Brixen Witch- Interview with author Stacy DeKeyser

Today, as a special Halloween treat, I welcome Stacy DeKeyser, author of The Brixen Witch, a fantasy for 10-12 year olds.

“Rudi Bauer ran for his life and cursed his bad luck. He would never have touched the gold coin—much less put it in his pocket—if he’d known it belonged to a witch.” Thus begins the story of a boy, an enchanted coin, and the hex he brings upon his village. Rudi must confront a mountain witch, a mysterious stranger, and a plague of rats in order to erase the curse that threatens to steal away the town’s most precious treasure.

Could you tell us a little about an alpine village and its mountain witch cross-pollinated with the Pied Piper tale to produce the Brixen Witch?

I’d wanted to write about a mountain witch for a long time, ever since visiting the Italian Alps and hearing local legends. But I could never figure out what her story should be. I finally abandoned that idea, because I became reacquainted with the Pied Piper story, and became obsessed. My storyteller’s brain was really bothered by it: so many loose threads, and no satisfactory ending. Mark Twain supposedly said, “The difference between fiction and real life is that fiction has to make sense.” I agree with that. I decided to try writing a new version of the Pied Piper story; one that made sense.
I found Robert Browning’s Pied Piper poem, beautifully illustrated by Kate Greenaway. Those illustrations reminded me a lot of the village I’d visited in the Italian Alps—the one with its own legend of a mountain witch. Suddenly, my Pied Piper story also had a witch, and to me they fit together perfectly. (Just don’t ask me where the golden coin came from. I have no idea.)

My favorite line from the book was “You know it’s bad luck to talk of such things…” What a great way to heighten the mystery and drama. How did it come to you?

It popped out of Oma’s mouth during an early conversation with Rudi, when she tells him to return the witch’s coin. I knew Oma had a long history of dealing with the witch, but I also knew she would be tight-lipped about it. Then, during a later draft of the story, I realized that Oma was not the only character who avoided talking about the witch – the entire village did. (They’re a superstitious lot.) Thus, one throwaway line became a kind of refrain throughout the story.

Rudi inadvertently brings an avalanche of bad luck to his alpine village. His parents are oblivious, and Rudi must make things right on his own. Yet, unlike many other modern fantasies, he does live in a warm and supportive community: Otto the baker, Marco the blacksmith, Mistress Tanner and Rudi’s Oma who guides him with her cryptic wisdom. Can you tell us about how the community of Brixen took root in your imagination?

As a kid reader, I preferred to have grownups out of a story as much as possible, even though I knew it wasn’t always realistic. I guess I always assumed that adults were lurking somewhere, just not “in the way.” And I think that’s how kids like things in general, especially early adolescents. They like feeling in charge of their own lives, and they certainly have to deal with so many things on their own. But they also want to know that parents, and other supportive adults, are there to back them up if they need them. I decided Rudi would feel the same way. And I do think community is very important. One line from the book is: “No one paid attention to whose child was whose. Every child was a child of Brixen, and that was enough.” I believe that, and I’ve been lucky enough to always have been a part of communities where that sentiment was the unspoken rule.

You mentioned in a previous interview that you had to research rat catching for your book. Can you tell us about your hunt for that information? What other research did you have to do for this book? How important is it to have accurate facts in a fiction book?

The more accurate the true stuff is, the more readily a reader will believe in the stuff you’ve made up. I probably started by Googling “rat catching,” and went from there. I was really lucky to find a self-published booklet from 1895, written by a real rat catcher in England. He went into great and gory detail about catching rats. But I was also struck by the obvious pride he took in his work. I modeled Herbert Wenzel the rat catcher after him. I also researched Germanic names, and the local flora and fauna of the Alps, so I could get those little details right.

Rudi is a terrific character. Will we be seeing him again?

I hope so! I’m working on a book about the further adventures of Rudi and friends. Stay tuned!

Your first two books were biographies. How did you make the leap from nonfiction to fiction? Do you think you’d ever go back to nonfiction?

Each genre has its own challenges. With nonfiction, the information is already there. The author’s challenge is to sift through it, and then find a fresh way to write about it. With fiction, you start from scratch, which to me is very scary. But it’s great fun to create whole new worlds and characters. I still write nonfiction, but now it’s essays and blog posts. If I ever happen upon a really compelling topic, I’d consider writing a nonfiction book again. Never say never!

What project/s are you working on now?

As I mentioned above, I’ve started a new story for Rudi. It’s based on another traditional tale. That’s all I’ll say for now, because I believe in jinxes.
Thank you, Linda!

Thank you, Stacy, for your generosity in sharing your story, and your writing process. Readers, if you would like to know more about Stacy and her work, you can visit her website at http://stacydekeyser.com/home.html or you can check out her blog at http://stacy-dekeyser.blogspot.com/

The Black Regiment of the American Revolution

Today I just have to crow a little. My book, The Black Regiment of the American Revolution, has been adopted as part of the core social studies curriculum for the state of Georgia.

I'm delighted that they've chosen my book, of course, but I'm more pleased that Georgia has recognized the importance of these African-American patriots in our nation's history.

I'd also like to announce that I'll be celebrating Halloween in a special way this year, by hosting an interview with Stacy DeKeyser, author of Brixen Witch.
Hope you can join us!

Authors for Earth Day

Dear Librarians, Media Specialists and Teachers,

Would you like to host a special author event at your school? To promote the importance of our blue planet, I'm offering one unique author visit in the month of April. As a participant in Authors for Earth Day (www.authorsforearthday.org), I will be donating 50% of my day’s speaking fee to a conservation organization and the donation recipient will be decided by a student vote at the school I visit.

This is my way to join hands with educators in a celebration of literacy and conservation, and to inspire students make a positive impact on the world. Here’s how it works:

1. Prior to my visit, the students will be given their "nominees". I will provide a list of five conservation organizations with brief details about who they help and how, plus websites for the kids to research so they can make educated votes.

2. Prior to my visit, classroom teachers will discuss the upcoming event, discussing my children’s books, emphasizing the power of voice—as writers and as voters—as well as the conservation message of Earth Day.

3. During my special author visit, the kids will vote for whichever conservation group they think is most deserving of my donation. The ballots (paperless, if possible) will be tallied to determine the donation recipient.

4. At day's end, we will announce the "winning organization" and I will write a check to that non-profit in honor of the school's students and staff. NOTE: The school pays me in the normal fashion and I make the donation.

If you have an interest in hosting my Authors for Earth Day event to educate your students with this unique author experience, please check your school calendar for an available day in April, then contact me. Unfortunately, I can only attend one school for this event, so if there are several schools interested, there will likely be a drawing.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,
Linda C Brennan

Leslie Bulion and Universe of Fair

Today award-winning author, Leslie Bulion http://www.lesliebulion.com/ is here to talk about her marvelous new book, The Universe of Fair:


Eleven-year-old science enthusiast Miller Sanford sees himself as a responsible kid, but his parents think he's too young to explore the annual town Fair alone with his best friend. Hopeful that this year they will reconsider, Miller works extra hard to be nice to his little sister Penny and her friends. When his mother can’t attend the Fair and his father has to cover her volunteer booth hours as well as his own, Miller ends up with more responsibility than he can handle. Instead of enjoying a free-wheeling day on his own at the Fair, he is drawn into a series of mishaps involving a string of tagalong first graders, his dad s prize-worthy lemon meringue pie, flying death heads, a giant jack-o -lantern, and his Theory of Everything science fair project.

• Miller Sanford is a wonderful character. He’s quirky, caring, and constantly scheming. How did you manage to channel the voice of an eleven year old boy so well? Is he inspired by a real boy? What about his buddy, video camera-toting Lewis? What inspired him?

Thanks for the lovely opportunity to visit you on your blog, Linda, and for your kind description of Miller. Once the manuscript was in revision I realized that he—and pretty much every character in this book—registers fairly high on the quirkiness scale. I loved following Miller’s reasoning as I wrote along, but I honestly think he’s cut and sewn of whole fiction cloth. Lewis is made-up, too, though my brother-in-law is a TV director/producer/editor who creates surprising and impossibly funny, coherent story videos out of clips you’d never think would work. So I know that at least in his universe, it’s possible!

• This is my favorite kind of book. It’s laugh out loud funny, yet it has poignant moments, too. Could you tell us a little about how you work? Do you start with an underlying theme and then build in the funny situations, or do you start with the funny situations and then realize you have a theme?

Here’s what I knew when I started this book:
The setting would be an agricultural fair. A kid desperately wanted to be at the fair without parents. A mishap with a baked good would occur. That’s it—that’s all I had. I did think the fair would be a great setting for a wacky, funny story, but I didn’t realize I would spend the next year or two whining: funny is hard, funny is killing me. Most of the time, I’d write Miller and his ensemble through their crazy situations, and then I’d go back and get out of Miller’s way to try and let him (and the others) ramp up the humor. I wanted Miller to make me laugh. I think the groundwork for the humor was there, but more was added in revision.

• Last weekend, before I did this interview, I went to the Washington County Fair. I sampled the fair food and watched the rides. I toured the booth where Miller’s Theory of Everything project would have been. Miller’s family is whole-heartedly involved in their fair. I believe it’s modeled after the fair in your home town. What does the fair mean to Miller, and to you?

The Durham Fair is the largest all-volunteer agricultural fair in North America. When you live here, you quickly learn that those volunteers have to come from someplace, and that someplace is the inside of your own shoes. Our kids come through a school system that’s steeped in Fair. Classes make and enter exhibits and every school group runs a fundraiser booth or staffs some part of the Fair. Most parents (and school parents emeriti) volunteer in one capacity or another, as do civic groups. The work is continuous, demanding, fun, and very social, infused with a true sense of community. Every kid longs for the same rite of passage as Miller—the freedom to roam the fair without parents. I’m reasonably sure that most don’t have the same terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day, though (thank you, Judith Viorst). One of the most moving Fair experiences for me was seeing my daughters and their friends go off to college and return to the Fair every year for a ready-made reunion with their high school classmates. They filled our home with young adults that weekend, too, sharing their Fair roots with new friends.

• Two strands are interwoven through your life, your love of writing and your love of science. You’ve written poems about bugs (Hey There Stink Bug!) and the ocean before (At the Sea Floor Café), but in this book you had theoretical physics. Really, theoretical physics! And you seamlessly incorporated it into the story. I absolutely loved how Miller tried to decide if string theory and extra dimensions could explain the existence of ghosts. What inspired you to write a middle grade novel about physics? How did you manage to blend it into the story?

I hope my master’s degree in science won’t be revoked for admitting that I’ve never taken a physics course in my life. Not even in high school. Since I incorporate science into all of my novels as well as in my science poetry, I decided to use this opportunity to address that gaping hole in my science education by reading and learning something about string theory. After my own research and several drafts of the manuscript, I asked a few physics buddies to take a little conjecture trip with Miller and me regarding ghosts and string theory, and I compared their more knowledge-based ideas to my own rudimentary ruminations to be sure I had come up with something remotely plausible. Plausible in the realm of extra dimensions, multiple universes and subatomic strings, that is.

• For Mentor Monday on Lynda Mullaly Hunt’s blog http://lyndamullalyhunt.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/mentor-monday-16/, you talked about how your fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Brownworth, encouraged your writing. Who and what have been some of the other influences on your work?

Everything influences my writing, Linda—everything I’ve ever read, all of the wonderful and generous writer and illustrator friends with whom I’ve shared work, workshops I’ve attended, SCBWI, theater, television, and my life experiences past and present. Mrs. Brownworth certainly started me on the poetry path, but I don’t remember writing fiction until I was in my 30’s taking a wonderful memoir-into-fiction class at Cornell Adult University with author Dennis A. Williams, many summers ago. I learned so much from Dennis about fiction, story, and writing, and about how to give and hear valuable crit in a generous and safe space. He invited me to send him my piece again after a revision—so encouraging. His was hands-down the best class I ever took at Cornell, including during my undergrad years. I wrote this limerick for him at the end-of-session “roast”:

The CAU students did shout,
Dennis, tell us what fiction’s about!
He said: tell your story,
All its truth, all its glory,
But if truth doesn’t work, throw it out!

One of the best lessons ever!

• You’ve written a picture book about East Africa (Fatuma’s New Cloth), a teen novel (Uncharted Waters), poetry books about science, and now a middle grade novel. Could you tell us about your journey as a writer? Where are you headed next?

Although Uncharted Waters is on some teen lists, I consider it older middle grade, and see myself as a middle-grade author, whether I’m writing poetry or novels.

Recently, I’ve been alternating between science poetry manuscripts and novels, and I’ll probably continue that pattern if I can. I love being immersed in the world of a novel, but when I have to say goodbye to the characters I’ve been living with for a year or more, I’m not always ready to move in with new ones—it’s a loyalty thing. So I turn to the next science poetry manuscript in the stack of waiting ideas. Writing poetry is an entirely different process for me, so in a way, it clears my emotional writing space for the next novel. My newest science poetry book, Random Body Parts: Gross Anatomy Riddles in Verse will come out sometime in the next year.

Thanks so much for being a guest on my blog, Leslie! Can’t wait to read Random Body Parts. Folks can see a book trailer for The Universe of Fair at http://bit.ly/RuzpHM

Memorable Moments

I always urge my writing students to keep a journal, but often they protest that their life is boring. What can they write about?
Have you ever noticed how a skilled raconteur can make a trip to the grocery store more interesting than a droning neighbor’s junket to Japan? Truly, everyone has a fascinating life. The trick is to focus on the details, the memorable moments.
So instead of trying to capture an entire day in your journal with a dreary list of all you did, recall one standout scene. Perhaps it was a young boy, lying on his back, stroking a golden retriever. Maybe it was a chestnut tree doodling its spent blossoms across the lawn. Or perhaps it was a lone Cherrio forgotten on the kitchen floor.
Make a commitment to write about at least one moment a day for the next week. Practice capturing these moments in your most effective language.
There are volumes hidden here. Who knows where these moments will lead you?

Poetic Inspiration

I've been practicing poetry as part of my morning journaling, not that I believe I'm a great poet, but because I hope it will improve my prose.
I've been using Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux's The Poet's Companion to guide me.
I've adapted one of their poetry prompts for fictional characters:

Describe an object that you associate with your character. How does the character use this object in a way that provides insight into

their personality?

I'll love to hear everyone's response to this prompt.

David A. Kelly, author of Ballpark Mysteries

I’d like to introduce author David A. Kelly. Welcome to my blog, David!

I know you as the author of Random House’s Early Reader series, Ballpark Mysteries, but you’re also the Business Travel Guide for About.com, you’re a technology analyst for Upside Research and you’re a guest columnist for the website IT Briefcase. Incredible! Tell us a little about these other facets of your writing life.
I never really set out to be a writer. When I was in school, my mother had to review everything I wrote, to check for all manners of misspellings, mistakes, and simple laziness. It was definitely not an auspicious start. I guess over the years I developed a facility to write, but never really thought it might become a major part of my life. Instead, I went to school for computer science and found myself working in a variety of technology-related jobs, from programming to product management to marketing. After spending a lot of time writing marketing reports and customer case studies, I realized I actually had an aptitude for writing and that when I thought it about it, it was fun. So I started exploring it a bit more. I branched out (back in the 1990s) and started writing travel articles for newspapers like the Boston Globe and the New York Times. Writing travel stories taught me how to write interesting articles with lots of useful information. The experience is actually really helpful for my current focus, children’s literature and my Ballpark Mysteries series.

I continue to write occasional travel articles for newspapers, as well as articles for About.com, where I’m the Guide to Business Travel. At About.com I focus on business travel, from hotel reviews to miles and rewards to travel technology. In addition, I write for technology companies like Oracle and Oracle Magazine, as well as consulting with other technology companies on marketing and content development.

Can you switch easily from technology writing to writing for children? How are these types of writing the same and different? Do prefer one type of writing over another?
I usually can switch pretty easily, but it does take a day or two to get into the right frame of mind to be really productive when I’m writing for children.

For me, writing about technology and business isn’t really that different from writing baseball mysteries for children. I strive to make both types of writing clear and concise. (Okay, I can use bigger words and longer sentences when it comes to technology writing). All things being equal, I’d probably say that I find writing for children to be more interesting than technology writing because I get to explore a wider range of ideas and have to push myself a bit more to create a compelling story. But if I’m looking at my bank account statement, I’d have to say that technology writing is lot more interesting (at least for the moment!).

How did your career as a children’s writer evolve?
I have two boys, who are now in high school. When they were in third and fourth grade we were spending a lot time playing baseball and reading books. They were really the first inspiration for starting to write children’s books.

The Ballpark Mysteries were inspired by my love of reading and the level of excitement my two sons found from playing baseball. When I was younger, I used to love mystery stories—from the Hardy Boys to Encyclopedia Brown, and even to the Partridge Family mystery stories (try to find those now!). As I was reading books to my boys, the excitement and fun of mysteries came back to me. But my sons, like lots of boys and girls, were interested in sports and physical activities. They were so interested in playing baseball or watching baseball games that it opened my eyes to the power of sports and activities like baseball to fire the imagination of boys and girls. I looked around for children’s books that featured both sports and mysteries, but didn’t find many that fit the bill. That's when I realized that there was something missing in the market—adventure/mysteries that were set in the dozens of really cool cities and ballparks around North America.

What’s it like writing a series like the Ballpark Mysteries? Is it very different than writing a stand-alone title?
In each Ballpark Mysteries book, boys and girls can expect to discover something new (did you know that astronaut's don't eat pizza or that there's a hidden message in Fenway Park's scoreboard?) as well as be absorbed by an interesting whodunit that takes the main characters, Mike and Kate, into some interesting situations. The Ballpark Mysteries are simply mystery and adventure books set in baseball stadiums.

Each Ballpark Mysteries book is set in a different major league ballpark and while it usually involves a baseball game (book five is set during the Home Run Derby and All-Star Game!), baseball is more of a backdrop to the action, adventure, and mystery that drives each story forward.

Readers certainly don’t have to know anything about baseball (or other sports) to enjoy them. And because each baseball park and team is so unique there are great opportunities for even the biggest sports fan to learn something new. In each book, Mike and Kate visit a ballpark to take a tour or see a game, but lots of the action may also happen outside the ballpark. In the third book they visit a number of interesting landmarks around Los Angeles, while in the fourth book (set in Houston), they get to visit NASA and try on space suits.

I hear you travel to ballparks and watch games as part of your research. How cool is that! Can you tell us some interesting anecdotes about your trips?
Great question. It’s really pretty good that part of my job is to head out to a couple of baseball stadiums each year and spend a couple of months writing about them! Again, I never would have expected that would be part of my job a few years ago, but it I love it.

Since each of the Ballpark Mysteries is set in a different MLB park, I have to write about a new baseball team and stadium for each book. Usually I start by going out and spending 5 – 7 days in each city that I’m going to write about. I take a tour of the ballparks, and usually try to watch between 2 – 4 games if my schedule allows. I also have to spend a fair amount of time sightseeing and checking out all types of possible sights, attractions, historical areas, and shops that might fit into the story or mystery. At this stage of the writing I never know what the mystery will about, or what I’ll need to write the book, so I hustle to take lots of notes, lots of pictures, and see lots of sights.

In terms of interesting anecdotes from my trips, I’m not sure I have many, though I still shiver with thoughts of the night games I watched in San Francisco. It was the middle of August and I’ve never been so cold in all my life! Everyone around me had warm, wooly hats on and winter coats. After a few nights at Giant’s games I can fully appreciate Mark Twain’s alleged remark that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco! Other than that, I’ve had great times in Kansas City, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, and more. But usually, I’m so busy writing and taking pictures not that much interesting happens!

Your latest Ballpark Mystery, The Astro Outlaw, takes place at the Astrodome. Tell us about that story.
The Astro Outlaw (set in Houston, book 4) is an exciting book because it covers a lot of ground—NASA’s Johnson Space Center, the Apollo Moon missions, a missing moon rock, and huge steam train (right in the stadium!). I had a great time writing it because it combined another favorite topic of time (space and technology) with baseball. The story is also one of my favorites because I was able to tie an interesting baseball play into the story in a way that becomes critical for the main characters, Mike and Kate, for solving the mystery.

You also wrote a nonfiction book about baseball, Babe Ruth and the Baseball Curse. Can you tell us a little about that?
Babe Ruth and the Baseball Curse is a chapter book for elementary school children about baseball great Babe Ruth and two main teams he played for—the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. It explores Ruth's hard-luck childhood (six of his seven brothers and sisters died as babies!) and the "curse" that befell the Boston Red Sox after trading him to the New York Yankees.

I came up with the idea to write the book after my editor at Random House asked me to write a true-life adventure story. I thought Babe Ruth would be perfect. He’s just such an amazing character. He wasn’t always nice and he didn’t always do the right thing, but he was one of the best athletes ever, and he had a heart of gold. Of course, living in Boston it’s almost impossible not to be a Red Sox fan, so I wanted to combine Ruth's story with the excitement of the 2004 Red Sox World Series run, where the team battled back from incredible odds to finally win another World Series after decades and decades of draught.

So far, all your children’s books have been for Early Readers. What draws you to this age group? What are the special challenges of writing for this group?
Well, would it be bad to say “the length?” Or, more specifically, “they’re short enough so that I thought I had good chance at finishing one?”

Seriously, I never really considered writing books or stories for a living. I didn’t think I would be able to really write and publish a book, so I thought that if I was going to try, I should at least try something that wasn’t going to waste too much time. That ruled out adult books, as well as middle grade and young adult books. I looked at the types of books my boys were reading, and pretty quickly figured that I could at least have a chance of writing one of a similar length (about 10,000 words).

While now I envision actually writing some books for older children, I love writing for this age group (ages 6 – 9, roughly, although the books really seem to appeal to old, reluctant readers really nicely). The stories have to move along quickly. The writing has to be clean, short, and interesting. And things can’t be too crazy. I think over the series (I’m up to book 7 now), my writing has gotten crisper and cleaner and I have a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t.

I don’t think there are really any special challenges in writing for this group. I don’t worry at all about specific word choices or vocabulary, but do I do work hard to make the sentences short and keep things clean. I’ve also learned over and over again to show, not tell, when I’m describing something. I think that’s particularly important for this level.

You have a new book coming out called Baseball Mud—really, Baseball Mud. Can you tell us about that book?
Sure. Baseball Mud is a picture book scheduled to come out in the spring of 2013 from Lerner. It’s the great story of Lena Blackburn and how he discovered baseball mud. Most baseball fans might know a lot about their team, but they probably don’t know that every one of the 70 – 90 brand new baseballs that major league teams use every game have to be rubbed in mud before the game! And that the mud that’s used comes from a secret, hidden place in New Jersey! And that it comes from one company, which has been supplying major league teams with mud for 75 years!

I had come across the fact a few years ago, and after finishing Babe Ruth and the Baseball Curse I was looking for something that would make a good picture book. Out popped Baseball Mud. It’s a story that’s a lot of fun to share with people.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our visitors?
I can’t think of anything. Other than perhaps a question that I get asked a lot about how to become a children’s book writer. The key for me was persistence (and luck!). My first attempts at a baseball mystery story were definitely weak, but I worked to solicit feedback from other writers and editors and received a lot of very helpful advice and suggestions. I worked hard to incorporate them and eventually broke through by selling my first manuscript. I think you not only have to be a good writer to get published, but you have to persistent AND be willing to flexible. I was never wedded to one particular story or one way of writing, which was really helpful as I received feedback and revised my works.

And one last thing—don’t forget to look for the next book in the series this June. The All-Star Joker (book 5) takes Mike and Kate to this summer’s All Star game in Kansas City, where they have to find the culprit who’s playing practical jokes. Random House will also be releasing an audio book compilation of the first five books in June, which is really cool as well.

Thanks so much for joining me on my blog! Don’t forget folks, if you’d like to be entered in a chance to win a signed copy of David’s book, The Astro Outlaw, just leave a comment on this post.
You can find out more about David and his books at http://davidakelly.com/, the Ballpark Mysteries website: www.ballparkmysteries.com, or his Facebook page (www.facebook.com/ballparkmysteries).