Posts Tagged middle grade books

Interview: Mae Respicio Talks About Theme And ANY DAY WITH YOU

By Samantha M Clark on April 22, 2020 / Author Interviews

I met Mae Respicio when our debut middle-grade novels released in the same year, 2018, and I was so impressed with her as an author and a person. Now Mae has a brand new MG coming out, ANY DAY WITH YOU. The novel got a starred review from Publishers Weekly and will be on shelves in just a couple weeks, on May 5, published by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Mae Respicio

Mae is a star at working themes into her writing, so I’m thrilled that she’s on The Mixed Up Files to talk to us about that today.

Hi, Mae, tell us about your new MG book!

Of course—and thanks for having me here—I can’t wait to share ANY DAY WITH YOU with readers! The story revolves around twelve-year-old Kaia, who loves the beach, making movies, and creating effects make-up. When Kaia’s ninety-year-old great grandpa, Tatang, decides to return to his homeland of the Philippines, she doesn’t want him to go. Kaia and her best friends make a movie about the Filipino folklore Tatang loves to tell, and they enter it into a summer film contest thinking that if they win, it’ll stop him from saying goodbye. The book is all about family, friendship, and how we navigate change… an early reader told me she thought it was the warm hug we could all use right now and I love that—it’s a feel-good book for these times.

What gave you the idea for this story?

ANY DAY WITH YOU has a lot of personal connections for me. It’s set in sunny beachside Los Angeles, one of my heart-homes where I lived for many years. It has a filmmaking element, which is a world I’ve been a part of (fun fact: I met my husband when we both worked for the Walt Disney Animation Studios, and he did the teeniest bit of interior art for the book!). The story also features “maker-kids”—I’ve got 2 at home!—and as a girl I always loved to draw and create things. Finally, Tatang’s storyline came to be because it’s loosely inspired by my childhood—my grandparents lived with my family for a little while, so intergenerational relationships played a big role in my life. Somehow I combined all these elements and Kaia’s story was born.

ANY DAY WITH YOU has some great themes. Tell us about them.

One of the main themes of ANY DAY WITH YOU is around resiliency: what happens when your life changes, and how do you choose to deal with it? In this very moment our whole world is connected by change, and we’re all learning how to deal with it through empathy, kindness, and patience. It’s timely and a perfect book for kids right now, especially if teachers and parents can gently guide readers through conversations of how we navigate change to make us stronger.

Do you develop your themes when you’re first working on a story or do you identify them later in the process?

I usually brainstorm with certain themes in mind, but they start off big and overarching until I get to know my characters—that’s when I can get more nuanced. For ANY DAY WITH YOU, I wanted to explore “resiliency”—but I didn’t know what that meant until I came up Tatang’s storyline. That also happened with THE HOUSE THAT LOU BUILT. I wanted to write around “dreaming big” and “persistence,” but I didn’t know what that looked like until I came up with details of a girl wanting to build her own tiny house. When developing themes, I try to answer questions around what choices and obstacles would be thrown my characters way, and what emotions I want readers to come away with.

How do you use themes to dig deeper in your work?

Honestly, I don’t think about digging deep when I’m writing a first draft. I start off with a general story line—a beginning, middle, and end—then I let it all come out however messy… usually my first drafts look like a massive pile of words that make no sense! Revision is when I can dig deep, and that’s where a story’s richness comes in. For me that means using specific images, actions, and character choices that keep relating back the book’s themes. In ANY DAY WITH YOU, there’s some ocean and nature imagery relating to resiliency—so for example, showing how waves change daily but still they roll in a regular rhythm, a bit the way humans keep going even when their lives are disrupted.

Writers often explore similar themes in their body of work. Did you find that ANY DAY WITH YOU had similar themes to your earlier MG book THE HOUSE THAT LOU BOOK? 

Oh, definitely. I’ve also published a lot of nonfiction and personal essay, and what I’ve found is that in most things I write there’s some thread of “home”—how do we discover home and what does that mean based on our different lenses.

Are there other parts of the book where you pulled from your own experiences?

My fiction has a balance of what I don’t know (and want to learn more about), and what I know intrinsically and what I’ve lived—usually from childhood—which is the part I think adds layer and spark. Also, as a parent of middle-grade reading kids, I draw from my parenting life—an endless, funny bounty of honest fodder. I grew up going to California beaches and it’s the way my family enjoys spending time together (my kids surf and love all beachy things!), so it was a fun writing exercise pulling from childhood memories and family experiences around the smells, sounds, and feeling of being near the ocean.

When does ANY DAY WITH YOU come out and how will you be celebrating? 

ANY DAY WITH YOU comes out May 5th and I’ll be celebrating from home while sheltering in place! This may involve a cake and pajamas. Okay, maybe not PJs if I end up filming a little celebration video and sharing it online, but obviously there will be cake. Folks can follow me on Twitter and Instagram—or sign up for my (very infrequent!) newsletter—where I’ll be shouting out upcoming events.

Thanks, Mae! I’ve learned so much.

You can pre-order ANY DAY WITH YOU now.

STEM Tuesday — Earth Day 50th Anniversary Celebration– Writing Tips & Resources

By STEM Tuesday on April 21, 2020 / Earth Day, STEM Tuesday

Tackling a Planet – Sized Topic

Earth Day. Earth Week. Earth Month. It’s time to celebrate all that exists around us. But, how do you do that in words? When you’re interested writing about in the entire earth, where do you even start?

As writers, we are often given the advice to narrow our focus; yet, at the same time, we are expected to provide a grand, universal truth. That feels so contradictory. How do can we provide specific details to bring a planet sized-topic to life?

Reading Jack Hart’s Story Craft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction, I stumbled across the concept of the Ladder of Abstraction and have found this an excellent way to visualize writing.

Imagine a ladder where each rung represents a different level of abstraction. Let’s apply this concept to a tree. On the lowest rung we would have: the sycamore tree in my backyard. The would be a bit more abstract: all sycamore trees, and the next would be trees. Higher rungs could be plants, living things, everything. Thus, climbing the rungs, we move from the concrete to the abstract.

The lowest rungs of the ladder put you in a scene; the highest rungs of the ladder provide you with perspective. Imagine yourself standing on the first rung; you are as close as you can be to the ground without actually being there. You can see the details of the dirt. Then imagine standing on the top rungs; you have a view that lets you comprehend how those details fit into the larger picture. As Hart notes, “Emotion originates on the ladder’s lowest rungs.” He goes on to explain, “… greater meaning resides on the ladder’s upper rungs.”

In order to bring out both emotion and meaning, writers can move up and down this ladder strategically to provide both concrete details (yielding personal connections) and generalizations (yielding universal truths) for their readers. Most writers struggle with providing those concrete details. Here’s a fun way to practice working your way down to the bottom rung to generate dozens of specific details.

Set Up

Select an item from nature that will fit in your hand. Something with a variety in textures (like a stick covered in lichen, an interesting stone or a large flower) works well. Position your non-dominant hand in front of you, holding the item. Position your paper and dominant hand behind you, where you can’t see them.

Pretend an ant is crawling on your item. Your job will be to trace (on paper) the ant’s path as it explores the item. I know this sounds odd, but it works, so try it.

Blind Drawing

Begin by putting your pencil down in the middle of your paper; after that, do not look at your paper. You will be creating a wandering scribble — not a drawing of the item. Resist the temptation to look at your paper! As you watch your imaginary ant explore, trace his trail on the paper, basically creating a map of his route. Keep your ant going. Keep your dominant hand tracing. Make your ant go around the corner, over the edge, into the hole.

For a minimum of five minutes (set a timer if you need it), keep tracing your ant’s journey. If he retraces his steps, that’s fine. If you need to turn your item over, that’s fine. If he goes in a hole where you can’t see, make it up. When you think you’re done, keep going. Keep him exploring! Keep mapping his path.

Getting the Details Down

When you’re done, you may look at your drawing. Then, look at your item and retrace the trip. Along the way, describe his experiences aloud, jotting every detail down. Think of the texture under the ant’s feet, the shapes he encounters, the amount of light, the shade of color, the springiness of the surface, what each area reminds him of, etc.. The goal here is to overflow your page with details.

If your ant was a good explore, you should have quite a list. Sure, these descriptions are from an ant’s perspective, but they are concrete details. Unless you first record details with this level of specificity, you won’t have enough fodder for the bottom rung of the ladder.

Selecting the Specific

Now, let’s take this exercise a bit further. We won’t try to find a universal truth here (although you might try that too), but instead practice with a simpler task, creating mood. Skim your list for descriptors that convey a common mood. In my list, several feel kind of ominous. Using a highlighter, crayon or symbol, mark the details that match the mood. I’ve chosen yellow for ominous ones. Next, search your list for a different mood and mark that with a different color. Can you find a third?

Put that in Writing

Your final challenge is to use the selected descriptors to convey that mood in a sentence or short paragraph. I started with my green descriptors and tried to convey playfulness. Then I used the descriptors flagged with yellow to create a more ominous sentence, and finally the ones marked in red to convey a comforting mood.

When tackling a planet – sized topic, specific details matter. They carry the reader down to the bottom rung on the Ladder of Abstraction. Immersed in a scene filled with specificity, readers feel grounded, emotionally connected, and ready to move up the rungs and discover a universal truth.

Heather L. Montgomery loves to climb ladders — abstract and otherwise. See how she applies these writing techniques in Who Gives a Poop? The Surprising Science Behind Scat (Bloomsbury, September 2020). Pre-orders available at https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781547603473.

Author Spotlight: Eileen Moskowitz-Palma + a GIVEAWAY!

By Melissa Roske on April 17, 2020 / Articles, Author Interviews

Eileen Moskowitz-Palma and I first crossed paths more than a decade ago, at the Backspace Writers Conference, in New York. I can’t remember which panels I attended, but one thing stands out: meeting Eileen. We were sitting in a large, well-lit room, waiting for the keynote to begin, when she turned around and smiled at me. It was the warmest, friendliest smile I had ever seen, and naturally I wanted to bask in her… Eileen-ness.

It didn’t take before she and I became fast friends, chatting about our daughters (we both have onlies); our writing styles (we both err on the side of funny), and our diminutive statures (Eileen is half an inch taller than I am, which she never lets me forget.) 🙂

Her debut middle-grade novel, THE POPULARITY PACT: CAMP CLIQUE, which Kirkus describes as “{a}…solid mix of s’mores and girl empowerment… encouraging but never saccharine,” is out now from Running Press Kids. Here is a brief summary:

“In the blink of a summer, Bea goes from having a best friend and a place she belongs to being dropped and invisible, eating lunch alone and only talking to teachers. The end of sixth grade and the start of Camp Amelia can’t come soon enough.

But then the worst part of school, ex-best friend Maisy, shows up in Bea’s safe place and ruins it all. Maisy lands in the same bunk as Bea and summer suddenly seems dire. Never having camped a day in her life, Maisy agrees: it’s hopeless. She should be at home, spending time with her little sister and hanging out with her super popular crew of friends–not at this stupid adventure camp failing everything and being hated by everyone. In a desperate bid to belong, Maisy offers Bea a deal: if Bea helps her fit in at the camp, she will get Bea into the M & M’s, their town’s popular clique, when they enter seventh grade in the fall. The Popularity Pact is born.”

MR: Hi, Eileen! Before we start, can I say how excited I am about this novel? It’s your first middle grade!

EMP: Thank you for that wonderful introduction Melissa. You are one of my first real writing friends and the best take away from that conference! When we met all those years ago, I introduced myself as a rom-com writer, and I really thought that’s what I was. I even published a rom-com back in 2014. But one day the idea for The Popularity Pact series came to me. I was two pages in to the manuscript when I realized I finally felt at home as a writer.

MR: CAMP CLIQUE is told from the alternating perspectives of two ex-BFFs, Bea and Maisy, who strike a mutually beneficial deal in the name of popularity. Is the quest for popularity an issue that affected you as a tween? If so, how did it shape your experience in middle school, and beyond?

EMP: Middle school wasn’t about popularity for me as much as it was about navigating strong and meaningful female friendships. For most kids, late elementary school into middle school is when friendships feel more important than anything else in their world. I loved having a best friend and the certainty that came with knowing I had someone to sit with at lunch or pair up with on a school project, but most importantly I loved having someone I could talk to about anything. I lived for those after-school hangouts, and phone calls and sleepovers. As long as I had my person, I felt a strong sense of belonging. But when my best friend and I had an argument, it felt like the floor had been ripped out from under me. In The Popularity Pact series, I wanted to tap into those complicated dynamics of tween friendships, the intensity of both the good and bad moments.

MR: In addition to popularity, Maisy has other issues on her mind: troubles at home, and acute anxiety. She seeks out the crunchy-granola camp therapist, Dr. Beth, for help. Do most camps have therapists in residence now? If so, what kind of research did you have to do to see how these therapists work with campers? (i.e., short-term vs. long-term therapy; reporting to parents, etc.). I would imagine it’s very different from therapy done in a more traditional setting.

EMP: From the small bit of research I did, it seems like more and more camps are recognizing the need for mental-health support that extends into the summer months. It makes perfect sense for a child who is undergoing therapy during the school year to seek the same supportive care while at camp. I didn’t extend my research into how therapy is typically done at most camps, because Camp Amelia is unique. Instead, I imagined what type of therapy environment would work for a kid like Maisy who was resistant to therapy, and anxious about talking about her issues at home. Dr. Beth was born because I thought she had the perfect personality and out-of-the-box methods to get Maisy to open up about the secret she had been keeping for over a year. Dr. Beth shares her therapy cabin with a menagerie of rescue cats. The way she holds back and lets the cats come to her is similar to the way she gets through to Maisy.

MR: I actually went to two sleepaway camps as a child: the artsy Camp Hillcroft, where I made enamel jewelry and sang folk songs around the campfire, and sporty Camp Gilford, where I was bullied mercilessly and wished I had a Dr. Beth to talk to. Did you go to sleepaway camp? If so, how did the experience shape the novel? Maisy and Bea’s characters specifically?

EMP: I never went to sleepaway camp because my family spent most of the summer at a cottage in Twin Lakes, Connecticut, an area of the Berkshires which is home to several summer camps. When I was building the world of Camp Amelia, I thought of the white Birch trees that I always associate with the woods that surround Twin Lakes. I pictured the fireflies zapping across the summer sky and heard the sound of the crickets. I remembered how it was always cold there at night, not matter how hot the days were. I thought of the feeling of the wet dirt path under my feet after swimming in the lake. That cottage was my safe place away from any drama I had waiting for me back home. It was the one place where the stressors of my school life couldn’t permeate. I thought about what it would feel like if an ex-best friend showed up there, and it was easy to think about how Bea would feel when Maisy permeated her camp life. For Maisy’s perspective, I thought about some of the uncomfortable parts of country life, like how cold the lake water is, or how scary it can be to see little creatures running across a dirt path. I imagined what it would be like for an anxious kid like Maisy to get sent to camp in the woods against her will.

MR: Camp Amelia is an adventure camp, with the focus on team spirit and athletic ability. There’s even a camp-wide sports competition (“the Cup”), where winning is everything. Were you sporty like Bea, or anxious like Maisy? Perhaps an amalgam of both?

EMP: I was definitely not sporty. I was a tiny, uncoordinated kid with asthma who got picked last in P.E. In fact I was so unathletic, that my P.E. teacher would have to give me multiple tries to pass each section of the mandatory yearly fitness challenge. Like Maisy, I am an anxious person, so I was always scared of getting hit with the ball, whether it was a dodgeball or a basketball. I always try to think of ways to add more natural drama and tension to a story. I came up with the camp idea first, but then I thought…What if it’s an adventure camp? And what if Maisy was anxious and unathletic like me? In every scene where Maisy has to confront a fear at adventure camp, I was able to think about how I would feel in that situation and it made it very easy to write.

MR: Book Two, THE POPULARITY PACT: SCHOOL SQUAD, comes out on October 6. Can you give us a teaser?

EMP: I would love to! Bea kept up her end of the bargain by getting Maisy “in” with the girls at camp. Now it’s Maisy’s turn to fulfill her promise to ingratiate Bea with the popular girls. When Bea is accepted into this new inner circle, she begins to lose sight of what true friendship is all about. As Bea seems prepared to sacrifice anything to be “cool,” Maisy realizes there’s more to life than hanging out with a bunch of mean girls. Can she convince Bea that the popularity pact was a mistake? Can these former friends find their way back to each other?

MR: And finally, what’s your wildest camp story? I know you have one…

EMP: It took over 40 years for me to finally have my own camp experience. When my book tour was canceled because of COVID-19, I was devastated about the school visits that weren’t going to happen. I had been looking forward to connecting with readers in the classroom because of my experience as a former elementary school teacher. At the same time, my social media feed was filling up with posts by desperate parents who were suddenly juggling multiple homeschooled kids, while also working from home. I realized I could help. My husband and I brainstormed the idea of a free virtual writing camp. I would give kids a multi-session program that was positive, educational, and creative, while also allowing their parents a reprieve that they didn’t have to feel guilty about. In four days, I had a roster filled with 75 kids from all over the country, and a growing wait list for the next session. I have just completed my first camp session, and it has been just as healing for me as it has been for the kids. It gives me a sense of purpose and allows me to serve others in a time when I have been feeling helpless. For more information about my writing camp, or other writing resources for children during this time, please visit my website (see below).

MR: Oh!!! One last thing! A MUF author interview wouldn’t be complete without a lightning round, so…

S’mores or bug juice? S’mores

Friendship bracelets or French braiding? Not to brag, but I am really good at braiding, so French Braiding of course.

Favorite camp song? I actually wrote my own camp song for Camp Clique, which I am very proud of.

Favorite sporty activity? Running

Favorite artsy activity? Painting

The ideal care package? Beauty products and chocolate…lots and lots of chocolate: 🙂

Best camp prank? I have never done a prank in real life. BUT, I had a lot of fun writing a prank scene that the Sunflower bunk girls play on their rival bunk the Dandelion Bunk.

And now… a camp-tastic

GIVEAWAY!!!

Eileen has generously offered to gift THREE lucky readers with an autographed copy of Camp Clique, a bookmark, and two friendship bracelets! Just comment on the blog for a chance to win!

When EILEEN MOSKOWITZ-PALMA double majored in Elementary Education and English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, she thought she would have to choose between a career as a writer or a teacher. It wasn’t until she was almost 40 that she realized she could do both. Now, Eileen divides her time between writing middle-grade novels and teaching Beginner Novel Writing and Writing for Children and Young Adults at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. Eileen lives in Westchester, New York, with her husband and daughter. Learn more about Eileen on her website and follow her on Instagram.

Posts Tagged middle grade books

Interview: Mae Respicio Talks About Theme And ANY DAY WITH YOU

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STEM Tuesday — Earth Day 50th Anniversary Celebration– Writing Tips & Resources