Author: Loree Burns

Publication Month is officially over!

(Did that fly by or what?)

TRACKING TRASH has been available online and in bookstores for one month, and it has been great fun for me to celebrate its release by sharing some of the stories behind its creation. Many thanks to all of you who have read these stories and commented on them.

If you missed the series, here is a handy link to the seven installments.

Part 1 (Terry Turner, librarian extraordinaire)

Part 2 (Patricia , writer and teacher)

Part 3 (Erica Zappy, editor)

Part 4 (Betty Jenewin, photographer)

Part 5 (Liza Martz and Eric Luper, writing buds)

Part 6 (Steve Schray, saavy friend)

Part 7 (Mr. Micarelli, teacher)

Enjoy!

 

I think teachers are some of the most important beings on the planet. Most of them do so much more than teach, you know? Some of them save lives, or at the very least put lives on the right track. In this final “Stories Behind the Story” installment, I want to tell you about one of the most important teachers in my life.

Mr. Micarelli was the chair of the science department at Everett High School (Everett, Massachusetts) when I was there in the mid-1980s. He taught biology and advanced biology and mentored student research projects—all of which I soaked up like impatiens in a neglected windowbox. It was in his classes that I became interested in studying the world around me, in being a scientist.

At the time I met Mic, though, I was also in need of a role model. I knew from books and movies that men and women could lead lives of purpose, passion and conviction. What I needed at sixteen, however, was proof that real people lived this way. Mr. Micarelli was that proof. I remember thoughtful and passionate discussions in Biology class—the details escape me—but the feelings of awe are fresh. Here was a person who thought long and hard about issues and formed an opinion. Here was a person who took his job seriously, who treated his peers and students with respect and concern. Here was a person of integrity and conviction. And what was more, this respectful and caring person of integrity and conviction thought I was a pretty okay kid. Me. Okay. I cannot even tell you how important that feeling was for me.

At that delicate time – the cusp of my independence and adulthood –Mr. Micarelli was a an inspiration. He meant a lot to me, and my memories of him guided me for a long time. In some ways, they still do. And although I had thought of him often during the twenty years after I graduated from Everett High School, I never thought I would find a way to thank him. That is, until it came time for me to write the dedication for my first book:

To Mr. James Micarelli, teacher of science and other truly important things

 

And then, on April 18, I had the great joy of thanking Mic in person. He and his lovely wife, Connie, came to Barnes & Noble in Worcester to help celebrate the release of my book—our book—and I was inspired all over again.

Thank you, Mic!

 

This I believe: writing a book is an organic process. It lives and breaths.

Obviously there are the mundane and (perhaps) less vibrant parts … the setting aside of time, the waking up and stumbling into the office, the firing up of the computer, the sitting down and beginning. And there is the intellectual work of choosing a format in which to tell your story, of shoring up the structure and hanging your story just so on top of it. All of this is important and most writers will agree that the sweat of these private hours is the price of a successful book.

But equally important, at least to me, is the other stuff, the messy stuff. I am talking about the connections I make when I am not writing, when I am doing things that are seemingly unrelated to my writing. Like talking to librarians. Or grocery shopping. Or listening to the radio. Today’s Stories Behind the Story star was an important part of the organic process that was the creation of TRACKING TRASH.

After one revision, my editor Erica Zappy and I were happy with the TRACKING TRASH manuscript … except for the last chapter. We both felt the ending needed something; but neither of us could articulate very well what that something was. And so I was in a state of deep contemplation (um, I was well and truly STUCK!) when I got a phone message from my friend Steve Schray. He knew I was working on a book about a scientist who studied ocean currents by tracking debris in the ocean, and he had heard an NPR story on his way to work that seemed relevant. He called to make sure I had heard it. As I was much too busy being STUCK to listen to the radio, I had not heard it. But within minutes of his call I had listened to the audio clip online and I was instantly, blessedly, and resolutely UNSTUCK.

The scientists profiled in the NPR piece were removing net debris from the ocean. And based on what I heard in that online clip, I was pretty sure they were finding those nets by using the tools created by my TRACKING TRASH scientists. Within a week I had interviewed the scientists and, sure enough, had my ending.

Organic, I tell you. Alive. The book I pitched to Houghton Mifflin is just part of the book I eventually wrote. And all of me … the scientist, the writer, the parent, the citizen, the keeper of friends who pay attention to radio programs … all of me and my world are in it.

Thank you, Steve, for feeding the rich, organic, trash-tracking process!