Author Lea Wait on UNCERTAIN GLORY

I’d like to welcome Lea Wait my blog, today.

She and I are raffling off a signed copy of her book, Uncertain Glory. All you have to do to be entered in the drawing is leave a comment on this blog post. Good luck!

Lea Wait writes acclaimed historical novels for children set in 19th century Maine. Stopping to Home, Seaward Born, Wintering Well, and Finest Kind are on recommended reading lists throughout the country and have been named to student choice award lists in 13 states. Lea also writes the Shadows Antique Print Mystery series for adults, the most recent of which is Shadows on a Cape Cod Wedding.

Today, she’s here to speak about her latest historical novel for young people, Uncertain Glory.

Thirteen year old Joe Wood has always dreamed of being a newspaper man. When a distant cousin dies and leaves him a printing press, Joe borrows money to start his own newspaper. But now his loan is almost due, and he doesn’t have enough to pay it back. Will special editions about the growing hostilities between the North and South keep Joe’s newspaper afloat? What about Nell, the young spiritualist who’s come to town advertising that she can communicate with the dead? Joe’s friend and partner, Charlie, is looking for a way to debunk her. But Joe isn’t so sure she’s a fake. And when his assistant, the young African American boy Owen, goes missing, Joe turns to Nell for help.

Joe Wood, a thirteen year old boy who owns and runs his own newspaper, Charley, his flighty friend, Owen, an African American boy who works for Joe, and Nell, a young spiritualist, are all thrown together at the start of the Civil War—how did you come up with such a  fascinating and diverse cast of characters?

            I like to mix real and fictional characters in my historical novels. Joe Wood really did publish his town’s newspaper during the mid-19^th century. His mother ran a local dry goods store. His friend Charlie, also a “real person,” helped him with the paper, but was a bit flakier and unfettered … so I described him that way. (I include historical notes explaining what Joe’s and Charlie’s future lives were like.) Nell, a 12-year-old spiritualist, is based on a number of child spiritualists of the period, including the Fox sisters. There were free black families in Maine in 1861, and, although Owen is fictional, because of his race, he’s able to give a different perspective on the beginning of the Civil War.

How much of the real Joe Wood is in Joe the character? What did you invent about him? Can you tell us a little about your process of turning an historical figure into a book character?

            Yes – Joe is real! I’ve read his diaries and think I have some idea of what kind of a young man he was. I knew I wanted to center a book on him and his newspaper … and originally set the book in the winter of 1859, which was the year he began publishing. Charlie and Nell were also in that first version. But I realized I needed more depth to their story … so I changed history a bit and set UNCERTAIN GLORY in April of 1861, during the first two weeks of the Civil War.

Joe is torn between the demands of his newspaper and helping his mom with the family store. His father hasn’t been much use since Joe’s brother died. How does this theme of family responsibility and grief fit in with the rest of your novel? Are any parts of the novel drawn from your personal life?

            Joe’s mother really did run a dry goods store. In the late 1850s – early 1860s she supported the family. Historically, Joe’s father was a minister in a small church which closed, leaving him without a profession. In UNCERTAIN GLORY I have him depressed and not contributing to the family, but in the book I blame his depression on his feeling responsible for  the death of Joe’s (fictional) older brother. I thought that would be easier for young readers to understand … and his reaction to Nell also explains why many people were attracted to the messages she brings.

            Luckily, I haven’t had to cope with the problems Joe and his family had.     

How do find ideas for your historical novels for kids? Do you scour historical records looking for interesting individuals? Or do you begin with an era or theme?

            All my historicals for children (so far) are set in 19^th century Wiscasset. I wanted to take one town

and show, through a series of stand-alone books, how the geography of a town may stay the same, but the

way people live there changes over the years. Usually I start with one idea and then build on it. STOPPING TO HOME? (1806 – Wiscasset was the largest port east of Boston, and there was a smallpox epidemic.) SEAWARD BORN  (A devastating hurricane in 1804 Charleston, SC, nearby plantations changing from rice cultivation to cotton, and 20% of American mariners were African American). WINTERING WELL (1819-1820. Maine becomes a state … and what role was there in the 19^th century for a disabled boy/man?)  FINEST KIND  (the Wiscasset Jail burned, and 2 school boys got the jailer’s family and the prisoners out and saved them)  Those were the beginnings …

I do a lot of work in small town Maine archives! 

So far, all your historical novels for kids are at least partially set in Wiscasset. How can you come up with so many stories from one small town? Do you ever think you’ll run out of material? If you had to set a novel somewhere else, where might it be?

            All small towns are full of stories. I have one Wiscasset book that hasn’t sold yet, and I could continue in Wiscasset for a while, but I’d also like to write a book or three set in the 20^th century … it all depends on my time (never enough of that!) and, honestly, which books are selling.  I wrote a book for young people set in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1838 that I still think is one of my best … but it hasn’t sold. So the market is important. 

I love the fact that you have recipes from your books on your website. (I made Cassie's Anadama Bread for dinner last night.) You don’t have one up from Uncertain Glory yet. If you did, what might it be?

            Good question! Probably a stew … Joe’s mother seems to cook those quite often!

Few writers are able to successfully write for both children and adults, yet you also write adult mysteries. Which audience did you write for first? What compelled you to jump to a new readership? How does the process of writing for adults differ from writing for young people?

            I’ll admit … I love writing for children best. But the first full manuscript I wrote was a mystery for adults.  It didn’t sell, and I was happy to turn to writing books for children. Then the mystery DID sell .. and I found myself having deadlines in two genres. Not a bad situation, actually … it lets me write about different subjects, in different ways. My books for children are my “serious writing:” I’m very fussy about accuracy and pacing. Our children deserve the best.  

Can you tell us anything about your upcoming projects?

            Let’s see! The 7^th in my Shadows Antique Print mystery series (SHADOWS ON A MAINE CHRISTMAS) will be published in early September. The first in a new contemporary Maine series based on a business of custom needlepoint and restoration (the Mainely Needlepoint) series will begin in January, 2015, with TWISTED THREADS. Right now I’m writing the second in that series, THREADS Of EVIDENCE. And for children? I’ve written another Wiscasset book, set in 1777, and I’m working on a book set in New Jersey in 1970 with the background of the Vietnam War and women’s liberation. 
  

For any teachers out there, Lea has a Teacher’s Guide for Uncertain Glory available on her website. For more information on Lea Wait and her books, see www.leawait.com

Environmental Hero: Diane Wilson

Diane Wilson was a Texas shrimper—a fourth generation Texas shrimper. She had started working on her family’s boat at age eight. By the time she was twenty-four, she was a captain.

Then she read a newspaper report saying that her county was the most polluted in the United States. She confronted four chemical plants to stop them from dumping toxins into the bay.

You can find out more about Diane Wilson in Nobody Particular: One Woman’s Fight to Save the Bays, written and illustrated by Molly Bang.

You can also visit this PBS website

Earth Day's Legacy

Earth Day made the environment a voting issue.

Despite heavy lobbying by industry, months after the first Earth Day, a strong new version of the Clean Air Act passed the Senate unanimously and the House by a voice vote.

President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency by executive order.

Congress enacted the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act. More environmental legislation was passed in the decade that followed
than at any other time in U.S. history.

Now Earth Day is celebrated around the world, reminding us that we need to care for the earth that sustains us. Our future depends upon it.

In the words of Gaylord Nelson, "Are we able to meet the challenge? Yes. Are we willing? that is the unanswered question."

Find out how you can do your part at the Earth Day Network. 

The First Earth Day

They filled Central Park and spilled into the streets of New York City. Old people and babies, blacks and

whites, people in suits and hippies. They raised banners, acted out skits, and swept the streets clean.

In Miami, Florida, they held a "Dead Orange Parade" where the winning float sported a statue of the Statue of Liberty wearing a gas mask.

In Omaha, Nebraska, they collected 156,000 cans and built a tin mountain.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico they played mariachi music and marched to protest the stench of a sewage treatment plant.

Over 20,000,000 people took part in the first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970, a tenth of the population of the United States. It was the largest demonstration in U.S. history.

“Earth Day 1970,” CBS News with Walter Cronkite,

Earth Day's 44th Anniversary

Denis Hayes was a college student when Senator Gaylord Nelson invited him to organize the first Earth Day.

 

There was no email, twitter, or cell phones. So Hayes used newspaper ads, mailings, and fliers. He reached out to professors and students, hunters and housewives, cub scouts and kindergarteners. 

He began with this ad in the New York Times:

A disease has infected our country. It has brought smog to Yosemite, dumped garbage in the Hudson, sprayed DDT in our food, and left our cities in decay. Its carrier is man.

Earth Day is a commitment to make life better, not just bigger and faster; to provide real rather than rhetorical solutions. It is a day to re-examine the ethic of individual progress at mankind’s expense. It is a day to challenge the corporate and governmental leaders who promise change, but who shortchange the necessary programs. It is a day for looking beyond tomorrow. April 22 seeks a future worth living. April 22 seeks a future.

The result was the largest demonstration in U.S. history. Check out these images from National Geographic.

Happy Earth Day!

Senator Gaylord Nelson and the First Earth Day

The Vietnam War, desegregation, nuclear disarmament—there were so many issues demanding attention in 1969. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin was dismayed by the degradation of the environment, but how could he convince his fellow legislators to act to save it?

After a major oil spill in Santa Barbara, California, he was invited to speak at a conference in Berkley. While flying in, he read an article about college teach-ins protesting the war in Vietnam. Nelson said, “It popped into my head. That’s it! Why not have an environmental teach-in and get everyone involved?”

That idea was the seed of the first Earth Day.

Here’s Senator Nelson speaking at a rally in Milwaukee on the first Earth Day.

http://nelsonearthday.net/video/vha593_nelsonearthday.htm

Killer Smog

In When Rivers Burned: The Earth Day Story, I talk about the 1948 smog in Donora, PA, which killed twenty people there.

But the United States wasn’t the only country with smog problems. The deadliest smog in recorded history was a “killer fog” that struck London in December 1952. 

It was so thick that people couldn’t see their feet. Thousands of people were hospitalized, lips blue, struggling for breath. At least 4,000 people died. The death toll could actually be many times higher. 

This incident led to Britain’s Clean Air Act.

Find out more at the History Channel website:

http://www.history.com/news/the-killer-fog-that-blanketed-london-60-years-ago