Locked in like prisoners . . .

they were forced to read until they could read no more. And why could they read no more? 
Not because they had given up the will to read, but because-

they had come to the end of the book.

Obviously this headline was a clever ploy to grab your attention. However, the facts happen to be true. This last friday at the Staunton library a group of sixth grade girls and their teacher Becky McKenzie allowed themselves to be locked into the library overnight for a read-in. Of my tween novel Coyote Summer.

I couldn't be more proud. In fact, if family matters had not necessitated my going out of state I would have locked myself in with them. 

A read-in. What a great idea. How I would have loved that as a young girl. In fact, I can picture the exact space we could have used in the Morristown TN library. The new one, that is; there wasn't even room for all the books in the old library, And besides, it was kind of creepy.

I had another great encounter with a young reader this month. While I was up north, one of my 10 year old first readers  brought me her edited version of my next book. 

I must admit, I had not expected her mother to print it out in its final mark-up state. Nor had I expected a line by line edit and critique from a 10 year old. I kind of thought she was going to read it as a PDF and tell me if she liked it or not. 

But my cousin's daughter's daughter (I have no idea what that makes her) Natalie doesn't do anything half-way. Not only did she comment, she commented on the comments. My personal favorites were a comment she made to me while we were going over her suggestions, "I don't think that comment is right. You might do it that way if this was a YA book, but not for kids my age," and of course my personal favorite,"I think the way Margo did it was better."

And - she changed the title. 
Thank you, Natalie. I agree with almost all of your suggestions.

Perhaps you can suggest a read-in at your local library when the next book comes out. I'm still thinking about that title.

Has anyone . . .

reading this ever suffered from re-writer's block?

I mean, I have this swell studio

in this really swell place

with some absolutely swell people.

ok, so the pictures have been altered a bit for privacy purposes

All the hard work has been done. The book has been written. It has a title:

The Ghost/Thief

(shameless self-promotion)

If it is any good my publisher will probably take it. I don't want to sound too positive because my grandmother always told me that to boast is to bring down the evil eye on yourself.

But here I am, procrastinating, taking pictures, writing this blog . . .

Hey, it's all art, right?

Stay tuned-

I've been very busy

Not writing this blog, as you may have noticed. Or, perhaps not. Either way, it has been not happening here, right under your collective noses.

I have been writing postcard poems, instead. One a day, for the 31 days of August. And haikus, some of which you've seen on my facebook page, if you read that sort of thing. 
And trying to master social media to promote Coyote Summer. 

I did begin to write the story of how the Summerhood novels came about, but it's kind of a long and twisted tale. So I am taking a page from those young upstarts Dickens and Twain and serializing it. 

Here we go- Part the !st.

I first started what has now become the Summerhood Island trilogy (Coyote Summer, Summer of the Ghost/Thief, Hurricane Summer) more than fifteen years ago.  I had been away from Cuttyhunk Island just long enough that I could begin to think about using it as the background for a story. 

I’m not sure why now that I decided to write what was then called a “middle reader.”  Perhaps it was just an age I felt most comfortable with, that period just on the cusp of adulthood, those last few moments when you are convinced that anything is possible if you try hard enough, if you want it enough.  That brief moment when you’ve got full control of your body, 

before the judgments and restrictions of adulthood begin to settle on your shoulders.

As I began to write, I quickly realized that my heroine was largely the girlchild I wish I had been; the child I believe I could have been had I been allowed that freedom.  I actually reined my character in somewhat, as I wanted her life to be  more believable than my imagination.

After I had written the three books in the trilogy I began to shop them around, and quickly discovered there was no market for books like mine at the time.  The bottom had fallen out of the children’s book market, although there was still a small market for picture books.  No one was taking chapter books and the concept of a young adult market was still on the horizon.  Even the classics, the Newberry winners, the Caldecott medalists, were dropping in sales.  

After forty-two straight rejections of any or all of the books, I resigned them to the top drawer of an old file cabinet

where they languished from 2002 until 2012. Meanwhile, I went about my business, writing poetry, opening and closing restaurants, and in general, acting like the adult people told me I had become.  I didn't leave Cuttyhunk Island completely behind, however; I made island the subject of my first nonfiction work, a memoir about running an inn, cooking, and the great people who lived there.

Heartened by the significant if small in scope attention that this work engendered and by the upswing in interest of YA and ‘tween' novels (as middle readers are now called), I pulled my manuscripts out of their dusty file cabinet to see if they were worth saving.  I still remembered and cherished my main character, a strong girl named Jessie, and hoped she would have something to say to a new generation of young readers.

(to be continued . . .)