be someone there, but it’s been so much fun to have time with her. Having breakfast of a new-to-me kind of cereal, looking through a fridge and cupboard where other things were like those at home: the rice cakes, the rye crackers, the hummus, the brand of peanut butter. And on her bookshelves – Mom, there’s New Moon if you get bored – Tudor era novels, art history textbooks, and she pointed out books I wrote. I like the blue, saffron, and silver scarves dangling from the pole in her closet, the pictures all around – those with me when she was little, and the family dogs; more with friends, many taken here where she’s surrounded by so much possibility, so much what-will-come.

After she left for work, I throw in some laundry and begin what I’m calling my writing retreat here. I break to walk for coffee and the smells of flowers are stunningly sweet -- or is that sunscreen? Mmmm, a whiff of eucalyptus. And I get to work on nothing that takes place in either L.A. or western Mass, but send myself off to ancient Iraq. Become neither a mom making up a bed for her grown daughter, nor that grown daughter at work in a cubicle or stepping out for a view of the Hollywood Hills. For most of the day, when I’m not folding laundry, or buying coffee in a shop where everyone’s sandals are much more glittery than mine, I’m a sixteen year old girl near the Euphrates River, waiting for news from the moon.

The sun is trying to come out, over Lake Champlain and a friendly little island that’s been good company. After thirty days in gray Massachusetts, even sun-sightings through clouds are enough. We’ve got sun, we’ve got the lake, and we’ve got coffee that Kara and Debbie drove out to fetch when there was a glitch with breakfast. “We were just missing one element,” Kara said, and she fixed it.

Our days will be foreshortened by long drives, but I think those south-bound cars will be filled with happiness and accomplishment. For me it won’t be the staggering fourteen chapters, I think it was, someone mentioned last night, but then my hopes re word count and chapter count are always more modest: I know myself and my limits. We didn’t have a lot of rituals on this retreat, but a lovely one last night was sitting on the porch before dinner and everyone saying what they did that day. And if we did well, Marjorie adorned us with a lei. And we all got one.

MJ said that her husband asked her how writing here would be different from writing at home. She shrugged and said, “If you have to ask…” Many found that working along with others made them want to work harder and better.

Okay, the sun is already less tentative. I’m seeing sparkles on the lake. And I’m determined to revise a chapter before I get back in my car. Tomorrow I’ll try to post a few pictures.

Yesterday was gorgeous on Lake Champlain. I drove up via the scenic route, which included lots of mountains and a stop at Northshire Bookstore http://www.northshire.com/, where I did a quick invigorating browse and got iced coffee and the Tom Sawyer sandwich (roast turkey on seven grain bread) for the road.



Once at Valcour Conference Center, close enough to Canada to see signs written in French, after greetings, I settled in with my laptop. Then there was wine on the porch, talking about the massive hopes of what we hoped to accomplish over two days: Was forty pages possible? Confronting an event remembered from decades back? Figuring out how to plot a mystery? Finishing a revision, or at least a chapter? Why not? Dinner, more laugher, then more writing in a main room that is both elegant and cozy.

--Did you have a productive evening? Erin bostonerin asked.
--Um, something got done.
--You were tearing up some pages pretty definitively.
--Well, yeah, I can rip pages with some confidence.

But I did move things from the very messy stage of thought that my handwriting reflects to a slightly tidier and firmer stage.

This morning began with yoga, from a teacher who said she really just started to read last year. (“What got you started?” I had to ask. Marley and Me.) She put about half of our group through sun salutations and down dogs, then said, “Go. You’re really just going to write all day? Really? Write? All day?”
Yup.

Before bundling up to write on the porch, someone told me about having a proposal due next week for a novel that didn’t have a subject. But last night she knew what it would be about. Where do these ideas come from? The vast gray lake, the loons, the wind-tipped spruce trees, the quiet company settled in a row of wicker chairs, somewhere deep inside? Who knows? Now I’ve taken my place in one of those chairs. Rain is keeping the temptations of boat rides and swimming at bay. I’m enjoying the soft sounds of rain on the water. Watching two intrepid boats drift around Valcour Island. Then diving into a day of words. I heard a myth, legend, or gossip that someone figured out a key piece of her book by some flat rocks near the water, and rain or not (I’ve got an umbrella) I’m getting there today.

I’m using the gray-but-not-raining-so-far day to sweep together some chapters, pull together a good chunk of work to attack and explore at a writing retreat I’m going to tomorrow. No thunder, so the dogs aren’t panicky, and it’s hot enough that they seem happy to nap. I did take off work for about an hour to take in a bit of Franklin Land Trust’s Farm and Garden Tour, stopping at an apiary just across the border of our town.



Owner Don Conlon http://warmcolorsapiary.com told me that the bees were sluggish, too, waiting for sun for most of the month. I was cautioned to stay about eight feet away from the hives, and I tripled that length, though apparently the bees bump before they’re apt to bite. I wasn’t feeling into the contact thing, but happily sniffed my way around. Like monarch butterflies, bees are fond of milkweed, and generally the older the flower the better. Sometimes Bonita and Don Conlon bring the bees on field trips to orchards where they do good deeds, pollinating apples or peaches.





I sampled some tasty honey mustard and honey-lime barbeque sauce. Sadly, though I dithered, the honey ice cream wasn’t ready by the time I left.



I asked why the hives were painted different colors. Don Conlon said that there were many reasons. First, he buys paint on sale, and isn’t fussy about colors. But also, bees notice color, and, after venturing out, can find their way back to their particular hive by way of its color. The darker colors keep the bees snug on chilly days, he said. So really lots of reasons, besides how cool they look. It was time to go back, and try to pull out layers in my writing: nothing there, or not too much, for just one reason, but several.

A few days ago I caught up with my friend Jess, nurse turned stress-management educator (“It’s so much nicer to bring people news that they can relax instead of, say, “I’m sorry to tell you it’s gangrene.”) We took a walk up to Smith College Art Museum, where we saw the most amazing exhibit called “I Heard a Voice” by Lesley Dill, a Smith alum. http://www.smith.edu/artmuseum/exhibitions/dill/index.html



Knowing nothing about the artist, I’d been pulled in by descriptions of her work as inspired by language, and …we were stunned. There was a great array of media – statues kneeling, some flat, or almost (mixing photographs and tea-stained paper) some brimming with thread or silk, , and one made of silver foil, organza, wire, to give you a taste. Most were of people with words coming out of or going into their heads or backs. She has Word Queens made of wire so you can see how the inside works with the outside. Sometimes small words are made from meticulously twisted wire; sometimes words are found embedded in saffron-dyed horsehair. Lots of quotes from Emily Dickinson, first and foremost, who Dill writes changed her life when she was fourteen, and also Pablo Neruda and some other poets had a presence.

When we left the museum, Jess asked, “Do you read much of St. Francis?”

“Um. Not too much.”

“The show reminded me of how he said, “Do I talk to the trees or do the trees talk to me?”

Did he say that? Maybe I should read more.

I had a good weekend in New York with my cousin, Megan and her daughter, Rachel. Megan flew across the country to see Rachel and meet her boyfriend, who was happily given the seal of approval. On Saturday, we went to the Botanical Gardens in Brooklyn, where we smelled roses and went through greenhouses (by the way, apparently you can murder a Venus Fly Trap by feeding it hamburger.) By the time we were passing Shakespeare’s Garden the mist turned to downpour and I was regretting taking a spare pair of shoes out of my bag in an effort to travel light.



The next morning, I went to the Brooklyn Art Museum. I loved how once in a while, besides the labels with dates and perhaps a bit of background, cards with reactions from visiting children were sometimes posted. Honoring that to look at water and feel free, for instance, is a great reaction to a painting.

We saw the Statue of Liberty from the subway, managed to survive Times Square, and laughed through most of Gods of Carnage. We ate Thai, Mexican, and Tom’s Diner. On Monday we saw where Rachel worked and took this mother-daughter picture outside at City Hall Park.



After Rachel began her work day, I wandered off a few blocks and saw the empty air where the World Trade Center once stood. I stopped in the nearby St. Paul’s church where exhibits honored rescue efforts, and the benches outside, with an old graveyard, were a quiet haven from the bustle around the business district. I went to Books of Wonder and heard the green-carpeted floor creak and giggles past the employees-only curtain. Ladybug motif chairs were around the Cupcake Café, featuring small works of art with floral icing. Looking at old and new books, I made my way around a girl wearing a pink tutu and a bicycle helmet.



It was fun to see where my editor works so hard in the Flatiron Building. She gave me a tour of the offices, where I shook a few wonderful hands, and got a great view of the Empire State Building from the helm part of the building which looks out toward Fifth Avenue.



With a little time before I had to catch my bus, I stopped at the New York Public Library. I stared at the door behind which, I was told, stood the desk of Charles Dickens. I saw the original stuffed animals that belonged to Christopher Robin, and was most impressed by Piglet, who looked cocky and stalwart. I made my way around small children sprawled about treating books rather ungently, and recognized Betsy Bird http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1790000379.html on the floor, hand covered to elbow with a puppet of an off-white, whiskered animal. Cat? Mouse? I missed the story, so wasn’t sure. Betsy swayed her elbow and made the animal open its mouth in a way that delighted and only slightly alarmed the toddlers.

First there was that shiny gem of an idea. It became a picture book manuscript that went through lots of drafts, made a few eyes glimmer, but ultimately, turn dull again. I put the manuscript away for a few years, then, after selling my first book of poems, thought of my story again: could it be a novel in verse? Weren’t the themes of imagination and identity more geared to readers older than ten or twelve?

I wrote a first chapter. My writing group said – something. They didn’t gush, but I’d gotten enough across for them to say try again. I did.

Better, but not quite.

My third go-round with chapter one, I got yes, yes, and yes, from all three of my writing group members. I felt I had a way in.

For the past half a year, maybe more, but who’s counting, I’ve been drafting a novel-with-verse. I just sent the new first chapter and two others to my writing group and we met last night. Problems were pointed out, but none of the enormous kind. I’ve got detours and signs pointing the wrong day, but those can be hacked back or off when I’m further along. I think I’m on the right or right-ish track.

Today I’m taking some notes about what must be fixed, but going on to pull together my messy drafts of chapter four, watching for the buried story that needs to get out. And looking, from time to time at the rain.

Then I’ll pack my umbrella and camera to visit my cousin who just made the trip from Irvine, CA to Brooklyn, NY to see her daughter, Rachel. We hope to smell some wet roses in the Botanical Gardens or visit Prospect Park, which Rachel points out was designed after Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux practiced on Central Park, and so could fix their mistakes. We’ll see Gods of Carnage and go bowling, with the underlying theme of meet the boyfriend. My job is to take an edge off mom-meets-boyfriend and not make Rachel feel like two moms are breathing down necks. Can I do it? And on Monday, just before heading home, I’m excited to meet my editor!

About sixteen writers met at Oak Grove School in Brattleboro, Vermont on Saturday, a group that was a merging of two critique groups and a stray several, like me, who are friends of Jessie Haas. http://www.jessiehaas.com/ The day was intended for discussion about how to sustain our writing lives emotionally, spiritually, and financially, and without too much ado, it seemed, coffee, tea and scones appeared in the morning, while others of us stashed things for a potluck lunch in the kitchen. After we gathered around pushed-together tables in the lovely library, someone thanked Jessie for organizing the day.

She laughed and said, “We’d better put organizing in quotes.”

“We’re here. We have tables. We have food,” others pointed out.

Introductions took a while, and we got into applauding for sold manuscripts, of course, but also for receiving an encouraging note or for keeping on after rejections. For picking yourself up after a wonderful editor left. For teaching kindergarten or running a library for decades, for holding five jobs (!), and for still making time to write. For twittering, for not twittering. For landing an eager agent, and for firing a less-than-attentive one. We were amazed at each other’s strength and creativity.

We critiqued a few query letters and we all learned from them: the art of being succinct and expressing a confident spirit: this is not the time for mights and ifs. We shared resources. Other practical things included being reminded of the need to follow up. Steve Swinburne http://www.steveswinburne.com/ told about giving out cards at IRA, and got a very cool school visit invitation (think the Caribbean in January) because he went the next step and followed up with an email. Lynn, who’d finished a novel involving tracking in the woods, wondered how to research agents interested in nature. Someone suggested looking for acknowledgements in books about the out doors, while I pointed out that an agent needn’t care about nature to want to represent her novel.

“Yeah, they don’t have to love nature, they just have to know what it is,” Jessie said.

We kept circling back to the question of what keeps us going. Michael Daley http://michaeljdaley.com/ used time between writing science fiction to self publish a book about solar energy, which taught him huge amounts about the business. Some of us realized that sometimes what keeps us going – say, the community and information we find online – may be what gets in our way: too much time at the computer taking away from writing our books. Leda Schubert http://www.ledaschubert.com/ told of her resolve to approach her computer as two different people, and the one who logs on as a writer cannot access the internet.

We acknowledged that what we do is hard: when we sit down with a manuscript, we’re often facing crummy sentences, whole chapters that got very little across and our wondering – did we ever do anything right?
But we’ve gotten past this before, and we’ll do it again.

Most of us keep writing because we can’t really stop. We’ve all been visited by self doubt as well as some success, and, at least once in a while, we get to eat cream cheese brownies and laugh together. It was a good day.

Jessie Haas http://www.jessiehaas.com/ invited me to a mini-conference she organized with her critique group and a few others. Some have published, some not yet, and the group of about twelve includes some who work as teachers and librarians. We’ll meet in the library of an elementary school in Brattleboro, Vermont, about an hour north of my house. The goal is share strategies for surviving tough times in publishing and to leave inspired. “If we have to get through a lot of swearing, whining and complaining to do that, then that's what we'll do,” Jessie, a practical person, wrote.

Here’s what will go into my car as I get ready to leave early tomorrow morning:

1. A list of questions to start off discussion about school visits, self publishing, MFA programs, and our stories of struggles and joys.

2. Some writing and query letters some of the group sent for critique.

3. A bag of publisher’s catalogues I picked up at the NESCBWI conference to share.

4. By way of introductions, we were asked to bring anything we’ve published and also to read “a brief piece we’ve written and something we wish we’d written” I’m going to bring a few poems from my upcoming collection and thought I’d bring “Love That Dog” by Sharon Creech, but the small yellow book seems either to have been temporarily swallowed up by my bookshelves or lent and unreturned. My hand went to Melissa Sweet’s “Carmine: A Little More Red,” which is clever and eye-opening, but that choice still could change.

5. We’re having a potluck lunch at the school, which is giving us access to computers, printers, and a copy machine, then late in the afternoon going to someone’s house for wine and cheese. I’m bringing a big salad, but yesterday strawberries appeared at farm stands in town. So I might need to bring some of those, too.

6. Directions. I hope Brattleboro’s annual Heifer Parade (we’re talking cows in the street), also tomorrow, doesn’t run by the school.

I think it’s cool that this critique group set aside a day for sharing and generating positive ideas about sustaining life as a writer, and it seems like something anyone anywhere might get going. I’ll report on the day early next week!

My bloggy pep talks seem to be working on me. I’ve spent much of the past few days sticking to my project at hand. Fixing, tidying, and getting a bit of pleasure in the neat corners. Seeing a few fresh pages stack up – okay, stack may be a generous term – and feeling like this work will turn into something that’s maybe not all the gorgeousness I can envision, but something that at least someone can read.

And yesterday I took a break to go with my friend Sue for a picnic lunch with this view of Shelburne Falls at High Ledges Sanctuary.



And, looking in the shade, we found some lady slippers.

It was lovely having my daughter around for a while, then bittersweet spending a day in Boston before she boarded the plane back to L.A, where she has an internship for the summer. We wandered about while I tried not to point out the perfectly great colleges in the city, which was on its best spring behavior. Here are the swan boats, the McCloskey ducks, and an ice cream truck which pays tribute to them, parked on a corner of the Public Gardens.







You've got to love a museum you can visit free if your name is Isabella! Emily was especially glad to see a famous portrait of Henry the Eighth's daughter, Mary holding one rather sad rose.



Emily in front of Trinity Church.



You can spin around and see the Boston Public Library, the first public library, so they say, in the U.S.





(p.s. apologies for initially saying the portrait was one of Henry's many wives, and thanks to my daughter for pointing out the mistake without pointing out my ignorance. Just the kind of editor I love!)