April 6, 1966: Author Vince Flynn born.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Q&A with author Ajit Hutheesing
Ajit Hutheesing is the author of the new book The Shadow of Her Smile: A Love Story, which focuses on his late wife, the violinist Helen Armstrong. Born in India, a member of the Nehru family, he worked for many years as a banker in the United States. He lives in Connecticut.
Q: Why did you decide to write The Shadow of Her Smile?
A: I didn’t decide to write the book. After my wife’s death,
I couldn’t sleep at night, and I would stay up and pour out my thoughts about
our relationship. I did this for 60 days, and I had 60 pages. I was getting
calls from musicians and from my stepdaughter, asking, When are we going to see
the things you wrote? I said, It’s just for friends and family. They said, It’s
got to be put in a book; she led a life of such modesty, she never sought
publicity. Then we thought to put it in the form of a book, and show what a
remarkable woman she was.
Q: How did you choose the book’s title?
A: It was not the first title I chose; the first was before
I even started writing. But after writing the book, I thought about the things
I was writing about, and one of the last things Helen did was to visit one of
the great recording engineers in the world. He had been recording her playing
popular songs, and she had recorded The Shadow of Your Smile—Frank Sinatra,
every singer had done that song. I thought about what I had written, and it
seemed more appropriate. Helen always had a smile stamped upon her face.
Q: Can you describe more about how you decided to turn your
private memoir into a book? Who persuaded you?
A: Everybody who knew Helen. My children, Helen’s children,
certainly a dozen musicians who really wanted to see something. Musicians were
such a big part of her life. Many were very good friends of Helen’s and mine.
Q: What are some of the lessons you hope readers take from
your book?
A: One big lesson is the theme that Helen symbolized, and
that Helen and my relationship symbolized. Those of us who have strong, loving
relationships—we, particularly men, so seldom say, “I love you,” and so seldom
manifest that love in other ways. When I spoke at Helen’s memorial service, I said,
One thing you must do is to say and show the love you have for those in your
lives before it’s too late and you regret it.
Q: You describe the book as “a love story dedicated to those
she loved and those who loved her.” What are some of the ways Helen touched and
affected those around her?
A: That became even more apparent after she died, and it was
always apparent when she was alive. She had a remarkable ability [to connect
with people. At a high school], the principal was a little worried that her
classical music was outside the realm of the students, and that when she
performed, there would be trouble in the halls and they would not pay much
attention to her. But when she spoke, everyone was silent.
Her personality was very saintly. Little children, in
kindergarten, would be listening to her lessons and her talk, and would come
back and say, I wish you were my mother! They would say, I had a dream that you
had wings on your shoulders! I was just stunned….the way the kids would look at
her, I’ve never seen that before.
There were spontaneous connections. Policemen would not give
her a ticket. But there was a negative side to it. Contractors who would come
to do repair work either wouldn’t charge her, or would rip her off because they
thought they could say anything to her and she wouldn’t protest.
Q: Are you working on another book?
A: Yes—a completely different book! I started it when Helen
was alive. When my father died, I received trunkloads of papers that my father
and mother had accumulated. My mother’s books had been published; my mother was
the sister of India’s first prime minister, Nehru.
The papers I found were so incredibly interesting. The
people I grew up with—my uncle, my aunt, other members of my family—I was much
more influenced by their public service and their intellect than by my father.
He was also very bright, but stubborn, and determined to have his children do
what he wanted. I thought, There’s a book somewhere in there!
My mother and Helen were the two most significant people in
my life. They both attracted people like magnets. It’s going to take two or
three years—reading, going back to the source on the other side of the letters.
I would like to see if [my family members] had replied to any of these letters.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: One interesting comment that was made at her memorial
service by a well-known musician was that she was “a phenomenon of nature.” I
thought that was a nice expression, and an appropriate one.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Friday, April 4, 2014
Q&A with analyst and editor Jill Mullin
Jill Mullin is the editor of Drawing Autism, now in a new second edition. She is a behavior analyst who has worked with people with ASD for more than a decade. She is based in New York City.
Q: How did you come to put together Drawing
Autism, and what has the reaction been to the book, which is now in its
second edition?
A: Drawing Autism began with an artist named Glen Russ. Glen
had been diagnosed with autism at an early age and also at a young age had
developed a passion for music and drawing.
I met Glen at a residential group home in New York City
where he lives with 5 other men with varying disabilities. The first two years
I worked with Glen he would draw many pictures per week of his favorite bands
such as the Jackson 5, Temptations, and the Whispers.
His stylistic stick figures drawings depicting the bands
were drawn singing, dancing or playing instruments as if they were caught in a
snapshot from the Ed Sullivan show.
For two years I cheered Glen on, every day that I saw him I
asked, “Did you draw any pictures today?” If he had, he would proudly display
his work (often times the drawings from the day would be stapled together with
numerous staples, variously laid out across the drawings).
Each day that I saw Glen’s drawings I would ask “Can I take
one home with me?” to which he would promptly shrug his shoulders and reply
“ahhh, no.”
And so this scene played out for two years until one day
Glen finally answered “why yes, you can have it!” I was delighted; I put
the drawing on my refrigerator for family and friends to enjoy.
While Glen’s art was proudly displayed in the fine art
gallery otherwise known as my kitchen, I had many casual observers comment on
his art. Guests who would pass through my home would comment on the unique
images and ask about the artist and his inspirations.
Their questions sparked my interest to look into other
artists with autism as it became clear to me that there must be other artists
with autism whom have a unique perspective as well.
The reaction has been tremendous. The first edition went out
of print and became a collector's item. That's what's so great about the new
edition. People can get it again. Plus there is some great new content.
Whenever I've been around someone seeing the book for the
first time it just brings a smile to my face seeing how they fall into the
work. They're surprised.
And I think they're surprised by lots of things about the
book: the quality of the work, the variety, the examples from all over the
world, the sheer talent.
Q: How did you select the artists to include?
A: The overwhelming number of submissions I received from
all over the world astounded me. There were those already established in the
art world, and others who has not even thought about becoming a professional
artist.
It was very challenging to choose the artists as there were
so many great submissions. Ultimately, the images that spoke most to me and my
editor were the ones chosen for the book.
Q: How did Temple Grandin, who wrote the introduction,
become involved in the project?
A: Because of her notoriety as an incredibly successful
individual with autism, and her work designing livestock handling systems --
actually drawing the plans -- Temple was the obvious person to ask about
writing the foreword.
Not only was I lucky enough for her to say yes, but in the
foreword she talks about how her mother encouraged her to draw when she was
young. I know how much Temple's involvement means to the contributors.
Q: Are there any specific messages you'd like readers to
take away from the book?
A: Above all else, I hope the book inspires individuals with
ASD and all the people in their lives.
The range of stories touched on in the book is amazing and
whether we're talking about someone who is nonverbal using drawing to
externally express themselves or someone who is more high functioning but uses
their creative output to help themselves, and others, understand their place in
the world, art can be a powerful tool.
Something else this book does, I think, is make clear,
thanks to the different types of artwork, just what it means when we talk about
autism being a spectrum disorder. I organized the chapters around core
characteristics of the spectrum so readers can get a sense for that.
Again, I'm a clinician and this is not a clinical book but
it serves as a great point of entry for those who want to start learning about
the disorder.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I work full time with my clients and their families, which
keeps me plenty busy. For the next few weeks I'll be working to promote the
book and who knows what will come of that. But in terms of other books or
projects like that, I have no plans.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I think the book serves as a nice starting off point for
people who are just starting to learn about the Autism Spectrum. The book
serves as a powerful reminder that individuals on the spectrum have a unique
point of view and are doubtlessly talented.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Q&A with author Selby Fleming McPhee
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| Selby Fleming McPhee, photo by Bill Geiger |
Q: What made you decide to write a book about your parents?
A: When I was born, in 1943, my parents, Peggy and Jack, had
already been married for 20 years and had raised one child -- my brother
Tommy. I had heard stories of their romance and impulsive secret elopement
in the summer of 1923, followed by the chaos that ensued when their families
discovered that they were married.
The whole story had a romantic, 1920s feel to it, and I only
had the sketchiest of details. So when I discovered a box of letters, I confess
I chose to ignore the admonition on top of the box -- to destroy the letters "unopened"
-- and asked my father if he would allow me to read them.
The letters not only gave me a day-by-day picture of the
elopement drama, they outlined the hopes and dreams of my young parents, kept
apart for the first year of their marriage, as they came to know each other in
a daily epistolary conversation. The letters gave me scenes from Jazz Age
Chicago, their first home together, in 1925, and from the small towns along the
Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, where my father worked in the late 1920s as
a young engineer on dams and bridges that were a part of the last burst of
American industry before the Depression brought the world to a halt..
So the letters came first. What I read in them made me want to write their story.
Q: How difficult was it to view your parents objectively as you wrote about their lives?
So the letters came first. What I read in them made me want to write their story.
Q: How difficult was it to view your parents objectively as you wrote about their lives?
A: It was very difficult! The mother I grew up with
was a troubled, unhappy woman, and I went into the project inclined to see my
father as heroic and my mother in emphatically unheroic terms.
What happened, though, is that through reading and
reflecting on the letters, I found the sweet, hopeful, flirtatious young woman
my father fell in love with, and I also saw challenges that he, lovable as he
was, presented to her.
So the letters, and the book, were a gift to me. I
ended up feeling tremendous empathy for both of them, and admiration for their
courage in the face of economic hardship and some bad luck. I hope readers
will, too.
There were times, though, when I relived some real anger at
my mother, and at some of the people who judged my parents so harshly, and it
took me a few drafts of the book to put all that in perspective and tell their story
more dispassionately.
Q: What did your family members think of the book?
Q: What did your family members think of the book?
A: My brother died before the book was finished, but he was
enthusiastic about the project, and wanted me to write it. My daughters
and my brother's children have found their grandparents' lives interesting and
full of drama. I think they have gained some perspective about us -- my
brother and me -- and the environment in which we were raised.
And we are all interested in the family patterns that reveal
themselves in an examination of that generation. There have been
provocative discussions of the ways we all carry my parents, Peggy and Jack, in
our own lives.
Q: Why did you decide on Love Crazy as the
book's title?
A: Jack and Peggy were besotted, bamboozled, crazy in
love. There was an intensity to their attachment that never really
changed, though time and circumstances altered their lives.
At the same time, each of them had a fragility that made
them sometimes unreliable as partners and as parents. My father could not,
for the life of him, hold on to money -- it just ate its way out of his
pocket. And my mother suffered from some emotional imbalance that I don't
think was ever quite diagnosed, but it made her fearful and tyrannical, needy
and sometimes cruel all at once. That meant that there was a constant
undercurrent of chaos in our family life.
But in the end, it was all held together by this ferocious
love they had for each other and for us. So "Love Crazy" seemed
like a pretty good description of the couple whose story I tell.
Q: What are you working on now?
Q: What reaction have you received from readers to the book?
A: It pleases me that my readers have been swept up in the
drama of my parents' turbulent relationship. They also seem to appreciate the
history of the times that set the letters in the context of the era (I loved
doing the research! And for such interesting times - those pieces of history,
the twenties, the Depression, World War II - that did so much to shape our
world).
And readers often mention old family letters of their own they
are now curious to read. Men seem to particularly like the war letters - makes
them think of their fathers' war experiences. Once in awhile, people are
uncomfortable with the personal revelations.
Q: Are there any particular memoir writers who have inspired
you?
A: My favorite memoir is Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am thinking of a book about my age cohort at Vassar
College --- the Class of 1965 -- and the beginnings of the second women's
movement. Betty Friedan published her book The Feminine Mystique when we were sophomores, and though the effects of the book, and
the movement, were not immediate, I think it began to turn our world on its axis
even then, for a lot of us. I, for example, went into college, thinking of
nothing more than a kind of 1950s life as a wife and mother, and I came out
wanting more than that -- to define myself through work.
Anyway, I'm doing some reading right now, and I hope to get
the help of friends, who might be willing to tell their stories, now that we're
all turning 70 and can look back on our lives.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I feel that I learned so much -- of history, family,
myself -- from reading family letters and I would like to encourage people who
have mouldering boxes of family letters and papers in their attic to look at
them. There are surely stories to be discovered there.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Selby Fleming McPhee will be participating in the Bethesda Literary Festival, which runs from April 11-13, 2014. For a full schedule of events, please click here. An earlier version of this Q&A appeared on July 20, 2013.
Q&A with children's author L.M. Elliott
Q: Your new book, Across a War-tossed Sea, is a companion to
Under a War-torn Sky. How do the two books complement each other?
A: Across a War-tossed Sea focuses on what is happening back
home in the United States with Henry Forester’s girlfriend, Patsy, and her
brothers, as he is off flying missions over Nazi-occupied Europe and then on
the run with the French Resistance in Under a War-torn Sky.
So it is a parallel story. Under a War-torn Sky and its
sequel A Troubled Peace—in which Henry returns to post-war France to find the
little boy who saved his life—are told through Henry’s perspective and
experiences.
From Henry, we hear a great deal about Patsy and his
parents, and the life-saving influence they have on him when Henry needs to
summon all his courage and resolve or die. In the constant crises he faces as
he tries to escape the Gestapo, Henry is able to call up and hear their voices,
their love, their philosophies to give him direction.
Yes, he survives because he has tenacity, quick-witted
problem-solving, and the ability to care about other human beings, even amidst
the carnage of WWII. But those admirable
personality traits come from someplace—his family and his rural Virginia childhood.
So Across a War-tossed Sea takes us to the place Henry grew
up and provides that context. (Rest
assured, though, it can be a stand-alone read as well!)
I think this novel also fills a hole in WWII literature, just
as Under a War-torn Sky did with its look at ordinary French people—teenagers,
young children, and women—who saved so many of our Allied fliers after they
fell out of burning planes.
A Troubled Peace did the same, I hope, with its exploration
of post-war France, the rubble, political upheaval, and violent retributions
left behind in the wake of liberation, in the aftermath of war.
Across a War-tossed Sea features two London boys who are
staying with Patsy’s large, American-rowdy family. As such, it explores a
little talked about element of WWII history—the 3,000 British children who made
the treacherous crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, infested with Nazi U-boats
targeting Allied convoys, to escape Hitler’s Blitz.
Once here these British youngsters struggled to adapt to
American society, expressions, and prejudices, and being completely cut-off
from their families enduring nightly bombings by the Luftwaffe.
Charles and Wesley, for instance, must learn to fit in with
Patsy’s rough-and-tumble brothers, to adopt American customs, to recover from
gaffes stemming from differing expressions and attitudes, and to deal with
disturbing surprises like segregation, all while worrying about whether their
parents are still alive.
The novel features wartime Tidewater Virginia, where local
merchant ships and sailors leaving the docks of Norfolk/Hampton Roads/Newport
News faced the very real possibility of being torpedoed by Nazi U-boats
trolling the Chesapeake Bay. It also includes an actual secret decoy air base
just outside Richmond and some of the thousands of German POWs working American
farms.
We’ve all read gripping accounts of those brave boys
storming Normandy beaches and heard their testimonials about their terrifying experiences.
As a counterweight, Across a War-tossed Sea includes a scene where my
characters learn of D-Day events the way most Americans did on June 6, 1944:
over the radio, with announcers sitting in sound booths far away from the
action, being handed slips of paper from wire services detailing breaking
events, speaking in excited, nervous voices.
In my scene, Virginia farmers—black and white—London boys,
and German POWs, all drop their hoes and pick-axes to gather, hushed, around a
pick-up truck to hear reports coming in crackling broadcast about the day that
would either end Hitler’s brutal regime or cement it.
I hope it really conveys the anxiety, the sense of risk and
dread so many Americans felt on D-Day, as a parallel, complementary scene to
the film footage and photos we know so well of those determined soldiers wading
through waves, dodging bullets, to join a bloody battle on the beach.
Q: What type of research did you conduct to write Across a
War-Tossed Sea?
A: Across a War-tossed Sea exists because of one paragraph I
stumbled onto in a collection of 1940s Richmond news accounts that I found so
surprising I just had to drop it into the final chapter of Under a War-torn Sky.
Just a dollop of the kind of day-to-day life detail that provides any
historical novel authenticity and a rich, thick backdrop.
That factoid? A
Richmond church and private school were trying to find homes for British
children who had been evacuated from the London Blitz. Period.
I had had no idea parents had made that heartbreaking choice
to put their children into such danger—crossing the Nazi U-boat infested
Atlantic—to try to save them from Hitler’s deadly bombing of England. It was a
stunning and vivid window into the kinds of risks and wrenching decisions that
war forces on people.
So I simply have Patsy mention the existence of two British
boys living in their already crowded farmhouse as a way of “showing rather then
telling” that harsh, poignant reality but also the instinctive generosity of
Patsy’s family and others during the upheaval and cruelty of WWII.
I mention this because that’s the kind of gem the treasure
hunt of research provides and what directs my “methodology.” You find things you didn’t even know existed
that are fascinating windows into the human spirit and a period in history. Then you follow the trail. From that itty
bitty detail came the whole idea for Across a War-tossed Sea.
So, as an old journalist I “report” my narratives—by
researching primary documents (photos, letters, ads, editorials, radio
broadcasts), memoirs, interviewing experts and survivors, and immersing myself
into the music, dress, prevailing attitudes of the time.
Those things tell me what to write. I don’t go into the
research process with a preconceived notion of what to look for or what I am
trying to prove.
During the 18 months I researched this novel, I played WWII
big band music constantly, watched 1940s films to get the lingo and interplay
of the times, read every memoir by evacuees I could get my hands on, every
newspaper account of their arrival, and reached out to librarians like Bill
Barker at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News (who graciously
sent me reams of information about wartime ship production, the newly
integrated shipbuilding workforce, merchant marine sailors, and convoys leaving
Chesapeake Bay ports).
I asked British friends to remind me of typical “Briticisms”
that could humiliate boys in front of their peers (“pants,” for instance, means
underwear to Brits). I reconnected with my Tidewater cousins to get the right,
wonderfully pictorial and commonsense colloquialisms of that region.
I found websites devoted to German POWs housed here in the
U.S. and discovered those camps were plagued with a very dangerous Lager
Gestapo terrorizing more moderate German POWs.
I collected little “telling” details like the fact matrons
gave up their rubber girdles to be recycled for gas masks; milkweed fluff was put
into life-jackets to keep sailors afloat; and children carried handkerchiefs to
stuff in their mouths to protect their teeth in case Nazi aircraft dropped
bombs on their schools.
I even sailed up and down the James River, around Turkey
Island and Curles Neck, with Captain Mike of Discover the James to get the feel of the river. And to figure out where the currents were
dangerous and where it was logical for Charles to nearly drown the night he
runs away, determined to stowaway on a cargo ship bound for England so he can
return home to fight Nazis. I suspect Mike has had a good laugh with friends
about the crazy writer who suddenly cried out, “Oh, oh, stop! Is this a good
place for me to try to drown a boy?”
Q: You've written about various historical periods--is there
one that's been especially interesting for you?
A: Ha-ha! Most historical novelists are more practical (or
smarter!) and stick to a general time period because the learning curve for
each era is so steep. I majored in English and music at Wake Forest and have a
master’s in journalism from UNC-Chapel Hill. Notice there is no mention of
history!
The great thing about being a writer and journalist, though,
is you SHOULD be able to write about any topic—that’s what my liberal arts
education and reporting techniques gave me.
So…to your question, do I have a particularly favorite time
period? No. I love being forced to learn about so many different time periods.
But I will say I particularly admire and remain rather stunned by the raw
courage and stubbornness of the colonists who were willing to stand up to the
British juggernaut—many of them illiterate and extremely poor—for the sake of
principle and a truly revolutionary ideal of individuality and the right to
make up and to speak their own minds. (highlighted in Give Me Liberty)
I think the Civil War is captivating but one of the most
heartbreaking and frustrating periods I have studied. Given the often poetic
and chivalric camaraderie between officers and soldiers following a horrific battle,
why they couldn’t negotiate a peace and end the abhorrent practice of slavery
without millions having to die is very hard to understand. (Annie, Between the States)
The ‘60s are a fascinating confluence of so much cultural
change tragically brought about with such pain and ugliness—think about one
decade seeing the assassination of JFK, his brother Bobby, and Martin Luther
King, Jr., and our Napalming villages in Vietnam and turning fire-hoses on
peaceful protestors juxtaposed with the signing of Civil Rights legislation and
a man walking on the moon! (Flying South)
But if you want to really see the absolute worst and the
breathtaking best of mankind, the ability to befriend and show kindness in the
face of appalling prejudice and sadistic violence, nothing beats WWII. If a
writer manages to produce a bad, uninspiring WWII story, he/she should find
another profession.
Q: As someone who's written for different age groups, do you
have a preference between novels and picture books?
A: No, they are both equally rewarding. In fact, I think I
am a better writer because of toggling back and forth between genres. It keeps
me fresh. Plus, each age has its own charms that I so enjoy revisiting as I
write for different audiences.
I speak often to middle school groups and I always learn and
am inspired by them. A Troubled Peace came about, for instance, because so many
teenagers were so very concerned about what happened next to Henry, Patsy, and
the little French boy who saved Henry.
And I do relish the collaboration required in making a
picture book. I am incredibly blessed to have worked on five picture books with
the talented Lynn Munsinger, whose drawings are so full of warmth, whimsy, and
palpable emotions.
Our first series, starring a little raccoon called Hunter,
started as bedtime stories for my then pre-school aged son. The two-book holiday
series, featuring Sam and his clever best friend, Mary Ann, was sparked by my
daughter’s love of making Valentines by hand.
But the plot for our latest book, Thanksgiving Day Thanks,
was almost completely dictated in my mind by knowing what Lynn illustrates
particularly well—sweet-faced animals who face a moral conundrum and overcome
it in amusing trial-and-error mistakes and with the help of devoted friends.
The expressions on her characters’ faces are so touching!
Q: When you're writing a novel, do you usually know how it
will end, or do you change the plot as you're writing?
A: I always try to decide a novel's opening and
ending (in general) before beginning to write -- that way I know the trajectory
I should take. That doesn't mean I don't veer a bit as I go, though, as I
discover interesting tangents or characters become larger than I initially
conceived. Sometimes characters can become quite bossy that way!
For one novel, Give Me Liberty, I essentially wrote
backwards. I learned of a little known Battle of Great Bridge and in
reading about it found a climatic end, the novel's primary themes, and the
necessity for two friends who would have to end up on different sides at the
skirmish. And then I built a story that led to it.
Q: Who are some of your favorite authors?
A: I have authors I love to read at different times. If I
need to write pictorially, I pick up some Shakespeare; if I need to write good
male dialogue I delve into Steinbeck; if I need to write in a strong, evocative
voice I read Harper Lee, S. E. Hinton, or Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. For
laughs, Nora Ephron and Ogden Nash.
I read a lot of YA novelists as you would imagine and am
particularly in awe of Laurie Halse Anderson, Christopher Paul Curtis, Jerry
Spinelli, Lois Lowry, C. S. Lewis, and A. A. Milne. Adult favorites: Pat
Conroy, Truman Capote, and Anna Quindlen.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am immersed in Renaissance Italy for my next novel,
involving a specific and beautiful piece of art.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Just my fervent belief that good historical fiction (well
researched and accurate) is a tremendous way to humanize history, which sadly
can be reduced to a very dry recitation of the bare-boned facts and dates of
battles, legislation, court cases, inventions, and philosophic trends.
History is a wondrous human drama, the story of how we as a
species came to be what we are, full of mistakes and triumphs, villains and
heroes, and everyday people like you and me who had to reach down deep into
their souls to find courage and their own answers to the challenges the
circumstances of their day shoved at them.
Please check out my website for more information about my
books and links to information about the time period featured in each.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb. L.M. Elliott will be participating in the Bethesda Literary Festival, which runs from April 11-13, 2014. For a complete schedule, please click here. An earlier version of this Q&A appeared on January 20, 2014.
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