Author: Loree Burns

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Happy Endings

I am typing this update from Gate K16 of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. It is not nearly as inspiring as the pyramid of the Seattle Public Library, where I composed my last entry. But it will have to do. (I could go on and on about my foiled travel plans, but I won’t. I just won’t. There are more important matters to discuss … like the last event of my book tour!)

I spent yesterday with the students and faculty of Viewlands Elementary School in Seattle. It was a nice place to be! One of first things to meet my eyes upon entering the school auditorium was a giant-sized TRACKING TRASH. Seriously, there was a three feet tall and two feet wide copy of my book on the stage when I arrived. It was created by Viewlands parents and students and it blew me away. The full-color cover is an exact replica of the TRACKING TRASH cover … complete with textured gray sand into which the title words had been scratched. The cover photo montage was faithfully duplicated and, well, it is the most beautiful giant book I have ever seen. It will be displayed with other giant-sized books during the school’s Young Authors event next month (how cool is that?), so I couldn’t take it home with me. But a kind teacher snapped some photos of me with the book and I hope to post them here soon.

The rest of my time at Viewlands was equally lovely. I spoke with third graders, fourth graders, and fifth graders in three separate groups, lunched with teachers (in the Teachers Lounge!), and chatted with various staff members. The kids were inquisitive and engaged and I am fairly certain that each and every one of them asked at least one question … possibly twelve. Such a curious bunch! I am especially grateful to the fifth graders, who were kind enough to compile two pages of book suggestions from me. One of the titles that came up several times on their list was Avi’s THE BOOK WITHOUT WORDS. I have not read it, but when I came across it this morning at the Edmonds Bookshop, where I was passing time before my flight, it seemed like fate. I bought it and now that I am stuck at the airport (again!) I am ever so glad I did.

Thank you Viewlands Elementary School … for everything!

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School Visits and Old Stories

I am at this very moment on the tenth floor of the Seattle Public Library. This space is called the Reading Room and it is equipped with comfortable seating, generous desks, electrical outlets and wireless internet service. The reading room is in the tippy-top of the library’s “pyramid”. In every direction–including straight up–lie diamond-patterned windows that reveal rain-streaked buildings and today’s gray Seattle sky. It is pretty cool place to be writing this update.

I spent the morning at Spanaway Elementary School in Spanaway, Washington. Ms. Beverly Estrada welcomed me into her 5/6 grade classroom. What a great group of kids! They were the perfect audience: attentive, absorbed, and they laughed at my silly jokes. One darling young lady even raised her hand and whispered, “You’re talking a little fast!” about five minutes into my presentation. I was, indeed, a bit nervy. When I get nervy, I talk fast. Her advice was just exactly what I needed to hear. What else could I do but giggle self-conciously and, well, slow down? I checked in with this young lady several slides later to see if I was doing better and she gave me a hearty thumbs up. The rest of the talk was smooth sailing.

The surprise of the morning came after I showed the children a story I had written as a child. It is, in fact, the only story I wrote as a kid that has survived my compulsive tendencies to organize and pare down my boxes of stuff. Somewhere along the way my stories got canned and these three stapled and badly yellowed pages—hand-typed on the electric typewriter I got for Christmas the year I turned twelve—are all that is left of my early creative efforts.

“Never, ever, ever throw away your stories,” I told my audience. “Even if you read them in six months, or two years, or ten years, and decide they are awful. Even if you decide the moment they are finished that they are awful. Tuck them away in a drawer and save them forever.”

And when they asked why, as I knew they would, I told them that this old story is the truest glimpse I have into my twelve-year old self. I told them it is the story of a girl named Lexi whose parents are considering moving her grandfather into a nursing home. I created Lexi and her brave story–she manages to keep her grandfather out of the nursing home–because my own great-grandfather had become very old and frail and was needing a lot of care, perhaps more than our family could give him. The decisions about my great-grandfather’s fate, however, were out of my hands. Unlike Lexi, no one asked me what I thought we should do for him. And so I created a world where the heroine, a twelve-year-old girl like me, saved the day. Lexi’s story is made up, but the feelings I had when I was twelve and my great-grandfather was dying … those are all right there in the story. And I don’t think I would remember them today if I didn’t have this story to read.

The kids were great. They admitted to throwing stories away all the time, but in the next breath they agreed they would start to save them. They seemed to get what I was saying, and this made me happy. I went on with my talk, answered all their questions, and had started to wrap things up when a young man in the back of the room raised his hand.

“Would you read us your story before you go?” he asked.

At first I thought he meant he wanted me to read my book, TRACKING TRASH. “Your teacher is keeping a copy of the book in your classroom,” I assured him. “There will be plenty of time for you all to read it when I am gone. Plus, its kind of a long book!”

“No,’ he said. “I mean the story you wrote when you were a kid. Like us.”

I was caught off guard. Read my story? The story I wrote when I was twelve? Here? Now?

“Um. Well. Gee. I don’t think we have time?” I looked at Ms. Estrada for help. She smiled knowingly (this is a woman who knows a teaching moment when she sees one) and told me we had plenty of time, that I should go ahead and read it.

And so I read to the class a short story I wrote twenty-five years ago. It is not a story I intended to read today (or ever, really), but those fabulous Spanaways cheered and clapped when I was done. They liked the piece and told me they were glad I had saved it. And I am fairly certain they will be saving their own stories from now on, too.

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Working Days

One of the advantages of planning your own book tour is control. I like control. I planned two days of signing in Ocean Shores, WA and two days of school visits in Seattle … but in between I tucked two days of quiet time. It was bliss.

On Monday morning I visited the Ocean Shores Interpretive Center. The center is closed on Mondays, but Walter Weed (he of the 140 mile book-fetching journey) invited me and my traveling companion (she of the fabulous TRACKING TRASH photographs, Betty Jenewin) for a private tour of the facility. I learned a great deal about the natural history of this area, picked up some trinkets for the kids, and paused several times in the bookshop to stare at my books on the shelf. Walter had made a sign that read: “New! Signed by the author!” It was very … surreal.

The rest of Monday and all of today were spent working quietly in my room. That’s right, working. Quietly. In my room. I loved every minute of it. (Bit of a geek, aren’t I?) I managed to sort and transcribe my notes from the weekend, cleared my overflowing email box, finished up some correspondence that I had been putting off, and got a good jump on the research for a new book project. I felt so good about what I accomplished that I treated myself to a long walk on the beach and a movie in the cinema next door to my hotel … both days. (People drive their cars on the beach here, and so I shared the beach with cars, trucks, vans, horses, and other beachwalkers. Crazy! And I love, love, loved Walden Media’s movie version of Katherine Patterson’s BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA; WILD HOGS made me laugh.)

Life on the road ain’t so bad, although I am ever-so-slightly, truly-but-don’t-tell-anyone sick for home. I miss my little ones!

Tomorrow I head north to start two days of school visits. More soon …

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My Very First Book Signing!

Greetings from Ocean Shores, Washington!

It wasn’t pretty, but I made it to Ocean Shores. I arrived at 2am local time–twenty-four hours after my alarm clock had gone off in Massachusetts–tired but relieved to have made it in time (by six hours) for the Beachcomber Fun Fair.

The fair is an annual event, two-thousand visitors strong, in which the community of Ocean Shores celebrates living on the beach. There are seminars on ocean topics and booths at which beachcombers and environmental groups show their wares. I attended in 2005 while researching TRACKING TRASH, and fair organizers invited me back this year to introduce the book to a community who would surely embrace it.

I arrived at the fair as bright-eyed as I could manage on five hours sleep … only to find that my books had not arrived. That’s right, no books. I was very brave. I set out the lone copy of TRACKING TRASH I had brought with me, a stack of TRACKING TRASH bookmarkers, and I set my computer to display my school visit slide presentation on auto loop. Vendors I had met during my 2005 visit donated interesting things to display on my table, and the kind folks from the Ocean Shores Interpretive Center, who had assembled an impressive collection of ocean and nature-themed books to sell at the fair, posted a sign that said they were taking TRACKING TRASH orders.

It turns out that fifty copies of TRACKING TRASH were sitting in a UPS center seventy miles from the fair … and UPS doesn’t deliver on Saturdays. Luckily, the people of Ocean Shores are a rare and generous breed. Mr. Walter Weed, a volunteer at the Ocean Shores Interpretive Center and the man who selects all the books for the fair book sale, was determined that I would have books to sign. He and his wife Ilone drove 140 miles round trip on Saturday morning just to collect them. I am still astounded by their generosity. By 1pm, my table was stacked high with fifty copies of TRACKING TRASH. And by the close of the fair yesterday there were only four copies left. Walter asked me to sign those so he could sell them at the Interpretive Center bookshop. Rare and generous people, I tell you. Rare and generous.

Here are other people and moments I won’t forget:

A man named Russ showed up at my table early on Saturday, when there were no books to sell. I had met Russ in 2005 and was glad to see him again … because a photo of him appears in the book. I put my copy of the book in his hands and asked him to look at the bottom of page three. He was tickled!

Rob and Kelli, who kept returning to my table in anticipation of the books’ arrival, and who, in the end, bought the very first public copy I ever signed. Thank you Rob and Kelli!

I signed a book for Ellen, who returned to my table a short time later to tell me it was “just wonderful!” Apparently she had sat in a quiet corner of the fair and read the entire thing. As she left the fair later in the day, she strolled by again, this time to introduce her husband Peter. “My homework tonight is to read your book,” he told me with a smile. “She insists.” The next morning they were back. Peter took his turn praising TRACKING TRASH, and then he politely pointed out a typographical error (I knew about it), a grammatical error (I missed it), and a small clarification that he would suggest for the next printing (thank you, Peter). See what I mean about rare and generous?

I was totally unprepared for my urges to give the book away. Seriously. There were several children who came by the table throughout the weekend to thumb through the book. They chatted with me and were so very thoughtful and interesting. I wanted to tuck a copy into their hands and say, “Take this! Read it later and write to me … tell me what you think!”

And then there was the moment Dr. Ebbesmeyer, the oceanographer whose passion for his work was the inspiration for TRACKING TRASH, came over to tell me how proud he was of the book, and how proud his parents would have been to see it. “You did a good job,” he said. “A real good job.” And with those words the three-year odyssey that was the creation of my first book for children was wonderfully and beautifully complete.

Now what? Bringing the book to kids, of course. Stay tuned …

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Note to Self and Books I’ve Packed

Note to self:

When traveling from New England in wintertime, be sure to book a cushion into your flight plans. For example, if you are flying from Boston to Seattle and then driving two hours to your very first book signing, you MUST, MUST, MUST have cushion time. Because if your flight is canceled because of snow and you have to leave later, or the next day, you MAY NOT MAKE IT!

Uggh.

The next fourteen hours of my life will be spent at various airports across the country as I attempt to make it to Ocean Shores in time for my Saturday morning signing. The bright side? I will have some time to catch up on my reading. I shoved these extra books into my bag:

THE BEAK OF THE FINCH, by Jonathan Weiner (relevent to latest book proposal)

GOOD NIGHT, MR. TOM, by Michelle Magorian (started it with the kids, but they balked)

A WIND IN THE DOOR, by Madeleine L’Engle (been meaning to for ages)

A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN, by Virginia Woolf (its been a while and I want to revisit)

WHY I WAKE EARLY, by Mary Oliver (I may need to draw on Oliver’s serenity)

Fiction, non-fiction, personal essay, poetry; something for every mood. I’ve also tucked in issues of “UUWorld” and “The Humanist”.

Off I go to spend a lovely day reading. Wish me luck!

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Notable citizen?

I had to share this before I go …

If you go to the newly launched historical pages of the web site of the city of Everett, Massachusetts, you will find a list of interesting folks who started out in good, old Everett. Some of Everett’s most noteable citizens include:

Chick Corea (Grammy-winning Jazz musician)

Ellen Pompeo (of Grey’s Anatomy fame)

MaryAnn Cocca-Leffler (children’s author/illustrator)

and (gulp!)

Loree Griffin Burns (children’s author).

That’s right, I am officially notable. Neato mosquito!*

* Neato mosquito is a turn-of-phrase I used a lot during my Everettt days.

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Another star!

A “bon voyage” from Kirkus Reviews …

A pre-print of their TRACKING TRASH review arrived, and there is a big, fat star next to it! You can read an excerpt on my webiste (you have to scroll down a bit) or wait for the full review in the March 1, 2007 issue.

Thank you, Kirkus!

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A book is born

Holy cow!

After years and years of waiting, and writing, and then waiting some more, TRACKING TRASH is finally on the verge of publication. The official release date is March 26, 2007, but I will be signing books this weekend at the Beachcomber Fair in Ocean Shores, Washington.

Curt Ebbesmeyer, the scientist whose work inspired this book, attends the Ocean Shores Beachcomber Fair every year. I interviewed him at the 2005 fair and, I have to tell you, it is an absolute thrill to be packing up for a return visit with published books in tow. (Oh, how I hope he loves it!) The folks who run the fair have ordered a mountain of copies of TRACKING TRASH and I will be signing for fairgoers on Saturday and Sunday. My first book. My first signing event. And it will be spring out there. Could it get any better?

When I return home the festivities will begin in earnest. There is a release party scheduled at the local Barnes & Noble, and I have committed to half a dozen school visits around the state. I’ve been invited to Author Night in the town next door and to Earth Day festivities in Worcester. In fact, the months of March and April are peppered with writing-related events in which me and my book are the main attractions. It is thrilling and overwhelming at the same time.

I will be blogging from the road, so stay tuned!

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Excuses!

Things here on my reading blog have gone quiet this week, and I think I ought to explain why. I AM reading, but the books are, well, a bit dry.

TEACH YOURSELF VISUALLY MICROSOFT POWERPOINT 2003, by Nancy Muir

PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS IN EASY STEPS, by Nick Vandome

And let’s not forget the user manuals: for my digital camera, for my projector, and for my laptop. Not exactly blogging fodder, are they?

The exciting news, though, is that I have managed to take my school visit talk–which I usually present in small groups with lots of props–and turn it into a PowerPoint presentation that absolutely ROCKS. I have resisted this change for some time, because I love, Love, LOVE the feel of intimate school visits, where I can make eye contact with students and hand them props after I have finished with them. The challenge was to keep my presentation cozy and personal, but make it accessible to larger groups of kids. Two weeks of manuals, digital magic, and fine tuning and, POOF!, I’ve got it. At least I think I’ve got it. The proof will come in two weeks when I give the presentation for the first time in classrooms. I’ll keep you posted.

Now, back to the manuals …