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Deborah talks with
Michele Norris of All
Things Considered at
NPR, about writing
with and for children

Deborah on YouTube, visiting Spring Ridge Elementary School and talking with the Frederick News-Post about writing with and for young people.

Teaching Personal
Narrative Writing is

here and here.

More about:

Freedom Summer
One Wide Sky
Love, Ruby Lavender
Each Little Bird That Sings
The Aurora County All-Stars

Personal Canon

Books that have shaped my life, my writing, and my teaching (an ongoing project):

1. Delta Wedding -- Eudora Welty (also The Ponder Heart)

2. The Awakening Land trilogy by Conrad Richter -- The Trees, The Fields, The Town

3. Deliverance -- James Dickey

4. The Seat of the Soul -- Gary Zukav

5. If You Can Count to Four -- Jim Jones (not THAT Jim Jones)...

6. Missing May -- Cynthia Rylant (also When I Was Young in the Mountains)

7. Sometimes a Shining Moment: The Foxfire Experiment -- Eliot Wigginton

8. To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee

9. The Essays of E.B. White (also the Letters, and Charlotte's Web)

10. The Reivers -- Faulkner

11. Growing up in the South -- edited by Suzanne W. Jones

12. A Pattern Language -- Christopher Alexander

13. The Mother's Almanac -- Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons

14. Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Nutrition - David Reuben

15. The Great Gilly Hopkins - Katherine Paterson

16. Growing Up -- Russell Baker

17. The Water is Wide - Pat Conroy

18. Great Expectations -- Dickens

19. The Citadel -- A.J. Cronin

20. The Jungle -- Upton Sinclair

21. The Winds of War -- Herman Wouk

22. In Cold Blood -- Truman Capote. (Also, Other Voices, Other Rooms)


long week's end

These young gentlemen are part of Club Bili, a boys-only reading club in two middle schools in the D.C. area (Alexandria, Va.). They were guests of the Children's Book Guild of D.C. yesterday, where they told their stories about how "real men read." Charming doesn't begin to describe these guys. They made us laugh with delight and hope.
Read the article in the link above to see how Club Bili works. See if it doesn't make you smile. We met and listened to the dynamic reading resource teachers behind this program, Jodie Peters and Rob Murphy, who, I am convinced, never sleep. If you want to know more about Club Bili, or about how to start one in your school/community, drop me a line and I can send you contact information.

Yesterday contained two phone meetings with my editor, a Book Guild luncheon meeting, time with two writer friends, and a bookseller/librarian (really, more friends) dinner, then a drive back to Frederick through the rainy dark.

My trip is over. I fly home in a few hours. This week marks the mid-point of an experiment:

-- After literally years of road-warrior travel, get off the road and stay home for almost a year. Pat nervous system into place, gather routines, settle into new-home Atlanta.
-- About six months into being home, give yourself a work week away and see how that feels.
-- Then go home to Hotlanta and stay there a few more months before the Big Travels next spring.

Hypothesis: This experiment will change my life. I will come to the travel so rested, mentally and physically, that it will feel just fine to leave home for a week and do my job.

Conclusion: It has. I did. It did.

I worked a twelve-hour day yesterday, much of it play time, too, although I have learned to call it all work when away from home, as it requires a mindset of "you are on the road, and on the clock. You have X minutes to spend here, and must be ever-mindful of the next event, the next travel, and the next conversation. Hold your shoulders back. Sit up straight." etc.

The good news is (and this was part of my hypothesis)... a little balance works wonders. I am tired, but it's that good tired that one feels after good work. Hooray!

The quick catch up:

1. Two editor meetings yesterday, and some light at the end of the novel tunnel. My work is cut out for me this weekend. We'll talk.

2. I'm back on facebook, and twitter. I'm experimenting again in my never-ending quest to understand social networking better and not freak out about it as I do. On my schedule page (on my website), I direct young readers to my facebook fan page (remember that?) where they can write me, and they do. This is in an effort to cut down on snail mail, as I'm so very bad at responding via snail mail. But I'm killer on my facebook fan page. Ha!

2. Song permissions for book one of the Sixties Trilogy have overwhelmed the permissions budget, so I have spent time this past week away from book two and back in Franny's world in book one, re-working the scrapbooks. I think, in the end, we're going to have even stronger scrapbooks. Who knew?

3. Regarding book one of the Sixties Trilogy: We need a new title. I have buried the lead here, I know, so if you have read this far... well... maybe you can feel my pain. :> More on this from home as well. (We do have a new official title as of yesterday, and I think it's better than than ever, but for heaven's sake!!) Soon I will have a cover to show you.

Safe travels to everyone today, wherever you go. Happy Weekend!

the ghosts of story

I almost called this post "when worlds collide" because it's a bit like whiplash, careening from one world to another this week while I'm in D.C. But it's not a collision of worlds that's happening. It's a realization of ghosts. Everything has its season, then passes on. See if you don't think so, below.

Twenty four hours in three different worlds:

Teaching at St. Patrick's in Washington, D.C. These students are gathering their stories, their personal narratives. We tell our stories in song, dance, art, words and more. How will these students choose to save their stories... or will they?
Walking through Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. Here lies John Brown, along with the ghosts of history, stories saved, and stories we will never know.
Touring Andrews Air Force Base and remembering my childhood days in Camp Springs, Maryland in the sixties. This is Franny's world in book one of the Sixties Trilogy. It was my world, growing up. Now I am visiting ghosts and retelling my story, casting it as fiction, in a novel for young readers.
My character Franny lives at the corner of Coolridge and Allentown, as I did in 1962. This is the road she walked to school. I walked it yesterday, with the ghosts of my past.

Soon we will all be ghosts, even the students above. How will the stories they leave us help those who come after us live on?

This, I believe, is the sacred trust of literature.

st. patrick's episcopal day school

Loving these two days at the St. Pat's annual book fair. I worked with the fabulous Seymour Simon yesterday, and go solo today.
Yesterday: sixth, second, first, and kinders. We wrote and told stories.Kinders ready to go on a field trip right after our time together:
But not before they dance to ONE WIDE SKY:
Got to go! Today: fourth, fifth, seventh, and eighth graders. Thanks so much, everyone at St. Patrick's!