MENTOR MONDAY

Alisa Libby is the author of two phenomenal historical fiction novels entitled, THE KING’S ROSE and THE BLOOD CONFESSION. She is also an expert researcher!

I first met Alisa Libby at the New England SCBWI conference in Nashua, New Hampshire in 2009. I had signed up for her workshop because I thought it would help me with an idea I had been/am banging around in my head; her class was on researching history/events in order to write a historical fiction novel. The class was about weaving in those details—making the facts feel integral to the story rather than merely dropped in.

Alisa is a great presenter! (She says that she’s nervous, but no one else would know it!) And MAN! Does this girl know her stuff! She is an incredible researcher—the scope of it is amazing while the details of it are…well, just as amazing!

Alisa inspired me that day, so I bought both of her books; I have a teenage daughter that *loves* historical fiction. She devoured both of Alisa’s books immediately and has since deemed them hers—not mine! So, because of that meeting a year and a half ago, and my daughter’s enthusiasm for her books, I asked Alisa if she would be kind enough to contribute something for Mentor Monday. She said, “Yes!”

Here is Alisa:

I would love to share with you a blurb about my mentor for your blog! Without further ado, here you go:

My Dad was an artist. We were always involved in some project: playing musical instruments, building model airplanes, catching fruit flies and putting them on slides for my microscope. Most of all, we talked about the creative process: the frequent frustration punctuated by moments of elation. My father carved the head of a cat out of a block of stone, a herd of horses from a block of wood. He created a model violin so small you could fit it in your pocket. I watched all of this in astonishment – a miracle of art and creation taking place in my very own home. He read all of my stories and poems and offered advice and critique. We commiserated over the difficulties of getting the beautiful images in our heads to translate onto the page (or wood, or stone, or canvas). He had a wonderful ability to find humor in the midst of these trials, and he taught me to be excited about the creative process itself – the actual act of sitting down and writing – instead of focusing solely on the final product. My father died over 12 years ago, but I still carry these lessons with me. I often think of him in moments of frustration, inspiration, and elation.

Many thanks,
Alisa

Thank YOU, Alisa!

MENTOR MONDAY!

A *big* Mentor Monday welcome to the multi-talented Liz Goulet Dubois! She an author/illustrator, a master blogger, and toy designer. She writes plays, directs them, and does incredible stage sets for them. She is also into product licensing and takes part in writing a group blog entitled The Licensing Nook (and website) about the ins and outs of the business, as well as some just really cool stuff! If that weren’t enough, have you ever seen those hilarious FRED products? Liz designs a number of their over-the-top fun stuff! She does it ALL, I tell you! And she does it all well!

Liz's writing and art work focus mostly on younger children. She is an award winning illustrator from Highlights Magazine and has iillustrated several pre-school books. She has written some as well and does the paper engineering for her pop-up books. Her Fred Products seem to turn up in Rachel Ray's magazine (as well as others) a lot! Liz seems to have creative toes in all kinds of ponds. (But she would never write as weird of a sentence as that last one!)

I first met Liz at the annual SCBWI Whispering Pines Writers’ Retreat in Rhode Island. I took to her immediately, and we have since become great friends. I have a ton of respect for her. She is the real deal—professionally and in ways that matter even more. I could say that Liz has been a mentor to me in learning the ways of the business of children’s lit; once I got serious about publication, I listened carefully to her nuggets of wisdom—the dos and don’ts of navigating the pubbing world. This very website/blog is here because she...uh...suggested...I put it up. She is honest and forthright but always thoughtful and kind. And, let me tell you, she is just chock full of wisdom. Finally, Liz is a good friend—the best! I feel blessed to know her! Truly, I do.

Okay. Enough gushing from me! Without further ado, here is Liz Goulet Dubois’s Mentor Monday submission:

Mentor Submission

By Liz Goulet Dubois

Without question, my first and best mentor was my mom. I don't remember a time when I wasn't encouraged to try anything artistic. I always had ideas on things to make, sew, paint, build, etc. and she always gave me the supplies and pointed me in the right direction for getting started. Just as important, I think, was her ability to step back and let me figure things out for myself. That's a very subtle quality- the ability to NOT help too much!

In junior high and high school, my art teacher was Brother Marty. I was able to sail through most of the usual required lessons, and he was the one who let me go to the next level by devising different kinds of art for me to do.

By senior year, I was already painting on canvas and writing and illustrating my own books, and it was these extra things that likely got me into RISD, the one place I really wanted to go. In college, I had two teachers who were very supportive and also allowed me to pursue my own vision in art. David Niles, one of my illustration teachers, and Amy Kravitz, my animation teacher, were both instrumental in allowing me to develop my own style of art. They were instructors that could tell intuitively when to help, but also allowed the space to allow for blooming.

Thanks SO much Liz! It was a pleasure to have you here at Mentor Mondays!

MENTOR MONDAY!!

A big Mentor Monday welcome to Cynthia Levinson! She is a fabulous non-fiction writer, having authored piles of fascinating articles and a book coming out from Peachtree in 2012 entitled, WE HAVE A JOB: THE 1963 BIRMINGHAM CHILDREN’S MARCH.

I first heard an excerpt from this book about 18 months ago and was drawn in immediately. When I was young, non-fiction books merely spewed facts, but Cynthia’s writing is filled with character development, intrigue, action, and fascinating details. Actually, so is Cynthia! ;-)

Here’s a taste:

PROLOGUE: “I WANT TO GO TO JAIL”

Eight-year-old Audrey woke up Thursday morning with freedom on her mind. But, before she could be free, she knew she had to go to jail.

“I want to go to jail,” Audrey told her mother.

“OK,” her mother answered.

She asked her parents to buy her a game she’d been eyeing. She figured that Operation, in which you take the bones out of a plastic figure and put them back together, would entertain her in case she got bored during her week on a cellblock.

Her mother thought it would be polite for her to tell Miss Wills, her third-grade teacher at Center Street Elementary, that she’d be absent. Miss Wills cried.
“I think she was proud of me,” Audrey said.

She also hugged all four grandparents goodbye.

One of her grandmothers assured her, “You’ll be fine.”

Then, Audrey’s mother drove her to church so she could be arrested.
Wait a minute! What kind of eight-year-old volunteers to go to jail? And, what kind of mother says, “OK” and makes sure she gets there? And, why would she get arrested at church?

Is this real?

Yes. Audrey Faye Hendricks and her mother, Lola, are real. So is this story.

Audrey was one of the youngest of about 4,000 black children who marched, protested, sang, and prayed their way to jail during the first week of May 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama. Their goal was to end segregation in the most racially separated and violent city in America. Many young people suffered attacks by snarling German shepherds and days of being crammed into sweltering sweatboxes. Some wondered if they would survive. And, if they did, could they accept these punishments with dignity, as they had been taught? Or, would they retaliate against the white policemen who were abusing them?

Audrey and three other young people—Washington Booker III, James Stewart, and Arnetta Streeter—will be your guides through these harrowing events. Along the way, you’ll hear from others as well.

I knew that Cynthia’s agent, Erin Murphy, was shopping this ms around and I was so hoping that it would sell! When I got word that it did, I danced in my office to a blaring SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED, I’M YOURS (my official book contract celebratory song! Go ahead and click it. You know you want to. Do it.)

I know that WE HAVE A JOB will be the first of many books that lucky children everywhere will read from Cynthia!

Here is Cynthia’s Mentor Story:

I didn’t know that Mary Jane was mentoring me until it was too late. Had I known, I would have inhaled every comment and suggestion she made in our critique group. Even her silences, head cocked, were tactfully telling. But, it’s only in retrospect that I realized how honored I should have felt to get guidance from Mary Jane Hopkins before she abruptly died.

It was Mary Jane, who, looking at my tediously over-long and expository manuscripts, suggested I switch from writing fiction to nonfiction. Finding that niche on my own took me another five years, at least 30 rejections of inept fiction, and an exasperated dismissal by a famous writer of my amateurish novel at an expensive weeklong retreat.

While I stubbornly insisted I was going to write picture books, she urged me to write for the magazine market. She was right about that, too, though I didn’t realize it until years later when a famous editor scribbled all over the first chapter of that very same novel at another expensive weeklong retreat.

Along the way, Mary Jane patiently helped me pare words, hone the story, find a rhythm. It’s only because of her that I finally sold two stories—to magazines, of course. The effusiveness of her congratulations masked her own role in these successes. Still, my own blinkered, I-can-do-it-myself attitude meant that one story had to be heavily edited, and the other was never printed.

Just before she suffered the stroke, she had been working on a beautifully crafted novel about a boy whose parents were divorcing and another who was entering the adoption system. Every chapter tightened the emotional grip of the one before. We were nearly as devastated to lose the progress of her story as we were to lose Mary Jane. When her husband asked our critique group to finish the novel, we sorrowfully explained that the distinctive voice, the clean writing, and the characters we looked forward to visiting with every week were hers alone. Mary Jane’s daughter, who inherited her mother’s writing genes, found a page of notes and questions her mother had kept. Question #10, I believe, was “How does it end?”

My writing—almost all nonfiction and, thanks to success in the magazine market, finally branching out to a trade book—would find its flow and reach its end so much more effectively if I could still hear Mary Jane. Fortunately, she taught me, posthumously, to listen, which I do, avidly, to my later mentors, whose advice I embrace.

Thank you, Cynthia! Very touching and a good message for us all!

Here is another song--a beautiful tribute.

MENTOR MONDAY!

Welcome to Printz Honor Winning author, Ellen Wittlinger! Such a pleasure to have her here!

Ellen is the author of 14 books for young readers. Her third book, HARD LOVE, was a Printz Honor Book (among many accolades it received!). This is such a poignant book—and one of my faves!

Her newest book is entitled, THIS MEANS WAR, a terrific story set in the 1960's.

From Booklist:
Wittlinger latches on to a poignant metaphor for war in this lively and readable tale set against the backdrop of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Fifth-grader Juliet lives near a growing military base, which has brought in an influx of new kids, including the rowdy Patsy. It’s a good thing, too, because Juliet’s longtime pal Lowell has abandoned her to hang out with boys, including the overgrown bully, Bruce. This division turns into an all-out battle of the sexes when Bruce devises a nine-day competition that tests the strength and bravery of girls versus boys. These increasingly dangerous tests (entering a dog pen, shoplifting) bring most of the children closer together, though for Patsy and Bruce, they only escalate the conflict. It’s a clever concept that keeps the proceedings fun even as the darker drama of potential world collapse provides a weighty element; young readers will be shocked to learn of Juliet’s daily prayers, including “Dear God, please don’t let the world end today.” A warm way to introduce the cold war. Grades 5-8. --Daniel Kraus
See all Editorial Reviews

As Director of The Whispering Pines Retreat, I met Ellen when she was kind enough to attend as our author mentor. She was a wonderful addition to our faculty that year, as she was so knowledgeable but also kind, approachable, and generous with her time and wisdom. She gave thoughtful, thorough critiques to our writers that year and also gave a terrific presentation on writing humor, which I continue to refer back to even today. By the end of the weekend, I felt very fortunate, that I had made a friend in Ellen, and that makes me lucky indeed!

Here is Ellen Wittlinger:



My Mentors
By Ellen Wittlinger

There are many people who helped me along my crooked path to becoming a writer, but four in particular I’ll never forget. I was an art major in college, partly because I was a slow reader and I wasn’t sure I could get through all the Milton and Chaucer that English majors had to read. But I was writing all the time anyway, and in my senior year I took a poetry course from a young faculty member by the name of Kelly Yenser. Both Kelly and his wife Pamela were poets (and still are,) and they encouraged me to follow that dream too. They were sympathetic readers of my early work, they put books into my hands I hadn’t known to read, and they convinced me to apply to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop for graduate school. I would not be a published author today without their example and support.

I wish I could say my years at the Iowa Workshop were also full of wonderful mentors, but they were not. I had a few good teachers, but the classes were large and I was not one of the stars. In those years I worked hard mainly to show those guys (and they were mostly guys) that I was worthy of being there too.

After grad school I was incredibly lucky to get a fellowship to write at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts--a living space and a stipend for seven months and nothing to do but live in one of the most beautiful spots on earth and write. In fact, I got a second year fellowship there too and ended up living on Cape Cod for three years. During that time the person who made the biggest impact on my life was a wonderful poet by the name of Alan Dugan. Dugan (as everyone called him) was a big, rough-voiced, heavy-drinking guy who’d won a Pulitzer Prize before I met him, and went on to win a National Book Award. I was a bit cowed by him, to say the least. But during my first week at the Center Dugan called all ten writing fellows together for an informal chat during which he repeatedly referred to us as his “colleagues.” He always, from then on, treated each of us as an equal, as people whose writing must be taken seriously. Which is when I really began to take myself seriously as a writer. If Dugan believed in me, it must be true.

During my third year in Provincetown, another well-known author became involved with the Work Center, the wonderful short-story writer Grace Paley. Another tough cookie on the outside, Grace was incredibly generous to all of us younger writers, reading draft after draft of the same story and giving honest feedback. I still have a message pinned to the corkboard in my office which has been around since Grace first said it to me: “Write what you don’t know about what you know.” She was right.

I am a writer today because of the generosity and support of these four people. Since I’ve become part of the children’s writing community, finding helpful people is less unusual than it was when I was in the (so-called) adult writing world. In that harsher climate, these folks were my saviors, and I thank them for it.

Thanks a ton, Ellen! So grateful to have had you visit MENTOR MONDAYS! ;-)

MENTOR MONDAY!!!

Welcome to Laura Toffler-Corrie! Thrilled to have her here on Mentor Mondays!

Laura is the author of the hilarious, THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF AMY FINAWITZ, a character being called, “The Tina Fey” of middle grade readers. I highly recommend you pick up the book and put a sitting aside to get to know this hilarious, quirky girl!

From Booklist:

It can’t get any worse for Amy Finawitz. Her best friend, Callie, has abandoned their life in New York City to stay with relatives in Kansas for the year, leaving Amy to cope with eighth grade alone. Thankfully—or not—God sends Amy a replacement friend in the form of Miss Sophia, the little old lady who lives down the hall. Miss Sophia hooks Amy into solving a decades old mystery left in a very old journal. The dynamic duo soon becomes a Terrific Triumvirate when Miss Sophia also asks her fifteen-year-old nephew, Beryl, a Lubavitch Jew, to join their little investigative team.

And if Amy thought her year couldn't get anymore random, she can add the following items to her list: Houdini’s grave, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, cross-dressing magicians, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, crochet circles, Abraham Lincoln, a raucous rendition of Fiddler on the Roof, and a secret treasure.

To get through it all, Amy's going to need a serious Chanukah miracle

~~~~~

Praise For The Life and Opinions of Amy Finawitz…

“Entertaining…genuinely funny…” –Publishers Weekly

"...value and sweetness."–Kirkus Reviews

Laura Toffler-Corrie

A MENTOR WHO INSPIRED ME:

In my early twenties, I decided to return to graduate school and pursue a degree in Dramatic Writing at New York University. I was excited but also terrified. Did I have the courage to share my work? Did I have talent? Could I succeed? On the first day of class, cowered by my insecurities, I decided that the best approach was a cautious one. I would sit in the back of the room and say very little.

However, the professor, Lee Kalcheim, had other ideas. His class was going to be a full participation experience. We would spend the semester writing and sharing our work. At the end, we would mount our own one act play to be performed in front of an audience. When I heard that, it took everything I had not to run out the door and never look back.

Somehow, week after week, I screwed up the nerve to write and present new work and, week after week, Lee was supportive. He encouraged me to develop my writing voice, he laughed at the funny bits and offered supportive criticism when needed. He taught me about character and plot and dialogue. Through his gentle guidance and the supportive atmosphere he created in class, my work improved and my confidence bloomed. On the last day, I did indeed mount my own one act play, in a professional, black box theatre, in front of an audience; one of the most frightening, and exhilarating experiences of my life.

I believe that Lee’s support was instrumental in giving me the courage to pursue a career in writing, with all its attendant rejection and disappointments, and to achieve my dream of being a professional author.


As far as the author goes, she’s pretty hilarious and quirky, too! ;-) THANKS, so much, Laura, for gracing us with your presence here on Mentor Mondays!

MENTOR MONDAY

A BIG welcome to Tamara Ellis Smith who is completely and utterly awesome!

I met Tam at Erin Murphy’s retreat out in Portland, Oregon a year and a half ago. I liked her immediately and more and more as the week went on. No question that she is a gifted writer but also a super great human being—wicked nice. The real deal. (and the BEST tattoos ever!) The only thing that I’d change about her is her geography—too far away for lunch dates!

Tam’s middle grade novel, MARBLE BOYS, won an Honorable Mention in the 2008 PEN New England Discovery Awards and was runner up for the 2008 SCBWI Works-In-Progress grant. I’ve heard an excerpt of this and it’s beautiful. Visual. I still have images from it in my head after all this time. I know in my heart of hearts that Erin, our over-the-top awesome agent, will find a lucky editor for it soon! And, I’ll be one of the first to celebrate!!!

Tam also has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College—a top program in the country! God! I can hardly get my socks mated! Clearly, this girl is in for BIG things! ;-)

Welcome, Tam!

Kathy Appelt

By Tamara Ellis Smith


Anyone who has been in a room with Kathi Appelt for more than a few minutes has probably heard her utter her famous words “Write like your fingers are on fire!” She lives this. She is passionate, full of energy, and the words that pour out of her heart and mind are piping, steaming hot!

I was lucky enough to have Kathi as my second semester advisor when I was a graduate student in the Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Vermont College for the Arts. At that point, I had been in school for one semester—long enough to know that this was exactly what I was meant to do with my life and that I had no idea how to do make it actually happen. It was a mucky, murky time. I was in it, for sure, but I was kicking up a lot of debris and I couldn’t see very clearly.

Kathi nurtured me that semester in so many different ways.

She nurtured my craft: I was working on a novel for the first time (I had only ever written picture books before that) and she gave me permission to finish a whole draft. She urged me to do it, asked me to let go and let it flow out of me. Feel what that felt like. She nurtured my soul: She created a real community from the five of us students who had her as an advisor that semester. She asked us to connect, to talk to each other, and support each other as we all dug deep to do our work. And she nurtured my heart: Kathi and I talked over email—probably over twenty hours all told—about the craft of writing…but also about raising children, managing writer’s block, and balancing family and work.

Craft. Soul. Heart. Kathi held and lifted each one of them.

She taught me how to embrace it all—to open my arms wide and gather it up, to weave it all together, to let it organically be what it wants to be. In essence, Kathi got me to stand still. To let all of the pieces touch me, and float around me, and finally settle to the ground. Like standing still in a stream, and allowing the mucky, murky water to settle until it is clear. This feels intuitively right to me, but I don’t think I would have trusted that way of being if Kathi hadn’t guided me there.

Kathi writes like her fingers are on fire, but I believe that she also writes—and lives—like this. By embracing it all, by staying quiet and still in the cool water, by weaving all of the pieces together. You can see it in her work. And you can feel it when she teaches.

I am eternally grateful that Kathi is in my life—my mentor, my moon sister, my friend.


Thanks SO much, Tam! We so much enjoyed hearing about this fantastic mentor of yours—none other than Kathi Appelt! I hope to meet her in person some time soon…

MENTOR MONDAY

A BIG welcome to Ann Haywood Leal--the author of two MG books, entitled, ALSO KNOWN AS HARPER and the recently released, FINDERS KEEPERS PLACE. I first met Ann at a class in Fairfield. I was immediately drawn to her warm personality, as well as her tremendous writing talent! And let me tell you--She's one darn funny lady, too!

I am grateful that she has taken the time to do a piece for Mentor Mondays. I hope you find it as touching as I did!

Ann Haywood Leal:

As far as mentors are concerned, I could name so many people. To me, a mentor not only passes on some of their wisdom and knowledge, but they also give you something extra that becomes a part of who you are.

The wonderful Patricia Reilly Giff is definitely someone who has done that for me (and for so many others!). Pat is so generous with her time and with her advice for new writers. Whether it's a celebration or just a problem about which I need to kvetch, Pat always has the time to listen. All the way back to when I was figuring out what a query letter was, Pat has always had time and patience for me.

And without a doubt, my mom filled the mentoring role in my life. Books and reading were always so important to her, and she shared them with me in such a way that made me love words, too. No matter how busy she was, she always stopped what she was doing and took the time to read my stories. I loved when she wrote comments in the margins! Sometimes now when I'm writing, I'll imagine what her comments would be. My deepest regret is that she died before she could see my first book on the shelf at the library.

When I had my book party at The Dinosaur's Paw Bookstore, I told Pat Giff how much I wished my mom could see it all. Pat said, "She knows, Ann. She knows."

Thanks so much, Ann! This was so touching and a wonderful addition to Mentor Mondays!