Things Amazon will never do

Today is Indy Bookstore Day and neighborhood bookshops nation-wide are doing things to celebrate. I thought I’d mention, not what Annie Blooms, my neighborhood indy, is doing to celebrate the day, but what Annie Blooms does every day and has done for more than three decades. Things Amazon will never do for you.

Make you a cup of coffee.

Even Amazon’s much anticipated drone delivery is not going to deliver you a piping hot cup of coffee. Its true that you can buy a latte at the in-store coffee shop at Barnes & Noble. Powells was the industry leader in bringing a coffeeshop into the bookstore. Guess what? The coffee here is free. Always has been. Pour yourself a cup. Settle in. We’ve got all day to spend with you.

Entertain your children while you shop

Our rocking dragon has been keeping toddlers and preschoolers happy for decades. There’s a bin of toys under the board book shelf along with kid sized tables and chairs. It’s safe, it’s clean, and there’s not a single video screen or electronic gadget to distract your kids from the important business of play.

Provide window art for the neighborhood.

We support a regularly rotating visual feast on your walk to the dog park, a new theme every other week or so. Here we are celebrating Black History month and honoring the Charlie Ebdo victims.

This visual feast is brought to you by our very own bookstore artist, the amazing…drum roll please… Kate Stone!

Support local schools and libraries

We are always happy to welcome teachers to our store. Glad to chat with you about that special book for a particular student. Love to give you a heads up on the newest book from your favorite author. And if you are using the book in your classroom, there’s a teacher discount. Though Annie Blooms has not done this in the past, many children’s bookstores will help you host an author visit to your school. Oh yes, and your local bookstore pays taxes to support your local school district and public library. Amazon? Not so much.

Host live author events

We host about a half dozen author events a month. That’s an hour worth of entertainment with some terrific talent both local and distant. We feature authors of fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose, adults books and children’s, debut authors and veterans of 50 books or more. Do we charge for these events? Nope. We’re happy to celebrate the books and author we love.

Offer meeting space for your book club

Have you always wanted to start a book club but dreaded the work of having a crowd of people over to your house? We love crowds of people! Our cosy loft is ready and waiting for the book club of your dreams. And when you’ve settled on your next title, we’ll gladly order everyone a copy and extend our usual book club discount.

Send presents for you child’s birthday

Hoping to instill the love of reading in the children and grandchildren in your life? Us too. Sign up for our birthday club and we’ll send your children a birthday postcard and gift certificate every year until they turn twelve.

Special Orders

Having trouble finding a book? Can’t quite remember the title or the author? No worries. We’ve got several data bases and a staff full of avid readers who probably know the book you’re thinking of. If it’s in print we can probably get it for you.

Presents! Oy!

Need some help brainstorming the perfect gift for the quirky child in your life, the persnickety aunt, the edgy nephew, the grandpa who’s read everything? Let’s talk. There’s a just right book for everybody and we’ll help you find it and wrap it up. Dashing to a last minute birthday? Call us and we can have the perfect picture book wrapped and ready for you!

But best of all

We are here. In your neighborhood. Every day. Stop in. Chat. Browse. Pet our store cat Molly. Not just on Indy Bookstore Day but every day.

Podcasts: the everyman’s MFA

Many of my writing friends have graduated from MFA programs. A handful of them now teach in MFA programs around the country. I confess I have long envied their wealth of resources and regular connection to high quality lectures on all the topics that fascinate me. Alas, there are several other people in my family who need undergraduate degrees before I could consider continuing my own education. So how to grow as an artist? How to keep fresh in my reading and challenge my assumptions about craft? I have gone to many a writers’ conference over the years and found them invaluable. But at this point in my career, three books in print, one being printed currently, and more than a dozen completed manuscripts, I’m looking for maximum substance and minimal disturbance to my writing routine.

Enter the pod cast. I’ve discovered to my delight a number of podcasts that offer regular discussion of all things writerly. I like to listen to them when I’ve got a long solo road trip or when I’m cooking dinner. I’m going to list three of my favorites in the hopes that you will help me find more.

The first podcast I became aware of is The Narrative Breakdown by Cheryl Klein and James Monohan. It is a blog focused on the craft of story making through the lens of fiction editor Cheryl Klein and script and screewriter James Monohan. They really go in depth on topics from scene construction to character development to the power of irony. You can find their website here or subscribe to them through iTunes.

I have more recently found the New Yorker: Fiction which is a simple concept that is packed with good insights for the serious writer. I should say at the outset that my godparents got me a book of O. Henry’s short stories for my 10th birthday and I’ve been a fan of short stories ever since. This podcast is hosted by the editor of the New Yorker. She invites a different New Yorker story writer to choose a story from the archive and read it aloud. Then they discuss what makes the story special. Though none of the stories in the New Yorker are for children, I’ve learned a lot and broadened my scope considerably.

The third podcast I listen to regularly is more of a fan thing. I’ve been a reader of Sherman Alexie’s work for decades before he wrote for children. He’s a very engaging speaker and I’ve heard him in person a dozen times at least so when I heard he has a podcast, I subscribed immediately. The podcast is called A Tiny Sense of Accomplishment and it’s an ongoing conversation with fellow writer and small town Washington boy Jess Walters. The conversations they have range widely but are fascinating and revolve around all the various aspects of the writers life with the occasional foray into basketball and middle aged angst.

I would love to hear about your favorite podcasts in the comments.

Returning Librarians to my School District

A few years ago my children’s school district faced a catastrophic shortfall in their budget. The cuts that followed were many and painful, among them the loss of every single certified teacher librarian in the largest school district in Oregon. Fortunately our funding crisis is over and we’re in the happy position of deciding how to expand services. After some very eloquent 5th graders testified to the frustration of going to the school library only to find the door locked, I added some observations as a former student, a parent, a 20 year volunteer, and a visiting author.

What I had to say may be applicable to your home school district so if you are fighting this battle in some other place, please feel free to borrow my words. If you are a parent or student in the Beaverton School District, you have one more chance to make your voice heard at a budget meeting at 6:30pm on the 20th of this month at school district headquarters.

Here are my thoughts on why my own school district needs a certified teacher-librarian in every school.

1.Teacher support

As a visiting author I am in hundreds of schools all over the country. I work with grade school, middle, and high school teachers to encourage reading and writing and generate excitement for literature. Everywhere I go I meet English and reading teachers who are genuinely excited to do the higher level reading work that new standards ask of them. They want to delve deeper into texts of all genres. They are excited to bring students the best and most current books. But not every book stands up to higher level reading. The Wimpy Kid franchise, for example, is not up to the task. In order to find the books that will bear greater scrutiny and model the best and most elegant use of language, you’d have to read several hundred books each year. It’s wildly impractical to ask every single English and reading teacher to do this every year.

A certified teacher librarian is the person well qualified to winnow the enormous variety of current books to the 30 or 40 strongest candidates so that each teacher can choose from among the best of the best. They are also the ones with the resources to help teachers find books available in translation, audio, and ebook to accommodate the needs of a diverse population.

2. Loss to private schools

There are dozens of private schools within Beaverton’s boundaries. All of them have full time teacher-librarians, and that is a huge draw. It was not always so. When my parents were choosing between public and parochial schools for me they looked at the options and saw, on the one hand, a parochial school that would see to my spiritual development and had significantly smaller class sizes, and on the other hand, a public school with a well funded library and a full time librarian. They chose public schools. The parochial schools in the area are expanding, and we stand to lose high achieving students and highly involved parents if we don’t provide school libraries. Having been in several Catholic schools over the last five years, I’ve seen relatively small libraries with limited technology. But they have a full time teacher librarian and children have full access to that smaller collection. The Beaverton school district libraries far exceed most private schools in the size and quality of the collection but that vital asset is currently behind a locked door.

3. Supporting growing diversity.

Our school district has recently become a majority non-white district. This coincides with a moment when publishers are highly motivated to publish titles with multicultural characters. Looks like a win-win situation. But if nobody is there to buy the books with non-white characters, publishers will stop making them. There is a huge need for kid’s books with non-white characters. At the moment, 90% of titles have a white protagonist. That’s a ridiculous figure and the only reason it’s true is that those books consistently sell. In order for an authentic body of literature to take root for the young readers we have today is for well funded school libraries to buy the books that reflect their populations, and make sure that kids find the books that mirror their own experience and speak to their own values. We could make a huge difference in providing a legacy of inclusive literature for children.

4. Supporting family literacy

One of the things I’ve seen in talking to immigrant students, not just in Oregon but all over, is that for many of them the school library is their only library. Whether the issue is transportation or fear of library fines or reluctance to register an address publicly, lots of kids only have access to free books through a school library. One of the strongest factors in predicting whether a child will read on grade level is access to books in the home. Our families no matter how poor or disadvantaged want to support their children’s reading. By keeping the school library behind a locked door, we deny them the number one tool in learning to read: books!

A fully funded and staffed school library supports literacy better and more efficiently by enabling the student and parent to do their share of the work. With English language learning families we have a golden opportunity in the years when parents are motivated to read aloud to their children. A teacher-librarian is in the position to put into the hands of these families the books and audio books that will, not only support the child, but lift the literacy of the parent. Then we have both higher performing students and more empowered and engaged parents–a win for the entire community.

Please consider testifying in support of fully funded and staffed libraries at the Beaverton School District Administration Center at 6:30 on Monday April 20th. 16550 SW Merlo Road, Beaverton, OR 97003.

If you are not in the Beaverton School District I hope you will consider advocating for school librarians in your home district.

To #%& or not to &^%$#: Swearing in Middle Grade Fiction

The expectations for the use profanity in children’s fiction are pretty clear. It’s commonplace in YA novels and completely absent in picture books and easy readers. But middle grade fiction takes the middle ground. Is swearing okay in a middle grade book? Well, it’s complicated. The issue is balancing authenticity with respect for your audience. Everybody encounters profanity; it is a language intensifier and can be useful in conveying the weight and reality of your characters situation. And yet it is the nature of profanity to offend, so any use will have consequences in how the book as a whole is received. As a practical matter MG books with profanity tend to be shelved with YA no matter how young the character is. This is not necessarily a problem, To Kill a Mockingbird and it’s 9 year old protagonist Scout have been doing just fine in the YA section of the library for the last five decades. Even so any use of profanity should be carefully considered. When I’m confronted with an opportunity to use a swear word in my novels, here are five choices I consider.

Omit

Every time I use profanity I rewrite the scene with out it, let it sit for a day or two and read the result out loud. I have been surprised by how often the scene was stronger without the swear word. Sometimes profanity is just a habit of the author and not integral to the character’s worldview or the movement of the plot.

Reduce

My editor once told me that swearing is loud on the page in a way that it is not in real life. I think of it as the equivalent of yelling or texting in all caps. As the mom of many I can tell you yelling is most effective when used sparingly—usually when lives are at stake. I think the last time I actually yelled at home was when someone’s sleeve caught on fire while roasting a marshmallow. Because swearing functions as an intensifier, it’s power is diluted by overuse. If I am working with a character who would naturally swear a lot, I’ll run a word search and see if I can limit the swearing to places where it will have the most impact.

Evade

Sometimes you can duck the issue when the swearing is done by a non-viewpoint character. When I was working on Second Fiddle I knew that the moment that the girls discovered that they were all alone in Paris with no money, no passports and no return train tickets, any normal eighth grader would swear. But my main character wasn’t really the swearing type. Instead, I had her report that her friend said every swear she knew in English and then moved on to exhaust her supply of swear words in French and German. This preserved the authenticity of the scene without getting into a specific swear word.

Substitute

Here is one of the more entertaining devices of MG fiction. Most kids get in trouble for swearing, and yet they have the same need for the occasional language intensifier as everyone else. So kids are great at making up substitutes. It’s the “drat, darn, and golly” solution, and it has great comic potential. The advantage to a curse word substitution is that it can also serve to convey information about the character and setting and lighten the mood of an otherwise tense situation. We had a fascinating conversation at a bookstore event recently with some women who wrote adult mysteries. There is an expectation in adult cozy mysteries that swearing is omitted so this author had her spice shop owner detective say things like, “Well that just frosts my chili peppers!” I had no idea such rules extended to the world of adult books.

Commit

There are circumstances in which the first four choices are wrong for the voice of the character or the gravity of the situation. And in those cases swearing maybe appropriate. Freedom of Speech means nothing if we never use it, and if you have used profane speech appropriately in your book you will find both people who passionately attack any use of profanity and those who just as passionately defend your right to tell the story as you must, free of censure. I opted to use swearing to a very limited extent in Heart of a Shepherd, having considered and discarded the above considerations, and it has done no harm whatsoever to the book. It was warmly received, sold well, and was carried by Scholastic Book Clubs. A few libraries don’t shelve it in k-4 schools. I really have no argument with that. Most teachers who read it aloud chose to skip or modify the swear word in the classroom. No argument there either. On the other hand, many teachers and parents have told me that because they weren’t expecting profanity in a middle grade book, it gave them a good opportunity to discuss where profanity is socially acceptable and not, and what it was about that particular scene that made a character swear when he ordinarily wouldn’t. In my opinion that’s a conversation worth having.

I’d love to hear what other people consider when making decisions about profanity, both in terms of writing and in terms of sharing books with middle grade kids as a parent or teacher or librarian.

Becoming a Bookseller

A few months ago I opened a new professional chapter in my life by joining the staff of Annie Blooms Bookstore. It’s a wonderful indy bookseller with a 30 year history of bringing great literature to Portland. I’m really honored to be one of them, for many reasons. But what I think I love most is their passion for freedom of speech, and their willingness to go to great lengths to help a patron find the book they want. So in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris this was my bookstore’s response. I have a lot to learn about bookselling but here are some things I’ve learned in the last few months.

1. Customers often have a specific goal in mind. And when they are looking for the book they’ve set their heart on, no other book will do. So much as I’d love to persuade them to buy a different book, I’m better served by cheerfully finding them what they want and hoping they come back hungry for another book.

2. But sometimes, and especially when the customer is shopping for a child they don’t know very well, they have no idea what they want. So then I need to have a few go-to books in nearly every sub-genre: a handful of sports books, a few animal stories, a couple of sure-fire scary books and so on. Which makes it very clear to me how authors get pigeon-holed and have a hard time selling in a new genre. When a kid comes in looking for a sports book I go straight to Lupica who has a half dozen strong titles kids always love. If he suddenly started writing dragon books, my bookseller-self would be rather cross that my reliable sports books are no longer in the Lupica section of the bookstore. (Sorry, Mike, not fair to you. I know. Just saying.) It’s not that I wouldn’t try to sell his dragon books or want them to do well. It just makes my job a little harder. I’d heard that publishers are the ones who want to pigeon-hole authors, and I can see now where that pressure comes from.

3. But maybe the most important thing I’ve learned is that coming to the bookstore is often not about the books at all. Many people stop by to visit our wonderful cat, Molly Bloom, seen above stalking the leash of a visiting dog. Lots of little patrons a just here to rock on the dragon. Some are looking for a warm dry place to sit down while they wait for the bus. People often meet friends in the bookstore and chat about the books for a bit and then go out for coffee. Some just want the peace of quietly browsing the shelves–an oasis in a busy world.