Veera: Does Parenthood Make You More Creative?

I was always creative. I was the type of kid who squirreled away journals, wrote poems and stories, loved to draw and paint, and made weird stuff out of clay. As a teenager I was sure I was going to be a fashion designer. In college I was interested in writing, acting, and film. Writing, however, evolved into the winner and I decided to try and be one.

In the beginning of my adulthood I wrote lots of stuff. I wrote stories, poems, a play, a screenplay, and a novel. Most of it wasn’t very good, but I clung to the few pieces I thought showed promise. I got a story published in a literary journal and felt encouraged to keep going. As the pressures of adulthood took over, I was having a harder time accessing that creative spark. I got a job as a children’s book editor, did some freelance writing work, published some licensed character children’s books, and wrote book reviews, but I still hadn’t published much of my original writing and never seemed to have time to work on it anymore.

When I had my first child, I decided to leave my publishing job. I’d like to say it was a hard decision, but it wasn’t. I liked my job, but unless we were going to starve and lose our home (we were not) I wasn’t going to put that baby down. I don’t think I did actually put her down until about nine months later. I was that kind of new mom and she was that kind of baby.

It was a very intense time for me, but I remember after years of writing little bits here and there, as soon as my daughter started sleeping through the night and I started thinking somewhat clearly again, I couldn’t stop writing. I wrote during her naps. I wrote in the wee hours. I wrote whenever I could fit it in. I had a burst of creative energy I never experienced before. It was like a part of my brain had expanded in the process. Maybe when I was giving her so much those early months, I was storing away something for myself. Then I finally let it free.

The joke is that you become sort of “brain-dead” as a new mom. Maybe you become “fashion-dead” for a while and there are days (or months!) you’re barely conscious from sleepless nights, but beyond that, I think parenthood forces you to access multi-tasking skills you never knew you had and actually stimulates your brain. Once I started writing seriously again, everything felt fresh and new because I was an entirely new person. I was now a mom. Why do you think there are so many “mompreneurs” out there? I can’t speak for the dads, but something happens to women when they have kids. Maybe it’s because parenting challenges you in so many ways, that you can’t help but see the world differently. Seeing the world differently usually makes us smarter and more creative.

I’ve been writing since college (which is now, inexplicably, a couple of decades ago), and wrote a novel during graduate school, but never fully believed in it. Then, during my years in publishing, I started another novel for middle-grade readers. Only after having my two kids, however, did I finish it, revise it a few hundred times, and finally get an agent (yes, the lovely Sara Crowe) who sold my book, THE WHOLE STORY OF HALF A GIRL, which comes out this January.

Parenting, for me, has been like productivity boot camp and I’ve had to get pretty creative when my husband’s working late, the pasta’s boiling over, my daughter just cut her finger, my son is about dump paint on the floor, the phone rings, and the dog is begging to go out. Yes, parenthood can take over at times and prevent you from doing anything else. I find, though, that when I have time, I’m very aware of what I really want to spend my precious time on, which somehow allows me to access that creative energy faster. But hey, it’s just a theory. Maybe it’s just all that coffee I’ve been drinking.

I’m starting a new teaching job in the fall, my first gig out of the house in a long time, and finding time to write will be more challenging. I’m not that worried though, because I feel like parenting has taught me more about using my time well more than anything else has. It makes me think of the movie Limitless. Bradley Cooper plays a character who discovers a pill that allows you to use a hundred percent of your brain. I had this thought when I saw it: Pill? Just give someone a couple of kids and a cup of strong coffee. And watch what they do.

Kim: Avoid the Flat Swimmers.

I came across a photography project the other day that was my kind of thing. Judy Starkman, a photographer in Los Angeles, became curious about the various people that frequented her local public pool. As a group they are swimmers, but individually the men and women in Starkman’s project have varied lives and interests. So she created a public art project she calls “The Secret Life of Swimmers.”

The project resonated with me for a couple of reasons: First off, the details for each individual that the photo sets revealed. What writer hasn’t wondered about (and, um, made up elaborate details for) the lives of passing strangers? Imagining what makes others tick is heady stuff, and it lends itself well to making stories. I borrow (and embellish) the traits of people I see out and about to build a character like a sparrow collects grass and fluff to build its nest.

Secondly, I was curious about Starkman’s subjects as an ensemble, and the relationships they might have. I’m trying to be efficient with my current work-in-progress and more conscious of giving characters weight to their bones before I get to the revision phase. It’s slowing down the writing, but I think (hope) it will pay off in the long run. Revision is when most characterization gets polished, but that doesn’t mean I can’t start with a stronger base. So, Starkman’s subjects all swim in the same pool. We can make an analogy of the pool being the story, and those that swim there are our characters. You could say that the swimmers can’t know that they’re in a pool for the analogy to really work, but let’s not get that existential. We could focus on a variety of components; community, diversity, transformation. Why are these people sharing a pool? Unless your protagonist is a particularly hunky lifeguard, they aren’t going to be there for him. They are at that pool for their own self-absorbed reasons, not to help your protagonist swim laps or lend him a warm towel. A couple of them are probably even hogging lanes or peeing in the deep end, if you’re going to be realistic.

The secondary characters should have their own lives. Sure, they are often referred to as supporting characters, but they shouldn’t be particularly interested in helping the protagonist get what he wants or moving the story along. You probably already know your protagonist pretty well—what they think they need, what they really need, how they work things out, and dialogue patterns or habits that give them a distinctive voice. You’ve probably filled out one of the many character worksheets out there (like this one). But, have you given that much thought to all of the characters in your novel? They might offer great one-liners or keep the action going, but are they fully developed? Distinctive characters endear and/or interest the reader and help move the story along. Dull characters don’t. Each of your characters should have their own distinctive voice. Two of my secondary characters were very similar in my last manuscript. I could have worked on making them more distinctive, but I didn’t need to, so I just kept one to work on while cutting the other.

Choices and mannerisms show who people are, in the real world and in fiction. That’s an aspect of that whole -show-don’t-tell thing. Is your hero’s friend Henry clingy? Don’t say it outright; show it through his idiosyncrasies and dialogue. Sometimes when I’m drafting I use a trait as a prompt for a quick exercise that I might use to work on detail.

Example: Henry is clingy.

Great. Not so much for Henry, but for the exercise. Next I’ll write a few sentences to back it up:

Henry is clingy. His dad got pretty aloof after Henry’s mom died. Henry can’t remember ever hugging his dad. Not at the funeral, and not when he broke his ankle on the trampoline last summer. And his dad has never let him get a pet, even after Henry saved his allowance to join the ASPCA. Not even one of those miserable beta fish.

Now, Henry calls his girlfriend at least three times a day, even when he knows she’s in class. When a party is over, he’s usually the last to leave, and he offers to help clean up. More than once.

There are details that show how and why Henry is the way he is. Most of the time this kind of exercise just stays in my notes, but maybe Henry can call and interrupt class a couple of times, or he might mention that his dad won't care if he gets home past curfew. And, for the record, if Henry is just clingy he will also be flat. Maybe he collects ferret figurines and has a wicked sense of humor. He might be able to quote Mark Twain when the occasion arises. Add dimensions. You can invent a whole backstory about each character and what makes them how they are, but 90+% should be left out of a revised draft. You don’t have to spell out everything you know. If you write it well enough, your readers will believe and accept that this is how your characters would be in real life. Trust the reader. If you put in the right details, they'll put some of the pieces together themselves.

The people add the life to the story like the swimmers slosh the water in the pool. Mention who wears goggles or can hold their breath the longest, but get to know who they are outside of the story pool, too.

And if you have any creepers just sitting in the bleachers watching everybody else swim? Kick ‘em out.

Dianne: A Strange (and Wonderful) Public Reading

Anticipating the release of a novel, an author might imagine the first sight of the book on a store shelf, the first signing, or the first interview. But I, for one, never imagined reading my book on stage -- in a corset -- to an audience of 200 people wearing steampunk attire.

I was invited to a reading at Dorian’s Parlor, a Steampunk Ball held monthly in Philadelphia. WE HEAR THE DEAD isn’t steampunk, but it’s set in the 1850’s, and Gil Cnaan, one of the organizers, thought the subject would interest Dorian attendees.

The guests arrived that night in lavish costumes featuring top hats, frock coats, goggles, aviator caps, mechanical wings, fangs, dueling pistols … and lots of corsets! Meanwhile, I was suffering from a bad case of stage fright. Climbing on stage, I knew why those corseted Victorian ladies fainted so often! I’m not sure how I convinced my legs to carry me to the microphone, where I stood under a spotlight. The ballroom faded into complete blackness. I couldn’t see anyone, but I could hear them … talking, laughing, clinking their plates and glasses. As near as I could tell, nobody was paying any attention to the stage.

Trying to gather my courage and catch my breath in that blasted corset, I reminded myself that I’d been asked to come as part of the evening’s entertainment. I was there to do a job, and it didn’t matter if anyone listened or not. So I read a passage from my book in a voice that didn’t shake nearly as much as my knees. Ten minutes felt like an hour.

Then, the master of ceremonies invited questions from the audience I couldn’t see. Nothing. Just the sound of people going about their conversations, while I stood on stage quietly dying of embarrassment. Finally, a bold voice called out: “Where did you get your inspiration for the book?”

I knew that voice; it belonged to my 11-year old daughter. (Technically, she wasn’t supposed to be at this 21+ event, but Gil said she could watch my performance as long as she promised not to order any beer.)

That did it. If my daughter could walk out in front of 200 people and ask questions into a microphone held by a steampunk vampire, then I could stand on stage and answer them. I started to relax, and there were plenty of other questions. People had been listening. It was only my nervousness that had me convinced I was boring them all. After I left the stage, I discovered how friendly and well-read the denizens of Dorian’s Parlor were and spent the rest of the evening conversing with the most fascinating (and bizarrely-dressed) array of people I’ve ever met.



Late in the evening, a fellow in a leather jerkin apologized for missing my reading. “My plane was late,” he said. “Luckily, while we were sitting on the runway, I caught most of your reading on the live pod cast.”

The WHAT?

That was the second time I nearly fainted in my corset.

Carolee: Boys and Books

My son will be leaving for college soon and the event causes me to pause and reflect upon the many ways we have shared stories over the years. It was difficult to read to him as a young child because he would barely sit still long enough to eat, much less listen to a story. It was ironic that we didn’t do a lot of shared reading until he was a teenager and we read aloud from his honor’s English texts.

One spring he was assigned East of Eden by John Steinbeck and given very little time to read this mammoth book. Between his hectic schedule and mine, it was difficult to find time to read together. One night I was on my way to pick up my daughter and her friend from the gym and my son called to ask if I could come to the restaurant where he worked. He’d cut his thumb and it wouldn’t stop bleeding. I picked him up, then went to the gym, got the girls, went looking for a minor emergency center – none were open – and finally went home to drop off the girls, call the nurse hotline, and assess the damage.

After much deliberation, it was decided that to be on the safe side, a trip to the emergency room was in order. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to grab East of Eden before we left. My son asked what I was doing and I told him that if we were going to sit in the ER all night, it would be a good time to read. He nodded and smiled and I could tell what he was thinking – What is it about mothers that makes them remember Steinbeck on the way to the ER?

We found a couple of chairs in the hospital away from the blaring television and sick people and started reading. Then we went back to talk to the doctor who tried to decide whether the wound warranted stitches, tape, or Super Glue. I was quite surprised to discover that the medical staff was contemplating using something on my son that I could have picked up at the hardware store. Of course their version of Super Glue was sterile. And about ten times more expensive.
As the doctor left and sent a nurse to clean the cut, my son and I continued reading about the demise of the Trask family and it made me think about how sometimes reading and sharing books is a leisure activity surrounded by hot chocolate and melting marshmallows, but more and more it’s a task squeezed into the “found moments” of our lives… the dentist’s office, a visit to the dermatologist’s waiting room, and of course, those unexpected ER excursions.

This past weekend we had another unexpected opportunity to share a book when we took a mother-son road trip for college orientation. Foreseeing that we would spend nearly 20 hours on the road, I suggested my son take something to read and gave him a pile of books with teen boy protagonists, to which he replied, “I don’t like fiction.”

Those are not words a fiction author ever wants to hear, especially from her son, but I’ve always made it a policy to support his reading choices and never criticize them. I work at a public school as a speech-language pathologist. Most of my students are boys, and most of them hate to read. I go to great efforts to try to connect them to material they will like. Something that will spark their interest and keep them reading. It’s different for every one. Over the years I’ve purchased graphic novels of classic monsters (Beowulf and Frankenstein), non-fiction picture books about famous battles, and comedy classics like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Captain Underpants.

My most recent novel, Take Me There (Simon Pulse), is about a boy who can’t read or write but dreams of being a poet. He hates books, or thinks he does, because reading is a struggle, but in the end he discovers that books and words can liberate him.

I suppose that’s all I’ve ever wanted for my son, my students… to discover the power of words. So as I was packing, I asked my son, “What do you like to read?”

His answer was philosophy. News to me.

I went back through my shelves and pulled out several books along that vein, not too long, not too preachy. He chose The Fifth Agreement: A Toltec Wisdom Book by Don Miguel and Don Jose Ruiz. As we drove across deserts, into valleys, and through mountains, we talked about what it means to be impeccable with your word, how to go through life without taking things personally or jumping to conclusions, and how a person can live in the world while remaining detached from its negative influences.

The experience reminded me of why I love books and why I’m a storyteller. Books of all kinds, whether they be non-fiction, comedy, romance or history, help us think about what we value and clarify our ideals. We may not always follow those ideals, but books help us know what they are.

While at freshmen orientation, my son registered for classes. Among his choices were astrology, philosophy, and physics. On the way home I asked if he would be interested in a book called Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav which combines mysticism and physics. He said he would, so upon our return I immediately went down to the bookstore near my house and ordered a copy. I’m sure it will make a nice addition to his dorm room. I don’t know if he will actually read it with his study obligations, his part time job, his intramural sports, and his busy social life, but it will be waiting patiently on his shelf for the time when he is ready, like a seed waiting for rain, an idea waiting for words, or a mother waiting for a phone call from a son trying to find his place in the world.

Elizabeth F.: An Interview with Beth Potter, Associate Editor, Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers

Posted by Elizabeth Fama

A busy Beth Potter takes a moment to smell the flowers.

A quick profile of Beth Potter, prepared by Farrar Straus Giroux BYR for Book Expo America 2011:

Some of the books Beth has worked on: The Children of Crow Cove series, by Bodil Bredsdorff; Edges, by Léna Roy.

Looking for: For middle-grade: accessible contemporary stories; something funny! For YA: luscious, historical fiction; a murder mystery or psychological thriller. For both: fantasy, projects involving food and cooking.

Loves working on: Stories with real emotional resonance.

Recent Exciting Deal: Syrenka (new title to come) by Elizabeth Fama, a fabulous, dark young-adult novel featuring monstrous mermaids, a curse, ghosts, and murder.

Favorite backlist titles: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle; Dreamhunter and Dreamquake by Elizabeth Knox; Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden.

If I weren't in children's publishing I'd be: A lookout in a fire tower in some remote wilderness.

The book I wish I could have worked on: Chime by Franny Billingsley.

******

Fama: What was the process like on your end for acquiring Syrenka (new title to come)? And more generally, how much power do you have to acquire something you love?

Potter: I first read Syrenka on one of my work-at-home reading days about a week after Sara sent it to me. I had read something that was not at all to my taste in the morning, and instead of then moving on to the next manuscript in the queue I skipped ahead to what looked the most interesting... and I couldn’t put it down. (I know, cliché alert, every editor says this about the books they acquire, but it’s true!) I read straight through the afternoon and evening and finished just before going to sleep.

The next night I was headed to a party held by my book club friend Michael Northrop (hi Michael!) and noticed while looking at the invite for directions that Sara was going to be there too. I’d actually not met her in person before so I was able to introduce myself and tell her how much I loved the book over a gin and tonic. I think that having that lucky chance to express my excitement in person, and early on, gave me a competitive edge.

I talked about Syrenka at our next editorial meeting, but for one reason or another it was a few weeks before everyone else was able to read it — and when they did, reactions were overwhelmingly positive. By this time Sara had interest from other editors, and was planning to hold an auction. The auction was set for a Monday, and my boss and I were strategizing the Friday before when he suddenly said, “Do you think she’d sell it to you today?” I said it was definitely worth a shot and the next thing I knew I was calling Sara and offering a pre-empt. It was completely exhilarating.

Our process has very recently changed and we now hold acquisitions meetings which allow key people in marketing and sales to weigh in on projects early on. But the editor’s passion is absolutely the driving force behind all of our acquisitions.

Fama: Can you talk about your path to becoming an editor?

Potter: I got the idea to become an editor when I realized during my senior year of college that I didn’t really want to pursue either of the areas that I majored in (art history and philosophy). I attended the Denver University Publishing Institute which confirmed for me that my heart was in children’s books, and then moved to NYC and started networking while holding down two restaurant jobs. I landed happily at FSG a couple of months later and was Margaret Ferguson’s assistant for several years before being promoted to build my own list.

Fama: FSG still has an "indie" reputation in the publishing world (or at least that's my sense), in spite of being part of the much larger Macmillan. It feels like a place where authors are nurtured, often through more than one book, or even for their careers. Is that a conscious policy? Is it changing at all with the new market we're in?

Potter: This is absolutely a conscious policy and one that we have held tightly to in spite of how FSG and the market have changed over the last few years. We believe very strongly in author relations and in supporting our authors throughout their careers.

Fama: With me you've been a real, old-fashioned, hands-on editor, turning my sow's ear into a silk purse through four and a half rounds of revisions. Many writers suspect that this is not happening as much in the publishing world today. Do you think you're becoming an outlier?

Potter: First of all, there were no sow’s ears involved. It was more like a silk purse into an even better silk purse. I hear a lot about editors who don’t really edit but I don’t know that I have ever met one! Everyone at FSG and at Macmillan in general is quite hands-on, and my editor friends at other houses are very dedicated too, though of course everyone has a different style. I learned how to edit from Margaret Ferguson (now of the soon-to-be launched Margaret Ferguson Books). She is an extremely rigorous editor and I always try to work in a way that I think would meet her very high standards.

Fama: What is a typical work day like for you? Do you have time to do all that hands-on editing at your desk during the week, or do you have to take it home with you? When and where do you read submissions?

Potter: A typical work day can involve a mix of meetings, email answering and general problem solving, reviewing and discussing various stages of projects, writing copy, and hopefully some editing! I do a fair amount of editing in the office but do often take it home. I read submissions on my company-supplied Sony reader and do that very occasionally in the office, almost every day on the subway, and often at home too. I use precious “reading days” at home a couple times a month usually to edit and sometimes to read.

Fama: Tell us what you hope to find in your submission pile. And on the other hand, is there anything you're sick and tired of seeing there?

Potter: I hope to find stories that are engaging, deeply felt, and above all, surprising. I am tired of submissions that feel derivative and/or that lack an emotional center.

Fama: This question has always interested me because I'm a slow reader. How do you keep up with all the new books out there? Do you actually read a lot of them, or mostly just read reviews?

Potter: I don’t worry about reading every new middle grade and YA book out there — I read what most interests me (and hopefully, those are the comparable titles to my own acquisitions). I do read a lot of reviews and blogs and try to stay aware of what’s being buzzed about. And I’m part of a YA book club, which forces me to read books that I might not choose myself. I also have another book club which reads mainly adult books, and read a fair amount of adult fiction and memoir and food writing too, and try to stay up to date with The New Yorker... I admit I have always been a fast reader! In sixth grade my teacher held a contest for who could read the most pages over Winter Break. I read over twenty books and I think the runner-up read two.

Fama: That is the cutest, nerdiest story I've ever heard. Thank you for visiting the Crowe's Nest, Beth P., and for supporting me so unfailingly and so cheerfully these last eight months.

Lisa: On Inspiration

Sometimes people ask me - what inspires you?

People are so curious about that when it comes to writers, aren't they?  Like we know the secrets of the universe and can share those secrets with anyone who asks. I'm sorry to say there isn't a magic key.

I think I believe inspiration is everywhere. Well, some days it is. And nowhere on other days. It just depends. Am I open to it? Am I looking for it?

But I've realized something lately, and I thought I would talk about my discovery here. What often inspires me - moves me to write - is when a song or book or movie or a scene in nature or any number of things causes me to feel something strongly. When I feel something deep in my soul, I then want to work at writing something that will cause someone else to feel those feelings while they read my work.

When I read The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo a few years ago, I felt like I'd visited a different land. Like I'd walked the streets of Baltese and visited the market square, just as Peter did. It left me longing to do something similar with my writing. As soon as I closed her book, I opened my idea journal, and thought - if I were to write a fairy tale story, what elements would I want to include in that story?  I wrote down a few things. A beautiful flower garden. A bird. A king and a queen. A girl.

It took me six months before I found my way into that story. But always, when I looked at that page, I was reminded of how I felt when I wrote those words. It wasn't so much the items themselves, but putting them together to try and create a magical story that would make a reader feel like he/she had been swept away to different time and place. A place where things are bleak, but a glimmer of hope seems to be around every corner. And a place where story elements are woven together in such a way that by the end, you look back at the journey you took with wonder and delight. I don't know if I accomplished all of those things. But I tried. Because of the story I'd read that inspired me, I really tried. I'm happy to say that the middle grade novel I ended up writing sold to Henry Holt recently (it's untitled at the moment).

Another example I can share. In January, 2010, I was watching the Grammy awards. It was a pretty good show, as far as the Grammy's are concerned. But then, something spectacular happened. The artist P!nk came out and gave one of the most beautiful performances I've ever seen as she sang her song, "Glitter in the Air." I was moved. Moved enough to download the song, which I'd never heard before. Over the next few days, I listened to it over and over again.

I want to write a book like this song, I thought.

I want to write a book that makes me feel the way this song makes me feel.

It was this line, specifically, that gave me goosebumps:

"Have you ever wanted... an endless night?
Lassoed the moon and pulled that rope tight?"

So, as writers like to do, I started asking myself, what if? What if two teens didn't want the day/the night to end? Why not? What was going on with them, and could I find enough of a story there to write a book?

I could. And I did, always going back to how that song made me feel, and trying to bring those emotions to the page.

Did I succeed? Some readers have told me, yes I did. Not all readers, of course. Ha, that's a dream world, where everyone gets what you were trying to do and loves it!

But I'm happy with how the story turned out. The book is called THE DAY BEFORE and I'm celebrating it's release today!

What about you? How do you answer that question - what inspires you?

Troy: Who should be me?

Due to the fact that my voice isn’t particularly audiogenic, has no accent appeal, is low on theatrics, I’ve never been convinced that reading my work to an audience is the most engaging approach for me. I don’t want to bore anyone. At a recent book-signing event where I live, I got a little help from a friend, the girl who represents the protagonist, Kat, in the book trailer for my debut novel, The Dragon of Cripple Creek (Amulet, April 2011).

The portion of text I chose for us to read is where Kat meets Ye, the ancient dragon below the Mollie Kathleen Mine. Since the story is first-person narration by Kat, it was natural that a girl read it. She dressed in character, which included a gold tooth and Denver Nuggets basketball cap. To nudge the listeners’ imaginations, I held up a mask I’d made as I read the parts of Ye.

So, girl meets dragon, they talk, and eventually develop a friendship. But it starts out as kind of a “Who’s on first?” encounter, in Ye’s mist-filled chamber. Here is the scene where the reading began: Kat, who has just seen him, has dropped a gold nugget on her foot.

“Ow.”

“Did you say ‘how’?” he asked in a rusty, crack-of-dawn voice.

“No, I said—” I faltered, trying to figure this out. Logic was kicking in, part of the process of going from shock to acceptance. Was it the fall? The lack of air? The mineral water? Here be a dragon. Here be a talking dragon. It wasn’t a crocodile. It wasn’t a horned toad on steroids. He was staring at me at the bottom of a mine. That part was undeniable—the bottom of a mine—but the rest?

I began again. “Did you say: ‘Did you say, ‘how’?”

“That is what I thought you said. ‘How’ as in ‘howdy,’ short for ‘how d’ye do.’”

Still numb, my mind shifted to auto-answer. “Thanks for the English lesson. But the ‘ye’ is outdated. The ‘ye’ should be you.”

He frowned. “Who should be me?”

I shook my head. “Ye. For you.”

With a note of suspicion, he said, “I knew you were eavesdropping.”

“What do you mean?”

“You heard me addressing myself. I heard your scream. I knew you were close. You were eavesdropping. You had to have been: You know my name.”

“I know your name? I heard you cough—”

“You heard my name. Ye. That is me. Or I, Miss English-Lesson.”

“You are Ye?

And so on. We had rehearsed this twice—I read only the quotes for Ye—and it worked.



I then enlisted a lot of help from the audience. For this portion of the reading, I chose a chapter that is strictly dialogue between Kat, a talk show host, and several call-in listeners. Audience participation was immediate. Volunteers—eight in all—ranged in age from about six to sixty; most had the book in hand, so I gave the page numbers and the name of the character each person was to play. They got into their verbal roles with enthusiasm. Ahead of time, I had asked another friend to be prepared to read the major role of the talk show host. Her confident reading made it easier for the participants to play their parts. A couple of snippets:

“This is Say-so, and I’m Miranda Bates. My guest today is Katlin Graham, a name synonymous with gold, dragons, and the new Wild West. Hello, Katlin.”

“You can call me Kat.”

. . .

“Next caller. Thomas, here in Washington, D.C.”

“Yeah. What the”—beep—“so special about dragons? Dragon movies, dragon games, dragon books! All this dragon”—beep—“it’s about the mighty buck! People are makin’ tons of money off any idiot who’ll dig in his pocket—”

“Care to respond, Kat?”

“I agree. If you’re talking about the fantasy media-greedia.”

“But that’s just what you’re—”

“All right, Thomas, you’ve had your say. We go now to Boston. Rebecca?”

A regional book representative in attendance remarked he’d never experienced a reading like that.

These approaches would not work for every novel or event—it’s not feasible, for example, to take along a character reader on a book tour—but the next time you’re scheduled for an author reading, you may want to explore the possibilities.