Author: Loree Burns

I kid you not!

The June 11, 2007 issue of PEOPLE (Lindsay Lohan is on the cover) has a “Books, What To Read This Summer!” section on page 57 … and TRACKING TRASH is one of the six children’s books listed.

As if mention in a magazine with a circulation of 3.5 million weren’t enough to make my weekend, TRACKING TRASH was placed beside Jeff Kinney’s DIARY OF A WIMPY KID in the accompanying photograph, which has impressed the heck out of my eight-year-old boys…

 

… but only if you live in Worcester, Massachusetts!

If you happen to live in Worcester, tune in to Ramona Interviews on WCCA TV13, Worcester’s local cable access station. You’ll learn all you need to know about me, TRACKING TRASH, creating citizen scientists, and protecting our oceans. Or maybe more than you need to know. Anyway … the interview will air:

Monday, June 4 at 10:30pm
Tuesday, June 5 at 10:00am
Tuesday, June 5 at 4:30pm
Thursday, June 7 at 6:00pm

I’m off to spend the weekend with my high school girlfriends. It has been twenty years (TWENTY YEARS!) since we graduated Everett High School together. Oi!

Have a glorious weekend …

 

Oi vey, but I am slow. It has taken me over a week to process and parse out my thoughts and experiences from the New England SCBWI Conference. Here, finally, are the last of my meditations …

Yolanda LeRoy, Editorial Director, Charlesbridge Publishing
First of all, Yolanda can sing … I mean REALLY sing; her performance at the Friday night cabaret was stupendous. And her workshop on matching manuscripts to editors and publishing houses would be especially useful to the beginning writer. Here’s a link to Charlesbridge’s submission guidelines and to their new blog.

Theresa Howell, Managing Editor, Rising Moon and Luna Rising (Northland Publishing)
Theresa used her workshop to make a (very solid) case for working with small to medium sized publishers. She values artistic merit, literary integrity, and creative, fresh voices (what editor doesn’t?), and she is on the prowl for boy books with social impact. Be sure you study her tightly focused lists before submitting.

Finally, I had some lovely and kind responses to the copy of TRACKING TRASH I displayed on the Member’s New Books table at the conference. Perhaps the oddest compliment came on Sunday, when the book disappeared … as in, someone took it. I have decided to embrace this small theft as a most sincere form of appreciation!

Here’s to next year’s conference, which will be held April 11 and 12, 2008 and will feature Laurie Halse Anderson as the keynote speaker. Looking forward to that …

 

On April 27, 1938 at the stroke of midnight, four Massachusetts towns passed quietly out of existence. (This despite the fact that a Farewell Ball had been—until the church bells began to chime—in full swing.) The towns had been dis-incorporated in order for the state to build the Quabbin Reservoir, at the time the world’s largest manmade drinking reservoir. It had taken eleven long years to de-populated and dismantle the towns, to move more than 6000 bodies to a new cemeteries, to denude the land of trees and other vegetation, and to build the dike and the dam that would stop the Swift River and sink the places once known as Dana, Enfield, Greewhich and Prescott. From what I have read, the final moment was an emotional one.

I grew up drinking water from the Quabbin, but never knew the story behind its construction. As an adult, I have spent a good deal of time researching the towns and their demise … first out of a general interest in this forgotten history, and now in preparation for two book projects. As part of this research, I spent Sunday at the Quabbin Park Cemetery, final resting place for valley residents that passed away before and after the building of the reservoir. It is also the location of war monuments which once graced the four town commons.

In a truly moving Memorial Day ceremony, former residents of Dana, Enfield Greewhich and Prescott (there are only a handful of them still living) honored their war dead by laying wreaths at the base of each monument. Their families, valley descendents, and other interested Bay Staters (like me) looked on with hands on hearts. We pledged allegiance to the flag of these United States of America, listened to “Flander’s Field”, and “The Gettysburg Address”, wiped tears during a call and response rendition of Taps. It was a Memorial Day truly in memorium, and I will not soon forget it.

I hope you had a moment to remember over this Memorial Day holiday.

 

Although I spent twenty-three years of my life in school (!), I have no formal training in creative writing. As a result, workshops on craft are a high priority for me when I attend writing conferences. Here’s a look at who taught me what at last weekend’s SCBWI Conference.

Laurie Stolarz, “Learning the Layers of Revision”

Laurie’s workshop began with this warning: before you begin, you must “admit you are powerless over the need to revise.” In other words, we all have to do it, so figure out how to deal with it. Laurie went on to discuss the layers of revision (global edits, line edits, and polish edits). Her handout was comprehensive and I left with a more structured approach to the revision process. I think I can deal.

By the way, I spent some time exploring Laurie’s website, and it is very nice. If you are in the process of creating your own, or if you are considering an overhaul, I think Laurie’s site would be a good one to review.

Jacqueline Davies, “Got Arc?”

This was a stellar workshop on the topic of story arc by the so-called “Structure Queen”. Jackie invited attendees to bring their works in progress (picture books through novels) and to delve into a detailed analysis of their narrative arc. What is your story sentence? How does the tension flow throughout your piece? By walking us through an examination of the structure of several well known titles, Jackie got all of us thinking deeply about our own structure and how to improve it.

Jackie has posted her entire workshop at her website, including a PowerPoint presentation and several downloadable materials for creating picture book dummies and for charting story arc (or conflict resolution or word count or theme appearances or anything else you might want to monitor across the length of your picture book or novel). You can find it all here.

Mark Peter Hughes, “Characters That Leap Off the Page” and “Plotting Your Middle Grade/YA Novel”

These are the two that got away. One of the hard truths about a conference like this is that several great workshops will be held at the same time, and you will be forced to choose. I missed both of Mark’s workshops, and kicked myself the rest of the weekend as I heard them praised over and over again.

I did treat myself to a copy of Mark’s novel, I AM THE WALLPAPER, which you will be hearing more about as soon as I am able to read it. (And for those keeping track, like my husband, you should note this is only the second book I bought for myself. The rest were gifts. Honest.) Anyway, cruise over to Mark’s website to read about his latest novel, LEMONADE MOUTH, and the fabulous tour it will soon be making across America … with Mark and his family in tow and with NPR listening in!

 

TRACKING TRASH got a nice mention in UU World Magazine this month. Scroll down to the last entry in the “For Children and Families” section.

My UU church got a plug, too.

Cool!

 

Bruce Coville gave the Saturday keynote at the New England SCBWI Conference last weekend. If ever you have the opportunity to hear this man speak, do it. I was much too enthralled in his presentation to take notes, but I was intrigued by this exercise he suggested:

Divide a piece of paper into six squares and write everything you can remember about each of your years in elementary school. Who was your teacher? What did the room look like? Who were the people around you? Etc. Etc.

This idea has been niggling at me all week. I am heavy into research reading for two projects at the moment, awaiting critiques of a third, and it seems like a good time to play. And so I spent this morning remembering my childhood. Mr. Coville was right, it is simply AMAZING what an exercise like this will dig up.

Go on, give it a try.

I’ve pasted my elementary revelations behind the cut.

Grade 1
I don’t remember much about first grade. I cannot remember the school, the classroom, or the teacher. I have vague memories of a rectangular cardboard box with a lid and of the hundreds of oaktag letter squares inside; we used them to make words on our desktops. I can see the letters and the box and the desktop. Everything else is blurry and outside the frame of that desktop.

Special note: My mother died during my kindergarten year and I was, as you might imagine, confused for a very long time. Perhaps my Grade 1 memories were lost in the many transitions I was going through?

Grade 2
Lafayette School, Mrs. Ricci
Mrs. Ricci was young and beautiful. She had long, dark hair and coppery skin. She wore a lot of make-up and beautiful gold jewelry: rings, bracelets, earrings, necklaces. The Hawaiian festival was the highlight of the year. There were grass skirts and leis and I drank coconut milk for the first time. I remember a spelling competition in which Mrs. Ricci asked us to spell the word WEDNESDAY. One after another, we second graders trudged to her desk, wrote our guess on a piece of paper, and were sent back to our seats. And then I had the marvelous idea of looking at the wall calendar on my way back to my desk. I raised my hand for a second chance and nailed it. I don’t recall being found out, but I wonder now if Mrs. Ricci knew my secret.

Grade 3
Lafayette School, Mrs. Hurley
Mrs. Hurely was older. She looked and dressed like my grandmother … short gray hair, no-nonsense polyester pants suits. I remember a book report on Judy Blume’s BLUBBER. My copy of the book was red and perfect and wrapped in library cellophane. I was nervous about the report; I was passionate about the book.

Grade 4
Lafayette School, Mr. Kelleher
Mr. Kelleher was handsome and I remember feeling shy whenever I was near him. I was being raised in a house of women (just me, my sister and my aunt); handsome young men were a novelty. Mr. Kelleher had the added intrigue of being a musician. He played his guitar in our classroom weekly and he taught us the words to “Yellow Submarine”. He also taught us to write in cursive, and I remember very clearly the cursive alphabet displayed on the classroom walls. It stretched around a corner, and the traditional horizontal lines of penmanship paper—a solid upper and lower line and a middle one hatched to indicate the proper place to begin and end lowercase letters—were white on green. I remember the day Mr. Kelleher corrected my lowercase p’s because I had made the opening stroke extend all the way to the tippy-top line, and I remember finding my nerve and pointing out to him that I had drawn my p’s exactly the way they were drawn on that green cardboard guide. “I stand corrected,” he told me, and I sang extra-loud that day.

Special note: Mr. Kelleher is now Johnny the K, a children’s entertainer visiting schools and spreading “music with a message” across the land. In a fabulous stroke of good fortune, he visited my sons’ elementary school last fall and I was able to see him touch the lives of a second generation of my family. How cool is that?

Grade 4
Hamilton School, Mrs. Doherty
We moved during my fourth grade school year: same town, new school. My knees were knobbed and scabbed and I thought they looked funny between my girly white ankle socks and my green corduroy jumper dress. I prayed the children couldn’t see them as I stood at the front of the room—Mrs. Doherty’s arm around my shoulder—suffering through my introduction. My seat was the last one in the second row, right next to Joseph Prezioso and not at all close enough to the girl with the brown hair and the dungarees who chatted endlessly to everyone about everything. I wanted that girl as a friend even more than I wanted to move back home. Her name was Kelley

Note: Kelley is now Auntie to my three children, I am Auntie to her three children, and I cannot imagine my life without her. And to think I hadn’t wanted to move!

Grade 5
Hamilton School, Mrs. Lodge
It was 1979, and I remember being greeted on the first day of school by a brightly decorated bulletin board that read: “Welcome Class of 1987”. I was immediately worried. We were being welcomed to fifth grade by a teacher who couldn’t get the year right! I marched up to Mrs. Lodge and told her she had mistakenly welcomed the Class of 1979 as the Class of 1987 and I remember she was kind as she explained it all to me. Mrs. Lodge served jury duty that year and missed what seemed like months of the school year. Our substitute was Mrs. Tringali, and she wrote lovely messages to me in my journal. Oh! And there was a States and Capitals Bee. It was a BIG DEAL, held on Friday afternoon in the school cafeteria. Kelley and I studied hard together. We were the last children standing, and I was thrilled about this … right up until the proctor said “North Dakota” and Kelley shouted “Bismark” and I lost the blue ribbon. I was inconsolable. I think Kelley tried to give me her ribbon, which of course made me cry even more. Mrs. Tringali wrote me a lovely consolation in my journal on Monday, and I wrote back passionately about having ruined her weekend. Oh, the drama!

Grade 6
Hamilton School, Mr. Camello
Mr. Camello was comfortable. He was old (to me), short, and kind. He wore suit coats and a tie every day. We kept a tally on the chalkboard recording the number of days US hostages were held in Iran and I remember wondering if the number would ever stop going up. I became a rebel. I invented a Girls Code so that we gals could write notes to each other and rest assured they would not be deciphered by Boy interceptors. I stole the Boys Code Key from John Guerio’s desk (he sat beside me); they never did figure out how we cracked their code. I wrote my name on a desktop … in pencil … and erased it at the end of the day. I had my first crush; his name was Paul DeVito and he was the sweetest boy I had ever met.

Special Note: Paul is the name I gave the sweet protagonist in my WIP. Hmmm …

 

I’m back from the New England SCBWI Conference, and I have so much to share. I’m going to take it slow, though, so check back often this week and next to hear about the people I met, the things I learned and, of course, the books I bought.

The conference opened on Friday afternoon with a keynote address by Stephen Fraser, an agent at The Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency. His overall message was comforting: a good manuscript will find a home. So just relax, make the manuscript sing, and Believe. Overly simple? Maybe. But it is an approach that appeals to me, and it is ever so much easier than sending your manuscript out with a box of caterpillar-shaped cookies.

Mr. Fraser also suggested writers perfect an “elevator pitch” for every manuscript. Suppose you were to find yourself alone with your dream editor in an elevator of your favorite publishing house. You have two minutes—the time it will take to travel from her fourteenth floor office to the lobby—to get her interested in your work. What would you say? You are going for short, succinct and utterly compelling, a single sentence that will entice your dream editor to acquire your manuscript on the spot … or at least ask to see it exclusively.

I think this is good advice, and I gave it a whirl.

(I tried to hide my “giving it a whirl” bit behind a handy LJ cut, but couldn’t make it work. If you care to read a sample elevator pitch read on. If you don’t skip to the next few paragraphs!

THE MAD MARCH is a picture book biography that introduces readers to the French entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre through the lens of some of the most vivid and accessible experiments ever conducted on insects. Readers of any age or science background will marvel at the mad march of the Fabre’s pine processionary caterpillars.

Okay, that’s two sentences, and it reads a little stiff. But in the elevator I could loosen the language a bit, flail my hands, use pens to demonstrate the amazing caterpillar experiments. The point is that this exercise forced me to focus my thoughts on the book. What is it really about? Why is it going to be important to readers? Why should an editor care about it?

Go on, try it. Write your elevator pitches. It’ll be good for you.)

Finally, Fraser recommended two books to the writers and illustrators in attendance:

THE SOUND ON THE PAGE, by Ben Yagoda

and

READING LIKE A WRITER, by Francine Prose

I’ve read the Prose book and agree it is worthy. Has anyone out there read the Yagoda title? Do you recommend it?