Category Archives: craft

Middle Grade Monday book review: The Great Trouble by Deborah Hopkinson

I’m going to try to read all the books that are on the 2015-16 OBOB list with me and I’m so happy to start with a wonderful book by my friend and fellow Portlander, Deborah Hopkinson. This is a story after my heart because epidemiology was my 9780375848186 mother’s field. It’s an account of how the enterprising Dr. Snow and a couple of street urchins proved that a cholera epidemic that a broke out in Victorian London was caused not by the heavily polluted air but by the contaminated water in the Broad Street pump.

Three things for a kid reader to love:

1. Any kid who lives Bones or CSI or other tv crime scene procedurals will love this. It’s full of real nitty gritty details of how to prove that disease is water-borne when the water tastes fine and the air stinks. Great fun, and not “teach-y”

2. Cool historical maps of the epidemic are in the back matter. Love Maps!

3. The narrator, a kid who goes by the name Eel, is appealing and keeps the events on a very human scale. In finding and answer to the riddle of the Broad Street pump, Eel finds a home and protection and education for his beloved little brother.

Something for the writer to think about:

Any story about an epidemic is going to be tragic and this one doesn’t shrink from death. However, and this is the important distinction to me, it doesn’t revel in death or glamorize suffering. It’s a fine line to walk and I think it’s handled beautifully. Well worth a read just to see how Deborah gets the balance just right.

Also I’m going to tag this as a diverse book in terms of class. It addresses very directly the injustices Eel faces because of his economic status. It’s easy to over-look or romanticize the poor. Here’s a book that in my opinion does them justice. The low-income characters are a mix of good and bad actors and the upper-income characters are an equally mixed bag in terms of personal virtue. Bravo!

PDX Young Writer’s Camp

This is a brand new writers camp in town and I’m really excited to be working on plot with a bunch of avid young writers in Portland. There are just a few slots left!

Middle Grade Monday book review: ECHO by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Ordinarily I just take the jpeg of a book cover from the internet, but for this one I just had to take a picture of the book with my Hohner vest pocket harmonica. It’s smaller than the instruments referred to in the story, and I haven’t played it in ages, but it reminded me how much I loved having music in my pocket as a child. Echo is hard story to sum up briefly but it’s got the best flap copy I’ve read in a while so here’s that.

Lost and alone in a forbidden forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica. Decades later, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California each, in turn, become interwoven when the very same harmonica lands in their lives. All the children face daunting challenges: rescuing a father, protecting a brother, holding a family together. And ultimately, pulled by the invisible thread of destiny, their suspenseful solo stories converge in an orchestral crescendo.

Richly imagined and masterfully crafted, ECHO pushes the boundaries of genre and form, and shows us what is possible in how we tell stories. The result is an impassioned, uplifting, and virtuosic tour de force that will resound in your heart long after the last note has been struck

3 things for a young reader to love

1. This is a really intriguing mix of realistic historical and fantastical elements. There’s lots to learn about the history of the 20th century here but wrapped as it is in a mythic prophesy, it doesn’t feel “teachy” yet it brings to light some really interesting and dark and difficult aspects of American and German history.

2.There is some truly beautiful book craftsmanship here: decorated pages, a lovely cover under the dust jacket, and three songs with harmonica notation in case you want to learn the music from each section of the book.

3. It’s long! I know some people are going to look at that as a disadvantage in the supposedly attention deficit MG market, but I disagree. MG readers have time to read. Some of them love long books, love the seriousness they imply, love getting wrapped up in a tale that carries them along for hours and hours. And yet there’s nothing here to edge it up to YA. This is the perfect book for that tender-hearted teenaged reader who is not interested in sexual relationships and blatant violence. It’s also great for that really young high level reader who needs a challenge and a story with substance but isn’t up for YA content.

4. Okay I cheated 4 things. It’s diverse, seamlessly interweaving Jewish, Irish, Japanese and Hispanic experiences.

Something for the writer to think about

Prologues and epilogues are routinely discouraged by writing instructors and there are good reasons to be cautious about including one. But here’s an example of one that has been done beautifully. It’s a bold choice to mix the fantastical elements of the prologue and epilog with straight up historical fiction in the other three sections. I think it works brilliantly here making it a true bridge to the more complex and layered stories they will read as adults. And the book has something lovely to say about the nearly magical power of music to give the musician comfort and courage. I’m not a big believer in predictions, but here is a book that’s going to be on lots of best book of the year lists.

Minding the Details

I recently finished the final proofreading for my upcoming novel The Turn of the Tide. I’m really grateful that I get such detail-oriented editors and copy editors. They’ve been terrific to work with. We had a really interesting conversation about italics for foreign language words, and I learned a lot about page design.

Here’s the part that astonished me though. Even after I’ve worked on a book for years, even after it’s been copy edited, I still found more than 40 errors to correct, a few were printing errors but most were my own mistakes. It’s humbling. I’m grateful that those people who receive Advanced Review Copies understand that about the process and don’t discount it in their reviews.

Summer Plans

Looking forward to warmer days and working in my treehouse this summer. I’ll be taking a workshop at Fishtrap again this summer. Last year I worked with Gary Ferguson, the author of The Carry Home, about w 0926081231 riting nature based non-fiction. It was a really refreshing break in my routine to spend some time thinking about what makes non-fiction work. This year I’m going to take a workshop from Erika Wurth and I’m looking forward to working on a group of adult short stories I’ve been fiddling around with over the last year or so. Fishtrap is held in one of the most beautiful spots on earth, Wallowa Lake, and it’s staffed but the least stuffy literary crowd you’ve ever met. I’ve grown as a writer and felt more connected to writers in my region every time I’ve masthead2014 gone. If you’re looking for something different in a summer workshop, Fishtrap is still taking applications. They’ve got great stuff for young writers too so if you’re not the only writer in the family this makes a great family vacation.

images I’m also looking forward to doing a little teaching in Portland at a brand new young writers workshop headed up by Kari Nelsestuen, a passionate advocate for young writers. I’ll be guest teaching a session for both the younger and older students. It’s called PDX Young Writers Camp and I’d love to send you to the website to sign up but I believe it’s already full. If you have a young writer who’d be interested in future writers camps send me note via the contact button here and I’ll get you on Kari Nelsestuen’s email list for next summer.

I’ll also be teaching two brand new interactive workshops at the Willamette Writers Conference August 7th to 9th. They are on plotting and revising novel length fiction. Participants will come away with a deeper understanding of plotting long form fiction, ideas for how to strengthen setting, theme and voice, and an interactive outline for their own work in progress. Willamette Writers always puts on a terrific conference with lots of options no matter what kind of writer you are, and they always bring in a huge range of producers, agents, and editors to take pitches.

My personal goal is to finish up the Heart of a Shepherd screenplay in May so that I’ll have all summer to delve into new work. My book that’s coming out in January is one I’ve been work on bit by bit for more than 4 years. It actually morphed into two completely different books, so it’s been a very long time since I’ve started brand new work. But now I’m debating between a story about a young Irish harper and the famine era migration of unaccompanied children from Ireland, and a story told from the point of a view of a wolf but also about migration.