Author Interviews

EXTRAORDINARY with Miriam Spitzer Franklin

By on August 13, 2015   /   Author Interviews, Giveaways  

Miriam Spitzer FranklinNearly ten years ago, when I was still fairly new at writing for children, I found the Blueboards, an online forum founded by Verla Kay.  I also met some critique partners there, and one of them, Miriam Spitzer Franklin, shared her middle-grade novel with me.  That’s when I first fell in love with her main character, Pansy.

Over the years, and through several evolving drafts, I kept hoping the world would have the opportunity to get to know Pansy, too.  Recently that hope became a reality.  EXTRAORDINARY is now available in bookstores, and I am excited to talk with Miriam today about this amazing book.

First, a quick summary of the story:

Ten-year-old Pansy Smith wants to become  extraordinary……and she has only 14.5 weeks to reach her goal.

Last spring, Pansy chickened out on going to sleepaway camp, even though she’d promised her best friend, Anna, she’d go. It was just like when they went to get their hair cut for Locks of Love; only one of them walked out with a new hairstyle, and it wasn’t Pansy. But Pansy never got the chance to make it up to Anna. While at camp, Anna contracted meningitis and a dangerously high fever, and she hasn’t been the same since. The last words spoken to each other were angry ones, and now all Pansy wants is her best friend back—not the silent girl in the wheelchair who has to go to a special school and who can’t do all the things Pansy used to chicken out of doing. So when Pansy discovers that Anna is getting a surgery that might cure her, she  knows she’s been given the chance she’s been waiting for- a chance to get Anna back, by finally facing her fears and becoming extraordinary, the kind of best friend Anna deserves.

Welcome, Miriam! I am so excited to see this book out in the world!  But as I mentioned earlier, you’ve been working on this story for a decade. Can you share the original spark of an idea that eventually became EXTRAORDINARY?

My original plan for the book was to write about an ordinary girl who woke up one day and decided she was tired of blending into the walls and it was time for her to become an extraordinary person. In my very first draft, which was in third person instead of first, Pansy Smith fixes her hair in six braids and ties them with purple ribbons, then chooses to wear two different shoes in order to get noticed. In EXTRAORDINARY, Pansy cuts off her hair because it was a broken promise to Anna and she wears the two different shoes by accident. Originally, Anna was a minor character, a friend who suffered a severe brain injury when she was five.

That is a great story idea, though quite a bit different than the story we can read today.  How did it evolve?

Although I queried agents (without much response) and ran the book through my critique partners, I knew something was missing. Then one very wise critique partner–Oh, that was you, Elissa!–told me I needed to be brave, start over, “and let Pansy rise from the ashes.” As much as I didn’t want to take her advice, I knew she was right. So I put the book  aside for a while to work on other projects. And somehow, after the book sat in a drawer for a couple of years, the answer came to me in those crazy ways that solutions to writing problems do: it popped into my head out of nowhere. Pansy’s motivation to become extraordinary needed to come from more than just wanting to be noticed. Pansy’s and Anna’s stories needed to be linked, and Anna needed to be the motivation for Pansy’s transformation. I also realized that I’d been avoiding the tough emotional places that needed to be explored, and that by dating the brain injury I distanced Pansy (and myself) from the raw feelings that come with a situation like this one.

I am so glad you didn’t leave it in that drawer forever! (I’m also slightly surprised someone actually listened to me, and that it turned out to be the right decision.)

Speaking of those tough emotional places…it’s both heartbreaking and, well, extraordinary to see how Pansy deals with Anna now that she isn’t the friend she used to be.  How did you find the right balance between Pansy’s often humorous antics and those bittersweet moments when she interacts with Anna?

I don’t like to read dreary and depressing books, and I’m sure most kids don’t want to either. I knew this needed to be a hopeful, positive story and I knew that would have to come from Pansy herself. While most of the book is a countdown to the brain surgery that Pansy is sure will cure Anna, Pansy spends most of her time chasing goals on her quest to become extraordinary. And because none of these goals come easy for her, there’s plenty of opportunities for humor as Pansy learns to skate, tries to win a reading contest, joins Girl Scouts, and though not in her list of goals–makes new friends. I wanted to show that while Pansy misses her friend with all her heart, life moves on in its crazy and unpredictable way, and that even in the saddest of times there’s still laughter and joy.

We’ve already mentioned that you worked on this novel extensively. How do you revise your novels?

Revisions are actually my favorite part of the process; I guess because my first attempts are just getting the manuscript written and through revision I hope to get to the heart of my story. Once I’ve figured out what needs to happen, the writing flows much easier than it does in the first drafts. I don’t really have a formula for how I tackle revision. I just go scene by scene, cutting what doesn’t fit any more and elaborating on scenes that are important. Even if it’s a complete rewrite, I go back to my original version which has a structure even if I’m changing it altogether. Though most everything was changed from the first draft, there were still some scenes or parts of scenes that I kept.

I love that, as the author, you never ever gave up on this book, even after several (dozen) rejections. Your determination matches your main character, Pansy, in fact. What advice do you have for others who are pursuing their dreams, especially when things get tough?

I love this question! All my life I’ve persevered when things don’t come easily to me, a lot like Pansy. I started figure skating when I was a teenager, watching others around me land jumps in weeks that took me years to learn. I even failed a compulsory figures test NINE times. This was back in the day when they made you draw figure eights on the ice and judges would come out and walk around on the ice to check the accuracy of your turns and alignment. I know others who failed a test once or twice, but NINE times?

I guess that’s the same determination that would keep me writing manuscripts for  *AHEM* years without getting any interest from an agent. EXTRAORDINARY  was probably my sixth or seventh completed novel, but since all the others had been revised millions of times before they went back in the drawer, and during the time I was teaching full-time I only worked on my writing during the summer….well, you can do the math and figure out how long this journey to publication has taken. One thing that’s kept me going over the years is the same as with most of us out there–we just can’t quit. When we’re not writing, we’re thinking up new characters and stories and we would go a bit crazy if we couldn’t get the stories out. Also, like with my skating, I got encouragement from those around me. My coach always said I was ready to take the test and land the jumps, but I just needed to have confidence, keep working hard, and not let nerves get in my way. My critique partners have been there to basically tell me the same thing. As long as I could see progress- a complimentary rejection, an encouraging critique at a conference, CPs who pointed out the good along with the work that needed to be done–then I was able to keep going. The crazy thing about this manuscript is that I basically landed an agent on the FIRST query. After umpteen years of querying, when an agent contacted me on the Verla Kay boards requesting the manuscript from my query post, I fell right off my chair. And then when she requested the full a week after reading the chapters, and set up a phone call a week after that…well, the whole thing was mind-boggling. I had to do an R&R before signing, but I knew that this book was different from the others I’d queried.

I am so glad that agent, and now your publisher, saw the gem I had seen so many years ago! But now that Pansy’s story is told, do you have another main character we can fall in love with?  Tell us about your next novel.

The working title of my next middle grade is SUNNY BERINGER’S TOTALLY AWESOME PLAN FOR ROMANCE.

Afraid of losing the only father she’s ever known, eleven-year-old Sunny tries to spark romance between her mom and her longtime boyfriend after Mom enrolls in college and moves the family miles away from home. But when Sunny discovers her “parents’ have been keeping secrets from her, she is determined to do whatever it takes to get back home, even if she has to lie, sneak around, and hurt the people who care about her. In the end, Sunny learns that families come in all shapes and sizes and that taking the easy way out in facing your problems only means that you’ll have to face the consequences.

It sounds fascinating!  Thank you, Miriam, for sharing so much with us today!  And best wishes to you and Pansy.

Readers, now it’s your chance to get a copy of this amazing book!  Leave a comment below to be entered to win one copy of EXTRAORDINARY.  Only US residents are eligible (sorry, international folks). The winner will be chosen Tuesday, August 18, 2015.

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Elissa Cruz isn’t nearly as extraordinary as Pansy, the main character in EXTRAORDINARY.  But she is the mother of five children and that is pretty awesome.  She writes fiction for kids and teens.  You can find out more about her at www.elissacruz.com.

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“How to Make a Book” – Behind the Scenes (for kids, teachers, parents, and writers)

By on August 10, 2015   /   Author Interviews, Book Lists, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, Giveaways, MUF Contributor Books, Writing  

HarperKids launched a terrific video series called How a Book is Made, including details on how a book is Revised, Edited, and Designed – from those elusive publishing insiders – meaning the author, the editor, the marketing director, the art department, etc. The actual editors and marketing folks at Harpercollins talk about their jobs and what they do (inside their offices in NYC so you can peek at the surroundings!)

I’m a writer with Harpercollins and Scholastic so over the years I’ve become fairly familiar with the hands-on process of manuscript production through revisions and copy-edits and proofreading typeset pages, but the rest of the in-house process is foreign to me. I found the Production video especially interesting to see the pieces of the book and how it all goes together. I’ve read about that process, but it was fun to actually *see* it.

The 7 videos are between 3-5 minutes apiece, so short, snappy, and fun! And they’re narrated by the amazing middle-grade author, Lauren Oliver, who wrote Leisl and Po, and The Spindlers, as well as many Young Adult novels.

These behind-the-scenes videos would be great for sharing the writing and publishing process with your kids as school begins in the next few weeks, or in your classroom if you’re a teacher to inspire your students in their own writing, or a homeschooling parent – I homeschooled for many years and getting my 3 sons to write was the most hair-pulling challenge I had! It would be easy to pull together lesson plans using these fascinating videos.

If you’re a writer or artist I think you’ll find these behind-the-scenes videos intriguing and informative as well so enjoy!

1. How a Book is Made: Developing Ideas w/ Lauren Oliver
2.Writing the Story w/ Lauren Oliver
3. Editing the Book w/Editorial Director Rosemary Brosnan
4. Creating the Art w/ Harper Art Director
5. Proofing the Story w/ Harper Managing Editor
6. Printing the Book, w/ Production Director
7. Reading the Book w/ Lauren Oliver

Please share your thoughts below, we’d love to hear if there’s anything else similar to this out in the world, or if you find them helpful to use with kids and writers of any age.

AND . . . because we love our readers here at Mixed-Up Files I’m giving away a hardcover copy of my recent middle-grade novel, THE TIME OF THE FIREFLIES to anyone who posts a comment, even if it’s just to enter the giveaway. 🙂 Cheers! ~Kimberley

Time of the Fireflies_Cover

Kimberley Griffiths Little’s seven MG novels with Knopf and Scholastic have won several awards and Forbidden, the first of a Young Adult trilogy recently published with Harpercollins was starred by Booklist and included in the Top 10 Historical novels of 2015.

Find Kimberley on Facebook. and Twitter @KimberleyGLittl. Teacher’s Guides, Mother/Daughter Book Club Guides, and fabulous book trailers filmed on location adorn Kimberley’s website.

 

 

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Interview with Léna Roy, Master Writing Teacher

By on August 7, 2015   /   Author Interviews, Book Lists, Fiction, For Teachers, For Writers, Writing  

I’m delighted to chat today with inspiring writing teacher, Léna Roy. Léna began teaching Writopia Lab workshops in Manhattan in 2009, then went on to bring the program to New York City’s northern suburbs in 2010. The author of the YA novel, Edges, published by FSG, she co edited the award-winning Girl’s Write Now anthology, First Lines. Her writing was featured in the essay collection for middle school kids and their teachers: Breakfast on Mars and 37 Other Essays to Devour: Your Favorite Authors Take on the Dreaded Essay Assignment. In 2014, Léna was recognized by the Scholastic Awards “as an outstanding educator whose dedication, commitment, and guidance are represented by student work selected for national honors.”

Mentoring has long been the connective tissue in Léna’s life, whether through her work with at-risk adolescents in Utah, California, and New York; or through her own writing discipline, as fostered by her late grandmother, author Madeleine L’Engle. It was her grandmother who taught Léna to transform the solitary nature of writing into a sacred sense of community, where her art and the art of others can flourish.

Writopia Lab is a national community of young writers, ages 6 to 18. Founded in New York City in 2007, Writopia Lab has now spread to Greater New York, Greater Washington, D.C., Chicago and Los Angeles. www.writopialab.org

1-What’s hardest for most middle grade writers you teach? Developing characters? Coming up with a plot? Finding a voice? Something else?

It depends upon the writer! Plot usually isn’t the problem, because that’s always fun for them to brainstorm. Depending on their emotional maturity, it can be a challenge to develop a strong character arc (how is the character flawed?)  and for some it can be a challenge to move them away from fan fiction to find their own original voice.

2-When you get a motivated, ambitious middle grade writer who wants to write the next Harry Potter or Hunger Games series, and has the whole plot all mapped out in her head, how do you keep her focused on developing a good short story?

This comes with time. I find that by seventh grade, most middle schoolers who are devoted to writing want to master the short story, because they see writers just a little older than them winning awards and having their work published. (Having deadlines, such as the Scholastic Writing Awards can be an excellent motivator, where the word limit on short stories is 3000 words.) But if they are writing a “novel” we still focus on having its own plot and character arc.

3-What’s the best way to turn on a reluctant middle grader to creative writing?

If they think that they don’t like reading or writing, I ask them if they like “story”. The next step is to ask them if they like TV shows and/or video games, and this is what hooks them – those are stories too! Part of our human experience is ingesting and telling stories – in several different mediums. I break down an episode of Spongebob (Or whatever their favorite is) and demystify the process – every story has a main character, an objective (something that they want) and then obstacles that get in their way.

4-Are there fiction authors whose techniques you recommend for aspiring young writers? Any books on the craft of writing you find especially helpful  for aspiring writers and/or their teachers?

All of Writopia Lab’s teachers are professional writers.  Founded and developed by the incomparable Rebecca Wallace-Segall in 2007, Writopia has an original and evolving tool kit full of writing games to help with character, plot development, and sparking that writing mojo!

5-How do you encourage middle grade kids to constructively critique a classmate’s writing? How do you teach young writers to calmly accept constructive criticism from  peers– or from you?

We create a warm, inclusive culture where everyone feels that their voice matters. When we workshop, we train our writers to make two positive comments, and then ask a question about a specific part that isn’t clear. Once we build trust, each writer only wants to improve.

6-Can you share some of your favorite writing prompts?

Always use prompts that have a strong action with middle schoolers. I make them up on the spot, depending on the kid. And let them know that it can be in any genre! I’ve had success with this one: “I climbed the tree for a better look.” My favorite: “The glass shattered.”

7-How do you see the role of the teacher in a creative writing workshop? Do you always provide prompts and exercises, mostly help develop the kids’ own writing, or some of both? What do you do if a young writer resists your exercises and only wants to work on his own writing?

The role of the instructor is to be a guide, a mentor, a cheerleader. We are half camp counselor, demonstrating passion and energy, and half serious writing professional. We always ask the writers what their own writing goals for the day are, as the ultimate goal for the end of a workshop series is to have something completed, whether it’s a short story, or Part 1 of an epic novel! So all of the above. If most kids want to do a short exercise/game to begin the workshop, I ask the one who is resistant to give it a shot for just five minutes so that he/she can still feel part of the group.

You can visit Léna at www.lenaroybooks.com.

Barbara Dee is the author of  The Almost Perfect Guide to Imperfect Boys, Trauma Queen, This Is Me From Now On, Solving Zoe, and Just Another Day in My Insanely Real Life. Her next book, Truth or Dare, will be published by Aladdin/S&S in Fall 2016.  

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