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WNDMG Wednesday — Interview with Debut Author Jude Atwood + a List of Great Spooky Fantasies

By on June 21, 2023   /   Articles, WNDMG  
We Need Diverse MG Logo hands holding reading globe with stars and spirals floating around

We Need Diverse MG Logo hands holding reading globe with stars and spirals floating around

Illustration by: Aixa Perez-Prado

 

“When Clara woke up Saturday morning, the dolls were staring at her with their cold, lifeless eyes.” —First line Maybe There are Witches.

I’m a sucker for a great opening line. When I read this one, I knew I had to read Maybe There are Witches. The imagery has prepared me to read a great spooky fantasy. Getting to know this debut author was even more of a treat.

MAYBE THERE ARE WITCHES

First, a little about the book:

A middle school girl moves to a small town and discovers that her great-great-great grandmother was executed there for witchcraft in the 1800s. After she finds a message addressed to her in a century-old book, she realizes that she and her two new friends must stop a deadly catastrophe predicted by a 19th-century witch. But as their adventure takes them through historic cemeteries, rural libraries, and high-octane academic bowl tournaments, something sinister is lurking, watching, and waiting…

Influences

This is your first book and you’ve created a fast-paced, high stakes story, with witches. That’s amazing. What books influenced you as an author?

I’ve always liked middle-grade books that have a bit of a puzzle to them, where the story unfurls a little at a time.

One of my favorites growing up was Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game, about a diverse group of characters in an apartment building who work in teams to win a rich man’s fortune.

I also loved the spooky Gothic mysteries that John Bellairs wrote, like The House with a Clock in Its Walls.

The House With a Clock In Its Walls (Lewis Barnavelt Book 1) by [John Bellairs, Edward Gorey]

My mom was an English teacher, and one year for Christmas she gave me a copy of Louis Sachar’s Holes. I was a grown-up—I had just finished grad school, in fact—but she thought I’d like it. She was right; I loved it!

Like those authors–and many more–I try to write books that have a whimsical sense of narrative complexity, with pieces that you can uncover and wrap your head around little by little.

Lessons Learned as an Author

That helps me understand what brought you to write this particular book. Can you tell me what you learned in the process?

I’d like to say that I learned how to write a book quickly and easily, but I am working on my second novel now, and I regret to inform you that it’s like a whole new process. Figuring out who the characters are and what their journey will be is a lot like meeting new people and exploring a new place, all from scratch.

However, I did learn that a huge, huge task—like writing a novel—is achievable if you just keep at it. There was a time when I was about 1/3 finished with Maybe There Are Witches and it felt like I might never finish. I’d write when I found the time, for a few hours a day, but what I’d finished seemed so small compared to what I had left to do. And then I’d put in another day of writing, and another, and eventually, I had a book. (And then of course I had to rework it into a second draft, and then a third—but you get the picture!)

Clara’s Journey

In your story, Clara is thirteen years old, and she’s moved more than once in the past few years. At the beginning of the book, she and her mother move from California to a very small village in Illinois, into a house they inherited from her grandmother. What was important about having Clara go to places she’d never been and work with people she didn’t know?

I think that as soon as we’re aware of other human beings, when we’re very, very young, we begin this journey of figuring out how to get to know other people. In some ways, this is how we get to know ourselves.

In my own life, I know that sometimes people I found off-putting or rude at first became some of my best friends, and I also have some very close friends now who have told me their first impression of me was that I was cold or detached. I wanted Clara to be going through this process, learning to understand some new people, while she’s also uncovering her own family history.

Puzzles

You’ve told us you like books with puzzles. The kids in your book go on a quest that involves some puzzling and deciphering. I bet you really like puzzles.

 

I do! I like all sorts of puzzles, especially word games. And I think a lot of reading and writing involves the elements of puzzles—of figuring out what something means, or figuring out which word fits in a particular place. Rhymes, puns, jokes, even telling someone about your day and trying to get the right tone—it all involves figuring out the right words that fit in the right place.

The past is a puzzle, too. Any time you want to understand something you weren’t present for, you’ve got to, basically, look for clues and evaluate the evidence. You can talk to people who were there, or read about history, or visit places where something happened. It’s all about finding the pieces to understand a mystery, when you think about it.

Dogs or Cats?

Finally, one question for fun—dogs or cats?

I should preface this by saying that I respect all animals. When I was growing up on the farm in Illinois, we had lots of pets. We had cats and dogs, tropical fish, a parakeet, a turtle, a lizard, and even a pet cow named Taffy.

That said, today my heart belongs to my dog Koko, a mixed-breed black-and-white rescue dog who weighs about twenty pounds. She is very smart, and very sleepy.

Learn more about Jude and his projects at:

Website: https://judeatwood.tv/
Twitter: @JudeAtwood
Instagram: @JudeAtwoodSketches
Facebook: facebook.com/JudeAtwoodSketches

Interested in reading more Spooky Fantasies, check out:

Greenglass House by Kate Milford

“An abundantly diverting mystery seasoned with mild fantasy and just a little steampunk.” – Kirkus

Thomas Creeper & the Gloomsbury Secret by J.R. Potter

“A delightfully dark story, hilariously and matter-of-factly morbid, that evokes a modern setting with a decidedly old-fashioned feel.” -Booklist

Freddie vs. the Family Curse by Tracy Badua

“A spirited fantasy enriched with Filipino culture and history.” – Kirkus

The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf

“A Malaysian folk tale comes to life in this emotionally layered, chilling middle grade debut.” – HarperCollins

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

oraline by Neil Gaiman“A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.” – Kirkus

If you’d like to learn more about writing spooky middle grade stories, check out this post.

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STEM Tuesday– Coding– Writing Tips & Resources

By on June 20, 2023   /   Coding, STEM Tuesday  

http://www.basicbook.org, GPL <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>, via Wikimedia Commons

05 REM I used to think of coding (programming, as we called it back in the day.) and writing as two separate things. Polar opposites.

10 REM Now, I’ve come to realize the two are not as different as they may appear. 

20 PRINT “If you want to learn more about my coding past, press “Y”.”

30 INPUT (N)

40 IF N = “Y” THEN GOTO 150 ELSE 50

50 REM Writing code and writing stories both involve accomplishing a goal through a series of operations.

60 REM To achieve one’s goal with writing, one uses language and word operations to convey ideas.

70 IF (THIS HAPPENS) THEN… 

80 REM The story flows and the plot develops.

90 REM To achieve a goal in coding, one uses a programming language’s set of operations to implement ideas in a functional manner.

95 PRINT “On a scale of 1 to 10, enter your level of excitement for writing like a coder.”

100 INPUT (X)

110 IF X >=1, THEN GOTO 200 

150 REM After my sophomore year, a huge change happened at my high school. The computer programming class moved from punch card programming to actual work on computer stations connected to the school district’s mainframe. Game on!

Pete Birkinshaw from Manchester, UK, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

160 REM BASIC programming was the name of the game back in the day. For some reason, unlike most of my family and friends, coding came naturally to me. The logic, oh the logic, drew me in like a tractor beam. I was hooked. 

170 REM Several years later, probably around 1984, I scraped enough money ($100!) from odd jobs and such to walk proudly into our local Dolgins store and purchase a Texas Instruments 99. I hooked it up to a blue, plastic 13” black and white television we had sitting around in the basement. I was in heaven. 

Ron Reuter, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons

180 REM My parents and siblings worried about my sanity, a 19-year-old sitting in the dark basement for hours, writing a primitive electronic football game or a program to show an animated smiley face graphic saying “Hello” over the 2” speaker and scaring the crap out of my mother as she walked by. Heaven.

190 REM Sometimes, one gets run through the wringer by siblings and friends for buying a freaking computer instead of spending that money on a real video game console, like ATARI or INTELLIVISION, that ordinary people actually want to play. When this happens, one learns to code simple, low-graphic games to show aforementioned siblings and friends that coding can be fun. A football simulator, PONG(!), craps, blackjack, etc. were all in the output of my TI99 and me. My friends and siblings, however, were not as impressed as I was.

195 GO TO 50

200 REM Coding also runs in a similar vein to writing in the aspect of trial and error. One simple mistake, a glitch in syntax or in logic, can stop a program or a paragraph dead in its tracks. Writers and coders both run into walls, fall off cliffs, or get lost at times. That’s when the true creator’s heart and soul kick in. Analyze, problem-solve, take a step back, and then try again. Instead of getting stuck in a loop, a coder or writer changes the subroutine, reformats, and changes the inputs to get better outputs.

210 REM There is a difference between writing and coding, though. In coding, a programming language allows many creators to communicate the story through that single voice of the code. In writing, the opposite is true. The writer uses the tools of language and individual experiences (see Creative Braining) to create their unique voice.

220 REM Finally, a friend recently told me that throughout high school, their child was intent on majoring in computer programming. However, once the student spent a year in programming classes at college, they changed majors. The student figured out that writing code for games was not nearly as fun as playing games. I laughed and said that sounded like the 20+ years I wanted to be a writer before I accepted it was hard work and found the discipline to actually sit down and write.

230 PRINT “Thanks for reading!”

240 END

Ron Reuter, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

My apologies to you, dear reader, for putting you through a rusty and mistake-ridden use of a 1980s version of BASIC programming for this STEM Tuesday Writing Craft & Resources post. Memory fades, as does the free time to go online and review the proper syntax of BASIC.

On a positive note, writing this post did trigger a desire to jump into contemporary programming languages and learn Python or another modern coding language. It also made me dig into the storage boxes to find one of the greatest coding-themed computer games ever written, The Island of Dr. Brain. When my kids were young, we would play Dr. Brain for hours and they had little to no idea they were learning how to think and manage like coders. They probably still don’t since their main memory is probably of Dad hogging the family PC while playing Dr. Brain “with” them.

 

Mike Hays has worked hard from a young age to be a well-rounded individual. A well-rounded, equal-opportunity sports enthusiast, that is. If they keep a score, he’ll either watch it, play it, or coach it. A molecular microbiologist by day, middle-grade author, sports coach, and general good citizen by night, he blogs about sports/training-related topics at  www.coachhays.com and writer stuff at  www.mikehaysbooks.com. Two of his science essays, The Science of Jurassic Park and Zombie Microbiology 101, are included in the Putting the Science in Fiction collection from Writer’s Digest Books. He can be found roaming around the Twitter-sphere under the guise of @coachhays64 and on Instagram at @mikehays64.

 

The O.O.L.F Files

This month’s version of the O.O.L.F.(Out of Left Field) Files explores

Steve’s Old Computer Museum (Warning! This site is a rabbit hole for computer nerds, especially us who sport more than a few gray hairs. I need to go in and see how many of these I’ve had the pleasure of working on.)

The Texas Instruments TI-99

BASIC, how I loved thee!

FORTRAN was, and still is, the language of science and mathematics.

Bill Gates Just Revealed The Best Programming Language for 2023!

Dr.Brain!

 

 

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An Interview with Zohra Nabi (plus a book giveaway!)

By on June 16, 2023   /   Author Interviews  

I’ve always been a sucker for beautiful book covers. 

I remember wandering school book fairs in elementary school with armfuls of the most colorful, vibrant-looking books I could find. Even now as a middle school teacher, I display dozens of books in my classroom every year, and I fully admit that the ones getting the most love are the ones with beautiful covers.

Of course, with all that focus on the outside of the book, the stage is set for some occasional disappointment when I actually get down to the business of reading the story. But then there are also those moments when the promise of the front cover is wonderfully fulfilled as the story unfolds, and that’s the sort of thing we’ll be talking about today.

Zohra Nabi’s debut middle grade, The Kingdom Over the Sea, is just as sprawling and fantastical as it looks thanks to Tom Clohosy Cole’s beautiful cover design.  I’m so glad I was able to ask her some questions about the story and her process, and I think you will be, too! Stick around to the end to learn how you can win a copy of the book for free!

 

Chris: Thanks for taking some time to chat with me, Zohra! Let’s start with you as a writer. Your biography says you studied law at Cambridge and Oxford Universities, so how did you find your way to the world of storytelling?

Zohra: I’ve always liked writing stories, ever since I was a teenager. I liked writing in the style of my favorite children’s fantasy books, although nothing I produced was ever publishable. Even when I was studying Law – which I did really enjoy – I was writing in stolen moments when I should have been studying. Lockdown came just as I was sitting my final exams, and when I graduated there was suddenly no legal work experience I could do, and nowhere I could travel. But I did have some money saved up from a legal essay prize I had come second in. So, I decided to put the money towards a creative writing course, and try to write a book.

 

Chris: What an interesting way to come into publishing! Let’s talk abut your process —  I love learning how authors develop their characters. Your main character, Yara, is such a passionate and adventurous person. How did you work behind the scenes to create her for this story?

Zohra: Yara is such an interesting one! For me she’s a real mix of my two younger sisters, with her determination, and her strong moral compass. She also definitely has quite a bit of me in her as well – I loved debating and campaigning when I was Yara’s age. I wanted her to be someone who was shaped by how she grew up in the UK, who was equipped to fight injustice in a fantasy world because of what she had experienced here. I wrote her life story in first person to find her voice, and did little questionnaires to work out her favorite foods and biggest fears.  But even with all that preparation it was difficult to get her on the page. I had to really work with my editors to make Yara’s personality come through in the text, and to make sure that she continued to be a believable girl from our world even after she travels into Zehaira.

 

Chris: There are references in the book to Yara being a champion of causes, one of them being the banning of books / closure of libraries. Was there anything in your personal experience that made you want to incorporate this into Yara’s backstory?

Zohra: When I was Yara’s age there were a lot of library closures, and people in communities all up and down the UK really turned out to protest – in some cases successfully. Libraries are such an important part of a community; the ability to access information, or even just to print out the documents you need and talk to someone who wants to help you is such a necessary thing, especially when you’ve recently moved to a new country. My dad always talked about how important his local library was to him growing up, and I loved spending time in mine as a child. I knew Yara would be the kind of person who wouldn’t stand for her local library being shut down. When she gets to Zehaira, the library there has been burnt down – the ultimate in book banning and library closures – and I wanted to be honest about the impact it has had. The sorcerers of Zehaira have preserved some of their culture and knowledge, but a lot of it, maybe most of it, has been lost. I think some people are very casual about book bannings today, saying that will just make kids read those books more – but I think if we’re not careful, we’ll lose important texts for good.

 

Chris: That’s a great point. Language can be like that, too, and there are some themes of language in the book — what prompted you to incorporate it into the story?

Zohra: I think because immigration and movement of people is such a key theme of the story, and language is such an important part of that. Yara’s mama is preserving their link to their culture and country when she speaks her language to Yara, and I imagine Yara was also an interpreter for her mum growing up, the way many second-generation children are today. But I think it’s also been quite lonely for Yara, not knowing anyone else who can communicate with them in the same way. Speaking to other people in her mother’s language when she gets to Zehaira is a way for her to expand her knowledge of her culture through sources other than her mum, and I think that is a source of wonder for her. I also think it’s really important that when Yara does discover the magical power of language, it’s not by using English, which is the language she would have used when she was campaigning back at home, but in the language her mother taught her – because Yara’s mother is the person who made her want to fight back against everything wrong about the world. 

 

Chris: The streets of Zehaira are so richly described in the book, which is very atmospheric overall. Were you inspired by any real-world places?

Zohra: Thank you! I was hugely inspired by the cities of the golden age of the Islamic world – which were these places of amazing scholarship and learning and wisdom, with beautiful libraries and universities. I think I must have been influenced by all the different cities I visited before, because I tried very hard to imagine I was walking around Zehaira as I was writing, but I was careful not to create anything that was too close to reality. Part of the magic of Zehaira is that it feels familiar but also strange! There’s a book by Italo Calvino called Invisible Cities which describes different fictional cities, deconstructing and reconstructing the concept of a city itself, but centering the descriptions around an idea of Venice. I’m not trying to do anything so elaborate, but it gave me the confidence to build my own fictional city based on an idea of a city as a place of both culture and corruption.  

 

Chris: It totally works! So, what’s next for you as an author? Can you give us any clues about new projects you’re working on?

Zohra: I’m currently working on the sequel for The Kingdom over the Sea! I’m really enjoying working on it with my editors, and puzzling out how Yara’s journey can continue. Book 2 takes us deeper into Yara’s past, examining both her family history and the history of sorcery itself. Yara makes an important discovery – but the Chief Alchemist is hot on her heels, lurking in the shadows…

 

Chris: Sounds amazing — thanks for the sneak peek! Okay, and now for the lighting round…

 

Favorite place to write?

At my desk in the attic.

Favorite authors?

Diana Wynne Jones, Eva Ibbotson, Judith Kerr.

Best desert?

Tiramisu

Do you have any pets?

No, but I did once have a hamster called Horace

Favorite elementary school memory?

Making up imaginary worlds for pretend games with my friends.

Favorite piece of advice for other writers:

Write to entertain yourself. And drink lots of tea.

 

Many thanks to Zohra for taking time to chat with the Mixed Up Files. You can find her online on Instagram at @zohra_nabi and Twitter at @Zohra3Nabi, and you can learn more about the book HERE. 

And last but not least — leave a comment below for a chance to win a free copy of Zohra’s book. We’ll be selecting one commenter at random on Monday, June 19th 2023!

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