July 16

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
July 16, 1862: Journalist Ida B. Wells born.

July 15

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
July 15, 1919: Writer Iris Murdoch born.

Q&A with children's author Polly Holyoke

Polly Holyoke is the author of The Neptune Project, a middle-grade novel. The sequel, The Neptune Challenge, will be published next year. A former middle-school teacher, Holyoke grew up in Colorado and is based in the Dallas, Texas, area.

Q: How did you come up with the world you created in The Neptune Project, and why did you decide that dolphins would play a big role?

A: A scuba diver for many years, I wanted to write a book that truly depicted what the world under the waves looks, feels and sounds like. When my characters ventured to places I hadn’t been diving, I spent a lot of time on local scuba diving sites reading accounts of what that area looks like and what marine species my kids would probably encounter.

I’ve always loved dolphins and been amazed by their intelligence, and I knew my Neptune kids would be extremely vulnerable when they went into the sea. The dolphins increased my characters’ chances of survival. What I didn’t expect, though, is the way some of my dolphin characters took on such interesting and strong personalities!

Q: How did you research this book, and as you wrote, how did you find the process of blending the plot and characters with the environmental information you wanted to include?

A: Because I’m more of a literature and history person, I had to stretch my brain researching oceanography and genetics. Of course, swimming with wild spinner dolphins in Hawaii and domesticated dolphins in Florida were my favorite research experiences!

I tried not to get too preachy about environmental issues and state outright the challenges unchecked climate change will cause us. Instead, those problems, such as ocean rise and food and fresh water scarcity, shape the plot of the book and the troubled world that confronts my characters. 

Q: How does your previous career as a teacher help you with your writing?

A: My experiences as a teacher helped and continue to help me understand how kids think and act, particularly when they are in groups. I write about 10- to 15-year-olds, and that’s an age full of social insecurities.

At the same time, readers that age are enormously curious and open-minded in a way older readers sometimes aren’t. I have yet to encounter a kid who has problems believing in the idea that we might be able to genetically alter ourselves to breathe seawater someday!

In a more practical sense, I’m finding I’m a popular speaker at schools because I can actually teach lots of different writing workshops along with talking about my experiences as an author.

Q: The sequel, The Neptune Challenge, will be published next year. Did you know when you started on The Neptune Project that the story would continue, and do you plan to turn it into a longer series?

A: From the start, I plotted the Neptune books as a trilogy. I understand, though, that my publishing team didn’t want to commit to a three-book series until we saw how well the first book did.

Now they have bought the second book, and the plot appears to be all tied up at the end of The Neptune Challenge, but I still have plenty of ideas for that third book if the second one does well.

 Q: Who are some of your favorite authors?

A: I’ve always loved Robin McKinley. She won the Newbery for The Hero and the Crown. I also read and reread The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander when I was a child.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: The Neptune Project is such a thrilling, fast-paced read, it keeps kids turning pages (or so their happy parents tell me). At the same time, the book contains scientific elements and lends itself well to cross-curriculum teaching. I just finished posting teacher guides on my website.

I also tried to make that website as kid-friendly as possible with colorful pictures along with links to some of the most interesting sites I found on the web about dolphins, sharks, oceanography and climate change.

On my website I’m also giving away free copies of the UK version of The Neptune Project (The Neptune Conspiracy), which has a very striking cover.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

July 14

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
July 14, 1860: Writer Owen Wister born.

July 11

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
July 11, 1899: Writer E.B. White born.

Q&A with author Rebecca Makkai

Rebecca Makkai is the author of the new novel The Hundred-Year House. She also has written the novel The Borrower. She lives in Chicago and Vermont.

Q: Why did you decide to have the action in The Hundred-Year House go backward chronologically?

A: When I started writing this, it was all set in the present day (with the plot of what's now the 1999 section -- '99 still feels like the present to me, but wow, I guess that's historical fiction now).

I thought of leaving a lot of the mysteries of the past unexplored, a lot of questions unanswered. I was brushing my teeth one morning when I realized the narrative should actually go back into that past. And since I'd already written much of the first section, it seemed natural that this journey should happen in reverse.

I've always loved backwards narrations, from Martin Amis's Time’s Arrow to the backwards episode of Seinfeld -- and I was amazed at the things it allowed me to do with both dramatic irony and how information is revealed.

Q: Why did you set much of the book at an artists’ colony?

A: What's funny is that I made this decision before I'd ever stayed at one. Now I've done four stays at three colonies, and those experiences informed the book tremendously.

They have a fascinating sociology to them: these are places where we're living in little tribes, working and eating communally, and people form attachments to each other so quickly.

It's a bit like what happens on Survivor -- but, you know, with art and more clothing and you don't kick people out. And of course I wanted to write about the art world.

Q: How big a role does the theme of identity play in the book?

A: A huge one. There are a lot of false identities, and there's also a lot of self-reinvention. I've always been fascinated with that -- the ways someone might just start over with a new life.
 

Q: Which authors have influenced you?

A: For this particular project, I looked to Henry James, Shirley Jackson, and Daphne du Maurier, for the way they wrote about strange houses and possible ghosts. I also found the biographer Marion Meade tremendously helpful, for the way she writes about artists in the ‘20s.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I'm making final edits to my story collection, Music for Wartime, which will be released next July.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: Hmm. If this book has made anyone who's not an artist curious about the world of artists' residencies, there are rare occasions when they're open to the public for tours.

And the gorgeous rose gardens at Yaddo are open year-round; you can see the fountain that inspired the one in The Hundred-Year House.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with author Cathy Barrow

Cathy Barrow is the author of the forthcoming book Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Practical Pantry: Recipes and Techniques for Year-Round Preserving. She writes the blog Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Kitchen, and her articles appear in The Washington Post and The New York Times, among other publications. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Q: How did you come up with the idea for your book?

A: My landscaping business went into the dumps in 2008, and I didn’t know what to do. I thought I would start cooking classes, and a friend said, Have you heard of [blogging]?

I started a blog. People paid more attention when I talked about preserving. The Ball book [on canning] has been around for decades, and there’s growing interest among young bloggers.

I never thought I would do a book, but the more I wrote about canning, the more interest there was. The New York Times called and asked would I write about canning.

I found an agent…I played cat and mouse with the proposal for over a year, until my agent said it’s time to do something with this! I put together a proposal for a book that’s very different [from the end product]. The things that were the same were the recipes, but the way it’s organized is totally different.

I’m hoping people will put this book on the shelf with the other basics.

Q: How did you first get interested in preserving?

A: It’s just something I’ve always done. Not at the level I’m doing now—now I’m a crazy canner! I always made three things: pickle relish, my mother’s mango chutney, and raspberry jam. As long as I had those three things, I was fine.

I started to can tomatoes, and that was a big turning point…If I could only can one thing, it would be tomatoes.

Q: What do you see as the importance of local eating?

A: Local eating for me is about our community and the whole economy. It’s so easy to go to the store and buy strawberries.

I started watching the local food movement growing. It occurred to me that it was awfully easy to say you’re a local eater in the summer, but in the winter it wasn’t. I started going to more and more farmers’ markets.

I do feel committed to my community and to the farmers I know personally. By preserving, now there’s [local] food all year.

Q: What are the most important things you’d tell a newcomer about preserving?

A: There are two things. Preserving, or canning, is one issue—putting jars into boiling water, knowing they’re safe. The other is cooking, which is like following any recipe. The two issues are often confused.

I encourage new preservers to use trusted recipes. Start with simple things: raspberry jelly, dill pickles. Work with the cooking part, and then go to the canning part. With most current recipes, you make a small batch, two or three jars, and the first time you make jam, it goes really fast [before it can even be preserved]! Then you make it again, and learn how to preserve.

Would you be frightened to put a jar in boiling water and take it out? The worst thing that would happen is that it would be undercooked and would be sauce. Or it would be too firm, and then you would dilute it with water. There’s some nuance in cooking, but very little in canning.

The other thing I hear a lot is, I’m going to poison my family. Botulism poisoning occurs most often with commercial foods. The good news is that botulism is evident in foods with low acid, so fruits and pickles are always going to be OK. That’s good to know. 

The things that are dangerous are vegetables that are not pickled, things with onions, peppers, or garlic. Forget making spaghetti sauce—just can the tomato and make the sauce later.

Replicate what you can find in the grocery store. I do pressure canning—beans, chicken stock, tuna fish, salmon. I can make up a very nice grocery store in the basement. But that’s advanced, graduate school canning!

Q: How did you pick the recipes in your book?

A: All these recipes are things I cook every year and put on the shelf. It depends what the food [supply] looked like—this was a bad cherry year this year. I couldn’t can any cherry recipes this year, so I’m doing a few more blueberries.

I haven’t purchased a gift in years—people want things from my pantry! Friends with kids in college—I can send soup, or jams.

Q: How did you work with the photographers who took the photos for the book?

A: Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton are two women. Christopher is one of the founders of Saveur magazine, and the aesthetic to her photography has been appealing to me for a long time.

I had decided I wanted the photos taken [when the food was] in season. Often they’re taken in January or February, during two weeks in a studio, and the fruit does not look alive. I explained what I wanted, and she said that makes a lot of sense. We started shooting last June. I would drive to the studio in New Jersey with jams and produce.

Many canning books are obsessed with what it looks like in the jar. I want what’s before, and what happens when it’s out of the jar. When it’s in a jar, that’s the least interesting part of the process.

They were so wonderful to work with me that way! I would go for three or four days [at a time] depending on what food was available. It took a lot of organization, reorganizing [the material in the book] by what was in season. I would call and say, I can’t find jalapenos, and they’d say they have it. They were very generous and taught me a lot.

Q: Are you going to write another book?

A: I am. I’ve had long talks with my editor and my agent. I’m not starting for a while; I’m fiddling around with the proposal. I want to devote the next year to selling this book. It comes out November 1, and we have a very busy schedule planned; we’re already booking into 2015. I will settle down in September 2015 and start working on the next one.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: A lot of people want to know if I grow everything myself. I had a small community garden last year. I can’t possibly grow enough; I don’t have the space or time. I have deer, foxes, and raccoons [in the yard]. I have strawberry plants, and the chipmunks get [most of them]. I wish I had the space!

But I do have a nice relationship with farmers, and pick-your-own farms are everywhere. There are ways to do this even if you don’t grow it yourself.

People ask if it’s cheaper to can than to buy in the grocery store. I can’t say it’s less expensive, but I can say that I know where the food comes from, and that there’s nothing questionable. I know I spend a little more in the summer, and a lot less in winter. In the winter, we can go for over a week without going to the store.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb