Book Lists

A Chat (& a Giveaway!) with Tracey Baptiste about her new book, The Jumbies

By on April 28, 2015   /   Author Interviews, Book Lists, Fiction, For Teachers, Giveaways  

Tracey Baptiste has written numerous nonfiction books for children and the YA novel Angel’s Grace. The Jumbies, a creepy tale that captures the spirit and folklore of Baptiste’s native Trinidad, is her first middle-grade novel. Tracy took time out to chat with us about telling the stories from her childhood, writing for the middle-grade audience, and books from her childhood that inspired her.

JA: Tracey, you’ve written for both middle-grade and the young- adult audiences. Can you tell us a little bit about how the process differs between middle-grade and YA? Do you prefer writing for one audience over the other?

TB: My first novel, Angel’s Grace, was billed as YA, but the protagonist, Grace, was only thirteen, just two years older than Corinne in The Jumbies. I actually think my wheelhouse is in younger teens and tweens, and the process of writing for both is the same for me: hard. But I do think about the difference in age for one reading audience over another. For instance, there is a scene in The Jumbies where Severine eats a creature in the forest. My editor and I had some back and forth over making sure this wasn’t too scary, but I thought there were scarier bits, like the centipedes that run all over Severine’s body. Crawly bugs seem much more frightening to me than a wriggly snack. But maybe it’s just me. I’m working on something now that seems like it should be for an older audience because of the themes, but I like the protagonist as a twelve year old. I’ll have to see how this one shakes out and what my editor and agent have to say when it’s in good enough shape to show them.

A photo of Tracey Baptiste

Photo credit: Latifah Abdur Photography

JA: You’ve written a lot of non-fiction. How does that research process differ from the research process for fiction?

TB: Nonfiction is definitely a different approach. First of all, it’s a relief to have all or most of the facts before I start. With fiction there’s a lot of groping around in the dark trying to figure it out. It’s exciting to get my hands on facts and then turn them into a narrative, and researching can be exhilarating when you find a piece of information that makes the rest of the pieces you found click together. The trick with nonfiction, though, is choosing how to shape the narrative while still presenting a balanced and unbiased viewpoint. When I research for fiction, usually the entire story is written, and there are these holes with weird notes to myself like: find out if tuba players have any slang they use among themselves.

JA: I read another interview in which you said you’d worked on The Jumbies for more than ten years. Can you talk about how you persevered through rewriting (to make it “more epic”), receiving rejections by the first few editors who saw it, and making an agency change? You never gave up, and I know I’m not the only one who is so glad you didn’t!

TB: Well thanks!

I’ve come to realize that part of my process is working on something for a while and then putting it away for a longer while, and then coming back to it. I am not a fast writer and I tend to work on multiple projects at a time. But getting The Jumbies into the hands of the right editor really was a long slog. I wish I could say I handled all the uncertainty with bravery and grace, but alas, I was pretty miserable for long periods and it definitely extended the length of time that I wasn’t writing. I think at one point I quit writing for over a year. But this story kept pulling me back in. I also have to credit my husband and my mom for their unwavering support. After a rejection, I would turn them for encouragement, and then I’d look at the story again and think about what didn’t work, and what could be bigger and better. As far the direction I was given to make it more epic, I just kept thinking about how far I could push things. How hard could I make this on Corinne? How far could she go to save everyone?

When I made the decision to leave my previous agency, it was just about the working relationship. I learned a lot of things about my needs as a writer between my first novel and my second. And what I needed was an agent who was also a writer, and understood what I was dealing with. I found that in Marie Lamba, and it’s a great working relationship with the added bonus that we like each other outside of work as well.

A photo of Tracey Baptiste's book, The Jumbies

JA: What advice do you have for teachers and librarians who want to tie The Jumbies in to a larger unit on folk tales or Caribbean culture?

TB: It’s important to know more about the culture of jumbies, and for that I’ve made a “field guide” which is available on the Algonquin YR site. Jumbie stories were part of everyday conversations when I was growing up. I still don’t answer when I hear my name called at night. I ask if someone is calling me even though I’m too old now to be snatched up by a jumbie. It’s just habit. The other thing to realize is the Caribbean, and Trinidad in particular, has a very rich literary history. I grew up reading novels written by people in my own culture, so teachers and librarians may also want to offer some titles like Herbert de Lisser’s The White Witch of Rosehall or Jean D’Costa’s Escape to Last Man Peak, or my favorite, V. S. Naipaul’s Miguel Street. All of these were required reading when I was at school.

JA: Have your children been to Trinidad? Have you shared the stories of your childhood with them and what do they think? Do they like scary stories?

TB: Yes! They go to Trinidad often and they complain when they don’t get a chance to go (like last summer when they complained EVERY SINGLE DAY). Both my husband and I are from Trinidad so there is plenty of family for them to visit over the summer. I am sure the family keeps them well entertained with stories from when their dad and I were kids. I hope they do like scary stories because The Jumbies is now required reading at my house.

JA: What are you working on next?

TB: I’m working on a story about a future society that has too much technology for their own good. I’m also working on two picture books, one about an unlikely superhero and another about a kid visiting with her grandfather.

JA: What other middle-grade books are on your bookshelf at present? Any recent favorites that you can recommend?

I have Kat Yeh’s The Truth About Twinkie Pie, which my daughter read and loved but I haven’t had a chance to read yet. I also have C. Taylor Butler’s The Lost Tribes, which I’m planning to read aloud to both of the kids, and Ramin Ganeshram’s Stir It Up, which was released back in 2011, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. (I’m also a slow reader, it seems!)

MG books on a shelf

A peek at Tracey’s bookshelf!

Thank you for spending time with From the Mixed-Up Files, Tracey, and best of luck with The Jumbies!

Readers, leave a comment below with your favorite spooky story to win a copy of The Jumbies!

Back to Top
Back to Top

A Conversation (and book giveaway!) with Augusta Scattergood, Author of THE WAY TO STAY IN DESTINY

By on April 24, 2015   /   Book Lists  

We are thrilled today to have Augusta Scattergood, author of the award-winning Glory Be and her new book, The Way to Stay in Destiny. I consider my new book, The Way Home Looks Now, to be a ‘book twins” with Augusta’s book, since both take place in the 70’s and include baseball-loving boys. To find out what else we have in common, read on!9780545538244

WS: THE WAY TO STAY IN DESTINY is about young Theo, who moves to Destiny, Florida with his very surly uncle in the wake of the Vietnam War. There, Theo tries to make new friends, negotiate a new life and solve a mystery, using his love of baseball and talent for music. How did DESTINY first come to you?

AG: Believe it or not, I started this new book as part of a writing exercise from a workshop. Something about old sneakers and a belt and –Go! You know those things you scribble in notebooks and think you’ll never use again? That paragraph morphed into a memory of visiting Florida as a child and hearing about baseball players who’d lived there for spring training. Seven or so years after that sneakers and belt paragraph, it’s a book!

Are you a big baseball fan? You wove baseball seamlessly into a relatively serious story that often made me laugh out loud.

the way home looks now

WS: Big baseball fan might be a bit of a stretch, but it was the only organized sport I played as a child, and I do enjoy the occasional Sunday afternoon at Nationals Park. I do love the old-fashioned pace of baseball in our ramped-up world, and as you saw in the book, the very unusual rules that have sprung out of the game.

In addition to playing a season of baseball, I also took several resistant years of piano, and I loved the scenes of Theo playing the piano – you really made me feel as though my own fingers were flying over the keys. I feel like writing about music is sort of like writing about food – it’s really difficult to convey those sensations on paper, but when it’s done right, it’s just completely marvelous. Did you rely on your own love or talent for music, or what did you do to write these scenes?

AG: I was the queen of Resistant Piano. So, talent? Not much. But I understand and love music. I admire pianists especially. I had a friend in his 80s who played beautifully by ear. I asked him many questions. A lot of what Theo thought and said came directly from talking to that gentleman. And for the first time while writing, I actually listened to music. Music from the 70s. Country music. Thelonious Monk. I made a playlist! Even though GLORY BE was filled with Elvis tunes and Beatles references, I’ve never made and listened to a playlist for a book before.

WS: Resistant piano players, unite! As for a playlist, I haven’t had that happen for me yet, though I love it when writers reach into other disciplines for inspiration.

Let’s go from music to geography. Both of your books take place in the South. GLORY BE takes place in Mississippi in 1964, and DESTINY takes place about ten years later in Florida. I love how you describe both places with such a lovely sense of atmosphere. When I read your books, I swear I can feel the hot air on my neck or the cooling breeze of a nearby beach. What do you think about when you write about place?

GBTS-Scattergood-photo

AS: Thanks, Wendy. Although I’ve lived mostly outside the South as an adult, truthfully, I don’t think I could set a story any other place. But never say never, right?

For THE WAY TO STAY IN DESTINY, I discovered two perfect Old Florida towns. Dunedin and Pass-a-Grille, not too far from where I live now. I spent a lot of time ambling, checking out the lizards, the Spanish moss, the brightly-colored flowers. And truly, growing up in a small southern town in the 50s and 60s, I have a lot of memories of heat!

WS: What is your connection to the South, and do you consider yourself a Southern writer? (And if yes, what do you think it means to be a Southern writer?)

AS: My entire family has always lived in the Deep South. When I went “north” to college (Chapel Hill, NC) my grandmother was sure I was leaving the country. My connections run deep.

I’m not sure if kids notice whether someone is a Southern writer or not. What they’re looking for is a good story. But I’m happy to fall into that category. I think it does have to do with setting and that sense of place. Everything plays into that. The characters’ names, the food, the weather—all can be signs of writing Southern.

I’m not crazy about using a lot of dialect in books for young readers, but there’s a certain rhythm to our words and to the way we speak that makes a book feel more Southern than others.

WS: I love your UNC story! I went even further “north” at the University of Virginia. Now let’s talk about time. Both of our books take place in the early 1970’s. What was your challenge about writing about the 1970’s? What kind of research did you conduct?

AS: Recently, I heard someone say that historical facts and details should not be mere “window dressing” for a story. Use them sparingly and carefully. Make sure they move or deepen your story. Uncle Raymond’s problems were an important part of this book. His involvement in the Vietnam conflict was crucial to his relationship with his family.

For that part of my research, I listened to my friends who’d been in the military, as well as oral history interviews with veterans. I wanted to get his voice just right.

I loved that about THE WAY HOME LOOKS NOW. For those of us who lived through the 70s, your tiny details were perfect. Those record and tape club letters, for example, I remember—they were endless!

And looking up an address in a phone book. Does anybody do that now?

phone

WS: I do, but I’m not sure about the upcoming generation. I had a friend who had to teach her teenage son how to address an envelope! He’d never done it before. But I love how time changes little day-to-day details.

AS: I suspect even if I were writing a contemporary story, I’d be drawn to the research. Of course, the internet has made that part of writing easier, but I still love pouring over books and old newspapers in the quiet of a library. In fact, my most recent research has included telephone and city directories from the 1950s. Those phone books still come in handy, don’t they?

WS: Absolutely! Newspapers were essential for my research for HOME. While I started because I wanted to see how national events were covered, I was drawn in by the smaller, local articles. There was an article about how a married woman wanted to keep her maiden name on her driver’s license –and was denied; it really summed up the times for me.

When I first started writing, I came across a book that had similar elements as mine, and I was worried about being perceived as a copycat. Now I can see the beauty of having two stories that are similar in some ways, but can tell completely different stories. Thank you for coming on the Files, Augusta!

For your chance to win copies of both The Way to Stay in Destiny and The Way Home Looks Now, leave a comment with your most significant 70’s moment or object – from Watergate to pet rocks – just name it!

Back to Top