July 4, 1804: Nathaniel Hawthorne born.
Monday, July 4, 2016
Sunday, July 3, 2016
Q&A with Judith Silverthorne
Judith Silverthorne is the author of the new young adult novel Convictions, which focuses on a group of women convicts being transported from England to Australia in 1842. Her many other books for children and adults include Honouring the Buffalo: A Plains Cree Legend and Ghosts of Government House. She is based in Regina, Saskatchewan.
Q: Convictions is your
first young adult novel. Why did you decide to write a YA novel, and how did
you happen to pick this particular topic?
A: I decided to
stretch myself from my various other forms of writing, and when I heard about a
New Zealand publisher looking for YA material with alternating chapters of male
and female protagonists, I thought I’d give it a whirl.
I’d written a
number of juvenile fiction books and was somewhat confined in vocabulary,
concepts, and sub-plots. This gave me an opportunity to delve deeper into
social conflicts – interactions – injustices – as well as try my hand at dual
viewpoints and more depth into the human psyche.
The catch with
this New Zealand-based publisher was that they wanted a topic that would appeal
and be marketable to other English-speaking countries to broaden their market,
this being Australia, the U.K., Canada, and the U.S.
I’ve always been
fascinated by the convicts that were shipped to Australia, and I’d vaguely
heard mention of a few women going as well. I wondered what it would be like
for the women, and what their circumstances had been.
I did a little
checking and was amazed to discover there were many all-female convict ships
that sailed over the almost-100-year span of this particular type of heinous
incarceration. I determined not much had been written on the topic. Then Jennie
introduced herself and I dove right into the research, uncovering all kinds of
surprising facts.
While the
publisher didn’t pan out – they sold the company not long afterwards – I was
firmly entrenched in following Jennie’s story.
Q: What type of
research did you do to write the novel, and what did you see as the right
balance between the fictional and the historical?
A: The research
for this novel was far more extensive than I’d ever done before about a topic I
didn’t know much about. I knew almost nothing about the British legal system,
and even less about sailing tall ships, so I literally have to research every
nuance for this story to be as realistic as possible.
This is the first
novel I’ve written that was entirely set in the past, so there was no reprieve
of writing what I’m familiar with while writing this novel.
I was fortunate in
that I came across some great resources in the internet of surgeon’ diaries,
ship logs, and other material recorded during the time I set my story. I was
able to glean so much about the conditions and the daily routine on board the
ship.
My story takes place
in 1842, near the end of this method of dealing with all types of criminals and
over-population. By this time, ships’ captains were meant to get as many
prisoners alive to their destinations or forfeit their pay, so a little more
care was taken, unlike the earlier years when they were paid to take the
convicts on the voyage regardless of the individual outcome of numbers arriving
and so many died from neglect, foul treatment, and torture before they reached
their destination.
I also prefer to
see things “first hand” and I went to Liverpool, where many ships embarked on
their journey. I took a Mersey River cruise to get the lay of the land and the
sense of how it must have been 150 years earlier leaving from the wharfs.
I visited jails,
museums, archives, and even tried my hand at sailing on a tall ship, though not
one anywhere near the size of those voyaging at the time. I studied sailing
terms, and diagrams of ships, in an effort to make my story realistic, and
chatted with sailors I met.
I used the actual
accounts of convicts for each of the characters in my book, changing the names
of course, but keeping as true to what I could glean as possible.
I know maybe not
all of my details on the ship are accurate, especially when it hits a storm in
my story, but hope I’m forgiven for some of this.
Often there simply
wasn’t the kind of information available that I needed. Photographs or
depictions of the ships and the times, particularly the interiors are sadly
lacking. I pieced what I could together from the visuals and the written
material to create the bowels of the ship on which Jennie ventures forth.
I became so
immersed in the story and my research that sometimes finding a balance between
reality and the fabrication of my story was incredibly blurred. It became
amazingly real to me.
Q: Did you know
how Convictions would end before you started writing, or did you make many
changes as you went along?
A: No, I had no
idea where Convictions would end before I started writing it. I rarely know
with any of my books. When I first had this story in my head, Jennie was going
to end up in the U.S. about one third of the way through the book and her story
was going to continue there, alternating chapters with a male protagonist.
Before I knew what
had happened Jennie’s character had taken over and she led me in a different
direction. While I would have made her change course, if the NZ publisher had
come through, when it didn’t, I let her lead me through her story in her own way.
This meant doing
way more research on sailing ships, ocean currents, storms, pirate and clipper
ships, and the like, but it all felt right to me. The story flowed when I let
her delve inside my head and I just went along for the voyage.
Q: You’ve written
for various age groups. Does your writing process differ depending on your likely
audience?
A: To a degree my
process is different for each age group. Although I never write “down” to my
audience, I am conscious of the need to be somewhat aware of word usage and
concepts for an intended younger audience.
I think about
whether or not the stories might be studied in classrooms, which several of
mine are, and if some adjustments might need to be made to keep them acceptable
(within reason).
I always make sure
I’m as accurate as I can be in any subject I write about, and I talk with
experts in the particular fields. This is important to me, and sometimes I get
hung up about wanting something or a character to be a certain way, but
marketability prevails and I keep things tempered.
A YA novel gives one more scope for delving
into tougher and more controversial subjects at a level that can’t be used in
juvenile fiction or picture books.
I still mull a
story over for a while to see how it feels, do a little research on what’s been
done on this particular topic or area, consider what angle might sell, and then
mull it over some more. I rarely know the whole story before I start writing,
and I certainly don’t plot it out beforehand.
Initial research
is always required for anything I write, and I’d be lost without the internet
or a library to point me in the right direction.
Research is a
continuing process throughout my writing, including in selecting the
appropriate word choice, punctuation, dialogue, or description, besides all the
details in a particular scene. I want to experience as much as possible, take
photographs, have tactile props, and immerse myself in whatever I do,
regardless of what I write.
Q: What are you
working on now?
A: I’m just about
to start writing, or to start working again, on an adult historical novel that
I’ve had on the back burner for a dozen years. I’ve just finished a sequel to a
children’s novel, and hopefully it will be published next year.
Although I have
many other projects I’d like to do, the adult novel has finally made it to the
top of the priority list. I’m determined to have a very rough draft of at least
half of it by the end of this summer.
So many of my
novels have some sort of time shift to the past, whether into the world of
dinosaurs, the early days of pioneers, or ghostly encounters.
While Convictions was
entirely set in the past, my adult novel, which I tentatively call Tapestry, is
a different approach to time shift. It features a parallel story of characters
in the present juxtaposed with characters in a past life, taking place at the
time of the British Civil War (1640s).
I’ve had
incredible luck with research and being part of several re-enactment events in
Britain. I have mounds of research material, photographs, transcripts of
speaking with all kinds of experts, etc. Its complexity is daunting, but
exciting at the same time!
Q: Anything else
we should know?
A: I have a
million ideas and several other projects on the go. My picture book, Honouring
the Buffalo: A Plains Cree Legend, written in English and Cree, has been
incredibly successful, winning two international awards and many accolades,
including more award nominations, and it was recently translated into French.
I’d like to follow
it up with another picture book featuring Cree legends and have several ideas
on this. In the meantime though, I’m contemplating a “companion” colouring and
activity book for Honouring the Buffalo, and am investigating this possibility.
I have another
ghost story juvenile novel started, but it’s slipping farther down the priority
list, as is a sci-fi novel I started years ago. For now, I’m incredibly busy
doing readings and presentations of my two newest books, and happily looking
forward to writing Tapestry.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Q&A with Madeline and Matthew Bailey
Madeline and Matthew Bailey are the children of the late Jack H. Bailey, whose novel Orchard has been posthumously published. It is a fictionalized version of the life of Harry Orchard, a controversial member of the Western Federation of Miners at the turn of the 20th century. Jack Bailey also wrote the novels The Number Two Man and The Icarus Complex. He died in 2010.
Q:
How did your father come up with the idea for the novel Orchard?
A:
Jack was interested in mining history because of his own background. His
great-grandfather, Jack Layton, came from England as a crew member on a ship
hoping to make his fortune in the United States gold country.
Harry
Orchard was a well-known historical figure when Jack was growing up in the ‘30s
in Idaho. Orchard was a key witness in the trial during which noted
attorney Clarence Darrow defended union leaders Bill Haywood and George
Pettibone, who were being prosecuted for the murder of the governor of the
state of Idaho by the equally formidable attorney William Borah. It was
considered "the Trial of the Century."
The
trial was to Jack's recent past at that time as the O.J. Simpson trial is to
our own recent past today.
Q:
The novel includes both historical and fictional elements. What did he see as
the right blend of the two?
A:
Excerpted from Jack's correspondence with his agent:
I
think when any of us embarks on a novel which is driven by the deeds or
misdeeds of a strong central character, we have to make a couple of decisions.
One, what’s the blend of fact versus fiction and two, at what point in his life
do we introduce that character? In researching Orchard, I read his
autobiography, written in prison, along with other books written about him in
the early twentieth century, by both admirers and detractors. I also did considerable
research on Charles Siringo.
Since
Orchard is fiction and written to capture the interest of the reader, I chose
to set the story in a relatively brief time period which represented both the
pinnacle and the nadir of Orchard’s career as a union terrorist. I also took
great liberties regarding his interface with Siringo, but this is fiction.
Orchard
had very humble beginnings. Born Albert Horsely in Canada, with seven siblings,
he had only a third grade education. He married, had a child, and with his
wife, owned a small cheese factory. While thus engaged, he indulged in a series
of dishonest business practices involving both customer and supplier. He became
infatuated with a married woman, burned down the cheese factory for the $700
insurance settlement, abandoned his wife and child and moved to Idaho, where he
worked as a miner. It’s not clear what happened to the other woman, but who
cares?
It was clear to me that Harry Orchard was a classic sociopath and was born that
way. I didn’t want to taint, what I think is a rich story, by creating a vision
in the readers’ mind of a philandering, dishonest cheese salesman. So there you have it.
Q:
What kind of research did he do to write this novel?
A:
Jack read extensively about Harry Orchard, Charles Siringo and the Western
Federation of Miners. Family vacations were spent visiting mining towns in
the West and Northwest.
During
a visit to the Wallace District Mining Museum in Idaho, Jack struck up a
conversation with a woman working there who was likely the wife of a local
miner. He inquired about Harry Orchard and even so many years after the
"Trial of the Century" the woman answered in whispers.
Q:
How did the novel end up being published posthumously?
A:
Jack was a published author with a prominent New York literary agent. When
Orchard was first making the rounds to publishers, period Westerns were out of
fashion. Jack and the book received many glowing rejection notices. So
the book was put aside while Jack worked on other projects including a
screenplay of Orchard.
This
piece is very special to Jack's family so we decided to publish it to
preserve his work and make it available for the enjoyment of others.
Q:
Anything else we should know?
A:
Jack was a prolific writer throughout his life. Ideas would percolate for
a while and when Jack would sit at his desk, the writing would come seemingly
effortlessly, originally on yellow legal pads and then on his computer.
He
began as a novelist, writing four. Two were published. A life-long
car enthusiast, The Number Two Man and The Icarus Complex made
enough money for Jack to buy a red Alfa Romeo with great brakes!
His
first novel cost him his job in aerospace where he'd been in executive
positions for 16 years. The book was fiction but some of the brass thought
they recognized themselves in it. He always said he should have used a pen
name...but no guts, no glory!
He
talked sometimes about not being able to control his characters. When that
happened, he'd shelve them and work on something else.
Jack
wrote novels, screenplays, letters to the editor of his local newspaper and to
politicians, and hilarious poems and homemade birthday cards for his family.
He
was very involved in the Zoetrope on-line screenwriters' workshop. When
criticism was constructive, he would edit and rewrite accordingly. Jack
was very generous to other writers, providing suggestions and guidance with
good humor.
Jack
was a Nicholl Fellowship semifinalist four times and a quarterfinalist
three times with five different screenplays. One thing he would remind himself
about the Nicholl; it's open only to screenwriters who've never sold anything.
Jack
was happily married to Wanda, his college sweetheart, for nearly 57 years
before his death in 2010.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Friday, July 1, 2016
Q&A with Sharon Pendana
Sharon Pendana is the author of the book Secret Washington D.C., a guidebook to various sites in the capital city. She created the website The Trove, which includes interviews with a variety of creative people.
Q: How did you end up writing this guidebook, and how did you
pick the places to include?
A: I was born and raised in Washington, D.C., but have lived
most of my adult life in New York City. When my beloved mother became ill, I
returned to Washington to care for her.
Full-time caregiving can be isolating and I had a
throw-up-my-hands moment in which I thought I am happy to be here with and for
Mom, but something's got to give to make me fall in love with my hometown
again. (Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.)
One of the assignments for a travel writing course I was
taking was to choose a specific publisher and write a targeted pitch for a
travel guide. I browsed the travel section at Politics & Prose to see
what some of the offerings were and found the excellent Secret New York from
Editions Jonglez.
Intrigued by the title, I flipped through the pages thinking
that if I was to write a travel guide, this would be the kind I'd want to
write. So I crafted a pitch for Secret Washington D.C. and sent in my
assignment to the instructor, AnneLise Sorenson, who encouraged me to submit it
to the publisher.
I did and awoke the next morning to an email in the
affirmative from Jonglez. I am really delighted to be a part of their
wonderful "Secret" series of guides to international
destinations.
The series invites the reader/traveler to go off the beaten
track in each city, so choosing the sites to include was like a treasure hunt,
sleuthing out little-known or unusual spaces and places.
It was important to me to cover the entire city, not just
our largest quadrant, Northwest (Though, due to its size it is the quadrant
with the most entries in the book.) I also included a few sites within an hour
of the city in Maryland and Virginia.
In a city filled with statues of war heroes on horseback, it
was also important to me to be inclusive of other histories/voices--people with
disabilities; the LGBTQ community; to touch on the city's diversity of
ethnicity, race, and religion
Having attended primary school at Beauvoir (with your
sister, Judy, coincidentally) in the shadow of Washington National Cathedral, I
knew there'd be treasures in the gothic structure. The Darth Vader grotesque
was the first thing I photographed for the book.
Q: How did you research all the places you write about in
the book?
A: I utilized many of the incredible resources we have here,
The Washingtoniana Room of the D.C. Public Library, The Historical Society of
Washington, D.C., The Library of Congress, The Peabody Room of the Georgetown
Neighborhood Library and The Museum of Health and Medicine to name a few.
I discovered a fascinating intersectionality between these
resources. At the Historical Society, I held in a white-gloved hand the
very assassin's bullet that pierced the spine of President James A. Garfield
and read the hand-written note from the coroner who retrieved it.
Then at The Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring,
which is featured in the book, I saw on display the 12th thoracic, first and
second lumbar vertebrae of the late president, with a tube inserted, marking
the path of the bullet.
Q: What are a few of the things you learned that especially
surprised you?
A: Touring the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment
Plant in Southwest was an eye-opener. Clean water coming out of the tap is
something we take for granted, but getting an up-close look at the process to
make that happen will make you rethink everything and your role in
contaminating the Potomac.
I have, for example, mindlessly flushed unused prescription
medicine. No more. Our toilet bowls are not garbage disposals.
Q: Let's say a visitor had a day to spend in D.C. What would
you suggest as their tourism agenda?
A: In order to enjoy both indoor and outdoor time, here's a
rather ambitious itinerary that will have you setting foot in each quadrant.
Begin at the 8am opening of the underutilized treasure, The U.S. National
Arboretum in Northeast, to see our "ruins," the Capitol Columns on
the Ellipse Meadow and the magnificent Bonsai and Penjing Museum.
Next, head to Southeast for a ranger-led tour (schedule it
for 10am) of the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site to marvel over the
hilltop views from his home, Cedar Hill, and the extraordinary story of the man
who escaped slavery to become a respected orator, abolitionist, and statesman.
Experience Native American cuisine with midday lunch at
Mitisam Cafe at the Museum of the American Indian in Southwest, then head to
Dupont Circle in Northwest for a 2pm tour of Heurich House, home of visionary
brewing magnate Christian Heurich, once the largest private employer in the
city.
Affectionately known as The Brewmaster's Castle, it is the
first fireproof home built in the District. With contents original to his
occupancy, it gives a glimpse of the lifestyle of affluent Washingtonians of
the late-Victorian era.
And a must when visiting Washington, a city with a dominant
Masonic influence, is a stop at the grand House of the Temple of the Scottish
Rite of Freemasonry. Book it for 4pm for the last tour of the day.
It lasts for about an hour so if you are traveling by train,
you'll have time to squeeze in a walk on the APA Roof Garden and Labyrinth
across the street from Union Station before your departure.
If you are flying, simply enjoy the colors refracted from
Bridge Tender's House, a public artwork by artist Mikyoung Kim on the 14th
Street Bridge as you pass by en route to Reagan National Airport. Since
operating hours are subject to change, please check the schedules of suggested
sites before traveling.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am publishing several new interviews to my site, The Trove, a
treasury of stories of the fascinating people I encounter and the things they
hold dear. I am honored that they share their lives with me.
I am also rebuilding our archive, which was unfortunately
hacked last year. And there's an enchanted project brewing, but it's too early
to discuss.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Each summer, The National Building Museum, a great place
to visit at Judiciary Square, hosts a fun, interactive display amid the columns
of their Great Hall in addition to their exhibitions. (Remember last year's sea
of white plastic balls, known as The Beach?)
This year, it's Icebergs, July 2 -September 5. They
have an excellent museum shop, one of my favorites in the city, and it just so
happens to stock Secret Washington D.C.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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