Category Archives: writing

About the Lelooska Foundation

In her review of Written in Stone Debbie Reese took issue with the work of Chief Lelooska. To be clear, Lelooska is not in the story and is mentioned only briefly in the author’s note. Lelooska himself died in the late 1990s and his work is carried on by the Lelooska Foundation. Here is a link to more information about him and the Lelooska Foundation, for those who maybe following the conversation and be unfamiliar with the work of this author, illustrator, carver, linguist and historian. And here is a picture of Chief Lelooska in his traditional regalia.

I’m well aware, as Debbie has mentioned, that Lelooska was adopted into one of the bands of the Kwakwaka’wakw (also known as the Kwakiutl) tribe of British Columbia. Not everyone enjoys his art and not everyone likes the living history programs that he has provided in Washington for almost 40 years. I’m not interested in changing Debbie’s mind on this point. However hers is not the only opinion on the topic. Native Americans are not monolithic in their views and some of them are very much in favor of sharing their traditional arts with the wider community.

Among the tribes of the Pacific northwest, the right to tell a traditional story with its accompanying song, dance, and regalia is conferred in a potlatch. Lelooska’s right to share the stories he does was given to him by Chief James Aul Sewide and witnessed and agreed to by all the tribal members and neighboring tribes present at the potlatch. If they did not wish for Don Smith to become Chief Lelooska they could have chosen not to come to the potlatch. But they came, which is all the evidence I need to determine that he is doing this work fairly and in keeping with the traditions of the Kwakwaka’wakw. The tribe had the opportunity to deny the Lelooska Foundation the right to perform their living history programs after Lelooska died. But they came to the potlatch for his brother Tsungani and again conferred on him the ownership of the stories his family continues to present to the public.

I received an email just last week from the head of the planning team who was hired by the Quinault to relocate the village of Taholah out of the tsunami inundation zone. My book was recommended to him by somebody from the tribe as a vehicle for understanding them better. He’s aware of the weight of this project, to move a village site more than a thousand years old. He and his team want to make sure that what they design really serves the tribe well. Simply sticking in some local art at the end of the process isn’t what they want. They want to really think through with the community what their village needs in order to be a home to them. And so the book is a vehicle for thinking and talking about what the land and ocean and river and lake means to the community. Not because it’s a perfect representation of Quinault and Makah culture, they already have non-fiction materials aplenty for that purpose. It does what fiction does best, it invites reflection and conversation.

The bottom line for me is that each tribe gets to decide for themselves what is an acceptable representation of their culture. One of the reasons I chose the Quinault and Makah rather than one of the many smaller tribes in the area, is that they are well-accustomed to speaking up for themselves at a national and international level. If something about my book bothers them, I’m confident they will say so publicly. So far they’ve had no criticism of the book. The community in Taholah has invited me to come and celebrate it with them later this spring. The curator of their historical collection recommends the book to people who are interested in learning more about that tribe. That is all the endorsement I need.

Petroglyphs and other made up elements of Written in Stone

Debbie Reese in her review of Written in Stone asked me about the petroglyphs in the story and why I invented them rather than using actual petroglyphs from the village of Ozette, where my story is placed.

In the story the petroglyphs play a key role in helping Pearl uncover and claim her vocation as a writer and historian for her tribe. The ownership of artwork is a matter I take very seriously and to use an actual rock carving done by a Makah artist and put it in my book with no way of asking permission or compensating that artist fairly for his work would simply be wrong. So instead I invented a group of rock carvings based the carving style and technique I’ve seen while hiking in this area but copying none of them. To my thinking this is the more just course. Taking what’s

written_in_stone260 not mine is wrong. Making things up is what a fiction writer does. When the cover team was meeting I sent them a bunch of photographs of the Olympic Peninsula so they could get a feel for the ecosystem. The pictures included one of a petroglyph which is on public land and which commonly appears in works of non-fiction. I was so happy to see Richard Tuschman, the cover artist, incorporate a few petroglyphs on the cover–inventing an element in the style of this art but not stealing what’s not his to copy.

The other major plot element which is made up is the natural gas vent at Shipwreck Cove and the stories the tribe uses to keep children away from a dangerous place. The accusation that I’ve made up stories that don’t exist is dead wrong. I’ve told no stories belonging to the Quinault or Makah, real or made up. I have pointed out something that is distinctive and interesting about their culture though. These tribes use monster stories to keep their children away from danger without having to hover over them constantly. I was struck by how much freedom young people in the community had during my time in Taholah. They walked all over town freely and without immediate supervision but still under the watchful care of the entire community. Places that might be dangerous, such as the ocean with it’s powerful undertow and the dump which attracts bears, were bounded about, not with fences, but with scary stories that kept kids from wandering into harm’s way. If there was a natural gas vent near the town (and there might be, there were places I was asked not to go myself when I lived there) then certainly there would be stories to warn children away.

As I say in the authors note the cove and its contents are my invention. Whether or not petroleum is present on the Quinault or Makah reservations is something you’d have to ask them about. Each tribe has a natural resources department and they are the ones to speak (or decline to speak) about their reservation lands. Natural gas is present all over the non-reservation areas of the Olympic Peninsula but it’s not abundant enough that anyone has drilled for it so far. Wildcatting in search of oil and natural gas was very common in the 1920s, and business men with an eye to a quick profit were often unscrupulous in acquiring mineral rights to land. This is not only an injustice directed toward Native Americans. Many white farmers and ranchers fell victim to their swindles as well. And frankly, I’m tired of stories that cast the Indian as the hapless victim. I wanted a story where the Native American kid won and did so, not in some wildly unrealistic battle or singlehanded act of heroism, but in the manner that most of life’s battles are won: with words, and community, and the hard work of many years.

Written in Stone and the Makah Whale Hunt of 1999

Debbie Reese who writes the Native Americans in Children’s Literature blog has posted a review of Written in Stone and invited a conversation about the concerns she raised about the book. I’ve been chatting with her in the comment section of her blog. If you’d like to see that conversation the link to her blog is highlighted above. I’m also putting my comments here for easy reference to teachers and librarians who may have questions about the material in the book. I have been a teacher myself. I really love talking to teachers and librarians so if you have questions about the story or about using this book in your class, please join the conversation.

I was happy to see both Debbie and Beverly Slapin comment on the controversy surrounding the 1999 Makah whale hunt. It was big news in the region and I’m glad to hear that the news made the national stage as well. The best information on how hunts are conducted is found here on the Makah website. http://makah.com/makah-tribal-info/whaling/ There is much additional information to be found at the Makah Cultural Research Center in Neah Bay.

The resumption of whaling by the Makah encountered some vociferous opposition, most notably by the Sea Shepherd Society, but it also found support from a number of places. The International Whaling Commission verified that the gray whale is no longer an endangered species. There were marine safety issues to work out with local agencies. The hunt took place near a very busy international shipping lane, so that called for some communication and planning. Those negotiations were lengthy and complex but it’s not my impression that they were acrimonious. Unfortunately the peaceful working out of details does not make for exciting news, so I think the national outlets in particular paid attention to controversy more than cooperation.

I heard the Chairman of the Makah Whaling commission speak in Portland about the day of the hunt shortly after its completion. He said that on the morning of the hunt, the media was not present when the whalers set out and arrived only after the whale had already been brought in. The helicopters and cameras did show up eventually and the atmosphere on the beach got a bit chaotic, but there was a brief window of time when the Makah were (not completely but nearly) alone with their whale, and that time meant a great deal to them. Cultural renewal is the phrase the chairman used to describe what that moment meant to the tribe.

That is the moment I wanted for Pearl and her great-granddaughter. The reader can deduce from the news helicopter chop that the moment of peace will be brief but it’s the prerogative of the novelist to pick the focus of a scene and I wanted to end with that one moment of connection for Pearl’s family and their whale.

Absolutely true that the activist that Pearl grew up to be would have been in the thick of the work of resuming the treaty right to hunt whales. In fact when I first thought about writing this story I wanted to write about the resumption of whaling. Self-determination of natural resources is a piece of the civil rights story that seldom gets told. It’s a rich history and one I’d love to see in books for kids.

Ahem! you publishing professionals who have said in my hearing that there’s a need for more middle grade non-fiction, this is the perfect topic for a non-fiction series! It involves geography, history, a variety of Native and Non-native cultures, biology, chemistry, climate change, economics, international trade. Think of the possibilities for critical thinking and curriculum connections!

Back to the topic at hand 🙂

I left the whaling controversy out of Written in Stone for several reasons. Most of all I wanted to keep the focus on Pearl as a teenager in the 1920s and leave the 1999 whale hunt to serve as a frame and show that although the Makah lost whaling in the 1920s, it was not lost to them forever. It also shows that the Makah have not vanished nor maintained an Amish-like distance from the things of modern life, but continue to live and thrive in the same place they’ve always lived.

As I researched the whale hunt, the piece of it that really interested me was that the Makah, who had organized their culture for centuries around whale hunting, had to gave it up when the whale populations plummeted in the Pacific as a result of industrial whaling. That cultural survival piece of how to go on being the people that you are when something that so defined you is gone. That’s interesting to me personally and I think it’s something that people from a wide variety of cultures can relate to.

It’s true that I’m writing as an outsider to the Makah experience. A fiction writer is always writing outside of her experience. However, the Irish have long suffered the suppression of their culture, language, music, literature, and dance. And I know how I feel about playing a jig or hornpipe on my violin that’s hundreds of years old or dancing a set from my father’s county in Ireland; it’s an avenue of insight for me. Many people have an experience of cultural loss in coming to this country and although it is not the same experience it does make the story more accessible to the reader. So I chose to focus on the cultural survival aspect of this story rather than the resumption of whaling.

I also felt that a contemporary story about the Makah whaling experience would be better told by a whaler or other member of the tribe. I’d much prefer to use my book, imperfect instrument that it is, to nudge local writers in the direction of writing and publishing. In fact I’m happy to hear you’ll be in Washington. I’ve been developing the position of Youth Outreach Coordinator in our local SCBWI, in part, for the purpose of fostering a more diverse generation writers. Perhaps that’s an area where we could work together. One of the benefits of having a book published at a large publishing house is that it can attract attention to an issue. There is still so little in print about tribes of the northwest, and my hope is that if this book does well enough, then other publishers will see the potential for more books set among these tribes and addressing these vital issues–a need that could be filled by local writers.

I’ll stop here for today but later this week I’ll get to the pirates and indians bit that Debbie asked about on her blog post because, yes, there is a story about that!

Below are maps of Neah Bay in case you are not familiar with the Olympic Peninsula, and a picture of the other thing the Makah are famous for–an excellent halibut fishery.

The Retrospective Outline

To outline or not to outline

If you are looking to start a quarrel (or at least a passionate debate) in an MFA creative writing program, the topic of outlining is a winner every time. Having never taken an creative writing class or alas, even majored in English, I came to the debate late in the game and without a horse in the race. I believe that in the end each writer finds her own way, and no one system works for every writer. That said I think I have finally hit upon an outlining strategy that works well for me. I think of it as the Retrospective Outline. I’ve always intuitively resisted the initial outline as stifling but I know that sooner or later the structure of story needs attention, so I’ve taken to doing the outline after a full first draft is finished.

I finished a draft right before Christmas. It’s a story I’ve been working on for a while. Like a lot of writers I’ve heard from over the years, I’m better at beginnings and endings than middles. It’s very easy to lose focus in the middle and either write more scenes than you really need or not quite enough leaving gaps in the narrative. A friend recommended the screenwriting book Save the Cat and since I hope to write a screenplay in the next few months I thought I’d give it a try. Screenwriter Blake Snyder is a big advocate of laying out an entire movie in scenes, a note card for each scene. The scenes are put on a cork board, a row of cards for each of three acts, and rearranged or discarded as necessary. I was a bit skeptical at first but my studio has a lovely long empty wall painted in my favorite shade of red, so I gave it a try using post-it notes.

Drama in 3 Acts!

When I first laid out my scenes it became immediately obvious that the second half of the second act was where the trouble resided. All the other sections had 7 to 10 scenes and the second half of the the second act had 16 scenes. Aha!

Then once I had an idea of where to look I went through each scene with an eye to which ones had strong conflict, and propelled the main character forward. It became pretty obvious which scenes were just there to convey information, had no inherent conflict, and took the focus off my main character and his journey.

But wait there was vital information in those scenes–not so much drama but stuff you have to know! That’s the hard part of of trimming your work, not letting go of a perfectly good scene that doesn’t serve the plot, but figuring out what to do about the bits of information. I ended up putting the info on a smaller post-it and finding a different scene where I could weave it in. The best part about the process was learning that really in the 5 scenes I cut, I only had 4 vital pieces of story information that eventually found a home early in the second act.

Integrating the Visual elements of a story

This particular book has a visual element–completely new ground for me. I added smaller blue post-its for the scenes that have an illustration. In an earlier draft the first illustration didn’t come until mid-way through the second act. (Pink is act 1, green is the two halves of act 2, and purple is the 3rd act.) It was clear in looking at the book as a whole that the 12th scene was too long to wait for a visual so I found a way to put one in the 3rd scene of the story. But then as I was working a really strong idea came along for a final image at the very end of the story, so I decided to look for a way to put an echoing image in the first scene. The result (I hope) is a much more balanced story.

So there you have it! One method for outlining a story. Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea but it helped me trim about 6,000 words that were not doing my story any good.

If your new year’s resolutions happen to include writing a novel for kids or teens, I’ve got a class starting up at the Loft Literary center. My Vampire-Free Fiction class starts the 20th of this month. You can get lots more information here

Promotion and the Big Publishing House

The hook I see self-publishing presses use more often than any other is to claim that the major publishing houses no longer promote the books they publish. They suggest that authors are all on their own even at the big houses to arrange their own publicity, so you might as well go with a self-published press and get a bigger share of the pie. It’s a tempting line of thinking but one which can sometimes prompt a decision a writer later regrets.

Harold Underdown has an excellent post on the things a traditional publisher does for your book here. This is my take on the issue. I have a novel out this year. It’s one that I’ve worked on for more than 15 years and is very dear to me. My publisher, Random House, is not sending me on a book tour or buying product placement for me in the chain bookstores or featuring me at the big book conferences–BEA and ALA. And am I upset? Not in the least! Here’s why.

Nobody expects this book to be a blockbuster, not my publishers, not my reviewers, and not me. We all know that what we’ve got here is a solidly written book that will be of interest to fans of historical fiction and useful to teachers and librarians. It’s exactly the kind of book which never gets attention in the self-publishing market which is a great place to discover a highly commercial book like Fifty Shades of Gray but a dismal venue for a literary children’s novel. But with a traditional publishing house we don’t need Written in Stone to be a blockbuster. We just need it to reach it’s intended audience. And to that end my publisher has done a number of extraordinarily intelligent (but not highly visible) things in the marketing of this book.

1. Editorial Process

First and foremost I have the expertise of an editor with lots of experience and a heart for what makes a book work for a kid reader. He also knows what the school and library market is looking for so he made sure I got all the room I needed for a detailed authors note. And did I have to pay him? Nope. Part of the package.

2. Cover design

I love this cover! It does everything a cover needs to do and is a work of art besides. Did I have to find the nationally known artist Richard Tuschman and convince him to do this work? Nope. All that coordination and design work was done by the talented cover team at Random House. They took the few reference photos I sent and their own love of story and made magic happen.

3. Reviews

One of the hardest things to do as a self-published author is to get review attention for a book, even a really good book. I don’t even have to think about it. Part of the package.

4. Teacher’s guide

Pat Scales made a gorgeous teachers guide and my publicist has been great about sending copies of it out to bookstores doing fall teacher previews. Even better, you can download it for free. Because I’m a teacher I could have made this on my own, but it would have taken weeks of research through the common core to do it properly and then there is the design and layout–an entirely different skill set which I do not possess.

5. Sales Reps

Because my book is of regional interest the local sales reps at Random House featured the book in their meetings with the largest library systems in the northwest. It not only encourages book purchase but highlights the title to the group of people who sit on award committees and choose state-wide reading lists. It’s a very smart move and not something I could ever set up on my own for just one book.

6.Book Tour

Here is the best part: they didn’t send me on a book tour! A tour is expensive and puts a lot of pressure on the author to recoup the expense in book sales. Instead they’ve let me set up my own book events in venues where I know I can generate interest, with book sellers who have supported me in the past, and at schools who are invested in bringing me to speak to their students. I get to pick a schedule that works with my family’s commitments. I can take advantage of family or sports events travel and couple it with speaking engagements. I can pull together something at last minute to do a favor for a friend who is suddenly without a speaker at their conference. I can plan a whole year in advance for a week long author-in-residence. Yes, this is a lot of work, but the payoff in terms of relationships built in the business will benefit me for years to come so it’s time well worth investing.

7. Support

Even though they aren’t flying me all over the country, they are supporting me in my travels with timely responses to my communications, and on time shipments to the bookstores where I speak. They’ve never missed a shipment–not once. They keep my back list in good supply. I never have to worry if the books will be there. This reputation is one of the reasons bookstores are willing to have me in. They make it look easy to have a seamless supply and delivery of books, but I bet it isn’t.

8. Prompt conversion to paperback

About half the schools I contact for visits want to wait until my title is in paperback so that they can afford a full classroom set and the students can afford to buy their own book. No problem! The paperback comes out in a year. We can go ahead and schedule into next school year knowing an affordable book is on the way. And just like all the rest, it’s part of the initial contract I don’t have to make it happen all on my own.

None of this is intended to disparage self-published work. There is outstanding craft in self-published books. I’m very excited to see a new book award from SCBWI for self-published work. But I’m also sad for people who have been swan-songed into going it alone on a book that would be better served in a traditionally published venue. So before you decide to go it alone, think about what you are turning down with a traditional publisher. It might be worth the wait and the careful rewriting and polishing of your story to get your foot in the door.