Deborah Wiles -- The '07 Book Tour

It's Not Goodbye...

2007-12-31T22:11:00.000-05:00

I've brought you some pictures. Pictures of Aurora County: the real Aurora County, Mississippi, which is Jasper County, Mississippi, where my father was born and grew up, and where my stories take place. This is Louin, Mississippi, the real Halleluia of LOVE, RUBY LAVENDER and THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS; this is Comfort's Snapfinger, Mississippi. Look closely and you'll see my grandmother's house (not the pink one) -- she's the real Miss Eula -- and the path that Ruby takes from the house to town.

I grew up summers here. These pictures were taken in July. Louin was a thriving town in the Thirties before the Depression hit. It was a tiny town like Halleluia when I was a kid. Today it's... older. More tired. But I still love it.

It's almost midnight. Almost 2008. I'm hanging on to the last hour and forty-nine minutes of 2007. It's hard to let go.

And it was a hard year. Well... maybe hard isn't the word. A challenging year. But what year isn't? As Uncle Edisto says in EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS, "Open your arms to life! Let it strut into your heart in all its messy glory!" yes, yes, yes.

Let's see, messy glory: I lost one editor this year, and then another. But I watched THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS come into the world with lots of joyful noise, and I ran right behind it, on tour... everywhere, it seemed, for so long! It was a pleasure and a pain, and a complete joy.

I met new friends. I visited with Eudora Welty and William Faulkner, read ALL-STARS on Thacker Mountain Radio, drove through the dark night through the Mississippi Delta with Jim Allen, doggedly planted my gardens through the long, dry summer in Atlanta, got married in July to a long-time love, paid for my daughter's last year in college, saw my grandson for the first time in five years, made quilts for my grandgirls, visited kin, welcomed family, watched the rain fall through Christmas week in Atlanta, and criss-crossed the country, teaching.

Not in that order. It's late... stream of consciousness is taking over. My husband is gigging on New Year's Eve, of course. He and his bandmates are jazzing the year in for party-goers somewhere here in Atlanta. I'm going to get a long, hot bath now. I have played in my closet for the past two days -- with all the traveling I did this year, I scarcely got unpacked before I packed again, and I ended up just throwing everything in the closet at some point. I bought a dresser this summer, but I never had the time to fill it. So it felt so good, as one year was ending and another beginning, to gather my clothes -- every piece of clothing I own -- and sort them, wash them, dry them, fold them, hang them, make a pile for Goodwill, and make a pile for IRONING, can you believe it?

I kept thinking of my mother as I buttoned all the buttons on each shirt I hung, just the way she taught me to (and just the way I rarely do), as I folded each blouse just-so, a third this way, a third that way, now fold in half and give it a pat... and I found myself remembering how often I would come home at the end of a school day and see my mother ironing in the family room, watching ANOTHER WORLD. She ironed everything and taught me how to iron as well -- collars and sleeves and pillowcases and... well, I got a hankering to iron; I miss my mother.

So I ordered my drawers and closets, and then tackled the mountain of paper in my office -- another catastrophe of the tour. I found things in that mountain I'd forgotten I had... things I didn't know I had. If you haven't heard from me and have expected to... well... you will. I found it. Them.

Once I had the office ordered, I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup for supper. Ate it on a tray with a tall glass of cold milk and watched an old movie (TOP HAT, Walter) and smiled. Sighed. I never eat grilled cheese sandwiches anymore. Comfort food. Good. Muenster cheese is the secret. Lots of muenster cheese. Sssssh.....

It's so blissfully quiet here tonight. Not at all like the raucous, lovely years when I had four kids at home and made egg rolls for an army on New Year's Eve, played charades with the neighbors' families, and went outside at midnight with the kids to bang wooden spoons on pots. No, not like that anymore. Everyone is grown up. Everyone is away. Everyone is finding his or her life. And so am I. It is good.

It's a good year, when one delights in what is joyful and grows, even Grinch-like, through challenges. It has been a good year; and it's hard to let a good year go.

It's hard to let you go, too. You've stuck with me through thick and thin this year, on the '07 Book Tour for ALL-STARS; I have so appreciated your good company. So I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm going to migrate you over to One Pomegranate, if you are already a subscriber to the '07 Tour Blog. If you are already subbed to One Pomegranate, you need do nothing -- you're already there. If you are a subscriber to the Tour Journal and have not subbed to OP, you will be receiving an email in the next couple of days from OP, asking you to confirm your subscription to OP -- One Pomegranate.

If you don't want to be subbed to OP, do nothing, and you won't receive further emails. If you do want to sub to OP, click on the link provided in the email, and that's it. Easy peasy. From then on, you'll receive your blog posts from me as One Pomegranate. And you won't hurt my feelin's if you've had enough and need a rest. Come back and see us now and again. We'll keep a pitcher of sweet tea in the fridge for you. We'll keep the front room picked up ----------------------------------------------

You don't need to unsub from the '07 Tour Blog. This blog will remain active and online, although I won't be posting here, as the '07 Book Tour is officially and completely and terrifically over. What a run we had with ALL-STARS -- thank you so much, so very much, every one of you: booksellers, readers, teachers, students, librarians, parents, kids, drivers (Hey, Jim Allen! Hey, Carol!), friends and family, and a Grand Slam thank you to Harcourt Children's Books, especially everyone in marketing who put together such a fabulous tour and worked so darn hard to make sure it came together so splendidly. My baseball cap is off to you, gods and goddesses, all.

You can scroll down and read specifically about each bookstore, each bookseller, each school, each town, each conference, each MEAL I ate, just about... happy sigh, I'm so glad I kept an accounting. I will not forget you. And you will not be allowed to forget me! I will keep coming back, hoping you will welcome me back into your lives, bookstores, schools, libraries, homes, with the next book, the next story, the next time.

You were more than awesome. Meeting you all this year was like playing in Dodger Stadium with Sandy Koufax, listening to Vin Scully announce the play-by-play, sitting in the stands under the lights during a night game, watching the ballet of a perfect game.

It was a symphony true.

Peace.

Love.

Amoxicillin and Blogging

2007-12-29T05:04:00.000-05:00

My daughter says it's stress-related (she should know). My friend James Walker used to call it "a punctuation mark." You know what I mean. I'll bet you've been there: getting sick as soon as you can let down your guard or stop all the movement or, for me, finish up the many months of tour/travel/schools/conferences/company/holidays.

I did fine until the night after Christmas, when I knew I was coming down with... something. We drove through the night from Charleston, S.C. to Atlanta, and I felt punier with every mile. I woke up the next morning to a fever and sore throat and finally got myself to the doctor when swallowing became impossible. Upper respiratory infection. Strep. Pass the antibiotics and other assorted meds. I've been down for the count for two days. Better this morning. Fiddling with One Pomegranate, getting ready for launch.

You know... keeping a blog was Harcourt's idea for the launch of THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS. I was reluctant -- so reluctant -- to join the hordes of bloggers in the nusphere. What did I have to offer? And why should anyone (including me!) bother to read what I wrote? I knew little about blogs or blogging, but since I'd done the tour journal for EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS and it had been so warmly received, I committed to this blogging thing, "but only for the tour!" I said. Folks at Harcourt replied, "... you won't know how you went without one for so long!" No way, I told them. I was such a curmudgeon. And they were right. Way. (Thank you, SteveH and Roseleigh. You may forevermore say "I told you so.") But how to make a blog useful and meaningful? That has been the experiment.

I've been feverishly (ha) reading blogs for months now, trying to get my head around what makes them work -- or not work. I love the sense of community I find in blogs that work well. I rarely read comments on these blogs (and I know from personal experience that most comments come to me in email and not directly on the blog). But after reading hundreds and hundreds of blogs over the past several months, I can feel when there is a community gathered around a certain blog -- can't you? I can feel when there is a give and take, a sharing of ideas, a meaningful conversation. I'm now convinced that blogging can be and is an essential communication tool.

The blogs I've enjoyed most are very focused. I've already mentioned Orangette. Here's her blog description: "a blog-style collection of stories, often autobiographical and always gastronomical." She posts once a week. I know I'm going to get a story and a recipe -- a doable recipe for me -- each Thursday.

I love Angry Chicken, too, Amy Karol's blog. Always something to make with your hands -- I like reading about cupcakes in 1/2 pint jars or vintage aprons. I printed out her gift tags this year and affixed them to Christmas presents. My favorite: "I totally want to get one of these for myself, so let me know if you don't want it." I bought Amy's book for Christmas this year and affixed this tag to it when I gave it to my daughter.

Then there's Keri Smith's blog. Friends and I have had so much fun at Keri's site this season, becoming guerilla artists. My friend Jo Stanbridge has been making tuckboxes. I've made the little magic books. Mostly I love Keri's voice and sense of simplicity. Her openness and honesty feeds my soul. Here's her take on blogging. It's the Nov. 15 entry.

There are more blogs than I will ever find or read. I see that I gravitate toward cooking, gardening, hand crafts, home, and steer clear of politics and other writers' blogs. Why is that? Maybe I want comfort reading from blogs, or how-to, or inspiration. And maybe, just maybe, I have a bone to pick with writers' blogs. I've read dozens of them, and I want to know: What are we doing with our blogging, writers?

With few exceptions, we don't talk about our process or what we're writing... it's as if it's a big secret and we're protecting it from... what? Exposure? Being stolen? Watching the story leach out of our minds and never be captured on paper? Diluting the story? I don't know... certainly there's nothing wrong with not talking about process -- heck, I might not be able to do it, when it comes right down to it, but I want to try. Because... I'm a writer. It's what I do. So I'll write about what I do and how I do it.

What a departure! I've been as secretive about my work as the next writer. So let's see what happens. I'm rethinking everything,including blogging, here at the end of 2007, a fabulous, challenging year.

So. A blog that chronicles the writing experience -- creating a writing life. That's what I want to do at One Pomegranate. I'll talk about writing from life experience and I'll chronicle the work in progress, as well as my teaching, gardening, cooking and, well... my life. It feeds the writing. And vice-versa.

So much of writing isn't actually pen on paper. It's Moments plus Memory plus Meaning. I talk about this a lot when I speak. We take moments from our lives and, using the memories we have (and those memories change over the years) of those moments in time, we assign them meaning (which also changes) -- we create stories from those moments. A post from One Pomegranate that illustrates this well is the Caroling Post from Dec. 22.

Perhaps I am naive and will discover I'm a fool, as I try to chronicle this process, but I hope not. Just as Keri Smith writes about being an artist and Orangette offers up recipes, I want to chronicle the wonder of how a life turns itself into stories. Not for self-aggrandizement; for sharing. For hearing your stories in return. For connection and community and kinship.

Blogging is how we are finding one another in this ever-bigger world, how we are discovering like voices and minds and hearts. I want to be a part of that discovery. So I'll write about what matters to me, and I'll keep looking for you, your voice, your mind, your heart. It's a symphony true, this searching, in whatever form it takes, as Walt Whitman wrote, as Norwood Boyd and Elizabeth Jackson said, as House Jackson learned. A symphony true:

After the dazzle of day is done
Only the dark, dark night shows to my eyes the stars
After the clangor of organ majestic, or chorus, or perfect band,
Silent, athwart my soul, moves the symphony true.

Time to take the amoxicillin. I can swallow today. My fever has broken. I am out of bed and out of the woods. Life is good.

The Christmas Cross-Dresser

2007-12-25T10:37:00.000-05:00

Story at 11.
Over at One Pomegranate.
Happy Holly Daze!

Christmas Eve Cake

2007-12-24T10:01:00.000-05:00

I love putzing in the kitchen and futzing in the garden as much as I love writing. I think. Yeah, probably I do. The cooking and gardening (and sewing and knitting and...) feed the writing. I just haven't had the time this year for much putzing or futzing (potsing and shooshing, in (mispelled) Danny Kaye/White Christmas language).

So here I am, a domesticated writer, on Christmas Eve, offering you a banana cake for Christmas. You can find the recipe at Orangette's food blog. Her recipes are tantalizing, but it's the writing I read her blog for. I read about shopping for muscles at Pike Place Market with a friend or savoring the delights of cookies, and I am treated to Story with a capital S. I love her Stories... which is what I'm all about, as you know from reading One Pomegranate (where I posted a story about Christmas caroling and the meaning of EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS a couple days ago).

I'm not surprised to learn that Orangette (her name is Molly) has a book coming out next year -- I will be in line to buy it. I love reading cookbooks. Occasionally I make something from them. The photo above is Orangette's Banana Cake with Coconut Cream Frosting. Here is a look at how it turned out for me. It was as easy to make as Orangette promised it would be, and it was as delicious as I'd hoped it would be. (Plus, it's gorgeous.) It's a dense, sweet, bread-cake affair -- Hannah and I didn't need the icing to fall in love with it, but when we said so, Jim piped up with "I LOVE the icing!" so there you have it. Some of us are icing fans, some of us are purists.

I omitted the rum, and substituted vanilla in the icing -- still fantastic. We cut huge wedges of this cake for ourselves last night, and ate it in front of the fire. We left plenty for you. Help yourselves. I'm going to adapt and add this recipe to a bevy of home-made directions I'm compiling for... something.

I've been wanting to write an Aurora County Cookbook, for one thing. Comfort has been shoving recipes in my face, so has Ruby's mother (well, she waves them), and even Finesse has gotten in on the act. She does an interpretive dance -- you should see her movements for "stir vigorously."

So maybe I'll tell some new stories in a new Aurora County book some day. Often, when I visit schools, I'm treated to all the foods from my Mississippi/Aurora County novels -- it's amazing to see spread on a checkered tablecloth at lunchtime Mrs. Elling's Chicken and Potato Chip Casserole, Comfort's Funeral Brownies, Aunt Goldie's Prune Bread, Great-great Aunt Florentine's Fried Chicken (Ruby would be aghast), Uncle Edisto's Tuner-Fish Sandwiches, and even a round tray of Ritz Crackers and Vienna sausages! I have eaten more devilled eggs and Moon Pies, and have consumed more Ruby Lavender Root Beer Floats than I can count in schools this past several years. It's all been good. (And hey, I'm off the road now and have lost a whole 7.6 pounds so far -- congratulate me. Let's not think about how far I have to go.)

Whether or not I write the cookbook, I'll be experimenting in the kitchen, in the garden, and at the page this coming year. I'm looking forward to what the new year brings. I'm letting go of the old year with glee -- but more on this next week. Happy Every Thing to Every One. I'll see you on the flip side of Christmas. Whatever you do this week, at some point... have some cake.

HO HO HO

2007-12-20T10:26:00.000-05:00

Heavens, it's the holidays. (Thank you for this beautiful present, Sarah!) All routine goes out the window in December, and life as we know it is suspended until January. And, right here in Atlanta, it's snowing! Over at One Pomegranate you can read the story. It's mind- boggling what we'll do here for a little holiday spirit.

I can't even concentrate on telling you the rest of the Canterbury Woods story. So I'll just sketch for you here some of the notes I took while I was there. Pretend it's a connect the dots game and you'll be fine.

From a handwritten list on chart paper in the gym (where I did all-grade presentations my first day). How many of these techniques do I use/talk about/teach? Most. Here they are:

--vocabulary instruction
--differentiation
--high-level questions
--manipulatives
--note taking
--engagement
--small group instruction
--cooperative learning
--technology used by teachers and students alike
--assessment and remediation

Cathy Case, sixth-grade teacher, was brave enough to sit down with me after day one and tell me, after my session with her kids, what "hit" for her students... and what didn't. From that conversation, I rearranged and punted in a different direction the next day. Better. Much better. This is team teaching -- I could hear her, she could tell me. We're both confident in our abilities, we both want to learn how to do even better, we each respect the other's skills. I was able to point out to her some of the more subtle things I was doing, using children's literature, to reach her students -- things she could expound on in the classroom later. And she was able to tell me how to better reach her particular classroom of learners. Excellent.

These two boys are doing what I call the talking/listening part of writing their stories. Hands in the yoga of writing. One talker/reader, one active listener. They will reverse roles next.

There is cognitive coaching going on here at Canterbury Woods. Collaboration. And -- this is important -- people LISTEN here. I was amazed at how much meaningful conversation I had with Barbara Messinger, the principal (in some schools I never even meet the principal), and how many times, during a conversation with any given team member, I realized I was being heard. Really listened to. This is no small thing. It means children are being heard, too. As I saw how intently I was being listened to, I immediately thought to sharpen my own listening skills. This is how it works.

Terminology used at Canterbury Woods that I will incorporate into my classroom management techniques:

Six-inch voices
knees to knees (eyes to eyes)
If you can hear me, clap once (twice, three times)
sometimes we could look for...

From Matt Radigan, from his Teach for America experience:
"Work smarter, not harder"
and more:
Thumbs up/down
Fist of five (four, three, etc.)

Overall, I learned so much here because faculty and staff are not afraid to say what they see, to ask high-level questions, to listen, and to learn. It's a dream for me, as I am always asking, always reaching, always wanting to learn, the perpetual student. It was a great teaching experience.

Back to your regularly scheduled holidays... but you haven't heard the last from me this year! Still working on One Pomegranate, still fiddling with the look and feel of it, still finding my voice.

Thanks so much for all the mail, y'all. I am slow to respond, but I carry you all in my heart -- I do. I'm a sketchy personal correspondent, I admit it. I appreciate all you have to say about the blog -- both blogs -- and I'm glad you'll come with me as I continue blogging on One Pomegranate. Thanks.

And now I need an egg nog.

Re-Examine All You Have Been Told

2007-12-15T08:48:00.001-05:00

I'm still processing all I learned at Canterbury Woods Elementary School in Annandale, Virginia (outside D.C.) last month.

I came to teach personal narrative writing to the upper elementary grades, with a focus on grade 5, since fifth graders take the SOLs, or Standards of Learning, test (The Test) in the spring each year.

You can see me here, giving some directions to fifth graders, with some prompts written on my chart paper in the background, and an interpreter for the hearing impaired in the background -- at times we had three interpreters in the room at once, all walking around following me when I was walking around... we were like a tiny parade in the classroom.

I got used to them quickly, though, and it was clear that the students were used to this.I have been teaching in the classroom for close to twenty years, and I am still learning, still learning. Still re-examining all I have read, all I have been told, all I have experienced. Still discovering my mentors, making my own determinations, finding my own voice.

It's a thrill to feel myself stretching and growing as I am standing there in front of a classroom of writers, as I have conversations about the day with teachers, as I prepare myself for the next day with students, as they ask me hard questions or struggle with their stories... and I have strong opinions about the teaching of writing, and about teaching, period.

These folks have strong opinions, too. Here are Lisa Vasu, who teaches ESL at Canterbury Woods, and Matt Radigan, who is a counselor and instructional coach. There are three of these instructional coaches/mentors at Canterbury Woods. Principal Barbara Messinger has set up her staff in such a way that she has created a base of staunch support for her teachers and students... and they take advantage of that support. It's fantastic.

Until I can tell you more, just know that Lisa and Matt are amazing. When students begin to master their English skills, Matt gives them a congratulatory high-five and says, "You've been Vasued!" Matt comes to CW from Teach For America and from D.C. charter schools. He's full of energy, enthusiasm, and smarts. And he has good hair.

I'm still processing all I learned at Canterbury Woods; moreover, I'm processing HOW I LEARNED IT. The environment I was immersed in for four days was an amazingly open and generous one -- the conversations were rich and deep and meaningful. I will never know everything I need to know -- will any of us? -- about the teaching of writing or about improving my own writing, but when I know I am learning something that is key to my understanding, I am exhilarated by the thought.

I am a perpetual student. In every way. As regards the teaching of writing, the best learning labs for me are schools that are wrestling their writing programs to the mat, always learning. They bring me in for a sustained period of time to work with teachers and students. I get to share what I have learned. I learn from them as well.

I have had wonderful and difficult experiences in many schools over the past twenty years, but two experiences stand out as the best and worst over that time. And interestingly enough -- both the best and the worst have taught me so much. Life is like that, too -- I guess I shouldn't be surprised that teaching is the same way.

Canterbury Woods is one of the best teaching/learning experiences I have ever had. I'll be sharing with you why I think this is so -- I'll tell you what I learned.

By contrast, one of the most difficult teaching experiences -- and this was just a few years ago, in an elementary school not far from Canterbury Woods -- taught me the most as well. I'll talk about this, too. I remember going home at the end of each residency day and crying with frustration, filling a notebook with what happened and with what I'd learned and with ideas on how I could change things up and make the teaching more relevant, more directed, more prescriptive for this particular environment. It ended up being a great week. It turned me inside out as a teacher and a student.

In the meantime, I'm still processing. Still learning, while I'm enjoying time with my family this holiday season, home home home. I've written more about this on One Pomegranate, which is where I'll continue to chronicle my teaching thoughts in January, and my travels, and more.

Next: How we set up the residency at Canterbury Woods Elementary School, and why it worked so well... how teachers and staff are turning teaching on its ear and giving it a polish --- and what a difference it's making in the growth and learning of not only students, but faculty and staff as well.

There is a Cavafy poem I love called "Half the House." It's about growing and learning, and at first glance it doesn't seem like it makes sense, perhaps, but I find it distills my thoughts about teaching. And living. You can find the poem online, including at One Pomegranate's latest entry, this date.

I'll leave you with Whitman's words from the preface of the first edition to LEAVES OF GRASS. They are the words I use to open THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS:

"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul."

Go forth with an open heart. Learn.

Take a Peek...

2007-12-12T09:56:00.000-05:00

Okay. I'm almost ready. If you'd like to take a peek at One Pomegranate, go right ahead. You can also sign up now for this new blog on email or as an RSS feed, if you want to... there are links on the left to help you. I'll post to it as I practice getting ready for the big launch, and you can help me by giving me feedback, if you please. If you want to wait, that's fine. I'll be reminding you again before I phase out posting to this Tour Blog. So, we've got a little double-blog-dipping going on right now. But I decided to go ahead and do it this way, so we can have a little crossover time, and then, voila.

So what's over there that I want you to see? Well... I got married yesterday... 36 years ago. December 11, 1971. I was 18 years old. He was 17. That's us in the photo above. We're at Jones County Junior College in Ellisville, Mississippi. I have no idea how much my life is about to change.

Yes, I know I've said I got married this past July... there's a story there. And here's another -- see that tiny baby in my lap about halfway down the entry? His name is Jason. He's 33 now. He arrives in Atlanta tonight. I haven't seen him for too long -- so I'm going to be a bit scarce once he arrives, but I'll be back. I wanted you to have this story, in the meantime. Don't forget me.

And don't forget to tell your stories -- how many times have you heard me say this at schools, conferences, etc? It's my broken record -- we are Pomegranates: So Many Stories Inside Each Fruit.

We Are Pomegranates

2007-12-10T09:33:00.000-05:00

This... is a pomegranate. When I was a kid living in Hawaii -- my dad was an Air Force pilot stationed at Pearl Harbor -- a pomegranate tree grew in the yard next door to our house in Foster Village. Its fruit draped on leafy branches across the fence into our yard, and I longed for those pomegranates. My mother said they didn't belong to us. I asked her if I could have the ones that fell on the ground on our side of the fence, and she gave me permission to take those, as long as I didn't pick any from the tree. I didn't know then that the ones that fell were the sweetest, the most ripe.

I languished in the yard some days, with a book (is that possible?), sitting on the moss that grew under the banana tree, waiting for those pomegranates to fall. They were exotic, and full of mystery. We had moved from Mobile, Alabama (where I was born) to Hawaii when I was five -- now I was eight -- and I had never seen fruit like this in Alabama. I remember my surprise the first time my mother broke one open for me -- all those soft seeds, like round red pearls! All that sweet goodness that dribbled down my chin, my neck, and under my shirt as I took a bite. I loved the texture of a pomegranate, its shape, its flavor, its smell. It was full of possibilities, like we are, like our stories are, falling ripe from a tree after much hard work... our day-to-day lives that we chronicle for ourselves and one another.

I've been thinking about possibilities lately. I've been thinking about those pomegranates. I've been thinking about what I've learned as I've blogged this book tour and my travel to schools and conferences in 2007, as we've launched THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS into the world. And I've made some decisions.

We're coming to the end of the year and certainly we're at the end of the ALL-STARS book tour; it's time to change things up a bit. I want to wrap up the year's traveling stories for you, particularly I want to show you the good work we did at the writing residency at Canterbury Woods Elementary School in Fairfax, Virginia in November. Soon, I promise.

I want to look back at the year. I hope to write about traveling, writing, making a living in the arts as a self-employed person, and I'll write about cooking, eating, gardening, family, and friends. The usual.

And I'm going to bring this blog to an end as I do that, probably at the New Year in January. I invited you on a journey -- the book tour -- and that journey is over. But I'm not leaving you, oh no. You can't get rid of me that easily.

This blog will stay live, right here online, although I have no plans to post to it after January. I'm creating a new blog which you will be able to link to easily right here on this page -- I'll let you know when it's time. It's called One Pomegranate. Yep. One Pomegranate. "So many stories inside each fruit," that's my description. Each fruit being each one of us.

And I am the Pomegranate Queen. Hey -- it's my blog! I get to be Queen. I am "One Pomegranate." And so are you. You'll see.

One Pomegranate won't be that much different from this blog, but then, it will be. I'll travel next year, but not nearly the way I did this year. I'll be home more in 2008 than I've been home in the past seven years. I've planned it that way. Finally! And I have plans.

In One Pomegranate, I'm going to chronicle writing the next book. Books. You're going to hear a lot about the Sixties, among other things, since I'm going to be researching and writing about the Sixties, and I'm going to ask you what you think. I'm going to ask you about... well, lots of things. I'm going to find my voice, my way, on a blog I create myself with the intention of making connections. With you, with the world, with myself, with story.

In 2008, I'm going to hang with family. Garden. Cook. Be a friend. Climb Stone Mountain. Eat well. Sleep well. Get healthy. Write well... I hope. Research. Teach. Write. Write. And write some more. I'm a writer who misses writing. And I've learned, as I've blogged this year, that we can use blogs as a way to get to know one another and ourselves. I want to experiment. Be juicy. Tell stories. Online and on paper.

I hope you'll stick around and be juicy with me. So many stories in every fruit. What are yours? Do they resonate with mine? In all the travel I've done since 2001, I can tell you that I resonate to your stories -- we are much more alike than we are different.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Rhodes has said, "Story is the primary vehicle human beings use to structure knowledge and experience." Story. Not only the stories we read in books or hear in songs or watch in movies. Story -- guess-what-happened-to-me-today story. It's what we blog about every day, we human beings. What thrills us, delights us, angers us, saddens us, scares us, informs us, changes us... story. It's the air we breathe.

I love what soldier/author/teacher/minister Frederick Buechner has said about story -- and I believe he was talking about the very thing we do with blogs and journals and phone calls and visits and "guess what happened to me today!" Here's a bit of what he says:

"My story is important not because it is mine. . . but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is yours. Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track . . . of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way because it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity . . . that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally . . . to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but spiritually. I not only have my secrets, I am my secrets. And you are yours. Our secrets are human secrets, and our trusting each other enough to share them with each other has much to do with the secret of what it means to be human."

I hope you'll hang out with me here through December, and migrate with me for a new adventure at One Pomegranate. It will be the next leg of our journey -- Our Story -- together.

Press, We Got Press

2007-12-07T07:32:00.000-05:00

While I'm recovering from this travel exhaustion/flu/whatever it is, I'm passing on a couple of links for you. The first is from the The Student Printz, the campus newspaper of the University of Southern Mississippi, and it tells you more about the event I just came from, only in much more erudite terms. Great newspaper. Here's the article.

The second is a review of ALL-STARS by Donald Harrison for the San Diego Jewish World News. (Their motto: "There's a Jewish Story Everywhere.") I'm thrilled with this review - it's thorough and thoughtful and... different. Here's a bit of it:
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SAN DIEGO—When Jewish families speak reverently about the great Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax, typically the story told is about the time that he declined to pitch one particular World Series game because it fell on Yom Kippur. The story reinforced to us as children the point that there are some things more important than the routines in our day-to-day lives, and even more important than our Little League teams.

In this book for young readers, Koufax again serves as an example, but his observance of Jewish ritual has nothing to do with it. Twelve-year-old House Jackson broke his elbow in an unfortunate collision with would-be ballerina Frances Schotz, a major misfortune for the Aurora County All Stars, which perennially lack sufficient players to sustain a full season. Benched, House reads and re-reads a story about a time in Koufax’s career when the Dodger great pitched an important game notwithstanding the fact that he was in terrible pain.

Koufax is only one of the baseball role models in this book; another, similarly important to the resolution of the plot, is Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play in the majors. In Aurora County, Mississippi, local folks pointed to Robinson and regretfully told the story of the great-grandfather of Frances Schotz—the still living, still athletic, Parting ‘Pip’ Schotz.
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You can find the entire review here. I will say, too, that I knew Koufax refused to pitch the first game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. As a writer juggling lots of balls with ALL-STARS (pun intended!), I had to choose what to put in, what to leave out, and I chose to focus on who Koufax was by showing his determination to be the best he could be and to do right by his team, even in the midst of an elbow that turned black, and fingers that were tinged with gangrene -- he never complained, he never explained. He did his job. He retired before he was 30 -- his arm was worn out. He was a stellar ballplayer; he remains a stellar human being. I modeled my character House after Koufax. See if they don't have the same strong, steady, silence, the same dedication to a cause, the same honor and dignity. Koufax is House's hero. My hero, too.

Reviews are so subjective, don't you think? I always say that when a story leaves my hands, it no longer belongs to me. It belongs to the person who reads it, and each reader brings his or her own sensibilities -- her own prejudices, too -- to a book. "It's not for me," is a refrain that a good friend of mine uses when a book is being touted as excellent by so many people, but he just can't see why -- he didn't like it. "It's not for me."

And that's true: Every book is not for every reader. We have such different tastes. But I think there IS a way for readers to read like writers, to learn to appreciate a story for how it is told.

For instance, ALL-STARS is told in the tradition of the Grand Southern Storyteller. It spins out and reels you in. It might even seem meandering or leisurely at points, as one reviewer has pointed out, but then, the writer knows what she is doing, all is purposeful -- she is honoring that southern storytelling tradition, and she is also honoring the serial novel tradition (talk about meandering!) of cliffhanger endings, great suspense, multiple sub-plots, edge-of-the-seat conclusions, a cast of characters to rival ULYSSES, mysteries revealed, secrets kept, betrayals turned to advantage, and... dead guys.

It's a huge undertaking with so many balls in the air to be juggled well, so many ends to tie up (or leave hanging), and so much emotion to be mined -- the Victorian serial novel is not all that different from the Southern gothic! It was grand fun and a great challenge to try my hand at this Southern Victorian Serial Novel Form (as I began calling it) and bring it to young readers.

As a reader, I love to find a story that takes a traditional structure and bends it, shapes it, augments it, gives it a personal stamp. I settle in for the ride, knowing I'm in good hands. Reading like a writer: It's an important skill to master, especially if one is reviewing. "What was she trying to do here? How well did she do it?"

Reading for sheer pleasure is yet another skill. We were talking about this in our NCTE workshop last month in NYC -- reading like a writer, reading for pleasure -- can they be one and the same? How do we read and appreciate what goes into a story well told? Given that we are such different people, how and what do we appreciate, and how does that appreciation carry over into our own writing?

I was delighted to read Donald Harrison's review in the San Diego Jewish World, in part because he had discovered something new to write about, something other reviewers hadn't touched on. There are so many layers to a novel; it's a thrill to see them uncovered by readers. Thanks, Donald Harrison, for this appreciative -- and very different! -- review.

Back to bed for me. Hack hack. Sniff sniff. It has turned cold in Atlanta. We keep a crackling fire going all day. I can sit in front of it for a morning, an afternoon, mesmerized by the flames and the warmth, working away on my laptop from time to time, but not today. Today I must rest this head on a pillow. More dreaming.

A Researcher at Heart

2007-12-06T12:09:00.000-05:00

So we did great work together at USM -- what a wonderful day. In the morning, 350 students from surrounding areas: Gulfport, Macomb, Miselle, Hattiesburg, and more. How gratifying to see the response to this first invitation from the de Grummond Collection folks and the University to the public schools to come meet an author.

Students ranged from third through seventh grade. Each group had read an age-appropriate Deborah Wiles book. They knew their characters! They knew the stories. And I was so pleased to make their acquaintance. Thank you, teachers, for preparing your students, and thank you, students, for your glowing presence!

We had a good hour together, after which (and after a fun lunchtime full of good food), I spent two hours in the McCain Library and Archive, reading through letters, diaries, notes, memos, of Freedom Summer workers in 1964 Hattiesburg and Holly Springs. I read through ledger books and letters, recipes and photographs... I was totally blown over to hold these original items in my hands. I have never done official research in a primary source archive, so I depended on archivists Diane Ross and Danielle Bishop to see me through. And they did -- what knowledgeable, friendly, helpful folks.

My cart was just inside the door when I arrived at the Cleanth Brooks Reading Room just outside the archives. I surrendered my coat and bags and took my laptop and notebook and a pen to the table I'd selected by the windows. Here's the sign that was on my cart. It's official: I'm an official researcher.

Here's Diane with my research, all together on a cart, in boxes, pulled from the archive, and waiting for me to sit down, one box at a time, and go through these treasures.

Primary sources! If I had had access to this sort of archive as a kid in school trying to learn about primary and secondary sources, I would have "gotten it" immediately. What a great field trip this would be for kids who are learning about history and how we gather it, catalog it, care for it. It's amazing to sit down with one of these boxes, open it, pull out Folder 1, and see, right in front of you, the actual handout that was given to students on campuses across the country about the Freedom Summer Initiative, the flyer that brought students to meetings on campus, that lead them to sign up for training, and to be sent to Mississippi to work for the summer. In my book FREEDOM SUMMER, I write about 1964 Mississippi, about the year the pool was closed so it wouldn't be integrated after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. I write about my memories. Now I have more stories of 1964 to share as I write the first book in a trilogy of novels about the 1960s for young readers.

Here's Danielle, patiently watching me put one box at a time back so I can take another to my table.

I barely got started on this research -- I will be back. My Sixties Trilogy will be so much richer for my having spent time with real stories of real people doing real work in 1960s Mississippi.

I skipped dinner in favor of research (I was always this way) and had to rush to be at the auditorium in time to give my speech to the honors forum.

Here are David Davies, Dean of the Honors College at USM and Ellen Ruffin, Curator of the de Grummond Collection, and moi in the middle. We are celebrating after my speech -- a successful first collaboration between the Honors College and the de Grummond Collection, and the first time a children's book author has spoken at the honors forum. I was honored to be asked and delighted to be there. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who made this day possible.

As readers know, I tend to leave things in my wake on my travels. I've been mostly on the road since September 6. But now -- I'm home. Still, I left my phone charger in the hotel room in Hattiesburg. It's the last thing I'll leave somewhere this year, as my travels are over. Over! The tour time is officially over, and I can't believe I managed to chronicle it. I can't believe I actually did all the things I did, met all the wonderful people I met, gained all the weight I gained, and learned all the things I learned -- I'll need to process for a while. Folks on the road took great good care of me -- I can scroll down the pages of this blog and remember them all, all those stories...

I woke up yesterday in Hattiesburg, however, with a scratchy, growly voice, and aches all over. Big aches. I'm still coughing. I'm wondering if my body held on for Dec. 5, when it knew I would be Done. I got up and drove to New Orleans yesterday. Hugged Coleen goodbye. She was dealing with the delivery of a ten-foot Christmas tree AND she was heating me soup! I took a taxi to the airport. Flew home to Atlanta. And there was Jim. There was my husband. Smiling. Hugging me home. It was perfect.

I'm submerging for a few days. Sleeeeeeeeep, Deb. It's okay. Your work out there is done. It was good work. And now is the time for dreaming.

Compassion, Kindness, Willingness

2007-12-03T12:56:00.000-05:00

This is my daughter Hannah, working in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans in March 2006. I could show you photos from each trip she's made, photos she has taken on the same spot to show perspective, but instead I'll just mention that Louisiana and Mississippi still need help. Driving north from New Orleans to Hattiesburg, Mississippi yesterday, I saw the FEMA trailers and the blue tarps that I saw in July, that I saw a year-and-a-half ago, and the view from the highway hasn't changed all that much. There are still abandoned homes and apartment complexes whose window-eyes gaze back at me, open and empty. Parking lots are empty. The roller-coaster at Six Flags lists toward the highway and looks like a Tinkertoy left out in the rain. If you've been following this blog, you'll remember Billy Sothern's reading of DOWN IN NEW ORLEANS, on Thacker Mountain Radio from Oxford, Mississippi. I highly recommend his book for a look at what happened in New Orleans in 2005.

New Orleans is a city of such visual -- and visceral -- opposites. Coleen and I had dinner at Galatoires on Sunday afternoon, at her insistence. It was as magnificent as she crowed it would be. "Real New Orleans people eat here," she said, and true enough, I saw lots of Old New Orleans as the restaurant filled up with folks with means, coming to dinner.

Then I drove out of town the next morning, passing these scenes off Esplanade, just outside the French Quarter.

When I arrived in New Orleans on Saturday evening, the sun was setting and we drove past the Superdome.... such memories it brought back, such stories are held now, in that place, stories that have nothing to do with football games. If you haven't seen the Spike Lee documentary about Katrina and New Orleans, do rent it and watch it. There are still so many stories to be told.
Coleen and I were at the main post office on Monday morning, where there is a huge display of photographs and write-ups, as Comfort would call them, of those lost in Katrina. These tributes were hand-written or typed -- I could have stood there all day and read them. Wish I'd had my camera with me -- it was a work of art, this wall of tributes.

I did stop at the St. Louis Cemetery (#3) yesterday, on my way out of town, to pay a tribute of my own.

I'm working in Mississippi today, all day long, with kids, teachers, parents, friends. Folks in Mississippi never miss an opportunity to tell me that they were hit just as hard by Katrina, even though they don't always get the same press. It's true, they were. Driving up highway 59 into Mississippi -- well away from the coast -- it still amazes me to see the forest on either side of the highway stripped of its leaves. Sticks -- that's what's left of the trees. They are snapped in half and stand there, at attention, like a ragged popsicle-stick forest, on either side of the interstate.

I know we're making progress in Katrina-ravaged places. It still seems like it's not enough. Conversely (those opposites), I am so touched by the countless stories I've heard about people's generosity... their kindness, compassion, and willingness to help.

So I'm back in Mississippi, back in the deep south, the land of beautiful and terrible contradictions. The good folks at the University of Southern Mississippi have invited me here to tell my stories. Ellen Ruffin (who became my Cousin Ellen as we worked together at the Mississippi Library Convention last year, as we worked together.... well, lots of times)... Cousin Ellen is the curator of the Lena Y. de Grummond Children's Literature Collection here at USM. I'm excited to say that my papers will soon be housed here -- all those drafts of RUBY LAVENDER, EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS, THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS, FREEDOM SUMMER, ONE WIDE SKY and more... correspondence with editors, rough drafts of maps and other materials I used to create the books -- it's an honor to know that I'll be in such good company --

Think Ezra Jack Keats, H.A and Margret Rey (Curious George!), and Kate Greenaway, just for starters. I have known about and loved this collection for many years -- my love affair started long before I had a book published. I knew there were treasures here.

I've also known for years about the civil-rights-movement treasures carefully collected and stored at the McCain Library at USM. I've got two hours of research time scheduled here this afternoon -- be still my heart! Oral histories, photographs, artifacts... this is a perfect way to end my touring days this year and jump-start the writing of the Sixties trilogy, which has been waiting for me patiently, for months.

Or maybe the perfect ending to those touring days is the speech I give tonight to the Honors Forum and anyone else who cares to attend. I'm going to talk about being from the deep south and what that means to me in all its conflicting glory.

I'm going to talk about my young adulthood and what a shocker of a swamp I found myself in at 18, right here in these Mississippi stomping grounds, when I discovered I was about to become a young mother in the deep south -- it was 1971 and becoming a young mother without being a married woman was a disgrace. Boy did I feel it.

But -- just like those opposites that Uncle Edisto talks about in LITTLE BIRD -- there was beauty in that time as well. I'm going to talk about my journey from Jones County Junior College in nearby Ellisville, Mississippi, how I had to by-pass college at Southern when I would have dearly loved to have been able to get an education there -- or anywhere -- and how I ultimately found ways to care for myself... and my family.

People helped me. Compassion, Kindness, Willingness -- they are powerful forces for change. Powerful forces for good.

Sunday Morning in New Orleans

2007-12-02T08:05:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting at Community Coffee in a comfortable, overstuffed chair with a non-fat latte, on the corner of St. Philip and Royal, in the French Quarter. I'm staying with Coleen Salley, Friend Exemplary and Storyteller Extraordinaire. We were supposed to start an oral history of Coleen's life. We'll do some of that.

But first we've got to make some headway on these umpteen boxes of Christmas decorations.

Coleen's home is on the French Quarter House Tour this Christmas. She's going to have seven trees up for folks to peruse. Seven!

The courtyard below is where folks have gathered whenever ALA or IRA is in New Orleans. Coleen hosts a party. Several parties. This is her "back yard" or patio... courtyard.

Last night we went to Irene's for supper. "Honey, this is Queen Coleen," announced Coleen when she called to see if we could have a table for two. "Come now? That's great! We'll be right over." We had a two-and-a-half-hour dinner at Irene's, where the entire staff made over Coleen... and who wouldn't? She's a New Orleans Goddess in every way.

We're having fun. It's gorgeous here. Lots to tell you about New Orleans, about the week at Canterbury Woods -- I'll post photos soon -- and about the trip to Hattiesburg, Mississippi tomorrow, where I'll be speaking at the University of Southern Mississippi Honors Forum on Tuesday evening.

But first -- I've got some Christmas trees to decorate.

Edited to add some photos and the breaking news below.

We climbed into Coleen's Honda and got lost trying to find Ralph's, a nursery near the river and the railroad tracks. Coleen flagged down this bicyclist. "Honey, can you tell us where to find Ralph's Nursery?" The bicyclist frowned and said, "You mean Harold's?" "YES, Honey, that's it!" The man waved -- "Follow me!"... and we did.

The friendly folks at Ralph's aka Harold's gave us the greens we needed to decorate the creches. This is the stuff of oral history, whether we're gathering it seriously or not. We're certainly living it. Back to work!

Inhaling Politics & Prose

2007-11-29T08:59:00.001-05:00

Here's a quick shout-out to Rees, who came to visit me at Politics and Prose yesterday afternoon. Rees is a discerning 10-year-old reader who peppered me with questions about ALL-STARS and EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS. He was a pleasure to talk with -- he even found an adult friend upstairs, a teacher friend, and brought him downstairs to meet me. Thanks, Rees, for a fabulous conversation, and thanks to Rees's mother, Heidi, who works at P&P. It was so good to see Jewell Stoddard and Dara La Porte again, along with Gussie Lewis, whom I had never met, and who arranged the stock signing yesterday afternoon.

After school, I took the Metro from Dunn Loring (the end of the orange line) to Metro Center, changed trains and took the red line to Van Ness, and walked the eight blocks north to Politics & Prose. Walking in to that store took me back to my years in D.C. -- nostalgic R Us today. I took a deep breath as stood there at the top of the stairs that lead to the children's department and some of my hero friends. I remember the days when Jewell owned The Cheshire Cat in D.C. -- what a fabulous independent children's bookstore was Cheshire Cat. Jewell and the children's department at Politics & Prose give me hope for children's books and readers.

Of course I didn't take a single photograph. We sat around the big table downstairs swapping stories and laughing and basking in one another's company. Who thinks to take a picture at a time like that? Oh, well.

Tami Lewis Brown and Louise Simone stopped by -- they are writers and librarians at Sheridan School nearby and also fellow Vermont College graduates -- it was so good to see them! Kathie Meizner and I went to supper later and Kathie gave me a ride back to my hotel in Fairfax -- thanks so much, Kathie, for the ride in the night, for good conversation, and a long catch-up.

I'm off to work now in fifth grade. I have lots to tell you about Canterbury Woods Elementary School, teachers and students. Think collaboration, coaching, mentoring, laughing, working hard... lots of good work in the world is going on right here. More from the other end of this good day.

Must the Novelist Crusade?

2007-11-28T07:24:00.000-05:00

I'm off to Canterbury Woods for day two of a four-day residency. More on this wonderful school soon. I want to leave you today with some thoughts from Eudora Welty's essay "Must the Novelist Crusade?"

I re-read it this morning, as I'm working with some folks at Georgia State University on wrapping up an interview I did with the Eudora Welty Society about how I came to know and love Eudora Welty's work and how I eventually named a character in THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS after her. The interview will appear in the next Eudora Welty Newsletter -- I'll let you know about it when it appears.

But in the meantime, I received a query from Dr. Pearl McHaney about one of my answers-to-hard-questions:

"Is the essay you mention reading and using as a model during the discussion of civil rights and Freedom Summer the essay 'Must the Novelist Crusade?'"

Yes, it is, Dr. McHaney.

The entire essay can be found here. It's good for me to read it again as I embark on a novel that takes place in 1962. I don't want to crusade. I want to tell a good story. Here are a couple of plum bits for me to remember:

"Writing fiction is an interior affair. Novels and stories always will be put down little by little out of personal feeling and personal beliefs arrived at alone and at firsthand over a period of time as time is needed. To go outside and beat the drum is only to interrupt, interrupt, and so finally to forget and to lose. Fiction has, and must keep, a private address. For life is lived in a private place; where it means anything is inside the mind and heart. Fiction has always shown life where it is lived, and good fiction, or so I have faith, will continue to do this."

And one more passage I love:

"Indeed, great fiction shows us not how to conduct our behavior but how to feel. Eventually, it may show us how to face our feelings and face our actions and to have new inklings about what they mean. A good novel of any year can initiate us into our own new experience."

Sometimes a Shining Moment

2007-11-27T06:54:00.000-05:00

In a former life, I probably wanted to be a food photographer. Not. But I do seem to take lots of food photos for this blog. This is yesterday's lunch (pumpkin muffins by Hannah). "Dinner" is what we call it in the South, as we eat our big meal in the middle of the day when I'm home.

We often eat in this cozy, companionable spot in front of the fire.

For the next four days, I'll eat lunch at Canterbury Woods Elementary School, where I'm working, in Fairfax, Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C. I'm teaching personal narrative writing with 5th graders at Canterbury Woods and I want to share some thoughts on this process with you all during the week.

I'm signing stock at Politics & Prose in D.C. on Wednesday at 4pm. If you're in the neighborhood, please come by and see me. Anybody want to go to dinner afterward? Let me know. D.C. is my beloved old stomping grounds. Any Children's Book Guild readers out there?

I had such a mellow Thanksgiving it was hard to leave home yesterday. I'm out for 8 days, with one overnight at home. I'll go from here to New Orleans, where I'm going to be starting an oral history project with Coleen Salley. Then I toodle up to Hattiesburg, Missisippi, where I'm going to visit with elementary school students and give an address on December 4 to the University of Southern Mississippi Honors Forum. Here's the title of my talk: "From Mississippi to Mississippi: A Love Story in Three Violent, Compassionate Acts including The Beatles, the Vietnam War, and Your Personal History."

I've been writing this speech for over 30 years. I'll tell you more about that soon.

I'm feeling a bit flattened by this fall's schedule with a new book out there and all the traveling I do anyway in addition to the tour I've just finished. But you know how it is. You stand up in front of that classroom of students or that group of teachers or that gaggle of neighborhood kids, and you know that there is sometimes a shining moment, even in the midst of your flattened feelings or a difficult day, season, life, and you watch for it, for that moment. You are energized by it.

Sometimes you realize you are living it, that shining moment, right this minute. And especially, when you look back with some perspective, you realize that life is one shining moment after another, even in the midst of the challenges you face.

Maybe that's why I take so many pictures of food. I'm looking at this meal I'm about to eat, this meal that two (or four) hands have prepared so lovingly -- it's a shining moment. Something like that.

I have to go look in the mirror now and apply make up. This will not be a shining moment. Remind me to tell you about getting started with Weight Watchers on Saturday -- definitely not a shining moment on that scale. But I'm serious about this, and soon there WILL be shining moments to report. We're going to do these shining weigh-in moments together, too -- right? RIGHT? hello?

Off to school I go. Have a good week, everybody... the year is almost over! And hang in there, Hannah -- only two more weeks and the semester is DONE.

Rain in Dry Atlanta

2007-11-22T08:46:00.000-05:00

We woke up to rain this morning. It's still raining. O Happy Day. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I am grateful for you. Thank goodness for friends, for family, for books, for good food, for shelter... for rain.

Thanksgiving Eulogy for Jasper

2007-11-22T00:02:00.000-05:00

Jasper was part of the Capriola family for 16 years. He died on Sunday. Diane Capriola, who owns Little Shop of Stories, our children's independent bookstore in Decatur, Georgia, asked me if Comfort Snowberger might write a Life Notice for Jasper in the way she writes her Life Notices in EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS. I was honored to be asked, and so was Comfort. Here is Jasper's Life Notice on Thanksgiving Day, shared with permission from Diane. The family will hold a memorial service today. Comfort would be proud. I send my love. Here's to all good dogs, everywhere.

We Come to Celebrate Jasper Capriola:
A Life Well Lived, A Dog Well Loved

Life Notice by Comfort Snowberger:
Explorer, Recipe Tester, and Funeral Reporter

November 22, 2007

It’s Thanksgiving Day, the day that we give thanks for all our blessings. But, as Uncle Edisto tells us, you can’t have blessings without sorrows, as that is the way of life. This Thanksgiving there is sorrow mixed in with the blessings – just imagine the sadness all over Decatur, Georgia this week as the Capriola family said goodbye to their beloved dog Jasper, a beautiful, white, furry mutt from the Atlanta Humane Society who, as a puppy less than eight weeks old, wagged his tale and blinked his big brown eyes and inspired Diane to say, “That’s the puppy that’s going home with us today!”

So Diane and Rich brought Jasper home with them in 1991. He was so little, he scrunched himself under the driver’s seat all the way home, and who could blame him? He was a tiny puppy who had charmed his new owners but now what? Would they be the right owners for him? He cried all night long at Diane and Rich’s house because he wasn’t sure, because he was scared, and because he was still a baby. Diane kept saying, “It’s OK, Jasper. I’m right here.” And that’s all it took. That and the pasta. Jasper loved pasta. Sauce or no sauce, it didn’t matter. Jasper loved pasta.

I asked Diane about Jasper, as I am an expert on dogs, having had the most wonderful dog of all time, Dismay, Funeral Dog Extraordinaire, for seven of my ten years on the planet. Here’s what Diane told me.

When Jasper first came home, there were no kids at the house – this was before Nick, Will, and Jennifer were born. Nick, Will, and Jennifer did not come from the Atlanta Humane Society, but they were just like real brothers and a sister to Jasper, it’s just that Jasper was the oldest. When he came home from the Humane Society, he was so small he fit inside a men’s size ten shoe. Nick, Will and Jennifer were never that small. Can you imagine a baby fitting into a man’s shoe? Jasper did.

But he grew fast. And when Nick, Will, and Jennifer came along, Jasper was overjoyed. Siblings! Kids who dropped food on the floor! Suddenly there were lots of people to protect and lots of feet to lick. Lots of loving to do. Jasper loved his family so much that he would practically bend in half when they came home at the end of the day. He was so glad to see them that he wiggled himself into noodles of happiness. Have you ever seen a dog do this? It’s the most comical, endearing thing. To think that we, human beings, could make dogs so happy.

Jasper loved to go to the park, to eat raw chicken with his dog friends, to "beat up" innocent unsuspecting puppies, to run on the beach, and to play with his best friend Buddy, a golden-lab mix who left this world a few years back. Jasper was an all-around Good Dog, a noble dog, a wonder dog, a silly dog, like all good dogs are. He even had a special talent: he could catch ice cubes that Rich spit to him. Ha!

A few years back Jasper was diagnosed with a cancer of a nasty sort- the tumor was growing on his rear end and was apparently inoperable. He smelled bad. Very bad. Almost all the time. But the Capriolas didn’t care (love is like that). They wanted Jasper to live forever and they took him to Dr. Mike Smith of Emory Animal Hospital in Decatur, Georgia – the most wonderful vet in the whole wide world. Dr. Mike suggested to Diane and Rich that he try to remove the tumor anyway. Diane and Rich said yes, and that decision gave them almost one more year with Jasper. He battled ferociously to live and for a while he was “The Dog Who Lived.” Last Sunday he died at the old dog age of 16, surrounded by his family.

But he will always live in the hearts of those who loved him. That’s the way it is with dogs and people, you know? I had to learn this the hard way when I lost my dog, Dismay. All I have to do is think of his bravery, his loyalty, his smiling puppy face (even when he got older he had that face), and he lives again, just like Jasper lives on. And now Jasper no longer suffers. Or smells. Poor Jasper. But what a hero he was. Is. And heroic is the Capriola family for taking such good care of such a good dog and for loving him back as much as he loved them.

Isn’t love a wonderful thing? Aren’t dogs the most faithful and loving creatures? Aren’t we lucky to know them? And aren’t we lucky to have families and friends to surround us in sad times and happy times… at all times. Thank goodness for families. For friends. For each other. Let’s all hug one another now and tell Good Dog stories.

Hangin' at NCTE

2007-11-20T14:01:00.000-05:00

I'm going to get to NCTE -- what a time, what a time. This is such a rich convention -- so much to learn. Before I got started at NCTE, however, I stopped at Books of Wonder, a fabulous children's book store in Manhattan, to sign stock. I've been wanting to visit for years, and here was my chance. I found out that the buyer, Patty Ocfemia, is also a singer/songwriter! I'm listening to her CD, Heaven's Best Guest, as I type this entry.

"Is it folk?" I asked Patty when she gifted me with the CD. "Aggressive folk," she said. Yes, it is. Roseanne Cash is quoted as saying, "Patty has a voice that is smoky, urgent, and real, and a songwriting sensibility that is unique." Yes.

After I signed stock, I ate a cupcake at The Cupcake Cafe in Books of Wonder and savored once again M.T. Anderson's STRANGE MR. SATIE, one of my favorite picture books of the last few years. I bought the book and then (if you've read the blog entries of the book tour, you won't be surprised), I left the book at Blossom, where my editor, Kate Harrison, and I had dinner on Friday night. Kate says she has located it and will send it to me. Thanks, Kate.

Here we are on the convention floor the next morning, me wearing my Mrs. Frizzle glasses -- got 'em in Iowa City earlier this month.

I finally got to meet up again with Alison Morris, children's buyer at Wellesley Booksmith, and good writer all-around. She wrote an introduction for me at BEA two years ago when LITTLE BIRD won the E.B. White Read-Aloud Award and I've been wanting to catch up with her ever-since, to thank her and to ask her for that introduction -- I collect good writing. Recipes, obituaries, essays, directions, book reviews, movie reviews (I love Roger Ebert), introductions -- there is an art to writing well, and I know when I'm in the presence of a Good Writer. Alison also writes ShelfTalker: A Children's Bookseller's Blog at Publisher's Weekly online. Same Good Writer, Same Good Writing.

Here's a cousin of mine I haven't seen for too many years, I'm embarrassed to say. Here's Jessica Weleski, all grown up and an English Teacher! It was so good to see her. We need a catch up. I hope we get one soon --

And one more group shot (just pretend I'm not in all of these; believe me, I don't want to post this many photos of myself) with teachers and writers -- that's Jo Knowles on the left (front), whose new (and first!) book is here -- LESSONS FROM A DEAD GIRL -- Yay! -- And Cindy Faughnan, fellow Vermont College alum and friend.

It was such a love fest on the floor... hmmm... I guess I'll share these photos, too -- here are heroes -- English teachers. I'd love to have their names, as we were having way too much fun to write them down, but aren't their faces -- their visages -- just fantastic? You can tell they are great teachers:

and one more:

This is not an English teacher. Big points if you know who the goateed fellow is. The redhead is his son. Bigger points if you know HIS name! Fun to see them again.

This (below) is also not an English teacher, it's Vivian Vande Velde, whose books I have enjoyed for years.

Vivian has lots of NCTE photos up at her site already.

So let me show you our panel for "Reading Like a Writer," the NCTE session I was part of. Here are Claudia Sharpe (left) and Sarah Ellis... was I in the presence of greatness or what?

I'm not surprised that we had a packed room with people sitting on the floor, etc., as these two women have quite the following. I must admit, too, that I felt flustered in their presence, and in the presence of All Those Fabulous English Teachers as I stood up to do my part... it might have been partly due to the fact that my Harcourt signing on the convention floor bumped up against our session at the Marriott Marquis, and I was literally running in the door as our session began. Couldn't find my notes. What to do? Punt. It was okay. I found the good chair palunka, the smiles and nods, and I was soothed as I spoke. What I wouldn't give, though, to spend time in each of those teachers' classrooms, watching them work. Oh, please, let me watch them work some day. I will bring my notebook! I will take voluminous notes! I will learn so much!

What we talked about in our session was helping young writers take apart a text (in addition to enjoying it) and discover how a writer writes -- what tools does she employ to tell a good story? How can we use those tools to improve our own work? That's what I have always done -- it's how I learned to write. I took apart the work of those writers I admired, and I modeled my own writing after what I admired, as I found my own voice and my own way. I do this still, today.
So that was some of Saturday. On Sunday morning, Jim and I found our way to the Vedanta Center of New York, and then to MOMA to see the Alexander Calder exhibit. Calder is one of my heroes. Jim and I had tickets to see Mulgrew Miller (one of Jim's heroes) at Lincoln Center on Friday night -- I was falling asleep on my feet by then but it was so worth it. What a genius is Mulgrew! What a band!

I'm going to find my way to a nap this afternoon. The cats have already settled around me. I didn't even tell you about the night walking tour of Brooklyn on Sunday night and... and... and... so much was packed into these few days. But time to turn forward. It's Thanksgiving week. I'm writing a eulogy this week for a friend's beloved dog, to be delivered at Thanksgiving... isn't that the most amazing thing? I'm writing it in the voice of Comfort Snowberger -- that's even more amazing. I'm honored to be asked to do this. More about this later, if friend Diane will allow me to share it with you.

My two youngest children, Hannah and Zach, both in their twenties, live here in Atlanta. They have declared their intention to make Thanksgiving dinner this year. More power to 'em! Let the mess, the mayhem, and the fun begin. As soon as I'm done with my nap.

Heading for NYC

2007-11-16T04:44:00.000-05:00

This is not my work in progress. It's a page from Walt Whitman's LEAVES OF GRASS. I've been talking about LEAVES OF GRASS in schools this fall, as it's a big part of THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS. I've been extolling the virtures of revision. Now it's time to mush around in getting that first draft down -- how do we figure out what makes writing good? I'm off to NCTE to share some thoughts, and to be educated.

I'm enjoying my coffee, the quiet, and the cats early this morning. I'm almost packed. New York in November -- the tree won't be ready in Rockefeller Plaza, but I'm going to start celebrating the holidays -- Thanksgiving, anyway. It's time to be among my peeps at The National Council of Teachers of English annual convention.

I'm looking forward to some quality time with writer, editor, and teacher friends, looking forward to the conversations, the ideas, the inspirations. I love NCTE. It's where you'll find some of the most dedicated, passionate teachers from across the country who come together to share what they're discovering, and to learn what they want to know. They return to their classrooms recharged, and they send me back to the page ready to write. What a great kickoff for lucky me, as I plunge headlong into the new novel, but not before I spend one more week in schools, teaching personal narrative writing, in the D.C. area right after Thanksgiving. NCTE is just what I need right now.

I'll be caught in a whirlwind of various dinners and lunches and breakfasts and coffees -- ha! another forty pounds! (not!) -- but it's all good, all good work, and here's where we can see one another for sure:

Friday, Nov. 16 (today):

4pm: I'll be signing stock at Books of Wonder, 18 W. 18th St. New York, NY. This isn't an official signing, it's really an opportunity to meet the fine folks at Books of Wonder, and I'm really looking forward to this. If you wander past the store, stop in and say hey!

Saturday, Nov. 17:

9:15 - 10:15am -- I'm signing at the Harcourt Booth (#336) at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, 655 West 34th Street (at 11th Avenue) Hall C, Level 1.

11:00am - 12:15 -- Speaking on program: "Learning to Read Like a Writer" at the Marriott Marquis Times Square, Olmstead Room, 2nd Floor. We're going to be talking about the teaching of writing in the elementary through high school classroom. I'm speaking with the wonderful Sarah Ellis, the fabulous Claudia Sharpe, and working again with Nancy Roser and Miriam Martinez from the University of Texas -- these women are phenomenal educators and great good friends -- do come bask in their presence, as will I. My segment of the program is entitled "Creating the Writing Toolbox."

Sunday, Nov. 18:

7:30 - 9:45am -- The Children's Literature Assembly Breakfast. Speaker is Allen Say, whose work I have admired for years -- can't wait to hear him speak. Can't wait to greet good friends. Can't wait for good coffee at that hour on a Sunday morning!

Jim and I are hoping for good jazz (we've got tickets to see Mulgrew Miller late tonight) and good weather and maybe a trip to Brooklyn. We've never been to Brooklyn and friends are saying we're missing out. So we shall see! I'll bring my camera. Stay tuned.

Happy Trails -- see you in NYC.

Catching up with Myself

2007-11-13T20:03:00.000-05:00

Home. It's time for soup and fall vegetables. I bought beets, squashes of all kinds, beans, potatoes, onions, celery, carrots, and eggplant at the Farmer's Market over the weekend. Here's today's lunch. It's a mixture of yellow and green split peas, brown and wild rice, carrots, celery, onion, and some marjoram, allspice, garlic, cracked pepper, and ginger. I made it up. Added a slice of Farmer's Market whole-grain bread with just-ground peanut butter, and an apple.

Here's my lunchtime view. It's November, but we're still eating outside -- the sunshine is warm. I'm thrilled with the few days home, even if they are filled with administrivia. Paperwork, mostly, and laundry and lots of slow moving. Sleeeeeping. In my own bed.

I'm pulling together the odds and ends that I have finished so far with the new novel, as I'll meet with my new editor, Kate Harrison, on Friday in NYC. We're about to plunge into this Sixties trilogy in a big way. I spent a good while yesterday putting together a montage of photographs from the Sixties that I want to share with Kate and Harcourt folks. I put the images in PowerPoint along with musical accompaniment by the Maria Schneider Orchestra, in particular the cut called "The Pretty Road" from her new cd, SKY BLUE. I decided against a traditional '60s song and went instead for something completely different and orchestral -- I like the effect. I *love* the Maria Schneider Orchestra.

I was influenced in my musical choice for this montage by the effects in a movie I saw over the weekend, AMERICAN GANGSTER. I usually stay far away from violent movies, but I'm watching all kinds of movies (and documentaries) right now about the 1960s, and I was particularly interested in watching Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe working together. This is an amazing movie, and I loved the musical treatment. See what you think of the way "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" is used in this movie to juxtapose one way of life against another -- amazing, that's what I thought.

I'll be writing (and asking questions) about the Sixties in this journal as I talk about the process of research and writing the new novel. Who has seen TALK TO ME, the new Don Cheadle movie (just out on DVD after a summer theatre release)? It's terrific. I lived in D.C. in the mid-1960s, when Petey Greene was a D.J. on WOL radio.

Before I go back to paperwork, I want to give a shout-out to the good folks in Iowa City who made the week with 5th and 6th graders possible. Thank you all so much, new friends, for everything -- every single thing. Here are a few last photos from last Friday, to wrap up that week. Did I mention that all the "20" tee-shirts stand for the 20th anniversary of this Iowa City Community Reads program:

Friday's schools were Lucas, Hoover, and Wood. These three characters from Lucas were doing their imitation of the lit candle swaying in the dark after the assembly -- ha! They're holding bookmarks. Thanks, guys!

This was a surprise bunch at Hoover -- writers from the Iowa chapter of SCBWI! They brought me treats and a warm welcome -- it was so good to meet them. Thank you for coming! Let's see if I get this right. From left: Linda Karwath, Patty Hinch, Connie Hecker, Katherine House, and Dori Butler.

Here are the Lucas kids -- what a banner! "Pretend my aunts are running for us," I said. "Come here and love my neck! I could just eat you up!"

And here are the Hoover kids -- what a big welcome. I forgot to take my camera out of my bag at Wood, but trust me, I was there! I got a bit frazzled by late Friday -- fifteen schools in five days, 18 schools altogether and so many wonderful memories --

Saying goodbye to Iowa City! Great, collaborating, inventive, curious, creative librarians with a terrific program. Thanks to Julie Larson and Sue, who kept us all organized, to Paula Brandt at the curriculum lab at the University of Iowa, to Hills Banks and the Iowa Schools, to Barb Stein who is a goddess, to Mark and Bob at The Brown Street Inn for taking good care of me, to the folks at Prairie Lights for welcoming me, to the Iowa City Public Library and Katherine Habley, and to all the teachers who prepared their students for this week, and to those students, those wonderful readers and writers, those wonderful smiles and embraces -- all that good energy. I won't forget you. You have enriched my life.

I caught an earlier (and direct) flight home from Cedar Rapids in time to see my daughter's Oglethorpe Singers concert (thanks so much, Barb Stein, for literally speeding me to the airport on Friday afternoon). I slipped into a seat on the front row just in time to hear the Singers perform "Sing Me To Heaven." Here's a YouTube link to this song (rehearsal by the Bucknell Choir).

I stashed my luggage under a table near the theatre seats, and I sank down in gratefulness in my primo front-row seat. Car, plane, Marta train and taxi had brought me to the theatre, and now here was music, live music, accapella live music. I sat there, bathed in the sweetness of coming home and listened to those lyrics, to those voices, those notes. Big fat tears rolled down my face. Home.

After the concert: My daughter Hannah with good buddy Keith. They both graduate in May. Sigh.

Come have some supper with me. It's chilly enough for a fire tonight here in Atlanta. Two more days until NYC and NCTE. My new husband Jim, my piano player, is coming with me. He has the jazz scoped out already.

Can't Sleep....

2007-11-09T03:05:00.000-05:00

Beautiful mural at Shimek Elementary. There is more, this is just one panel. Great student collaboration.

Can't sleep. I think it's catching up to me, these days in Iowa City schools. Or maybe I'm excited because I'm going home this afternoon. Maybe I'm too congested to sleep -- I think I've caught something. Maybe.

Or maybe I'm worried about getting the packing done and getting out the door early enough for a breakfast in school, as I need to go straight to the airport after school number three today. Lots and lots of details swimming around in my semi-congested head.

In any case, I woke up an hour ago and can't sleep. What's a body to do? Blog, of course. Here are some photos from yesterday's schools. My feedburner stats are amazing this week. Who are you guys? Lots of visitors!

Feedburner tells me how many people visit this blog. It doesn't tell me who you are, it doesn't give me that sort of information and I don't collect information but there is a counter, just like there is on many web pages, and I suspect there are lots of Iowa City students checking in to see themselves. Here you go. Another post for you.

Here are some of my welcoming ambassadors at Shimek Elementary, with their teacher-librarian Sheryl Little. I was in such good hands there and had a great sound system! Thanks, guys. I know I have your names in my notebook ("Keep a notebook! Rule Number One!") but it's packed right now. Let me get it.

Okay. I unearthed my notebook. Thanks to Kelly, Abby, Hudson, Danny B., Austin, and Tytiana or Ty, who is pictured above, next to Ms. Little.

Thanks, too, to Dr. Charlie Towers, principal at Shimek, for coming to the assembly and being such an integral part of his students' learning experience.

Here's the team at Kirkwood that made our second session possible. We had fun -- I laughed a lot yesterday. These folks and their students gave me so much. That's teacher-librarian Kristi Harper in the middle.

And here's the reading club at Coralville Central, with their hip teacher-librarian Becky Gelman.

Here's the reading club enacting what they would look like if my three maiden aunts came running for them - "Come here and love my neck! I could just eat you up!"

I'm pleased to show you a photo that includes these three beautiful men. From left, principal of Coralville Central Michael O'Leary (who not only attended the assembly, he wore his Community Reads t-shirt and introduced me to Molly, the school dog), Becky Gelman, Becky's DAD -- may we call him Mr. Wonderful? -- and another Mr. Wonderful from Hills Bank, one of the major funders of the Iowa City Community Reads program. I wish I'd thought to take my own advice and used my notebook, Mr. Wonderful, as I would have your name captured in it -- please, someone rescue me. In the meantime, thank you, Mr. Wonderful, you and your generous colleagues at Hills Bank.

Signing Kobi's shirt.

I might go into the shirt-signing business. I like it.

Cool yellow hat. Handmade. I miss wearing a hat. Maybe I'll take it up again.

After three sessions in three schools, I went to the Iowa City Public Library which has a children's room to die for. Here there be heroes:
Librarians who put good books into the hands of children (and cds, and dvds and information and on and on).

I spoke about my love affair with libraries with children's librarian Katherine Habley as we taped an hour-long interview that will air on the library channel soon. Katherine is fabulous.

My nose is not fabulous. It's running. I drank two bottles of water. I'm going to try to get some sleep. See you soon, students at Lucas, Wood, and Weber Elementary Schools. Then I catch a Delta flight home. Six days home and then to NCTE in New York City.

See this sign? It's what I feel about my work-in-progress right now, and I'm sure it's what my editor thinks. The new novel awaits my concentrated attention. I'm going to switch gears soon. I promise.

Raise your hand if....

2007-11-08T08:22:00.001-05:00

Wednesday in Iowa City. A beautiful, crisp, fall day full of Van Allen, Wickham, and Penn Elementary students... and one cow. Okay, so the cow didn't come to schools. But I did.

Put your hands in the yoga of writing....

Raise your hand if you've ever had your heart broken. Raise your hand if you've ever been angry. Raise your hand if you've ever been tortured by a brother or sister (as I was!), if you've ever been confused about what's happening in your world, if you've ever been afraid of something...

...if you've ever said, "I have nothing to write about...."

Raise your hand if you created a terrific poster or banner or painting! Raise your hand if you sat on the floor for an entire hour without squirming!

Raise your hand if you are a librarian par excellence (Here is Ann Holton at Penn, one of the many stellar Iowa City teacher-librarians)

Raise your hand if you love revision!

"Is she kidding?"

Raise your hand if you provided thses fantastic zinnias for our cemetery picnic!

Raise your hand if you need your shirt signed!

Raise your hand if you are a member of the LOVE, RUBY LAVENDER book group at Wickham. Raise your hand if you know where the lemon drops came from at lunch.

Raise your hand if you know how these Moon Pies made their way to Iowa City!

Raise your hand if you're pooped just reading this post!

Today, Shimek/Regina, Kirkwood and CorCentral Elementary Schools -- here I come, full of exclamation points!

Sharing Stories in Iowa City

2007-11-07T07:16:00.000-05:00

Here are Jeremiah, Josh, Alli and Emmy from Lincoln Elementary. They scoured my website (the "Life Notice" in particular, written by Comfort Snowberger) and distilled it (Comfort is verbose) into fascinatin' facts about Deborah Wiles for the kids at Lincoln and their guests, 5th and 6th graders from Mann Elementary.

I now own a SHIRT, too! It's the 20th year of this Community Reads program in Iowa City, which includes not only an author visit (for which the students are so well-prepared) but lunchtime "Leaders as Readers" (today at the library -- I will miss it -- sob!) and much more. The partnership here between the public library, the university, the public schools and the sponsors, including Hills Bank, is generously creative and wonderfully exciting -- I'm trying to find words for it but it's too early in the morning right now --

Yesterday stretched my teaching sinews, from Lincoln/Mann to Lemme/Longfellow to Twain Elementary -- what a difference!

Five schools of 5th and 6th graders, and three very different locations. I love this look into the fabric of a community.

I love the challenge of reaching all students (sometimes I am better at this than others) and I love the "stay on your toes" aspects of the day -- there are students (and teachers!) from all walks of life in these public schools, just as there are in all public school systems across the country. How do we best serve their needs?

It's a perennial question. How can we best serve our own needs as we work with them and with each other? What are best practices? How do they change? It fascinates me to see the challenges that teachers face in the classroom, and to see the great passion they bring to these challenges. I feel humbled in their presence. I learn so much.

And, as every good teacher knows, our students are our teachers as well.

Last night we had pot luck together, the teacher-librarians and moi. WHAT a time we had. "There's nothing like an Iowa pot luck," said Julie Larson. "And an Iowa TEACHER pot luck -- you're in heaven," said I... and I was right.

Here we are, gathered for a photo. Here are the teacher-librarians who have been making this week possible for students in Iowa City Schools.

I hope to take a walk this afternoon to the cemetery -- cemeteries are some of my favorite places -- to find "the black angel" I've heard so much about. I also want to take a photo of the Vonnegut house for you. It's right outside my window. Think Iowa Writers Workshop, many years ago, a rented house, May Day parties on the lawn, and all those words, all those stories, all those glory days...

Librarian Barb Stein lives in Marilynne Robinson's neighborhood - be still my heart. "Maybe you'd see her out walking her dog if you walked through the neighborhood." Nah. Sometimes it's best to admire from afar. I have read GILEAD twice and need to read it a third time.

"What are you reading?" was the question posed at pot luck last night. Here is a partial list of the titles we shared, in no particular order and sometimes without author listed -- but I'll fill this in later -- got to go to school this morning!

POPULATION 485: Meeting your Neighbors One Siren at a Time by Michael Perry
GODS IN ALABAMA by Joshilyn Jackson
THE MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY by Trenton Lee Stewart and Carson Ellis
BLOOD DONE SIGNED MY NAME by Timothy B. Tyson
THE BOYS OF MY YOUTH
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sara Gruen
THE TORTILLA CURTAIN
LITTLE HEATHENS
SUMMER AT TIFFANY
EAT PRAY LOVE
THREE CUPS OF TEA
A FRIENDSHIP FOR TODAY by Patricia McKissack
The new Gilda Joyce mystery
A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
THE GIRLS
DREAMS FROM MY FATHER
Diana Mott Davidson (mystery writer)
DIGGING UP AMERICA by Anne Tyler
SUITE FRANCAISE
THIRTEENTH TALE
A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRANIA
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE THUNDERBOLT KID
BEL CANTO by Ann Patchett
SPLENDID SOLUTION (the story of Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine)

Lots to choose from here, including some Iowa writers and stories, when I go to Prairie Lights this afternoon to sign stock.

Off to Van Allen, Wickham, and Penn Elementary Schools this morning.

There are no hills in Hills

2007-11-06T07:18:00.000-05:00

Here's the barber shop in Hills, Iowa. It's just down the street from Hills Elementary School where I started my five days in Iowa yesterday. I have lots to say about this Community Reads program and teacher-librarians in Iowa City and how they are working together and making a difference. I want to tell you about these wonderful students!

But I have to go to school, so I leave you with photos for now, but I'll be back.

This was Sunday, when I arrived.

I walked the neighborhood and walked through Iowa City, found Prairie Lights Bookstore where I'll sign stock on Wednesday, ate at a noodle house, then walked back up the hill to my bed. I called my husband, Jim, and said, "We're moving to Iowa City!"

The wind started on Monday -- a cold, hard, relentless wind that made getting from the car to each school an arctic challenge. I called Jim and said, "Cancel that move." Haha! But it was gorgeous, too -- I wish I had photos of the November sky to show you as the wind pushed masses of dark silver clouds across the end-of-the-day sky and the late-afternoon sun slanted through the clouds and sprayed the barns and cornfields with a golden glow. Stunningly beautiful sky. Remarkably overwritten prose. No time to revise.

Had supper with my good friend Jackie Martin (SNOWFLAKE BENTLEY) and her husband Rich (who played the vibraphone for me) in their home in Mount Vernon, Iowa. Jackie's new book, CHICKEN JOY ON REDBEAN ROAD, is pure delight. If you haven't read it, you must must must. Love the illustrations by Melissa Sweet as well.

More as soon as I can -- I love it here. I will see every fifth and sixth grader in Iowa City schools this week, all 18 elementary schools! Students have been well-prepared -- I'll tell you all about it.

Here is the Deborah Wiles Endowed Chair at Hills Elementary. I love these artistic depictions of my books, and I especially love the marbles! In FREEDOM SUMMER, Joe and John Henry "play marbles in the dirt until we're too hot to be alive." Then they run to Fiddler's Creek. "Last one in's a rotten egg!"

Here are some of the students at Weber Elementary, all wearing Community Reads t-shirts -- we had a great day yesterday (and a great pot luck lunch).

Here are Asijah, Tatyonna, and Ronetta, journalists and welcome committee at Roosevelt. Roosevelt hosted Horn Elementary students as well.

The kids at Roosevelt and Horn -- actually, ALL of yesterday's students -- knocked me over with their big love -- I love you right back. But more later -- gotta run!

You can read more about this week in schools in today's edition of the Iowa Press-Citizen.

Good Work, Good Friends in Dallas

2007-10-29T10:18:00.000-04:00

This is a long post, but there is so much to share; it was such a rich week.

I left friends last Sunday afternoon -- here is my husband Jim, Atlanta poet and friend Lynn Erlicher (Alexander), and the amazing Dan Retoff, yoga instructor and yogi in his own right (from Chicago now), standing in my Atlanta driveway, about to wave me off to the airport.

I flew to Dallas where I worked in Dallas schools all week, doing assembly programs with grades 3 through 6 and writing workshops with grade 4.
I've been teaching writing across grades and curriculums for close to 20 years. I've changed my methods and practices as I have learned more and better, and yet I come back to some basics that I believe in, which one day I want to write about, and which I will probably share here at some point.

This must be my Statue-of-Liberty pose. I'm standing in front of a slide of the cover of FREEDOM SUMMER and I've got a bunch of books -- children's literature -- in front of me, some of the books I use in the classroom when I teach. I teach personal narrative writing and maintain that all stories start that way, with personal narratives. Sometimes they turn into fiction. The better we know our own stories, the better fiction we write. Wherever I teach, even when it's within the same school district or school, each school population is different, of course, and each classroom of learners is different. Teachers are different. Needs are different from hour to hour sometimes... or so it can seem.

It can be an inner-city school or a rural one, a private school or a public one, a wealthy school or a poor one, or any of the shades inbetween: I can tell within minutes of being in a classroom if it is one in which writing is valued, reading is second-nature, and mutual respect is a given. I can pinpoint my challenges within minutes -- and sometimes those challenges include the teachers. Sometimes I feel like I'm preaching to the choir, and sometimes I feel as if my every teaching sinew is being stretched to the max. Sometimes both those experiences come in the same day. And it is all good work. It teaches me.
Here's a photo from the staff development time after school on Tuesday. Teachers have so much to carry on their shoulders in a classroom. How well we educate teachers before they even reach the classroom -- and how much they want to be educated -- is crucial to how well teachers educate our children. Teaching is tied to parenting and vice versa. How well we raise up our future teachers -- how well they learn as ten-year-olds -- and how well they grow into human beings... all of this starts at such an early age, and I Have Opinions.

I'm a foundations person... show me where the beginning is, show me how it works, show me why, so I can build on that foundation. Right now I'm focusing on how we each need to tell our stories. It's one of our deepest human needs, to tell stories. They define for us how we are loved, how we belong, how we find compassion for one another, how we make ourselves safe, and more.
Melinda Hawkins, teacher extraordinaire, brought her middle school students to the McCullough assembly fully prepared after reading LITTLE BIRD together carefully, critically, and enthusiastically.

This is Stephanie Noack, who bought a class set of LITTLE BIRD for her Armstrong Elementary 3rd-grade students. She says she wants to teach them about descriptive language, among other things. And she wants to read them a story. So much of what we absorb as learners is what comes to us intrinsically through good models, good literature, good teachers.
When I teach, I have students bring their writer's notebooks to the assemblies and we begin the workshopping in assembly -- here are students scribbling in their notebooks as they make connections from my stories to theirs -- then continue in classrooms. I lug a ton of children's picture books with me from class to class, as I use them to help me teach. I think I'm reading Jane Yolen's OWL MOON to the students in the workshop photo (way) above. One Clear Moment in Time, that's what I strive for, both in what I'm reading and in what I ask students to write -- one clear moment in time.

Here is Kate, from Hyer Elementary School, where I worked on Wednesday. Kate and her mom, April Callahan, stayed up until 11pm finishing EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS the night before my visit -- I was so touched. "Are you awake?" I asked Kate. "Oh, yeah!" she said.

"Put your hands in the yoga of writing..."

And here is Natalie, from McCullough Intermediate School. Natalie dressed up like Comfort Snowberger. It was too cold to wear her lime green shorts, but she did manage a baseball cap and shirt and a Snowberger's handkerchief!

Here's a shout-out to the Uber-Librarians in the Highland Park School District who planned for a year for this week and who made it all happen: Ultra-organizer (and good driver - haha!) Leesa Cole at McCullough Intermediate School (and thanks to Teresa Morris for the applesauce cake and MORE), Laurie McKay at University Park Elementary (we didn't let rain deter us!), Janet Peters at Hyer Elementary (snappy dresser, too), Dana Phillips (who knows what is important) at Bradfield Elementary School, and Lori Riley at Armstrong Elementary, who understands how to make each child, each teacher feel important. Thanks to all these librarians and their capable and enthusiastic assistants as well -- we couldn't have done it without you.

Thanks also to HP Arts, MIS PTA, and PC Tag, teachers who gave up instructional time, and all the generous parents who made our week together possible. You help make a difference in more ways than you know.

Had dinner one night in Dallas with high school friend Sandy Thomas Telzrow. We met in the Philippines, where our dads were stationed at Clark Air Force Base and we graduated high school together at Wagner High School.

Sandy was the Homecoming Queen our senior year. I was the Christmas Queen. Two queens had dinner and were joined by a prince -- Sandy's son Eric, who teaches third grade in Dallas.

Stay awake, I'm almost done!

One more shout-out, and this goes back to Southern Festival of Books and the previous post. If you scroll down to the photo with the baseball players in the audience at Southern Festival of Books, you'll see Kerry Madden at the end of the front row. Squint. Kerry came to my session -- we'd never met and I recognized her from her website photos. We fell into each other's arms like old friends when the session was over, blathering our admiration for one another, hahaha -- writers do this, eh? Kerry writes such lovely novels about family and kinship. Her setting is Maggie Valley in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. Her new book is LOUISIANA'S SONG, the second in a trilogy.

I came home from Dallas on Friday night. The Atlanta airport was hopping, as it always is, with people of all ages, races, colors, persuasions, languages riding the steep, four-across escalators up the long ride to baggage claim and loved ones. Someday I'll think to take a picture of the organized bedlam of dashikis, turbans, hip-hop jeans and baseball caps, business suits, spiked heels, shawls (mine!), flannel shirts, Braves' jackets, and more that dot the landscape in the Atlanta-Hartsfield-Jackson airport. I'm beginning to love my adopted city. Thank goodness.

We need water, here in Atlanta. I'm hoping for good rains this fall. I spent the weekend with family and have three business days ahead of me before leaving for eight days in two states: Texas again (Texas Book Festival in Austin) and Iowa City, for a week in schools.

As good as this work is, as much as it fills my soul and teaches me so much, as wonderful as are the people I meet and the geography I get to experience, I'm missing home, family, and writing so much. I'm missing my BODY -- I've gained over forty pounds on the road in the past three years. That's ridiculous! The above photo was taken at our high school reunion two years ago; can you even pick me out? I'm standing next to Sandy. I'm wearing purple. I've had some health issues this past year that seem to be solved now, so I'm going to try to shed this 40 pounds. Want to lose with me? Say yes. I need the company. I may need to be off the road.

But it's hard to stay off the road, and there are gifts held in the travel, of course. I promised many posts ago to write about making a living as a writer, and I'm going to do that, I am. I'm looking at next year's schedule and at how much more air there is around it, and I'm wondering if I can keep it that way in order to give myself more writing time. I'm going to need it, as I've got deadlines looming for the Sixties trilogy I'm writing for Harcourt, and I've got a home and family that misses me (and that I miss!) when I travel so much.

Lots of decisions to make ahead of me. I'll do some ruminating on these pages, I'm sure.

Still awake? Long post! Now I need a nap. I'm sure you do, too.