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| Turkey, from Wikipedia |
Happy Day-After Thanksgiving, everyone!
This year,
Cynthia and I hosted a bunch of writers and illustrators for Thanksgiving dinner.
What does that have to do with dinosaurs? Well, birds are dinosaurs (check out this nifty
page at the University of California Paleo Museum), which means that our main course (
Meleagris gallopavo) is, as well. In particular, it is a saurisichian, theropodan, tetanuran, maniraptoran dinosaur. Check out
this graphic for even more Thanksgiving turkey paleo-geekiness.
Chris Barton (
THE DAY GLO BROTHERS,
SHARK VS. TRAIN, and CAN I SEE YOUR ID?) and I joined
Don Tate (
dinosaur post)(DUKE ELLINGTON'S NUTCRACKER SUITE, IT JES HAPPENED: WHEN BILL TRAYLOR STARTED TO DRAW, and many more) for the annual
Turkey Trot. Now, I'd never done the Turkey Trot before, but I usually sneak in a three-mile run the morning of Thanksgiving, just because it makes me feel better :-).
All in all, it was an enormously fun event -- well organized and a picturesque route up and around downtown and near west Austin. I discovered, however, that I am woefully out of shape :-).
After the race, it was time to stuff the turkey!
I do a traditional giblet and bread stuffing and cook the thing in the oven. On occasion, I've been tempted to try
frying it or even
grilling it, but we're still under a
burn ban. And, besides, this way I get stuffing, which is almost my favorite part of the me
TAKING OFF, by Jenny Moss (Walker 2011). It's late 1985 and Clear Lake, Texas, high school senior Annie doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. Stay in town and marry Mark, who loves her? Go to college? Or write poetry, which she loves, but has never told anyone, including her best friend Lea?
When Annie meets teacher-astronaut Christa McAuliffe, she's fascinated. So much so that she just has to go see the launch in Cocoa Beach...
Annie's story is compelling and should resonate with anyone who has faced the dilemma of "where do I go from here?" In sum, TAKING OFF is a bittersweet coming-of-age story that brings home the 1980s and the events of January 28, 1986, when seven astronauts "prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'"
I remember sitting in my dad’s car one January afternoon in 1986, listening to the radio news of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and feeling like it was impossible, like it couldn’t really have happened. But it did.
And so I knew how the story of the shuttle launch would end before I opened this book ~
Somehow, I ended up gasping when it happened all the same.
TAKING OFF is about a girl named Annie, a high school senior growing up in a community of NASA engineers but worshipping words instead of numbers, colors instead of computations. She wants to be a poet but sees that dream and college as completely out of reach until serendipity drops her at a dinner party in the seat next to Christa McAuliffe.
McAuliffe, the New Hampshire teacher chosen for NASA’s teacher-in-space program, exudes an energy that Annie can almost touch, so different from her own guarded outlook on life. Inspired by McAuliffe’s charisma, drive, and infectious zest for life, Annie vows she’ll be there for the launch. She sets the wheels in motion for a road trip to Florida with her father and a handsome young friend of his, which doesn’t sit well with Annie’s long-time boyfriend, Mark.
What happens on that trip – in her father’s broken-down art-car, at Epcot, on the beach, and ultimately on a cold morning at Cape Canaveral, will change everything Annie thought she knew.
This book made me laugh and cry. It made me sigh with some of the most beautifully written passages, and it made me think about the connections that art and poetry share with math and science. As a writer married to a weather geek scientist, I particularly appreciated the bridges this book builds between the two.
But mostly, I was swept up in the emotion of this coming-of-age story.
I knew what was going to happen. I did.
But that didn’t stop me from crying. I didn't stop me from feeling everything Annie felt when the shuttle exploded. I might as well have been there with her, watching a teacher’s dream of flying in space come true, then end in cloud of white smoke in a blue sky in a matter of minutes. It didn’t matter that I knew. Not one bit.
That, my friends, is great writing.
TAKING OFF is due out from Walker/Bloombury in January 2011.
This post is part of a year-long series of blog interviews I'll be hosting with my fellow 2009 Debut Authors, called "How They Got Here."
It should be an especially helpful series for teens who write, teachers, and anyone who wants to write for kids. 2009 debut authors will be dropping by to talk about how their writing in school shaped the authors they are today, what teachers can do to make a difference, how they revise, and how they found their agents and editors. (You'll even be able to read some successful query letters!) If you know a teacher or two who might be interested, please share the link!
Today...Jenny Moss, author of WINNIE'S WAR!
A debut novel set against the backdrop of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.
Life in Winnie's sleepy town of Coward Creek, Texas, is just fine for her. Although her troubled mother's distant behavior has always worried Winnie, she's plenty busy caring for her younger sisters, going to school, playing chess with Mr. Levy, and avoiding her testy grandmother. Plus, her sweetheart Nolan is always there to make her smile when she's feeling low. But when the Spanish Influenza claims its first victim, lives are suddenly at stake, and Winnie has never felt so helpless. She must find a way to save the people she loves most, even if doing so means putting her own life at risk.
I had the good fortune to read an ARC of Winnie's War and was swept away by Jenny's story of a small-town Texas girl standing up to try and protect her family from the 1918 influenza epidemic. This is the very best kind of historical fiction - full of rich characters, vividly detailed history, the suspense of a threatening pandemic, and even a touch of romance, in the form of a first-kiss scene that made me smile for weeks after I read it. Teachers, in particular, will want to snatch this one up for their classrooms and school libraries.
Welcome, Jenny! Tell us about the first thing you ever wrote that made you think maybe you were a writer.
I can't remember when I *didn't* think of myself as a writer. But I do remember when I realized someone else might view me that way, too. It was one of my junior high English teachers, who praised my writing in front of the class. Teachers rock -- and matter more than they probably know.
Is there a particular teacher or librarian who was a mentor for you in your reading and writing life?So many! But this from my Acknowledgments page:
Many thanks to: The librarians at the numerous libraries I visited in Harris and Galveston counties, but especially to Mrs. Simkulet, wherever you may be, my first favorite librarian, who taught me how to shelve books and about kindness
Do you have a favorite strategy for revision?Printing out the whole manuscript and reading it through first is a must for me.
What’s your best advice for young writers?Write, read, and enjoy!
What’s special about your debut novel?The main character, Winnie, lives in a small Texas town in 1918. Much of her life is very different from kids today, but some of her worries are timeless.
How did you find your agent and/or editor?I found my agent through research, and she found me in slush.
If you're a fan of historical fiction, WINNIE'S WAR is a middle grade novel you won't want to miss. You can pick up a copy at your local independent bookseller, order it through one of my favorite indies, Flying Pig Bookstore(they ship!), or find an indie near you by checking out IndieBound!
Up next in the "How They Got Here" Debut 2009 series... Cynthea Liu, author of THE GREAT CALL OF CHINA, will be stopping by on Monday, March 9.
Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres, so I celebrate any time a great new historical novel shows up in the world. Tomorrow is cause for celebration indeed because it's the release day for Winnie's War (Walker Books for Young Readers) by Jenny Moss. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll tell you that Jenny and I share a publisher and are online friends, but I'd be crowing about this book even if I'd never heard of her before.
I had the good fortune to read an ARC of Winnie's War a few months ago and was absolutely swept away by this story of a small-town Texas girl standing up to try and protect her family from the 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic. This is the very best kind of historical fiction - full of rich characters, vividly detailed history, the suspense of a threatening pandemic, and even a touch of romance in the form of a sweet little first-kiss scene that made me smile for weeks after I read it. Teachers of grades 4-8, in particular, will want to snatch this one up for their classrooms and school libraries.
As promised, here’s the next installment of the Community Story. No one was brave enough to add a continuation last week, so you’re getting another one from me.
But, first, congrats to local (local to me, at least) first-time author Jenny Moss, whose debut novel, a middle-grade book called Winnie’s War, is apparently getting rave reviews. The book will be out Feb. 3, and Moss is doing a book launch at our local Barnes & Noble on Feb. 7. Good luck to her. It’s wonderful to hear about new authors getting their books into shelves.
And now for the Community Story. The first paragraph is from last week, with my addition below. Add your ideas for the next sentence or paragraph in the comments:
Bonnie’s eyes flickered open as she laid on her back looking up at the sky. She caught a brief glimpse of a person moving away from a ledge 30 feet above her. Slightly dazed, she was not sure if she had fallen or been pushed, but what she did know was that her back was hurt and her head was throbbing from her fall. She lifted her right hand to her head. Wet. She was bleeding, and it didn’t feel like a cut that could be patched up with a Band Aid. It would have to wait, though. She could hear footsteps, and they were getting closer and more urgent.
Wincing against the pain that now radiated from her back as well as her head, Bonnie eased herself up to a sitting position and surveyed her surroundings. She had landed on a patch of soft grass nestled between two rock faces, and to her right was what looked like a drop off. She tried to stand, careful not to make any noise. But as her elbow buckled in pain, her hand knocked a small rock over the edge. She froze, waiting for the sound of the crash to alert the other people. But when no noise came, she looked over the edge and her head began to spin. The drop off was at least a hundred feet, ending in white caps of a rushing river.
Now it’s your turn. Add the next sentence or paragraph in the comments and check in next Monday for the next installment.
Write On!
