time to remember...

March/April and October/November are the busiest travel times of the year for a working writer who teaches personal narrative writing in schools. I was in Knoxville and Oak Ridge, Tennessee last week, and am heading to Mississippi tomorrow.

More on my wonderful Tennessee friends soon. What I want to remember today, because it's easy to forget it while in the midst of the swirl, is all the life that's being led in between travels.
Friends visit, birthdays are celebrated, wandering is accomplished, music is made, chocolate is consumed, tables are set, and life is good... on the road and off.

More from Mississippi....

the long process

If you look carefully, you will see the date on the top of this notebook page is February 20, 2005. What you don't see is that I have other notebooks with dates from 1995 on them, and they are all part of my working-out of Hang The Moon, which is a working title for the 1966 novel.
I had finished Each Little Bird That Sings when I was writing in this notebook. It was on the cusp of being published. I had turned my attentions to Hang The Moon, but I was still having trouble getting a grip on it.

On the surface, the novel -- which takes place in 1966 -- is about two girls, cousins, and their trip from Mississippi to Memphis to find Elvis Presley, whom one of them is convinced (with reasonable proof) is her father.

But when I scratch beneath the surface, which I'm compelled to do every time I sit down to write it, I find that this book is just... enormous. It has overwhelmed me for years.

Under that surface story is more than I have been able to capably write about. This story has been asking for expression, and I have been trying to hear it. For fifteen years, ghosts have been whispering to me, revealing the deeper story to me, and I have been saying "not yet, not yet. I can't go there yet."
But it's time to go there now. There comes a point when it's worse not to go there than it is to say yes, and to step up to the plate. Below the surface of this 1966 story, running underneath how much Birdie loves Elvis and Margaret loves the Beatles, is a book about cosmic ideas, deeply-rooted beliefs, and love. There is pain and suffering. And deep, abiding joy as well.I'll be talking about the writing process (well, mine, anyway) tonight at 7pm at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, at the Center for Children's and Young Adult Literature. If you're nearby, I hope you'll come out and tell me what you know about love and hope and courage. I need all these things now, as I navigate this revision of Hang The Moon. I am so looking forward to seeing your faces, hearing your stories, and gathering some of your strength for the days ahead.

tired but happy

Me 'n James Ransome, at the tail end of the day, having finished up a great good day's work in Columbia, South Carolina, at the S.C. Young Writers' Conference. Look at our eyes! We're tired, but we're happy.
Thanks so much to Tricia Huff and her committee for inviting me to participate in this fabulous conference they offer each year to young writers in South Carolina. It was good to see my buds, too: James, Joan Stevenson, and Kaye and Faye Johnston. One of the lovely things about conferences is catching up with friends.
I'm not going to tell you about leaving home at 4am to drive to Columbia on Friday, getting just past Augusta and re-routing around an overturned tractor trailer that closed Interstate 20 (librarian Diane Geddings' husband is an ocean of calm and had a good map), getting to school 45 mins. late and finding (an equally steady) Diane ready to punt with me and make the morning a good one.

I'm not going to tell you about the face plant into my pillow that afternoon, where I slept the sleep of the dead before the conference dinner that evening. There was drool involved.
But I will tell you that I had a great time at Dutch Fork Elementary School on Friday, and a wonderful conference on Saturday with 550 third-through-eighth-graders and their chaperones, lots of notebooks, and story upon story. Sold out of every book in the bookstore that had my name on it... loved that signing line of dedicated young writers. Here's one:
I'm at the Panera Bread in Augusta, Georgia right now, about to get back on the road after a bit of supper. I'll be home later tonight. And I'll stay put for a week, before a week in Knoxville, Tennessee. Whew. Spring has indeed sprung. It's all good.

auburn writers, part two

It rained. All day. I got lost. Twice. Thank goodness for cell phones.
I blew in breathless, to a room full of waiting-for-me students, at Wright's Mill Road Elementary School. Took a few minutes to get my bearings and work around technology glitches (they are inevitable!). Librarian Jennifer kept her cool, teachers and students were patient, and we bobbled until we could stride. It was good work, even though the author was rather damp.
Jennifer rummaged and found an umbrella for me. I scooted to Ogletree Elementary. Got lost. Used my cell phone. Found my way. Teeming rain. Used my umbrella. No one laughed at me:
Was greeted by Melba Jane!
And Honey Jackson! AND... Eudora Welty! And another shining sea of young writers.And their teachers. Thank you, teachers. What a difference it makes when you model for your students and write your stories, too.Drove home through the white-out rain, and got to Hotlanta about 7pm. Flopped across my good bed, and blathered to Jim about my day. As I talked, I realized, I want to better understand the gargantuan effort librarians go through to organize and collaborate with an entire school population and bring a teaching author to school.

There are just so many, many details. Everyone has to be on board. Books have to be shared. Students -- and teachers -- need to be prepared. Budgets have to be considered. Then, schedules are re-arranged (many times). Instructional time is given over to a visiting author, and all kinds of technology is put into place for a day like this to happen. And I know to my bones that I am only scratching the surface. I know it.

Thank you, Audrey Alsobrook, librarian at Ogletree, and Jennifer Dempsey, librarian at Wright's Mill Road. Thank you to your assistants. Thank you to the principals who said yes, to the teachers who read to their students, to those who created the buzz-buzz-buzz, to the students who worked hard in assembly, and to all the behind-the-scenes people -- Coach Cooper, I'm thinking about you, for one -- and thanks so much for all the LAUGHS as well. I mean that. We did laugh, didn't we? It's such a good way to learn.

I'll come back to Auburn anytime. Thanks for taking such good care of me.

Thanks, Barb Saba, for these Peach Shuggars cookies. They look like buttons! And... is that a hint of lemon zest I taste?
I've got tomorrow home, and then more travel. First... cookies and milk. I deserve it! We ALL deserve it. We have worked so hard! Let's all have milk and cookies tonight. Peach Shuggars would approve.

auburn writers, part one

Third, fourth, and fifth graders. Finger writing, listening, paying attention, listing in notebooks, making connections, singing, sharing stories, the yoga of writing, thinking critically, asking questions, one clear moment in time, Peach Shuggars Cookies, and one fine rabbit named Golly.
Thank you so much, librarians Elizabeth Lundey at Cary Woods Elementary School, and Laura McGilberry at Yarbrough Elementary School, and thank you teachers, principals, and students (and all those who made sure our technology was working, and who gave up classrooms and gymnasiums and instructional time!). What a lovely, smart, meaningful day.

Now I'm off to dinner with Auburn, Alabama librarians, and will work here one more day, before heading home to Atlanta.

Tell your stories!

the glam of publicity, oy vey

Did I mention the camera crew that came to the house on Friday? Ahem...
Lights, camera, action! And... all about Countdown, coming soon. I wrote my editor, after it was over, and told him that I did my best, had fun, and didn't look at all like myself, which will come in handy should I ever need to enter the Witness Protection Program.

I loved Eve, Eric, and Bob. Tall Eric told jokes and tempered the very-capable Bob, who kept everyone in line like Patton commanding Third Army. It was all a bit breathless, what with moving my stool an inch to the right, left, forward, back, seventeen thousand times, knocking over the light twice, replacing batteries in the audio, repositioning cameras several more times, and always a joke, then an order, to go with every move. And lots of laughter from all of us.

Then there was Eve, a calm breath of fresh air with soft brushes, a real artist. I miss her.

By the time we actually got to the questions (which I had received beforehand), I was in an altered state, but I did my best, especially for someone who talks with her hands and wasn't allowed to use them!

After it was all over, I put on my familiar red glasses and my old orange shirt. Hannah shot some photos. Here's the new one for my website, which is being redesigned and where you'll soon find this photo:
Oy, vey. It has been almost ten years since I had a publicity photo taken. I've rather liked the old one and wanted to hang onto it, but I've had so many requests for a CURRENT photo (which makes me realize how much has changed, le sigh), that I have obliged. Thanks to Eve for making me look not a day over 56.

I'm in Auburn, Alabama this morning, where I'll be working in schools for the next two days. More new faces, more new friends (who feel like old friends, as we've discussed how to work these four schools in two days). Spring is here!