WILD AWAKE: An Editorial Love Story

(I don't blog much about my authors' books while they're in-progress toward publication. In part, this is out of respect for the writing/editing/revising/ publication process: a lot can change for a story as we work on it. It's also out of respect for readers—because I think it's mean to taunt you with tales of fantastic books you can't yet buy! Thus this series of publication-day "Editorial Love Story" posts was born: to celebrate the fact that, at long last, an author's book is out on shelves, and to offer a glimpse of each book's unique "making-of" story. I hope you'll enjoy and be inspired by this post, and that you'll soon have a chance to read this great book, or share it with a  reader who you think might like it!)

Things you earnestly believe will happen while your parents are away:

1. You will remember to water the azaleas. 2. You will take detailed, accurate messages. 3. You will call your older brother, Denny, if even the slightest thing goes wrong. 4. You and your best friend/bandmate Lukas will win Battle of the Bands. 5. Amid the thrill of victory, Lukas will finally realize you are the girl of his dreams.

Things that actually happen:

1. A stranger calls who says he knew your sister. 2. He says he has her stuff. 3. What stuff? Her stuff. 4. You tell him your parents won’t be able to— 5. Sukey died five years ago; can’t he— 6. You pick up a pen. 7. You scribble down the address. 8. You get on your bike and go.9. Things . . . get a little crazy after that.*

*also, you fall in love, but not with Lukas.

Both exhilarating and wrenching, Hilary T. Smith’s debut novel captures the messy glory of being alive, as seventeen-year-old Kiri Byrd discovers love, loss, chaos, and murder woven into a summer of music, madness, piercing heartbreak, and intoxicating joy.      

This editorial love story post--and it’s a long one!--is about connections. One of the most amazing parts of being an editor (and I suspect it’s much the same as a writer or artist of any sort) is that the ideas and experiences that intrigue/fascinate/perplex you inevitably find their way into the art that you help shepherd into the world. Which is kind of the point of my job, really: it’s when a book connects with you as an editor that you, in turn, ask yourself if you can see it doing so on a larger scale, for thousands of other readers, too. If the connections the story has captured are vivid and new enough that they’ll seem as magnificent to the whole reading world as they did to you.

***

It’s 1997, the start of my sophomore year of college. After a year of living with a horrid assigned roommate (seriously, the only thing we had in common was that we had the same first name), I’m finally living with a friend, in a dorm room in a cool building near all our other friends. We’re no longer clueless freshman. It’s going to be great.

And it is, at first. But partway through the year, something unexpected happens. Almost overnight, my roommate unravels in front of my eyes. At first I just think she’s being annoying; that she’s being weird; that maybe she’s been drinking too much or is enamored with some odd guy or is trying on new personalities the way you kind-of do in college, and that’s why she’s acting strangely. But then it intensifies. She doesn’t sleep. She hallucinates. She talks about meeting people I know she’s never met, but she believes these encounters like they are real. When I leave our dorm room for class, I come back to increasingly bizarre scenarios. My friends and family recount confusing stories, outright crazy lies they’ve heard from her when she’s answered our phone. She’s losing weight, rapidly. My R.A. is no help, so finally a friend and I call her parents. They swoop in, take her home for a weekend, and return her to a few days later, announcing that she just needed more rest, and a good family dinner. They suggest that maybe we’re not a good match as roommates and she’ll move into a single room next semester.

My roommate’s only been back for a week when her off-kilter behavior turns downright scary. This time my R.A. listens, sees the signs. We call her parents together. They swoop in again, this time taking her and all of her things home in one afternoon. This time, she doesn’t come back. Months later, she starts calling: medicated, painful phone calls. She’s been diagnosed. She’s trying to piece together what happened in that crazy month because she doesn’t remember any of it. I remember it all too well, but am afraid to tell her. The phone calls are hard for us both, and slowly, we drift out of touch altogether.

But the experience isn’t one I can shake. I tell my family and friends that if I weren’t so sure of being an English major, I’d probably want to become a Psych major, to study mental illness, instead. Because I don’t understand what happened, but I want to. I want to know how it could be that what was true inside her head was so different than the reality around her. I want to comprehend what it felt like for her. I want to understand the inexplicable.

***

Fast-forward. It’s 2009. I’m an junior editor at HarperCollins, and it’s the era of anonymous blogs. A new one has popped up: INTERN SPILLS. It’s the blog of an anonymous intern in publishing, and everyone’s reading and chattering about it—authors and publishing folk alike.  No one can figure out who it is, or where she works, which intrigues us all the more. This blog defies the standard style of anonymous blogs, though—there’s snark, but there’s more to it than just that. There’s real wit and smarts and heart, between the snarky observations and the salacious insider-y tidbits about working in publishing. There’s a voice. And it’s a hell of a voice. And it gets stronger with every post.

***

It’s 2010. INTERN has started talking on her blog, occasionally, about her own writing efforts. INTERN has also begun talking on her blog, occasionally, about reading more YA books. All the while sustaining a voice that’s clearly put-on: an exaggeration of the author’s own voice, perhaps, or maybe an altogether made-up one, but it’s exceedingly controlled and well-sustained regardless.

I’m still a young editor, but already I’ve been trained by my editor-bosses to pounce, when your instinct tells you to do so. Cautiously, and without promising anything at all on behalf of your company, but to pounce all the same.

So I shoot an email off into the ether, introducing myself to this INTERN persona, asking if, maybe, perhaps, INTERN is writing YA? Hinting that, if so, I’d maybe, perhaps, love to see it. INTERN responds. She doesn’t give a clue to her identity, but acknowledges that she’s trying her hand at writing YA. She’s still polishing, she says. It may be a little while.

It’s okay, I say. I’m happy to wait. Editors are good at being patient, once they’ve found a voice worth waiting for.

***

It’s 2011. INTERN and I have kept up an occasional, still-half-anonymous correspondence. I try hard to keep myself from asking in each email about the book, about its progress. I am learning that books come ripe when they’re ready, and never before.

And sure enough, before the year ends, there’s a manuscript in my in-box. It’s from an agent, one who has taken on a new client. She has a name, the agent explains, but she’s perhaps better known as INTERN. 

And this manuscript. This manuscript. It is raw, still. Still on its way to becoming a wholly book-shaped thing. Right now it’s all specificity and not quite enough universality. But there are lines in it that give me chills ("When she died, it was like my house burned down.") I don’t know it yet, but these lines are going to haunt me for two more years, until others finally read them too. And perhaps well beyond that point, perhaps forever, the way the best lines in the best books do.

And that voice. It’s a thousand times more powerful as a narrative tool than it ever was on a blog (and it was pretty darn effective back then). This author has an ability to craft a stunning metaphor that combines the two unlikeliest of things, drawing connections I’d never imagined, making me see things anew.

And the story—it shakes things up inside me, in a way that scares me and stirs me all at once. It’s the story of a girl, caught off-guard by a spiral of mania and mental illness. It puts words to the things I thought were inexplicable. It helps me understand things I have wanted to understand for almost 15 years now, and I know if it does that for me, it can do that for other readers, too. It terrifies me, and it challenges me, and most of all, it connects, deeply.

But this manuscript is also bigger than just being a book about a single thing. It is a book about everything. About love. About loss. About grief. About family. About change. It makes me laugh and cry and see hope-squirrels and love-bisons everywhere I look, even though I didn't know that such things existed until I read this story. It makes me feel things, deeply, which is probably the greatest compliment I can give to a book, whether it’s one I’ve experienced as a reader or an editor or both.

And so I pounce again. I buy INTERN’s book. This one, and her next one, too. We work, together, until her story has transformed into one I wish I could time-travel and give to my nineteen-year-old self, sitting in a half-empty dorm room. Because it gives words to the things that I had no words for back then. But it also gives words to something more important—the simple experience of being human. Which, I think, is the pinnacle of what a book—any book—can do.

***

INTERN has a name now. It’s Hilary T. Smith. Her book has a name, too. It’s Wild Awake, and it comes out today. It is powerful, it is profound, it is startlingly funny, and though it is fiction, it is also deeply personal. It has brilliant passages and lines full of truth: stark and gorgeous and chaotic and painful and real. It is a book about connections: about finding them, about releasing them, about recognizing them for what they mean at every point in your life. I hope you will read it. I hope you will read every book that Hilary T. Smith ever writes. Because that voice. It is magnificent, and it is only just the beginning.

***

Friends: Want to help Hilary celebrate her the debut of WILD AWAKE, her first novel? Buy a copy for yourself or a teen reader you know (especially the ones who are craving contemporary realistic reads, or stand-alones instead of trilogies, or love interests of an entirely different sort than the hott-boy-with-abs-and-blue-eyes-sort); or for an adult you know who likes remembering what it felt like to be a teen; or especially for a teen trying to make sense of mental illness. You can get it from your favorite bookseller, or check it out at your library. 

Also, follow Hilary on Twitter, or read her blog, or peruse her delightful Tumblr and send her a photo of yourself with WILD AWAKE. And if you're reading this on 5/28, join in a WILD AWAKE-themed rap battle at 7pm Central Time (details here), and check out the plan for a week of WILD AWAKE celebrations here. 

Happy publication day, Hilary and WILD AWAKE! May your book find countless readers and make powerful connections for them, and may it live for a long, long, time. 

INSIGNIA: An Editorial Love Story

(I don't blog a lot about my authors' books while they're in-progress toward publication. In part, this is out of respect for the writing/editing/revising/ publication process: a lot can change for a story as we work on it. It's also out of respect for readers--because I think it's mean to taunt you with tales of fantastic books you can't buy yet! Thus this series of publication-day "Editorial Love Story" posts was born: to celebrate the fact that, at long last, an author's book is out on shelves, and to share a bit of the "making-of" story of that book, too. Hope you'll enjoy and be inspired by this post, and that you'll soon have a chance to read this great book!)
 

More than anything, Tom Raines wants to be important, though his shadowy life is anything but that. For years, Tom’s drifted from casino to casino with his unlucky gambler of a dad, gaming for their survival. Keeping a roof over their heads depends on a careful combination of skill, luck, con artistry, and staying invisible. 
   Then one day, Tom stops being invisible. Someone’s been watching his virtual-reality prowess, and he’s offered the incredible—a place at the Pentagonal Spire, an elite military academy. There, Tom’s instincts for combat will be put to the test, and if he passes, he’ll become a member of the Intrasolar Forces, helping to lead his country to victory in World War Three. Finally, he’ll be someone important: a superhuman war machine with the tech skills that every virtual-reality warrior dreams of. Life at the Spire holds everything that Tom’s always wanted—friends, the possibility of a girlfriend, and a life where his every action matters—but what will it cost him? 
   Gripping and provocative, S. J. Kincaid’s futuristic thrill ride of a debut crackles with memorable characters, tremendous wit, and a vision of the future that asks startling, timely questions about the melding of humanity and technology.  

INSIGNIA by S. J. Kincaid hits shelves today, and it marks an awesome YA debut: as a bookseller who read an early draft of the manuscript said to me, "This author is the real deal!" and I couldn't agree more: it is a thrill to watch an author launch, knowing she is talented in endless ways!

   S. J. Kincaid is an incredibly skilled world-builder, one who uses science and history to ground a tale of the future, making for a brainy, smart, totally plausible story. The plots that she brings to life are genius: full of sneaky twists and turns and high-stakes moments that make your pulse pound all the more because you're aware as you read that every bit of her story feels uncomfortably possible. And her ability to create characters and genuine relationships between them is perhaps her greatest talent of all. I want to climb inside this book and be friends with these characters! Tom Raines and his friends are hilarious and fiercely loyal; they have an endless capacity for having fun, and they belong to each other in a way that makes a reader somehow feel that same warmth of belonging, too. That's a rare writerly talent, and a special one. Each time I read this manuscript anew, it felt like I'd skipped work for the day and was hanging out with friends, scheming pranks and enjoying inside jokes--and being that girl laughing too hard in public, whether on the subway or in a coffee shop, editing, because this story is high-stakes and thrilling, but it is also wickedly, wonderfully funny! We don't see enough humor in YA, I think, for what a key part of life it is for teens, but these characters are pitch-perfect in the way they never miss a moment for sly wit or full-on hilarity.

It's easy to assume that an author like this comes out of nowhere, but I think one of the things that awes me most about S. J. Kincaid is knowing just how hard she worked to become an author. INSIGNIA is her debut novel, but it's actually the seventh manuscript she wrote. Along the way, not only was she incredibly perseverant, but she let those six early manuscripts teach her a ton about writing, about storytelling, and about craft. As a result, she is one of the most confident writers I've ever met, and one who is willing to drastically tear apart and rebuild elements of her story if she can see that doing so might make it stronger. I am convinced that she has entire epic universes in her mind, and I am so pleased that she's willing to share some of them with us, as books.

S. J. Kincaid found her way onto my list in a distinctly modern way: she and her literary agent responded to an appeal I'd made on Twitter: that I was hungry for stories that asked interesting "what-if" questions. The first manuscript they sent me wasn't even INSIGNIA. But I am delighted that the next novel she wrote *was* INSIGNIA, and that I've had the privilege of working with her on the series, ever since I read INSIGNIA for the first time over Christmas, two years ago, at my parents' house, and ignored my entire family for the better part of two days as I did so. INSIGNIA creeps up on you as it steals its way into being one of the most engaging stories you've ever read. It's about a gamer kid, and I am decidedly not a gamer, but by three pages in, that no longer mattered because I was hooked, and totally on the side of intensely likable mischief-maker Tom Raines. I think Tom's character taps into something that exists in all of us: a universal desire to *matter*, and to make a difference in the world somehow, by using the talents we're proudest of in ourselves, which makes it a story that a fascinating variety of readers will enjoy.

Want to help S. J. Kincaid celebrate her INSIGNIA's debut? Check out the book trailer for INSIGNIA; buy a copy for yourself or a teenager or a gamer you know from your favorite bookseller or check it out at your library; "Like" Facebook.com/insigniaseries to follow news about the series; or if you're in Huntington Beach (July 10th, B&N Huntington Beach; Salt Lake City, UT (July 11th, The King's English Bookstore); Houston, TX (July 12th) Blue Willow Books) or attending San Diego Comic Con, you can meet the author while she's on tour this week.  Finally, you can follow the author on Twitter (@sjkincaidbooks) or read her blog.

Happy publication day, INSIGNIA and S. J. Kincaid! I'm so excited for readers to find and love this book!

P.S. I posted this from my phone while out of town, so forgive any weird typos or formatting issues, please!

A Dog's Way Home: An Editorial Love Story

(2011 marks the year that books that I've both acquired & edited begin making their way out into the world, so consider this the start of a new blog series: editorial love stories! Hope you'll enjoy reading some behind-the-scenes tidbits about these books I've been busy making.)

Today's a special day. It's the official publication date for Bobbie Pyron's middle grade debut, A Dog's Way Home! I like to say that A Dog's Way Home is a love story, the kind that warms your heart and leaves you happy for days after reading it. But it’s a tween book, so this isn’t about sparkly vampires, or dark, sexy werewolves; this is about the love between a loyal dog and his beloved owner, both of whom are determined to find one another after being separated at opposite ends of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Daddy says, "Most folks got a north star in their life—something that 

gives their life extra meaning. Mine is music." 

Without even thinking, I say, "Mine is Tam." 

Abby knows that Tam, her Shetland sheepdog, is her north star, and she's pretty certain she's his, too. But when an accident separates Abby and Tam, it feels as though all the stars have fallen out of the sky and nothing will ever be right again. As the days between them turn to weeks, then months, dangers and changes fill up Abby's and Tam's lives. Will they ever find their way home to each other?

Set in the Blue Ridge Mountains, A Dog's Way Home is an unforgettable tale of the many miles, months, and mountains that divide two loyal friends—but that can't possibly keep them apart. 

To celebrate the publication of this positively wonderful book, I thought I'd share some bits of the book-making story-behind-the-story of A Dog's Way Home, from the editor's side of the desk. I first met Bobbie, and read the opening pages of the book that would become A Dog's Way Home, at the Utah SCBWI Conference in 2008. Yes, this is one of those wonderful SCBWI Conference success stories! As I recall it, I actually didn't have a lot of comments to offer to Bobbie, and I was worried she might think she wasn't getting her full money's worth at her manuscript critique session. But the reason for my lack of comments was a good one, at least in this editor's mind: Bobbie had given me some of the most polished manuscript pages for critique that I've ever seen (and I've seen hundreds and hundreds)! We talked a little bit about starting the story in the exact right place: the pages she'd given me began the story with what is now Chapter Two, where (mild spoiler alert!) Something Tragic Happens. I suggested to Bobbie that such a scene might have more impact if we saw a bit of the "Before" for the characters first, so that we'd already know and care about them, and thus be more affected as readers, when that Something Tragic Happens to them. At the end of our session, I told Bobbie that I'd like to read more of her manuscript when it was ready, and she replied that she'd been thinking about trying to get an agent. I told her that based on what I'd read of her book, she was absolutely ready for that step.

Months passed. Actually, more than a full year passed. (Publishing means patience on both sides of the desk!)

During that time, though I didn't know it, Bobbie found and signed with a literary agent who loved her story, and they worked hard to make parts of it even stronger. When her agent submitted the manuscript to me, it had a different title than it had when I first encountered it (though neither of those ended up as the book's final title), but something about the description sounded familiar, and within a few pages, I knew why! It was the same story I'd read pages of at that Utah Conference, and I was delighted to finally get to read more. There was so much I instantly loved about the entire story: the southern flavor, the mountain musicality to the writing, the descriptive language, the vivid imagery, and most of all, the way two voices (first-person Abby and third-person Tam) alternated chapters to tell a story that, when blended together, was more complete than it ever could have been with just one point-of-view. I was even more delighted when my boss loved the story as much as I did, and when our Acquisitions Committee did, too. All of us could see this book being one that readers would read over and over, in the same way generations of readers have loved other stories about animal loyalty, like The Incredible Journey or Lassie Come-Home, and we were proud and pleased when Bobbie accepted our offer to publish it. Editors are often asked about their "wishlist," about the themes and topics they're seeking. Just as often, you'll hear us reply that it's hard to know exactly what we're looking for--until we find a story that we know we can't live without! I didn't know I was looking for a dog book, but I couldn't be prouder to have this one on my list!   

Now here's the funny thing. I like dogs. But I’ve never quite been what you’d call a dog person. We had a dog growing up, but he was more my brothers' dog than mine. And I've had friends whose whole lives have been changed by getting a dog, but that's something I never imagined would happen for me--especially living in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn with a firm "no pets!" rule. Working on A Dog's Way Home changed something for me, though. Somewhere in the midst of the rounds of editing it, I realized I was starting to pay attention to dogs differently. I was noticing them in a way I never had, seeing them sitting outside of coffee shops and restaurants, and on street corners, as they often do in a walkable neighborhood like mine. And I was doing more than noticing them: I was pausing to say hello; I was wondering what inner dialogue was going through their minds as they waited patiently (or not) for their owners. Most of all, I was stopping to observe their interactions with their owners on the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan. That’s the power of A Dog's Way Home—it makes you understand, so vividly, the bond that exists between dogs and their people. And really, that's the power of a good book, right? It changes something inside of you, so that you're not quite the same person you were before, once you've read it. And so I thank Bobbie Pyron for changing me--for turning me into more of a dog person than I ever dreamed I'd be, all through the power of her storytelling! A book-dog like Tam...perhaps that’s the dog for a city girl like me. It doesn’t need me to walk it, or a big apartment—it just needs readers who will find it and take it home and love it as much as I do. And oh, I hope that you'll be one of those readers, because I think everyone should have the chance to fall in love with this book and its tribute to loyalty, to perseverence, and to having profound faith in those we love.

Want to help celebrate the publication of A Dog's Way Home? Well, then, here's a few things you can do:

1. Follow Bobbie Pyron's blog: currently she's running a great series of interviews with children's book authors and publishing types about the dogs in their lives! (You can read about Gary Schmidt's dog, Kathi Appelt's dog, Kathryn Fitzmaurice's dog, and more!)

2. If you're in the Utah area, make plans to attend Bobbie's first book signing for A Dog's Way Home at The King's English on Saturday, March 12th. I'm told that there might even be some shelties at the event, so it's going to be quite a party!

3. Buy a copy of A Dog's Way Home for an animal lover in your life, young or old. Buy another copy for yourself, and settle in for a heartwarming read. Yes, there will be some tear-jerker moments, but don't worry, all those scarred by books like Where the Red Fern Grows...this dog doesn't die!

4. Spread the word! Great books need great readers to be their champions, and to help them live full lives in bookstores and libraries and in the hands of young readers. So if you read and love A Dog's Way Home--or any book, really--let the world know about it!

5. Go snuggle a pet you love. Or a person you love. Or a book (or manuscript-in-the-making) that you love!

6. Follow Bobbie Pyron on Twitter and wish her a very happy publication day for A Dog's Way Home!

The Gifts of the Internet (or, Why I think #reverb10 is awesome, & why you might, too)

[I currently have a wicked, never-ending cold, which has slowed me down considerably. Let's just pretend this blog was posted on December 1st as I originally intended it to be, shall we?]

Sometimes, the internet gives you gifts. Sometimes, those gifts are a laugh when you desperately needed it, or a dancing cat that expresses a myriad of things that you wish to express to a friend. But sometimes, and best of all, the internet gives you the gift of people--people you might never have met, were it not for the internet and its powers of connectivity.

A few years back, the internet gave me the gift of Gwen Bell. She lives in Colorado; I live in New York City, and were it not for the internet, I suspect that the chances of our ever crossing paths would have been fairly slim. Gwen's a social media guru/evangelist/expert, and her particular expertise and passion--besides simply living a vibrant life which I deeply admire--lies in helping people and companies discover the places where humanity and technology can intersect in positive ways. But underneath the work she does is the person she is: Gwen's a storyteller, and one whom I believe takes equal measures of (if not even more) joy in helping others to discover and share their own stories as she does in uncovering and sharing her own.

Why am I telling you about Gwen? Because she and two friends have created something which I think is of particular value to the many storytellers and writers and thinkers who read this blog: #reverb10, a month-long, online, end-of-year initiative that encourages you to ponder and share your responses to thoughtful daily prompts, written by authors & creative types (including a few folks from the kidlit world that you may recognize).

#reverb10 is free, and it's simple to join--sign up for daily prompts, and you'll receive each day's prompt in your email. Take it a step further, and become an official participant, registering your name and the url where you'll be posting your responses. You can get involved at any point in this 31-day project (so feel free to start late) by blogging or tweeting or Tumblr-ing--or video-blogging, or audio recording, or posting photographs, or however else the creative spirit moves you!--your responses to any or all of the prompts. And if you can, take some time to be inspired by some of the other people sharing their own #Reverb10 responses, too: at current count, over 2200 people have signed up, and reading their responses may give you your own "gifts of the internet" --potential new friends, and fascinating blogs/people that you might never have otherwise encountered. One way to do this is by following the #reverb10 hashtag on Twitter for a near-constant stream of inspiration; another way is by following @reverb10 on Twitter; if you're not on Twitter, you can also click through the links to people's blogs listed on the "Participate" page. And if I haven't explained all of this well enough, go here for the FAQ or go here for a more comprehensive explanation of how to participate, whether that means a lot or a little, and how to make participating the most meaningful experience for you.

Given my many other obligations, I'm going to admit right now that I won't manage a blog post for each day's prompt, but I intend to post responses to at least a few that particularly strike me throughout the month. And you can bet that even for the prompts that I'm not answering "out loud," I'm pondering them in my mind throughout the day, because there are few things more that I love than questions that make me stop and think meaningfully. So go! Be inspired! Consider this the opposite of NaNoWriMo, if you're so inclined--there's nothing to "win" or "lose" by participating--just the chance to write and to reflect and to share and to be inspired...and those are some of the best gifts we can find on the internet (or anywhere else, for that matter), in my mind. Happy pondering!

"Go soak up the world...

...and then come back and turn it into art and words."

I think if I could give one on-going piece of advice to any writer or artist, no matter his or her level of expertise, that would be it: to remember how important it is to go out and engage with the world you're trying to reflect, in one way or another, in your creative efforts.

But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, throwing advice around in the first line of a blog post, all willy-nilly and entirely unbidden. So let me backtrack a bit, and give some context, starting with this: one of my earliest, most valuable lessons about how to be a good editor came from brilliant-editor-now-turned-brilliant-agent (and former boss) Brenda Bowen, who told me more than once during the time that I worked for her that, "Interesting editors make interesting books." In other words, an editor's job is not (contrary to her often-slavish instincts) to be always at her desk. Because there's more to having the kind of vision that is required of her than simply reading, or editing, or doing the dreaded and evil paperwork. It's also an editor's job to be be fascinated by, and curious about, and, most of all, engaged with the world and everything in it...pretty much constantly!

Why? Simply stated, it's so that when a writer or artist writes about or creates something interesting--when she or he captures a new idea or perspective, or reflects the world in an utterly unique or wonderful way, or finds a fresh and memorable way of telling a universally resonant story--then an editor like Yours Truly can, in turn, be alert and savvy enough to recognize its wonder, rather than inadvertently having her head stuck inside a filing cabinet instead, and missing the whole thing! That's the plan, at least. Like anyone who's human, I do a better job at being "interesting" some weeks than others. But I do know that the weeks when I've engaged more with the world, I'm more alive within myself somehow, and more able to see that spill over into the work I'm doing. And the result is that there's more of an openness in me, more of a willingness and receptivity toward discovery, toward possibility. And what is the whole process of creating and reading and sharing children's books about, if not possibility?

Interesting editors make interesting books. I've learned many times over how much truth these five words contain, and I expect I'll keep re-learning their lesson throughout my career. But it's a maxim which applies 100% to every kind of creator, I think; it's in no way limited to editors. Because interesting writers make interesting books. And interesting artists make interesting books, too. And in fact, I suspect you could sub in a lot of words into the place of "interesting" in that motto: daring, humorous, revolutionary, intelligent, creative, thoughtful...and the list goes on and on.

So how does one learn how to be an interesting writer? And what does it look and feel like to embark on trying to be one? My author Veronica Roth currently has a really honest and wonderfully articulate post about it on her blog, and I think it's pretty much a must-read for anyone grappling with creativity, or a lack thereof. So go on over and give it a read.

And then? Yep, you guessed it. Go on out this weekend, and soak up the world! And then come back and work to transform all the interesting things you've collected into art and words--into interesting books-in-the-making! (And oh, yeah. Have fun along the way, because that matters a whole lot when it comes to creativity, too. But I think that's a whole new blog post....)

West-coast bound

It's that time of year again! Off I go to the beautiful Oregon coast to meet a crop of eager, ambitious writers and get up to our elbows in storytelling and writerly craft . . . and then to frolic beside the Pacific for a few days in one of my favorite little corners of the world.

See you in a few weeks!

Why I Work in Publishing (in brief)

There are a million reasons I could tell you. Catch me in person some time, in fact, and you'll be hard-pressed to avoid me telling you some of them, probably whether you've even asked or not! ;) In fact, maybe "Why I Work in Publishing" should become a regular feature on this blog.

But for now, as the simplest answer to that question, I'll point to this. Reviews like this--heartfelt responses from readers like this--are why I work in publishing, and specifically, why I work in children's/YA books. Because I get to help make books that carry this much power, for readers of every age. Because stories become a part of us and stay with us forever and shape the person we become in the world and the mark we choose to leave on it. Because the things a writer has to say, and the words s/he crafts, can become black marks on white paper (or the technological equivalent thereof) that just might make someone else want to become a better person. And I get to help make all of that happen.

Does there need to be any other reason?

A Conversation on Resonance & Responsibility

Resonance and connectivity are things that I look for a lot as an editor, things that I ask writers to pursue in their storytelling, urging them to open up their stories as wide as possible. Doing so can lead to one of the most powerful kinds of writing, in my mind: when a book reaches beyond merely telling about a particular set of characters, and becomes a story that echoes as familiar and personal and true in the hearts and minds of all different kinds of readers. If, as creators of stories, we recognize and believe that stories are what connect us, then of course that potential for deep connection is one we want to make the most of, right? And if we're lucky, the connections do, in fact, emerge: between readers and characters, between readers and their classmates/friends/family members/fellow humans, and sometimes between readers and authors, too.

But what happens, once the connection is made? Do we talk enough--or at all--about what that can mean, especially for writers of deeply resonant and real (but also sometimes deeply painful) stories?

We talk a lot about "responsibility" in children's and YA books, and one of the fascinating things about that word is that, like any word, it means something different to different people. To some, it means militant safe-guarding of young readers from stories that may, ultimately, shape them, even in the slightest of ways, into a different person than they were previously. But to most of us working in publishing, whether as writers or industry folk, "responsibility," especially in the context of YA, usually translates best to "honesty."

Most of us remember what it was like to be a teen, and we know teens today, too. And the truth is, growing up is (still) hard, and (still) confusing, and it isn't always safe, and sometimes it's positively cruel, but every teen has to stumble through it somehow. And if there are books that might help him/her do so with a little more certainty or a little less loneliness, so much the better. In a way, it means we're all in this together: authors and agents, editors and publishers, librarians and teachers, with all the other invisible walls between our linked-but-separate professions broken down. We're all in it together for every single teen who might, just might, reach for a book while seeking to answer some variation of the questions that we still remember asking ourselves: How, exactly, do we learn to grow up? To become human? To survive the turbulent mess of fears and glories and heartbreaks and changes that any kind of significant becoming entails? To find out which things actually matter, to understand what part of everything is true?

My Jesuit university extolled an ideal that's at the heart of their mission/philosophy of education, and that ended up at the heart of me, too: cura personalis, or "care for the whole person." In other words, it's not enough to care for or feed a person physically, you must also look after his/her unique emotional, spiritual, and mental needs and hungers, too; we must offer a deep respect for everything that makes a person human. In this way, we can help others--and ourselves--them grow, by refusing to segment a person into only the elements we might feel comfortable seeing. Ultimately, if reaching outward, you cannot only give attention to singular aspects of a person's full humanity, or you have failed to truly care for them after all. It's a philosophy that I think can offer a deeper meaning to, but demand a deeper responsibility from, any profession: from doctors to social workers to teachers to writers of books for teens. Because we do care for those we encounter, and deeply: writers care for the teens who will read their books, and editors care for those teens, too--and also for the authors, caught somewhere in the middle of this chain of connectivity.

Which brings me to the question that Janet Reid is asking on her blog today. It's not a question that I have any answer to (would that I did!) but I agree with her that it's an important one for all of us to weigh, and to think about in terms of today's social media-driven world. What happens when a teen does find a story that speaks to him/her powerfully, and that book becomes a lifeline--when a reader reaches out, believing the author has the answers he/she is seeking, or wanting a continuation of what felt like a deeply personal connection? And then in turn, what's an author to do when that same sense of immediacy that we extol in writing for teens comes through in a reader's communications--when they email/blog comment/Facebook message/MySpace post/Tweet/etc, etc. an author offering their own story, brimming with vulnerability and then desperately--or even just hopefully--await an answer, a meaningful response, a deeper connection, a promise that there's a way past whatever moment they're in the midst of living? And how does an author begin to shoulder that responsibility, that hunger, that need on the part of readers, somewhere in the midst of the other work of being a writer?

Media is so often blamed when things go wrong in the lives of damaged, hurting, unhappy, teens. We blame tragedies on the influence of violent video games and movies; we blame magazines for encouraging hopelessly unrealistic self-images. In the resoundingly opposite direction, it's long been the stance of children's/YA book folks that the greatest thing we can--and do!--offer to teens is hope, in the form of stories. But social media has changed--or at least, slightly shifted--so many other aspects of publishing that I guess we shouldn't be surprised that it's changed the author-reader relationship in some regards, too. And I don't think that new-media-heightened hope for connection is an aspect of the job that a writer can simply chose to turn away from and ignore--I don't think writers of books for teens would choose to do that, or I don't think they'd bother writing for teens at all. So somehow, it seems that a writer's job isn't just to serve words and stories and characters anymore--it's also to serve the searching/freely-sharing/sometimes-broken readers who come barreling, virtually, into their in-boxes. And for writers, that fact is powerful and beautiful and utterly overwheming, all at once, or so I suspect.

So what's the next step? It's a two-pronged query, I think: one set of answers may spell out some ways writers can best respond to teens who, though virtual strangers, are craving connection in a way that validates/orients/respects/sometimes even rescues them. But the other part both precedes and follows that, and it's for all of us: How do we (agents, editors, publishers, fellow writers, booksellers, educators, and the children's publishing community as a whole) equip writers to receive the stream of stories teens offer in return for the books they've just read?

It's a big question. I welcome your thoughts.

Lucky Number Seven: A Gratitude Post

Those of you who are long-time readers might think you've read a post somewhat like this before. And so you have, in a manner of speaking, and everything said in this year-old post (which lives on what was formerly the blog of the Bowen Press) absolutely still holds true. But I'm a pensive, reflective person by nature, so when milestones big or small roll around, you can often find me "thinking out loud," a.k.a., writing. I'm also someone who firmly believes that glancing backward on occasion can actually help you to move forward with greater intention and direction, so it's likely there will be a post of this nature every year. Consider yourselves duly warned.

In any case, today marks seven years for me working as a full-time industry professional in this world I love. I did have a handful of other lives before coming to NYC, so, alas, I'm not quite as young as that number makes me sound, but still--seven years! It feels like both a wildly long and remarkably short time, all at once.

My very first wonderful boss in publishing still likes to tell the story of offering me my first job, as a marketing/publicity assistant at Clarion Books. As she tells it, shortly after accepting on the spot and hanging up the phone, I called her back...to ask exactly what time I needed to be at work the following week. To this day, she's convinced that I called back just to be sure that she had really-truly offered me the job, and that I hadn't just imagined it! (I swear I wasn't. I simply had no idea what time grown-ups in NYC had to be at work!) Seven years later, I'm still relieved to know that publishing people don't--usually--have workdays that start at 8 a.m.! And I'm grateful for beyond words for that phone call, and for that boss, and for the way that first job of mine opened up the crazy-hard-to-break-into gates of the children's publishing industry for me, while also giving me the best grounding in the workings of the art and craft of book-making that I could hope for.

I'm lucky/blessed/extremely fortunate, there's no question about it. Even before that job offer, I had a string of amazing mentors--including stellar college professors, and the encouraging publishing professionals who oversaw my internships--who helped me begin to understand how my interest in children's books could translate into a real, live career. Seven years and a variety of job titles later, I've had even more incredible mentors--brilliant bosses and colleagues, dedicated librarians, and amazing writers and artists themselves, all of whom have shared their own wisdom, knowledge, experience, and passion so generously.

About once a week, it occurs to me that I actually have my dream job as a children's and YA book editor, and that's a fact I never get tired of remembering. It's a job that--to limit myself to an apropos seven adjectives--is alternately fascinating, wondrous, stimulating, terrifying, inspiring, joyous, and even, on occasion, heartbreaking. In short, it's a job about which I'm intensely passionate, because it makes me feel deeply, which in turn makes me feel more alive (so much so that only italics will do, even though I know I am overusing them in this post!) and, really, what more could anyone ask for than that?

In the last seven years, I've had the chance to meet--and even work with!--many of the authors who shaped me as a young reader, and whose books utterly influenced the person I am today. That's a more amazing experience than I honestly have words for, and I only wish I could go back and tell the young reader I once was that someday that would be the case, and watch her eyes nearly pop out of her head. But it's not only the long-established authors and artists with whom I feel privileged to work--it's been an equal joy to be a part of the process for so many creators of children's books--to being a force in the process of so many talented authors and illustrators finding their place in the world, and in the hearts and on the bookshelves of young readers. So today I thank those whose books I've had the chance to be a caretaker for, whether that has meant discovering your brilliant talents for my own small (but growing!) list and touching your words and pictures as an editor, or guiding you through the wilds of conferences, school visits, websites, and more as a marketer. Every one of your books has shaped me, and if they can do that for me as an adult, I can only begin to imagine the enduring power they'll have on the lives of many young readers! There's a quote I love that author Shannon Hale once wrote on her blog:"Life is cataloged by story." For me, at least, that statement is simply and perfectly true, and oh-so-wonderfully expressed. And so I thank the authors and artists with whom I've worked, for allowing your stories to be a part of my own catalog of story.

And to all those storytellers whose stories I don't even know about yet (or that YOU don't even know about yet, because they're still somewhere within you, waiting to be written), or whose books I've only had the chance to admire from afar? Well, seven's supposed to be a lucky number, right? So here's looking forward! I'm more than ready for the most invigorating year ever, and I can't wait for everything--the glorious-ideas-becoming-books, their brilliant creators, and the meaningful connections with booklovers, book advocates, and with all kinds of fascinating, creative, inspiring people imaginable--that will emerge in the year to come, shaping me, as we become a part of one another's lives and stories. My thanks, this time in advance, to you all.

Edited to add: I cobbled this post together in stolen moments today, and hadn't noticed how verbose & rambly I'd gotten until I posted! Sorry about that!

You may not be able to look at me the same way once I admit this...

Last week, I did something I haven't done in a long time. I cheated. An editor friend recently hooked me up with a much-coveted advanced readers copy of Once Was Lost, the third novel by Sara Zarr, a writer who repeatedly blows me away with the emotional richness of her stories. But alas, as much as I've been waiting and waiting for that ARC, it came at the worst possible time. May has been a crazy-busy month. I totally did not have time to read anything that wasn't a manuscript. And yet I totally couldn't wait any longer and NOT read it. So I dove in. And...it was as great as I expected (isn't it wonderful when an author doesn't let you down as a reader, not even for a minute?). Rich, nuanced, totally human characters that I thoroughly believed in. Deep ideas about questions that don't have easy answers. Complex, REAL, confusingly muddled relationships and situations that made me ache. I think that's what I love about Zarr's writing--she writes thoughtfully about stories and characters that feel so very honest and alive.

But you're waiting for the confession, aren't you? So here it is. Once Was Lost is also totally full of suspense. And I had a limited amount of time, and really needed to be spending some of it sleeping, instead of reading past 2 a.m. So I skipped to the end to find out what happened. I've since finished it for real, and I don't think the reading experience was too scarred by my late-night, non-linear bout of weakness--in fact, I think I could even claim that it's a compliment to Sara Zarr that I HAD to know what happened before I could fall asleep. But, tell me I'm not the only one who sometimes does this? And, hey, guilt loves company--what's the last book that made *you* cheat?

Q&A: Authors, Dead or Alive version

If you could ask one question--mundane or profound--of any one author, living or dead, who would you ask, and what would your question be?

I'm typically much better at coming up with questions for other people than answering them myself (this is why I'm an editor). But since I know I'll get scolded if I don't play my own game, here's at least one of mine (and I admit this is as much for the curious editor in me as for the young reader I once was): Louisa May Alcott - Of course you must have known that many readers would want Jo to marry Laurie. Did you ever try writing scenes of the two of them together, just to see what it might look like?