Writing Historical Fiction

I’ve been hard at work for the last year and a half on an upper MG novel set in medieval Europe. The subject is the Children’s Crusade, which is thought to have occurred during the summer of 1212 A.D. I came across a reference to it while researching the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Historians have speculated that instead of a plague epidemic or a pipe-playing rat catcher—Der Rattenfänge—leading the town’s children into a mountain cave, perhaps they all marched off to the Holy Land. I became fascinated by the idea. What an adventure that would have been for a bunch of kids! Summer of the Sword and Cross was born of that research discovery.

Little did I know at that moment that I was committing myself to hours . . . and hours . . . and hours of research—reading reference books, documents, on-line websites and so much more. For months my desk has been piled with random bits of information like “12th Century Underwear” and “Some Romani proverbs and sayings.” My file cabinet is over-flowing.

I’ve read Avi, Cushman, Fleishman, Sutcliff, Gray, Grant and others, and I’ve even watched Orlando Bloom in The Kingdom of Heaven (just last night, as a matter of fact) as he attempted to defend the city of Jerusalem from Saladin. Ask me about the Sack of Constantinople or deerhounds, the Monastery at Mount Cenis or Dreikönigsschrein. I know.

I’ve pored over maps, paintings, diagrams of castles, and costume illustrations. I’ve learned about medicinal plants, the diets of medieval peasants, Catholic saints’ days, how to construct a snare, and the sound made by an angry wild boar. (Did you know you can actually listen to such things on line?)

The daunting fact, however, is that I have barely scratched the surface. In the process of all this, I’ve learned that a writer needs to be wary about becoming so caught up in the research that nothing gets written. It’s just that I know there’s a middle school librarian out there somewhere who’s also an expert on the Middle Ages and who’s waiting to pounce on me for some historical inaccuracy!

So these days, as I fret about the care and feeding of my blog, I also worry about the care and feeding of my young characters on their journey to the Holy Land. Perhaps I’m at the point where I just need to tell my story, get them to their final destination, and then go back at a later time to power-up the authenticity factor. Any advice, fellow writers?

Day 2 of My Redemption

The other big writing event of the fall was the picture book contest I entered. It was sponsored by the Tallahassee Writers’ Association. They produce a literary magazine called the Seven Hills Review, which merged last year with Penumbra. The two magazines have been in existence fifteen and twenty-two years respectively. I wasn’t sure I was even eligible, not being from Florida, but I checked out the list of past winners and was reassured to see that residency was not a requirement.

Although they accept multiple adult genres each year—flash fiction, poetry, short stories and creative nonfiction—they also invite writers of a particular children’s genre to submit their work. This year they were looking for picture books, so I submitted three of mine—just text, no illustrations.

The first was Cub’s Lunch, a book written in terse verse and based on a news article about marauding bear cub in Lake Tahoe. It seems the cub climbed into a camper’s classic convertible and ate his smoked chicken and jalapeno pizza. No, he didn’t carjack the vehicle, but he did considerable damage to the camper’s pride and joy before wandering back into the woods.

The second entry was The Small Smudger. In this contemporary coming-of-age story, a small boy wants to help his father in the citrus groves during a winter cold snap. Tomás stows away in the back of his father’s pickup in the middle of the night, only to discover that filling and refilling the smoking smudge pots with crude oil in the freezing dark is not the adventure he’d expected. But he earns his father’s respect (and his gloves) through his diligence. Tomás also shares a special moment with his father when the man points out una uña de gato, a cat’s claw moon.



My final entry was Tap Tap Mishap, an animal tale set in Haiti. Tap taps are a Haitian art form—outrageously-painted converted buses, vans and pickups used as communal taxis. They are often dangerously overcrowded, as the one in this story is. The driver, a goat named Mr. Kabrit, is overly proud of his beautiful tap tap and succumbs to the flattery of his friends in need of rides to le marché. Crammed to the rooftop, the brakes fail, the tap tap careens out of control, and it flies off the road. But even a crash on the beach doesn’t spoil the day. Mr Kabrit’s friends come through for him, as friends do.

I am delighted to say that just before Christmas I received an email from Donna Meredith, the chairperson of the Seven Hills Review. She announced that I had been awarded first prize for Tap Tap Mishap and second prize for The Small Smudger. It has been a thrill to see my stories in print. The prize money was icing on the cake. Now if I could just find a publisher who was interested in Tap Tap, I would contribute some of the proceeds of the book to rebuilding schools in Haiti. Does anyone have a suggestion?

First Birthday

May 19th will be the first birthday of my blog, and I've come to some realizations over the past twelve months. Having a blog is like having a child, or even just a goldfish. They all take care and tending. If my blog was a child, I’d long ago have been turned in to the folks at Child Protective Services for neglect. If it was a goldfish, it would have been found floating belly-up in its bowl last October and been flushed down the toilet.

Oh, I have the best of excuses and lots of them. The main one is that I’ve been writing other stuff. But I’ve also been away at conferences, wrapped up in family matters, dealing with a few health issues, housing overnight guests in my writing room, trying to run a business, pruning my roses and feeding my two cats. But those are many of the same issues a bazillion other responsible blog parents are also dealing with! I am regularly awed by how dedicated they are about sharing their wisdom and their beautiful words. I don’t know how they do it, but I wish I could be more like them.

I even made responsible blog parenting one of my New Year’s resolutions, and look at me. Tomorrow is the first of May! But it's never too late to turn over a new leaf (or page, as it were), so in an attempt to redeem myself, over the next several weeks I’m going to blog about some of the writing highlights of the past seven months.

In October I had the awesome experience of attending the Rutgers One-on-One Conference in New Jersey. I rendezvoused with three colleagues from Spalding University (where we all received our MFAs in Writing for Children) and traveled with them from the Newark airport to Piscataway the afternoon before the conference. (A word of advice if you go—consider renting a car with a GPS!)

On Saturday we were part of a group of eighty aspiring writers who were matched up with eighty agents, editors and illustrators for some up-close-and-personal mentoring. After lunch we gathered with four other mentor/mentee pairs for a five-on-five session in which we had the opportunity to ask questions about publishing trends, submission processes and what they each were looking for.

At the end of the day we all went home with contact information on all eighty professionals and permission to submit to them. I can’t recommend the conference enough to anyone who has a finished manuscript they are prepared to pitch. I also recommend that you be assertive (but nice), as some participants tended to monopolize the mentors unfairly.

The cost of the conference is $195 and the date is October 16, 2010. Applications are due by June 15th , and you are notified of your acceptance by the end of the summer. Don’t miss this terrific opportunity!

Memories of Libya

I returned this week to my memoir writing class after being away for about two months. I'd forgotten what a delight it is to hear creative people tell their stories and share their memories. An Australian educator once said, "All reading and writing float on a sea of talk," and nothing is more true. He was encouraging teachers to see the importance of conversation in their classrooms if children were going to become engaged readers and accomplished writers. Hearing those people yesterday inspired me anew. Our assignment was to revisit George Ella Lyon's poem I Am From, and I have done so here, reflecting on the years I spent in North Africa.

I Am From

I am from burkas and henna,
from couscous and shwarma
and the labyrinthine alleys
of the old souk.
I’m from the muezzin’s calls to prayer
from the mosque across the street
and the ancient ruins of Sabratha.

I’m from date palms and camels,
Mercedes and Beemers.
I’m from sand dunes and scorpions
and hot ghibli winds
that scorch my skin
and dry my eyes.

I’m from fragrant spices in the bazaar—
cinnamon,
curry,
harrisa—
and long strings of dried brown figs.
I’m from sweet blood oranges
dripping red in my hands,
and the salty tang of fish, fresh-caught.

I’m from scalding glasses
of strong mint chai
held gingerly by finger tips,
syrupy with sugar and lies
told by Ali, the rug merchant,
for surely Aladdin himself
was once a customer.

I’m from Fuad,
the nine-fingered butcher
who speaks five languages
and hangs his naked chickens
from hooks above the counter.
No extra charge for the flies—
or the finger.

I’m from desert oases like Ghadames
made of blinding light
on white-washed walls
and the deep cool shadows
of artesian springs
and from hotels where you bring your own sheets.

I am from inta imshi to the urchins
and shukran to the houseboy.
I am from a villa by the sea
and scarlet sunsets over Cyrenaica
Will I return one day to where I’m from?
Na am, I will, insh ‘allah.

Still Life with Pears

Today I was reminded how lucky I am and how truly good my life is. Why this revelation? I bought some pears at the 99 Cent Store. Pears, you say? Yep, pears—small, rosy, and almost honey-flavored. They took me back to the summer of 1970. My brother and I spent nine weeks backpacking through Europe together. In an orchard along the Rhine we filched some pears, and they tasted unlike anything we’d ever eaten—so sweet the juice dripped off our chins. We agreed it must’ve been a pear tree in Eden, not an apple tree. So special is that memory that I’d already written it into my historical novel-in-progress, and then I found these pears (and in such an unlikely place) and enjoyed them all over again.

Further sweetness: Karen Cushman, whom I met at the SCBWI Conference in LA last weekend, actually emailed me three times this week with recommendations for research on my novel. What a wonderful lady. And in Friday’s mail I found an acceptance letter from the Rutgers One-on-One Conference in October. Granted, I still haven’t heard back from the agent, but I sent her an email “Status Check,” so I expect I’ll hear one way or another in the next day or so. But even if she declines my project, life is sweet.

"What I Did on My Summer Vacation"

Talk about a major hiatus! I was away for a lovely vacation in Victoria, BC--enjoying the flowers, the wildlife (the raccoon-and-deer variety, not the party kind), the farm-fresh vegetables and cheeses, the weather, the water, my family, and old and new friends. But now it is time to get back to the work of writing.

For those of you who have been dying to hear about the process of acquiring an agent, rest assured, I’ve been dying right along with you. The attached cartoon could hardly be more appropriate. A fellow writer was contacted this week by a publisher who said, “Please forgive me for not getting back to you for nearly two years. If you’ve not lost patience with me, I’d like to pass your ms along to my editors.” This business is, indeed, a mystery and not for the easily-discouraged.

The Sweet Life

I’ve been writing a nonfiction picture book on a topic I consider myself an expert on (sorry for the misplaced preposition for all you grammar Nazis out there). The book is about candy. I confess that I have a terrible sweet tooth. Combine my love of candy with my love of travel, and over the years I’ve become something of an international connoisseur of sweets.

The salty licorice of Amsterdam, the marzipan fruits of Scandinavia, crack seed in Hawaii, Turkish delight in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul—I’ve tried them all. But a new candy variety came to my attention last fall when my daughter, Jennifer, was in Italy. She stayed with a couple in their 16th century house in Bugnara, a small village east of Rome in an area called Abruzzo. Not far away was a town famous for its candy (and, incidentally, for the fact that Ovid was born there). Sulmona has been producing an Italian delight called "confetti" for centuries. The rest of the world knows this candy as Jordan almonds. The photo attached to this post is not of baskets of flowers outside a shop. Those are baskets of confetti!

I’ve not come across many candies that are too pretty to eat, but these certainly are. A few of these beautiful flowers sit in a vase on my desk, just providing inspiration for my writing. (Okay, so I ate one petal off!) I’ll keep you all posted on the manuscript, which I’ve submitted for critique at the August SCBWI Conference in L.A.