Articles

Interview with Pamela Ehrenberg and Tracy Lopez, authors of Detour Ahead!

Hello, Mixed-Up Filers!

Today, we are thrilled to welcome Pamela Ehrenberg and Tracy Lopez, the authors of the first book from PJ Publishing, Detour Ahead!

Pamela and Tracy, thanks for joining us!

JR: To start with, can you tell us a little bit about Detour Ahead and the impetus behind writing it?

Pamela: Sure! So, the book started, literally, on a bus: my son and I were on an H4 Metrobus one morning in 2015 when our teenage neighbor, who is autistic, shouted from across the aisle that someone had fallen off a bike. Soon it became clear that the reason for the cyclist falling was that our bus had swerved too close—thank goodness our neighbor’s shouting caused the driver to stop and make sure the cyclist was OK. It was kind of amazing to me at the time that no one else on that side of the bus either saw what had happened (it’s true that many commuters are distracted by their phones) or classified it as a potential emergency (as became clear when one passenger was able to describe the color of the cyclist’s jacket but hadn’t yelled to make sure the driver stopped). I was reminded of psychology studies I’d learned about where many people’s brains are wired to look to others to determine whether a situation constitutes an emergency—this event made me appreciate that the safety of all of us, including of our planet itself, relies on having enough individuals willing to identify an emergency even if they are the only one shouting.

The more I reflected on the incident, I came to see it as a seed for a fiction manuscript: in real life, the cyclist was an adult, but re-imagining it with a similar-aged cyclist opened up lots of possibilities for friendship across the various neighborhoods along the H4 bus route. (Fun fact: the original title was “RIDING THE H4”—though I credit PJ Our Way for the better title Detour Ahead!)

JR: That’s incredible about the bus. And by the way, I agree. The new title sounds great! How did the two of you connect to decide to work on a book?

Tracy: I found out through a writers group online that Pamela, who I didn’t know personally, was looking for a co-author to write a Salvadoran character’s POV who was also comfortable writing poetry, middle grade children’s fiction, and who was familiar with the DC area. I reached out through Twitter DM in October 2016 and offered to help her find someone since I married into the Salvadoran culture over 20 years ago, and I knew a few Salvadoran writers I could reach out to to see if the project was a good fit. So I worked my connections and asked them to also check with anyone they knew who might be interested, but nothing was panning out. People were busy with other projects, or didn’t write poetry, or didn’t write for children, or weren’t familiar with DC.

Pamela also followed a couple leads of her own that didn’t work out. During this time Pamela and I emailed back and forth and became friends. She had asked in her very first email if we weren’t able to find anyone would I be interested in giving it a try. At the time I was busy querying agents with another project and we both wanted to make a good faith effort to find a Salvadoran writer, but in January 2017 we ran out of leads to follow and we kept getting little signs from the universe that we should give it a go.

JR: What a great story about meeting! What was your collaboration process like?

Tracy: Pamela had parts of the plot outlined before she even met me, so she showed me that first. She had a lot of her character Gilah figured out, but left plenty of room for me to develop Guillermo’s character arc, and she was also very open to changing things to play off any ideas I had. She’s incredible at finding themes and layers and accentuating them in a really organic way. We started working on all that via email for a few weeks. Emails turned into numbered lists and eventually I had to start moving our collaboration over to Google docs so I could keep everything straight. Pamela always says she’s amazed at my organizational skills, but it’s because I have ADHD that I’m so organized. If I don’t organize things I get completely lost and overwhelmed. Eventually we were able to create a Word doc which we passed back and forth.

 

JR: Which leads to my next question. Did you both find it difficult to work with another person?

Tracy: Not at all. When I used to freelance I never missed a deadline because I was accountable to an editor. Working on my own projects is a different story. I often give in to distraction, go down research rabbit holes, wait for the muse, or get bored and leave things unfinished when I fall in love with a different idea. Having a co-author kept me on task because I knew she was depending on me. And it was also incredible to just learn from Pamela and be inspired by her. I feel lucky that it was overall a really positive experience. It all felt meant to be, and I got a new friend out of it too.

 

Pamela: I feel the same way about how positive (in retrospect, maybe to a surprising degree!) this all felt, and how glad I am to have found a new friend through this process of writing a book about friendship! For me the biggest surprise was to have someone else care about this book as much as I did: for my other books, it was only after connecting with an editor that anyone else was rooting as hard as I was for the characters to succeed (not just in their endeavors but in coming to life successfully on the page). My critique groups all cared, of course, even about the projects and characters that haven’t yet found a publishing home—but to have another human care as deeply as I did before even knowing if the book would ever make it out of those Googledocs—I was totally unprepared for how transformative that would feel.

 

JR: Can both of you tell me a little bit about the main characters in this book, Gilah & Guillermo?

Tracy: Guillermo is a bilingual 13-year-old Salvadoran-American boy whose family has just moved from Langley Park, Maryland to DC, and he’s not too happy about it because he misses his cousins who he used to hang out with. So he’s dealing with that loneliness secretly through poetry and by exploring on his bicycle until he has an incident with a city bus. In fear of losing his independence he must make enough money to fix his bicycle before his parents find out what happened. The character is inspired by my own two sons. There’s a little bit of each of them in Guillermo.

 

Pamela: Gilah is also 13, navigating the preparations for her bat mitzvah (including the breakdancing parts!) amid family and friend dramas of being a middle-schooler. Gilah has lots of thoughts about terminology like “neurodiverse”/ “neurodivergent” / “neuro-atypical”—she and I are in agreement that what’s most difficult is when any of these terms imply that there’s one right way to be “typical.” Throughout it all, Gilah is Gilah is Gilah.

 

JR: How much are each of them like you and how are they different? 

Tracy: I share a love of poetry and language with Guillermo, and algebra class was also not really my thing. I also really cherished the freedom and independence of riding my bicycle around all day as a kid. (And back then we didn’t have cell phones, so there was no way for my mom to check on me. We just went home when it started getting dark!) … As for differences, Guillermo is the eldest child and has one little sister. I’m the middle child of three girls. Also, I didn’t grow up in a bicultural, bilingual home. I didn’t get to experience that until adulthood when I got married.

Pamela: I think more than any other character I’ve written, the process of getting to know Gilah better was also a process of getting to know myself better. My research for the book made me reflect back on some things from my own childhood and sent me down a path of learning more about my own brain wiring. A psychologist was able to determine that I’m not autistic (it took him a bit more testing than usual to be able to tell for sure) but that I might instead have a condition called Nonverbal Learning Disorder–where visual cues can be tricky unless they are translated into words. That made a lot of sense why I felt so “at home” writing out the social rules Gilah pieced together for different situations.

 

JR: Why did you choose Washington DC as a setting?

Pamela: It’s where the H4 runs. J I do love that Detour Ahead will be added to the growing body of kidlit set here in this wonderful city—Joy Jones’ Jayla Jumps In—is a recent MG that comes to mind, along with The Passover Guest by Susan Kusel and a number of recent titles from Shout Mouse Press—I think all of these have the potential to help readers understand DC as a home to 700,000 real-life people from all different backgrounds (who, tangentially, would all really like to have voting rights in Congress!). But the decision for the book wasn’t for any of those reasons: it was that the real-life incident plus all the story pieces that Tracy and I went on to imagine, couldn’t have happened anywhere else.

 

JR: Gilah and Guillermo come from very different backgrounds. What do you hope readers take away from their friendship?

Tracy: When Pamela and I talked about how we wanted to describe this story, (probably during a discussion about writing the backcopy), we agreed we didn’t want to use the word “unlikely” to describe their friendship. You see that a lot when it’s a story about friendship, but it didn’t make sense to use that for Gilah and Guillermo despite their very different backgrounds and the serendipitous way they met, because when I look at all the friends I have in my life, we come from different backgrounds and sometimes we met in unexpected ways too. So one thing I’d like people to take away from the book is that you don’t necessarily need to have a lot in common with friends – you just have to enjoy each other’s company. That’s it.

Pamela: I’ll add that Guillermo and Gilah are also able to recognize the genuineness of other people—for Gilah, as for me, that’s a skill that developed over time and which I can now pride myself on as an adult. When middle-schoolers are choosing friends, there’s a lot of pressure to select people who others think you “should” be friends with—not just the popular kids at school, but also the peers that the adults in your life make sure you’re in regular contact with because they’re determined to be suitable friends. The ability to discern for yourself who’s a friend that’s worth spending time and energy on and whose opinion actually matters—that’s a skill that can really help lead to what my synagogue calls “deep and lasting relationships,” including friendships, as an adult.

 

JR: Gilah is getting ready for her Bat Mitzvah at the start of the book, a huge moment in a Jewish girl’s life. What do you each remember about that time period in your lives? 

Tracy: My father’s side of the family is Jewish, but I wasn’t raised practicing, so I didn’t have a bat mitzvah. I also grew up in the same town from first grade to senior graduation, so I didn’t really have the “new kid” experience either. I think what stands out in my mind the most from that age is the feeling of being in limbo. You’re not a little kid anymore, but you’re not an adult. You’re trying out independence in various ways but not always sure of what you’re doing. Then while navigating that, you’ve got really deep existential questions about the world and your place in it. I remember crawling out on my roof a lot at night, because my bedroom window was right above the sunroom. (I wasn’t supposed to of course.) I’d sit out there and look at the stars and cry a lot. There was just so much going on in my mind and my heart. Those years are some of the most difficult ones, I think.

Pamela: In some ways, I started writing MG because I’m very much still the middle-schooler in a crowded cafeteria, wondering where in the world to sit and how to get there without dropping my tray. Thinking like a 12-year-old isn’t so much about remembering as just allowing that part of my brain to roam free on the page. At the same time, I’m one of the only adults I know who actually liked middle school: I had gone to a tiny elementary school, so seventh and eighth grade at Pikesville Middle School was the beginning of a wider world for me. I was the middle-schooler who came in 2nd place in the spelling bee and used my gift-certificate prize for a Swatch-like watch that still managed to be not quite on trend—but that was OK because I spent much of my school day in a “gifted and talented” bubble with other kids who were OK with being themselves and not aspiring to mainstream popularity. I wish for every middle-schooler a space where they can be themselves and be loved for who they are…maybe I’m hopeful that some who haven’t yet found it in real life can enjoy finding themselves in books.

JR: Okay, which one of you is the better breakdancer?

Tracy: That’s still to be determined. We haven’t had a dance battle yet, only because of the pandemic and social distancing… Just kidding. I’m very uncoordinated and that would not go well.

Pamela: I love this question! Tracy is known for being modest in her accomplishments. While true about the lack of chance for a dance battle, I am willing to say sight unseen that Tracy is absolutely the better breakdancer.

JR: How did PJ Library come to the book?

Pamela: We were honored to receive a PJ Our Way Author Incentive award from the Harold Grinspoon Foundation in 2018, which was an incredibly validating vote of confidence as we finished the editorial process. My kids (now age 13 and 16) have both grown up with PJ Library and then PJ Our Way, and as a parent and an author I am in awe of their commitment to bringing books into existence that fill a need for readers—without needing to “prove” in advance that books will succeed in the marketplace. I actually think their model–which was inspired by Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and added the bringing-new-books-into-component—-could be really helpful to other communities seeking to increase various categories of diverse books. (If any philanthropists are reading this, I’m happy to help make connections with the folks at the Harold Grinspoon Foundation!)

 

JR: Your reactions when they decided to publish it?

Tracy: Happy of course, but it’s also a surreal sort of happy because the whole process takes so long and you can’t tell people right away. It feels a little more real when you get an editor, and a little more real when you get to see your cover, then you get ARCs in the mail, or do an interview like this – so little by little I’m celebrating, but I think part of me still thinks this might not be real.

Pamela: Detour Ahead is my second book with PJ Publishing; it was exciting to see the ways they have grown and evolved over the past seven years while staying true to their mission and their commitment to creating beautiful books!

 

JR: Have they been very hands-on during the process?

Pamela: We had a chance to work with a super-kind and dedicated editor, Karen Ang, as well as an art director, Chad Beckerman, who brought their own visions to the process while honoring our roles as creators. And PJ found the fantastic illustrator Laila Ekboir, whose visual interpretation added a whole new dimension to our words.

 

JR: What are you both working on next?

Tracy: I’m finishing up a contemporary MG novel which I’ve been writing and rewriting since 2015. After that I’m excited to finally be ready to choose a new project to start for the first time in a long time. I’ll probably go through my “scraps” notebooks of ideas, but I’m also going to just let myself daydream for awhile. That’s one of my favorite parts of the process and I don’t want to rush it.

Pamela: I have a few picture-book projects at various stages of development and a couple of other middle-grade works in progress—including one that I started during the pandemic with no idea that the Russian connection would suddenly connect it to current events, and one novel-in-verse that I started even before Detour Ahead but might finally be finished (or re-finished!) this year.

Where can readers find you on social media?

Tracy: I’m @tracydelopez on both Twitter and Instagram.

Website: www.tracylopezbooks.com

Pamela: And I’m @PamelaEhrenberg on Twitter and @PamelaEhrenbergAuthor on Facebook.

Website: www.pamelaehrenberg.com

Editor Spotlight: Chris Krones

Today, I’m delighted to introduce Clarion editor, Chris Krones, to Mixed-Up Files readers. Chris is a writer who has been a children’s book editor for more than a decade. They hold an MFA in Writing for Children from Simmons University. Chris has edited a wide variety of books–from board books and picture books to middle-grade novels and graphic novels. They are the author of Chill, Chomp, Chill and the upcoming picture book, The Pronoun Book. Chris lives in Boston, Massachusetts. Learn more on Twitter and Instagram.

Dorian: Welcome, Chris! Can you tell us a little bit about your path to becoming a children’s book writer and editor?

Chris: I’ve always had a passion for writing and language. When I started at Simmons University as an English and French major, French translation and poetry were my passions. When I landed in one of Cathryn Mercier’s classes, I found a different path to writing: writing for children. In this core course, we looked at children’s literature through philosophical lenses and thought critically about books for younger readers—something I’d never done before. Anytime we’d discussed books critically prior to this, they’d be considered a canonical work written for adults, like Beowulf. I thought this was novel and so subversive—and I wanted more.

When I heard that there was an M.F.A. in writing for children, I had a gut feeling; I knew I needed to apply. In this program, we visited the Houghton Library at Harvard University in Susan Bloom’s picture book class, where we got to see original prints of Randolph Caldecott’s Hey Diddle Diddle and Baby Bunting. I had opinions about the artwork and how it was reproduced and decisions that had gone into the publishing of the work. Susan recognized this and said, “You’ve got opinions! You should work in publishing.” I took this to heart—I’d never thought of working on books other than writing them.

At one of the Simmons Summer Institutes, I was about to read a picture book manuscript I’d written aloud. I was asking Cathie Mercier a question right when she was standing next to an alumna who was the Marketing Manager at Houghton Mifflin. Cathie asked her: “Why don’t you ask Chris about the marketing and publicity internship?” After that, I went in for an interview and interned with the Marketing and Publicity department at Houghton while I had a writing mentorship with an editor there. When an Editorial Assistant position opened up, I was encouraged to apply. I loved the people I worked with across departments and felt like I’d found a home at Houghton.

 

Dorian: What books inspired you as a child?

Chris: When I was very little, I remember having a collection of Beatrix Potter books, sliding them out of a slipcase, and holding them in my hands. I loved the tactility of them and how small they were, though I always worried about Peter Rabbit’s safety! In elementary school, I remember my librarian reading The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, told by A. Wolf by Jon Scieska and Lane Smith. I will never forget the pig butt surrounded by rubble alongside the text “Dead as a doornail.” Though a touch dark, I loved this humor so much and laid the foundation for my taste in picture books. I also loved Charlotte’s Web but was first introduced to the tale via the feature-length animated movie. My grandparents bought me the book and I absolutely adored it. I also loved From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, of course!

 

Dorian: Can you tell us about some books you’ve worked on, either as a writer or editor, that have come out recently or are due to come out?

Chris: The Pronoun Book is a cased board book I wrote that is publishing in early April. It’s a celebratory and vibrant introduction to people and their pronouns. Mel Tirado made magic with the illustrations! In terms of books I’ve edited, I am so thrilled for the first book in The Sparkle Dragons series to come out in mid-May. It’s a fun and young graphic novel featuring a core crew of spunky, sparkle-breathing dragons who fight for good in their queendom.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dorian: Congratulations all around! Are there certain themes or subjects that resonate with you more than others?

Chris: Stories that feature strong protagonists who show up and persevere against all odds. Underdog stories. Hilarious stories. Joyful, character-driven stories told by underrepresented voices for underrepresented audiences.

 

Dorian: What advice do you have for writers who want to publish traditionally?

Chris: First, find your people! It’s important to have a writing group to keep yourself consistent, accountable, and have a safe space to bounce around ideas. Familiarize yourself with the books in stores, find the ones you love, and see who publishes them. Get to know publishers’ catalogs. Look to Publishers Weekly deal announcements or Publishers Marketplace to read the recent deals that have been made. Research the agents that represented those deals that feel closest to your work. Check out agency websites and follow their instructions on how to submit or query them. A lot of publishers do not accept unsolicited manuscripts these days, so finding an agent connected to the publishing industry might be a helpful path to traditional publishing.

Thank you so much for such great advice and for joining us here at THE MIXED-UP FILES!

World Building with Bestselling #Kidlit Author Lisa McMann

Author Lisa McMann stopped by The Mixed-Up Files Of Middle Grade Authors to talk about hew new middle-grade fantasy, THE FORGOTTEN FIVE: MAP OF FLAMES; world building; and what goes in to writing a series. Here, she shares her process on beginning a new series and what to do about readers who don’t start from the beginning. 

Mixed-Up Files: Tell us about your new book.

The Forgotten Five: Map of Flames by Lisa McMann

Lisa McMann: THE FORGOTTEN FIVE: MAP OF FLAMES is the first book in a middle grade fantasy series. It’s about five supernatural kids, raised in isolation, who enter a hostile-to-supers civilization for the first time to search for their missing criminal parents…and the stash they left behind.

MUF: Let’s talk about world building. How does the shape of a series come about? Do you come up with a single story first, or a world you want to flesh out?

LM: I usually come up with the immediate setting first—where are we when the story begins? In MAP OF FLAMES, it’s a criminals’ hideout on a beach with no electricity, no technology, just a handful of cabins in a lush setting that’s isolated from the modern world. Next I came up with the destination—where are these kids going and what does that look like. I wanted a big contrast between the two things here, so I went with a NYC or Chicago-type of city. When I imagined how the kids would get from one place to the other, the map of southern Europe factored in—I pictured the hideout at the boot heel of Italy, and the big city of Estero at the bottom of Spain (though I brought them closer together so it wouldn’t take so long to get there). So that map was in my head, as well as the contrasting locations. In one of my other series, THE UNWANTEDS, the hidden magical world of Artimé is designed to look like a place where my mother grew up, along the shore of Lake Michigan. I took that real life location and added magic to it.

The Unwanteds by Lisa McMannFor me the shape of the series comes from two things: developing flawed characters and their relationships, and introducing a plot in which the antagonists push the protagonists too far, forcing these main characters to take action. Both things drive the series, with all kinds of setbacks as the heroes attempt to overcome evil and build strengthening relationships at the same time. The bigger the world and its problems, and the more troubled the characters and their need to fix themselves, the longer the series can run.

MUF: What are the biggest challenges in writing a series, and how does that compare when you write a stand-alone novel?

LM: Now you’ve got me looking back at my career and realizing I’ve only ever written three stand-alones out of 28 books. So maybe my biggest challenge is being able to write a book and actually tie up all the loose ends!

With a series, you are writing a story arc within each individual book, but also a story arc for the whole series. That can be tricky to get the hang of—parts of the plot need to resolve while other parts need to become more conflicted. It’s definitely something that my editors have helped me see and understand in past series’. It really takes a conscious effort to recognize the two different arcs.

Author Lisa McMann

Lisa McMann, author. Photo by Ryan Nicholson

MUF: Do you expect that readers will always read in order, or do you find that many people jump in in the middle of a series? If that’s the case, how do you provide back story for new readers without turning off anyone who’s started with book #1?

LM: I absolute wish I could force everyone to read the books in order—I’m a bit controlling this way, haha. But I know this doesn’t always happen. In the early pages of every sequel, I try to weave in key elements of things that happened in the past, kind of the same way TV shows give you the recap of important scenes from the previous episodes. I don’t want this to ever feel heavy-handed or annoying for those faithful readers who read the books in order, though. So it’s a delicate balance to inform or remind but not overdo.

MUF: How much collaboration is involved with your editor on a book series?

LM: I think this depends more on the editor than the writer. Some editors want an outline ahead of time that they can contribute to or approve of. Others are fine with letting an author do their thing and being surprised with the way a book turns out. Both ways work. I prefer not having to write an outline, because I feel like doing that takes something away from the creative process of writing the story—it feels limiting. But if that’s what the editor needs, I’m happy to provide it.

MUF: How do you keep track of your characters and their environment so you don’t forget details?

LM: I keep it all in my head. I might jot down a few notes on my phone app—notes about a key sentence that will carry through to the next book. But it’s also not too difficult to search for the information I need in previous books if I can’t remember something. I know many writers keep copious notes and use other means to track everything—they are likely cringing right now. I just work a different way. I can see a picture of things in my mind. I think my book details take up most of the space in my brain because I can’t remember what I had for breakfast.

MUF: If you would like to share any recent/new-ish middle grade books you’ve enjoyed, we’d love to hear your recommendations! 

All Thirteen

LM: I love Kelly Yang’s Front Desk Books. And Christina Soontornvat’s non-fiction All Thirteen. On my nightstand I have A Comb of Wishes by Lisa Stringfellow and The School for Whatnots by Margaret Peterson Haddix—excited to dive in!

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can find Lisa at @lisa_mcmann on Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram and /McMannFan on Facebook